The Poisonous Princess Who Successfully Infiltrated the Enemy as an Employee - Chapter 32

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 32.

The silence was broken by the hollow laughter of another knight.
“Your Highness the Princess—why? Did you chew on some flowers in the Banquet Hall?”
Ha-ha, the other knights joined in with low chuckles at his remark.
But Aeidan blinked, his face vacant for a moment, before nodding belatedly.
“Ah, yes. That’s correct as well.”
“……What?”
The knights’ laughter died at once.
“Wait, seriously?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re saying she really did pluck and eat flowers?”
“Yes, a single leaf, your Highness consumed.”
“…….”
The faces of the knights gathered at the entrance to the Barracks twisted in unison.
It was no unfamiliar tale to them.
At the Grand Duke’s Residence, the Princess had made a daily habit of putting flowers and grass in her mouth.
The problem was the location.
The Banquet Hall of the Imperial Palace. And not just any gathering—it was where every notable noble in the Castillo Empire had assembled.
“A disaster…….”
Someone muttered under their breath.
“By tomorrow morning, the entire Capital will be buzzing with this story…….”
“Just thinking of those Imperial Faction dogs sneering at us makes my blood boil…….”
Aeidan spoke to the knights, whose concern was written plainly across their faces.
“It will likely be fine.”
“Fine? The woman who’s about to become the Grand Duchess picked flowers and ate them at the Banquet Hall. How is that fine?”
“Because that incident will have already been erased from the nobles’ memories.”
Another knight spoke up.
“What are you talking about? Explain properly. Don’t tell me something worse happened?”
Watching the knights’ faces age by what seemed like a decade in an instant, Aeidan paused before responding—true to his characteristically grave nature.
At last, he spoke.
“It appears a Memorial Monument will be erected for the knights who fell in this war.”
The space fell silent. The knights stopped what they were doing and exchanged glances with one another.
Then one knight tilted his head and spoke.
“Well, I mean—we’re grateful, but still, it’s just one stone monument, right?”
The other knights nodded in agreement.
“It’ll probably end up thrown together somewhere remote.”
Aeidan’s expression suggested he had anticipated exactly this reaction. He nodded and continued.
“Her Highness the Princess petitioned the Emperor himself. She asked that the Empire establish a park in the Capital—somewhere easily accessible to anyone—where the people can remember and honor the ‘Heroes Who Did Not Return,’ those who were sacrificed for the Castillo Empire.”
That way the families of the fallen would have a place to leave flowers and cherish the memory of the dead, and the people of the Empire who visit the park would naturally come to understand who they owe their current peace to, Aeidan added, citing the Princess’s own words.
He continued, relating what the Princess had said.
“…….”
When Aeidan finished, the knights’ breath caught. From one man’s hand, the cloth he’d been using to clean his Weapon fell limply to the ground.
A brief silence settled, and a fellow knight spoke, his face full of disbelief.
“Who told you that? Did Selin say that Her Highness the Princess spoke like that? He’s always been fond of the Princess anyway, so maybe he wanted to make her look good to us—”
“I heard it directly.”
The knight who had been trying to pick at the story fell silent.
“And she also asked that posthumous Honorary Titles be granted to commoner knights who had no titles.”
“Huh!”
Still, the knights stared at Aeidan in disbelief.
An Honorary Title did not come with territory to govern, nor was it a hereditary rank.
Yet it could serve as a legal safeguard for the families of the fallen—granting them three generations of tax exemption and a fixed monthly stipend from the Imperial Treasury, protecting them from the cycles of poverty and noble exploitation that might otherwise consume them.
Aeidan spoke, almost murmuring.
“That’s why I don’t understand. What is Her Highness the Princess thinking? What manner of person is she……? She is so utterly different from the Princess rumored in whispers. I myself am utterly bewildered…….”
“…….”
The knights understood Aeidan’s confusion entirely.
In a sense, Aeidan was the one among them most disinclined toward the Princess of Delmar at this moment.
His own brother was one of the knights who had not returned from this war.
She understood that the war with Delmar was not the Princess’s personal fault, but knowledge and the heart did not always move in concert.
The aging knight slowly lowered his sword into its sheath.
His nephew too had lost his life in the war. His armor, his blade, his body—nothing had been returned.
“She asked that directly before the Emperor? The Princess herself?”
“Yes.”
“In that banquet hall, before all the nobles?”
“She did.”
“The Emperor could not possibly have accepted such an absurd proposal.”
“He accepted it.”
“What? He accepted that?”
“Yes. Because the Princess first called them ‘heroes.'”
…….
To refuse would have been untenable; the pretext was far too noble and perfect.
Heroes.
That single word hung in the air between the knights for a long moment.
In truth, the surviving knights had not dared to speak it aloud.
Participating in war was the natural duty of a knight of the Empire, and the anguish and sorrow that followed belonged to them alone.
They had never thought themselves worthy of such a title.
You endured.
You suffered.
The Empire would remember.
With only such hollow words of comfort, they had made their lives bearable.
Yet the mad Princess—not even of the Castillo Empire, but of the enemy realm—had called their fallen comrades heroes.
And more, she had offered them titles.
Though they were honorary only, the surviving families would at least find life a little easier because of them.
In a society of rank, the possession of a title was bound to the survival of one’s family.
One of the knights suddenly shot to his feet.
“This is no time to sit idle! Go wake every last man sleeping in the barracks! We can’t be the only ones who know this!”
“That’s right! How can anyone sleep at a moment like this? It’s unthinkable!”
With that, the knights scattered toward the barracks building, leaving their weapons where they lay.
Aeidan watched their retreating figures with vacant eyes.
Then he found himself remembering the Princess as he had seen her in the banquet hall.
That wild light in her eyes, which feared neither nobles nor even the Emperor himself, seemed to shimmer before him.
For some reason, his feet would not move.

***

Meanwhile, in Barcan’s bedchamber at the Private Palace.
Barcan had shed his coat in the antechamber and gone straight to his desk.
Roan followed him in, closed the door, and exhaled slowly.
“The Princess truly does startle everyone each time, does she not, Your Highness?”
…….
Barcan did not answer, his gaze fixed on empty air in the antechamber.
Roan continued as he tidied Barcan’s coat.
“The memorial monument was originally a matter you intended to propose formally to His Majesty once you returned to your fief, was it not? Did you perhaps discuss it with the Princess beforehand?”
“No.”
Barcan shook his head from where he sat.
“I never spoke of such things with the Princess.”
“Indeed.”
Roan was right.
Barcan too had wanted to erect a memorial monument to honor the knights who had fallen so tragically in the war.
He had already drawn up preliminary plans, but the Imperial court’s obstruction and the poor timing had pushed the matter down the list of priorities.
Yet unexpectedly, the Princess had brought it forward.
And in a form even better than his own design.
Barcan unfastened one button of his shirt and reclined against the back of his chair. His eyes grew distant.
“The idea of building the monument together with a public garden, and granting honorary titles to the fallen knights—that part I had not conceived.”
On the surface, it was a memorial for the knights of the Empire, but examined closely, it was truly a monument for the Eclipse Knights of the Escar house.
They had suffered the heaviest losses.
The Princess had first credited the victory to the Escar Grand Duke House back at the luncheon, and now she had provided for their fallen as well.
Whether by design or fortune, from Barcan’s perspective, it was a gift beyond measure.
Roan, standing right beside Barcan and watching over the Princess, must have felt the same thing.
Roan nodded.
“Once the park is built and the memorial monument is erected according to plan, everyone who visits that place will see it. Who fought and gave their lives for this empire, and where the most blood was shed for this peace.”
Even without the Escar Grand Duke House name engraved separately, everyone who passed through that park and saw the memorial would have no choice but to know.
Roan exhaled a long, weary breath.
“She’s truly impossible to read. They say geniuses and madmen are separated by only a hair’s breadth.”
…….
“Perhaps the Princess isn’t mad at all—but rather a genius?”
At that, Barcan tilted his head to one side and replied flatly.
“Yes. So I’ve heard.”
“Pardon?”
“The Princess is a genius.”
“Oh! Who said so?! Who else recognized the Princess’s genius besides me—.”
“The Princess.”
…….
At Barcan’s answer, Roan closed his mouth for a moment, then promptly bowed his head.
“My apologies. I spoke out of turn.”
Barcan let out a small laugh.
Then, absently, his gaze drifted toward the window.
In that instant.
…….
Barcan’s cool eyes narrowed sharply.
Outside the dark Private Palace, well past midnight on an empty garden path.
A figure crept along that path, looking furtively in all directions, entered his field of vision.
“……What is that woman doing there.”
Without hesitation, Barcan shot to his feet.
“Your Highness?”
Barcan carefully opened the window and spoke to Roan standing behind him.
“I’m going ahead.”
In the same moment, Barcan slipped quietly out through the window.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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