The Poisonous Princess Who Successfully Infiltrated the Enemy as an Employee - Chapter 65

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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 65.

***

At that same moment.
Varcan and Roan had slipped out of the Imperial Palace and into the Merchant District of the Capital.
Though the district teemed with pedestrians, the moment one stepped into the alleyways, the light grew dim and distant.
The horses came to a halt at the mouth of a desolate alley, untouched even by the glow of street lamps.
Roan dismounted lightly and adjusted his leather gloves, surveying the surroundings with a careful eye.
“I hope His Highness will be all right.”
From beneath the hood pulled deep over his brow, Varcan’s dark eyes turned toward the distant silhouette of the Imperial Palace rising against the sky.
“Alexis is back at the palace. If anything goes wrong, word will reach us at once.”
Varcan answered quietly, holding the reins.
Roan exhaled softly.
“I’m concerned. She was unpredictable to begin with, and if her true identity were exposed while we’re away…….”
“…….”
Roan shook his head as if unwilling even to contemplate the thought.
Instead of answering, Varcan drew several folded sheets of paper from inside his coat.
Addresses and a map that the princess had written out for him.
It was strange.
Recalling the princess as she had traced these routes with such haughty grace, somehow his worry had lifted—more than it had been before leaving the palace.
“……I have a feeling she’ll manage.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.”
Varcan swept his cloak forward and took the lead.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
And so the two of them slipped quietly into the depths of the alley.
Following behind, Roan asked softly.
“Your Highness, but why would she have you personally gather these medicinal herbs at such a critical moment?”
“…….”
“Besides, these addresses are all in the slums, oddly distant from the Merchant District itself.”
Roan expressed his concern, wondering whether one could possibly procure proper herbs from such outlying apothecaries.
Roan’s doubts were justified. Varcan had harbored the same suspicions.
Though he had ventured out reluctantly at her insistence that the palace herbalists could not be trusted, the shops listed on the paper hardly inspired confidence either.
“The mind of that one is beyond my knowing.”
Varcan spoke plainly as he withdrew a silver pocket watch from inside his coat.
“You must visit each of the herb shops yourself! In person! And you must keep to the exact times—do you understand?”
Her voice echoed in his ears, that insistence she had repeated again and again.
Varcan’s dark eyes tracked the second hand of the watch.
Tick. Tick.
And moments later, as the time on the paper and the sweep of the pocket watch aligned with perfect precision.
“Go.”
Varcan’s pace quickened as he slipped deeper into the alley, drawing close to the first apothecary marked on the map.
“……!”
Sensing a presence, both Varcan and Roan swiftly concealed themselves in the darkness.
From the desolate open space beside the herb shop, a clandestine group moved—five or six grown men, cautiously watching their surroundings as they transported a large cart.
The cart was laden with herb boxes, yet Varcan’s gaze was drawn to the iron bars protruding through the gaps.
“Your Highness, that is…….”
Roan’s breath caught.
Within those iron bars, gagged Beastkin and exotic races were bound together like cargo.
Around their necks were fitted black metal collars, each embossed with a crimson curse mark shaped like a three-pronged root.
This was no ordinary restraint used in common slave trafficking.
The gazes of Varcan and Roan locked in the darkness, taut with mutual recognition.
“…….”
“…….”
A desolate and malevolent aura emanated from the restraints, causing Varcan to furrow his brow.
Varcan withdrew the map from his coat and gazed down at it silently.
Seven locations she had noted down, and oddly precise times to match them.
A soft chuckle escaped between Varcan’s lips.
It seemed what she truly needed from him had never been medicinal herbs at all.

***

‘I wonder if he’s managing all right.’
As I searched through the Crown Princess’s chambers alongside Aisen, I glanced absently out the window. Deep night had already settled over the palace.
‘By now he should have visited at least two of the seven locations I marked for him.’
Had Varcan stuck to the times I specified, he would have inevitably encountered them.
The slave-trading ring that bought and sold Exotic Races, and the Hallucinogenic Smuggling Organization.
‘Both of those organizations were Vientra’s financial lifelines.’
More precisely, they were the Marquis’s money channels and also the tails of the black mages.
‘Breaking just three of the seven locations and bringing back evidence should be more than enough.’
Even if we never found the black mages’ headquarters, it would be the perfect picture to send Vientra to damnation and hand the Emperor a thread leading to the black mages.
We didn’t need to exterminate the black mages—only to provide a thread for the Emperor to pull.
“What are you doing, rookie?”
A cool voice scraped against my ears from behind, like dragging across stone.
“This isn’t the time to lose focus.”
“Oh, yes, yes! Right away!”
I spun around in panic to answer, and Aisen’s brow creased mercilessly.
“Answer once. Only once.”
“Yes!”
…….
Aisen exhaled sharply through his nose as if suppressing his anger, then hurled a heavy file folder onto the table. He closed his eyes for a moment to collect himself, then opened them again and studied me briefly.
“Finding the components of the incense—you did very well with that.”
“……Pardon?”
My eyes widened at the unexpected praise, and Aisen regarded me coolly before speaking.
“Rewards and punishments must be clear. I’ll report your merit to the higher-ups without fail, so don’t worry about having your credit stolen.”
“……Ah, yes. Thank you.”
He still didn’t care for me, but he proved to be the type who separated public duty from personal feeling with rigid clarity.
That was when Aisen gestured with his chin.
“Do we need to check on the place where the antidote is being brewed?”
“We should, but not now—later. The most crucial part of the antidote is getting the proportions exactly right. I’ll be handling the mixing myself anyway. Before that, a professional physician should prepare the base materials properly.”
At my glib answer, Aisen stroked his jaw and fixed me with an unwavering stare.
“If you’d transferred to the Medical Bureau, you’d have earned proper recognition of your abilities. Why crawl into the tiring Investigative Bureau instead?”
At that question, I lowered the corner of my eye and smiled faintly.
“……Actually, I owe a debt of gratitude to the Crown Princess.”
I met Aisen’s green eyes directly, not flinching away.
“What I could accomplish in the Medical Bureau would be limited. To go through the Imperial Palace’s secret ledgers and to investigate all the attendants and maidservants, I needed the status of the Investigative Bureau.”
Aisen’s eyes narrowed. His already harsh expression grew far more intimidating.
“……So you’re certain the real perpetrator is inside the palace.”
I nodded.
“They broke through the tight security and poisoned the Crown Princess. There must be someone inside the palace—either the culprit or an accomplice.”
…….
Aisen regarded me in silence.
A moment later, he slipped the notebook with information he’d found in Eleanor’s bedchamber into his inner breast pocket.
“Good. We’ll end the interior search here.”
Aisen pulled one corner of his mouth up in a frightening smile.
“Now we’ll go wring the necks of the Crown Princess’s maidservants.”
“Yes, right away!”

***

An intensive interrogation of the Crown Princess’s attendants and maidservants continued through the night.
From the senior lady’s maid who had served the Crown Princess the longest to the newest apprentice maid, they sat one by one in the cold chair of the Interrogation Room.
The fifteenth apprentice maid sitting across from me gripped her skirts with trembling hands.
“Two days ago, it was you who replaced the incense, wasn’t it? Yes, Merin?”
“Ah, yes……. That’s right.”
“Even though it wasn’t the scheduled time to change it.”
“……Ah, well, ……you see, they said some new incense had arrived…….”
“Mm, ……that’s possible.”
I nodded and asked again.
“You entered the Imperial Palace on the recommendation of the Rosette Baron House?”
“Ah, yes…….”
I offered the most innocent and harmless smile, tapping the documents with my fingertip.
“And that Rosette Baron House is a vassal family of the Vientra Marquis House, isn’t it?”
In an instant, the maid’s complexion drained to ash.
“I, I don’t know that much…….”
“Ah, you didn’t know! Well, that’s understandable enough.”
I rested my chin on my hand and smiled gently.
“So who wrote your letter of recommendation?”
“The, the steward…….”
“The steward of the Rosette Baron House?”
“Yes.”
“How curious.”
I tilted my head.
“I understand the steward of the Rosette Baron House came from a merchant company operated by the Vientra Marquis House.”
“…….”
“And he used to handle the delivery of incense to the Princess’s quarters.”
“…….”
The maid’s face had grown noticeably pale.
“Listen. You’re planning to keep denying this, but do you really think that steward or the Marquis will help you here? Not a chance. ……In fact, they may have already redrawn the board to pin everything on you.”
The maid’s lips began to tremble.
Soon enough, she broke down in tears and began confessing—the keys to the secret passage and the places where she’d exchanged messages.
After the maid was led away, the interrogations continued until sunrise.
The servants and maids looked exhausted, so we took a brief rest.
Aisen and I remained alone in the Interrogation Room, and I closed my eyes to rest during the break.
Then, as time passed without a trace of fatigue showing on my face, Aisen turned toward me with a look of surprise and muttered softly to himself.
“……You have the gift for it.”
“I’m sorry?”
When I turned to look at him questioningly, he nodded with an expression more serious than usual.
“The skill to smile at your subject, scratch at them gently, back them toward the cliff’s edge, and then make them suddenly spill the truth. Very underhanded and petty, but remarkably suited to interrogation.”
I opened my eyes narrowly.
“……That’s a compliment, isn’t it?”
“As a member of the Investigative Bureau, it’s nothing short of the highest praise.”
“…….”
“I apologize for suspecting you’d entered through someone’s influence. You clearly came in on your own merits.”
“…….”
It was a relief that the misunderstanding had cleared up.
Though somehow it didn’t sound like praise at all—perhaps that was just my impression.
I cast a pointed glance at Aisen before turning my gaze back to the maid sitting across from me in the Interrogation Room.
“Would you tell me your name?”
The young maid clenched both hands tightly.
“D, Daisy.”
“De-Daisy?”
“Oh, no.”
The maid’s face flushed crimson.
“D, aisy.”
“Ah, Daisy.”
I smiled as if to apologize.
“Don’t be so nervous. There’s nothing frightening here. You’re stammering so much that I feel bad for you.”
“Yes…….”
“Now then, Daisy.”
I slid my fingertip across the roster.
“Recommended by the Ludeo Count House.”
The maid’s pupils wavered.
“Did you receive your maid training there as well?”
“…….”
“Daisy.”
I lowered my voice slightly.
“Are my questions difficult? You’re not answering.”
“I, that is…….”
“It’s strange, that’s why.”
I ran my fingers lightly along my jaw, fixing my eyes on the maid’s wavering pupils.
“The Ludeo Count House lost half its household staff to plague three years ago and sealed off its territory.”
“……!”
“So when did a count house like that find the resources to train a maid and slip her into the Imperial Palace? They shouldn’t have had the means.”
“I, I……!”
“That’s right. Tell me who sent you, Daisy. If you speak now, we can show leniency. Like the other maids earlier.”
“I, so I, the place that sent me was Be—.”
The maid’s breathing suddenly turned ragged as she struggled to speak.
Her chest heaved wildly, and she clutched at her own throat with both hands.
Wait?! Something’s wrong?
In that moment.
“Gugh, gah……!”
The maid’s eyes rolled back white.
“What, what……?”
Startled, I jerked my upper body backward, and then dark red blood suddenly gushed from between the maid’s lips.
Hack, hack—!
The chair clattered violently as the maid collapsed to the floor.
With violent convulsions, an unidentifiable object writhed from her mouth and thrashed outward.
The moment I saw it, my heart plummeted—! The blood drained from my face.
A segment of black vine, writhing like a living root.
‘……That thing.’
That’s Hellvein, isn’t it?!

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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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