The Prince’s Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 16
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 16. One Who Does Not Forget Kindness (2)
“Hmm.”
Their skill at hiding stolen goods is quite sloppy.
I shrugged my shoulders and grabbed the long, dangling necklace chain.
I didn’t invest time just to find something trivial like this.
I turned around lightly.
Now only the desk remained.
‘Is it here?’
I was thoroughly searching the desk when I discovered something strange.
‘What’s this?’
The desk drawers, two on each side, were tightly shut without any gaps when closed.
Except for just one drawer.
The upper right drawer, unlike the other drawers, was protruding very slightly.
As if something was caught behind the drawer.
I opened the protruding drawer and put my hand inside.
In the space behind the drawer that should have been empty, something was caught just as I expected.
‘Found it.’
I smiled triumphantly as I pulled out the object.
It was a fairly thick black leather notebook.
Inside, it was filled with papers listing names and numbers.
It was a ledger.
“Well, well.”
Looking at the numbers densely written on the papers, I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I thought only their skill at hiding stolen goods was pathetic, but even their deception is pathetic.”
I had suspicions long ago, and now with physical evidence here, it was certain.
I tapped the documents and looked around The Maid Captain’s Office.
“Indeed, when you have things that don’t match your station, it shows.”
The expensive decorations and books filling the bookshelf and display cabinet.
They were items far too expensive to buy with The Maid Captain’s salary.
“Evidence collection is sufficient, shall I go?”
I tore out some pages from the notebook and put them in my pocket.
Now, it was time to return what I had received.
* * *
“Where on earth did it go?”
Dismay appeared on The Maid Captain’s face at the 3rd Prince’s Palace.
Because something that should not disappear had disappeared.
The ledger that recorded the source of all the funds she had secured so far.
The five most important pages from it.
Exactly those five pages had vanished without a trace.
Those pages were her ambition and her lifeline.
Therefore, they absolutely could not be lost or fall into someone else’s hands.
“No, they must be here somewhere. They have to be!”
Cold sweat beaded on The Maid Captain’s forehead and trickled down.
After turning over the desk drawers one by one, she soon swept all the books from the bookshelf.
“Why aren’t they here—!”
Just as The Maid Captain’s shrill scream echoed through the room.
“M-Maid Captain!”
“I told you not to enter without knocking!”
“Kyaah!”
Thwack—!
The book The Maid Captain threw in irritation fell to the floor.
“Oh my.”
Behind The Knight who blocked the flying book stood a woman.
She was none other than Countess ‘Failin Katrina,’ called the flower of high society.
“No matter how angry you are, you must maintain your dignity as a noble, Maid Captain.”
Why is that woman here?
The Maid Captain’s eyes instantly filled with fear.
She was once a woman to whom she had offered sincere loyalty, but not anymore.
Originally, she was just a connection made to establish ties with the 2nd Imperial Consort.
After gaining the status to speak directly with the 2nd Imperial Consort, they had become distant, not even keeping in touch.
Why had that woman come to find her directly?
“It’s been a while. Maid Captain?”
“I greet Countess.”
Meanwhile, the crimson eyes of Countess Pailin were blazing with anger.
But her lips never lost their smile, truly befitting a woman called the flower of high society.
“What are you searching for so diligently? Won’t you tell me?”
“I-I lost some important documents and was looking for them…”
“Is that so? Surely those important documents aren’t these, are they?”
The Maid Captain, who had been staring only at her feet, slowly raised her eyes with an ominous premonition.
Between Pailin’s white, slender fingers, several papers were fluttering.
They were the pages The Maid Captain had been searching for so desperately, the ones missing from the secret ledger.
“How did you get those…!”
The Maid Captain’s face instantly turned ashen.
Pailin raised one corner of her mouth while watching The Maid Captain’s expression.
“A very righteous maid sent them to me anonymously.”
What? A maid sent them?
The Maid Captain’s eyes trembled finely with shock.
She was overwhelmed with feelings of betrayal and bewilderment.
“Maid Captain, you should have managed your subordinates better.”
Pailin clicked her tongue and scanned the contents written on the documents.
100 boxes of carrots, 100 boxes of onions, 200 sacks of beans, 50 sacks of turnips.
“Right, the 3rd Prince’s Palace with only twenty maids could need 100 boxes of carrots every day. Isn’t that right?”
The Maid Captain’s face turned bright red at Pailin’s pointed remark.
“But what I’m most curious about is this part.”
Countess pointed to one of the items listed on the documents.
“Why is 300 gold allocated for Countess Katrina’s return gifts?”
The blood drained from The Maid Captain’s reddened face in an instant.
“I haven’t done anything for The Maid Captain that would warrant receiving return gifts.”
Pailin’s voice dropped.
“Surely you’re not going to tell me this cheap necklace I sent for my birthday was worth 300 gold?”
She pulled out a pearl necklace from her bosom and threw it on the floor.
The pearls from the broken necklace instantly scattered in all directions.
The Maid Captain trembled all over watching this scene.
Pailin slowly approached The Maid Captain, who was paralyzed with fear, step by step.
“And 300 gold every year at that. When was the last gift I received from you, three years ago?”
She roughly grabbed The Maid Captain’s chin and lifted it.
Countess’s atmosphere changed instantly.
“You thieving bitch.”
Countess’s beautiful face contorted like a demon.
“I put a country bumpkin who was doing menial work for some baron in the Imperial Palace, and you dare try to stab me in the back?”
“N-no, no! I absolutely didn’t mean anything like that!”
“Did you think someone like you could take my place?”
“Th-that’s not…”
“Shut up.”
She cut off The Maid Captain’s words decisively.
“Right, I suppose a lowly thing like you felt elevated after speaking with Her Majesty the Second Empress.”
Pailin brushed off The Maid Captain’s chin as if shaking off something dirty.
The Maid Captain’s legs gave out instantly and she collapsed to the floor.
“You think you can tarnish my name with your petty theft? You ungrateful bitch.”
Pailin glared at The Maid Captain with contemptuous eyes.
“Ungrateful bitches need to be punished. I’ll think about what kind of punishment to give you.”
Her gaze was utterly cold.
“So for now, go back to your hometown. If you catch my eye, your neck won’t remain intact.”
“M-madam! Wait! Madam!”
The Maid Captain grabbed the hem of the departing countess’s dress and screamed.
“It’s not me, madam! There must be some misunderstanding! I didn’t write that ledger!”
“You think I can’t recognize your fucking handwriting?”
But Pailin only shook her foot to brush off her hand.
“Madam—!”
The Maid Captain tried to cling to her again but was immediately stopped by The Count’s Family’s guard knight.
Pailin glared down at The Maid Captain kneeling before her and spoke again.
“You need to leave this Imperial Palace on your own feet as soon as possible, Maid Captain.”
“Countess, pl-please, anything but that…!”
“Why? Can’t bear to return to that cesspit of a life now?”
The Maid Captain bit her lips.
Because the reality she had forgotten came flooding back.
Her husband, who spent every day with alcohol and women, would beat her whenever he felt like it.
Just a country bumpkin baron. Just because he gave her the hollow title of baroness.
The Maid Captain hung her head and clenched both fists.
She had served with loyalty, ready to lick this woman’s soles to escape from that place.
Now it was all for nothing.
Though it was an opportunity she had thrown away herself, The Maid Captain never realized this fact.
She only felt wronged and resentful that her plan had fallen through.
“If you don’t leave on your own, you’ll face something much worse.”
Pailin spoke to The Maid Captain with a smiling face.
“It wasn’t a position you earned with your own power anyway, so don’t cling to it.”
“Madam, please…!”
“Or do you need to lose your limbs for embezzling imperial funds before you come to your senses?”
She tore up the ledger right in front of the trembling Maid Captain.
“You should be grateful you didn’t end up in this state.”
Just as the countess turned to leave, it happened.
The Maid Captain’s eyes met with someone standing in the doorway.
It was that woman. The new caretaker, Rachel Brown.
Rachel was looking at The Maid Captain with a calm face, as if watching a fire across the river.
Then, the countess who was leaving the doorway greeted Rachel.
“Thank you for the kind directions, Brown Lordling.”
“Take care, madam.”
Rachel bowed politely to the countess, and when she disappeared, straightened up.
She looked indifferently at The Maid Captain sitting collapsed in the middle of the office.
Of all people, to show this disgrace to that woman.
Just as The Maid Captain lowered her face, flushed with shame.
“That’s why you shouldn’t have done that.”
At the cool, emotionless voice, The Maid Captain doubted her ears.
She slowly raised her head.
The Caretaker, Rachel, was looking at her with cold eyes.
“When you said lying is bad.”
The Maid Captain stared blankly at Rachel.
In that moment, The Maid Captain saw it.
The sneer hanging on the lips of The Caretaker before her.
The Maid Captain got up from her spot with a dazed face, staggering.
It was certain.
She didn’t know the reason, and had no evidence, but she could tell.
The misfortune that had befallen her was definitely the work of the woman before her.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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