The Prince’s Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 339

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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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Special Side Story 2. After That, They (1)

“That is….”
The King and Queen of Adamant had their first son two years ago.
Rachel had been thought difficult to conceive, and everyone worried about the succession, but she bore a child scarcely long after their marriage—so swiftly that no courtier dared speak carelessly anymore of her lacking the qualifications of a queen.
“Princess Emilia knows the reason well enough. After a woman gives birth, she must take proper care of herself. Otherwise her body suffers. Even if Rachel is as strong as they say.”
“I know. That’s why I’ve been waiting all this time.”
Emilia now slouched with a deflated expression.
“I don’t like it when Rachel is unwell. So I kept waiting, but she didn’t come. She said she’d be here for sure tomorrow.”
It was clear that Rachel no longer wished to see Ria as much.
Emilia furrowed her brow and rested her chin on Catherine’s shoulder, muttering.
“The maids said so. No matter how much you raise a child as your own, it never compares to one you’ve borne yourself. Rachel must prefer her own child to someone like me.”
“Princess Emilia.”
“Rachel’s forgotten all about me, I’m sure of it.”
People have always had loose tongues, and nothing has changed.
Catherine resolved to give the maids who carelessly gossiped in the Imperial Palace another round of discipline, and spoke up.
“That cannot be so, Your Highness. How much does the Queen—how much does Rachel treasure and love Princess Emilia?”
She would not send letters once a week if she did not love her; she would not send gifts with each season if she did not love her; she would not visit on birthdays and anniversaries if she did not love her. And all this from a woman who had become the queen of a distant land.
“…You said you wouldn’t lie.”
Emilia murmured, her voice hollow.
“You said whenever I wanted to see you, you’d come running.”
The young princess’s voice echoed softly in Catherine’s embrace and faded away.
Late as it was, exhausted from crying, Emilia eventually fell asleep in Catherine’s arms after a long bout of muttering.
“Sigh.”
After laying the sleeping princess on the bed, Catherine let out a long breath and gazed out the window.
“Surely nothing terrible has happened?”
Looking at the moon and stars floating in the dark night sky, she found herself thinking of someone she always remembered, and her expression grew worried.
“You’re all right, aren’t you, Rachel?”
The Maid Captain of the Bentrum Empire’s sighs deepened into the night.
“Kryaaaagh!”
On the opposite side of the Empire, in a forest of the Adamant Kingdom, a scream tore through the darkness.

* * *

“Kgh, kryaaaagh!”
The masked assassin cried out in agony and collapsed to the ground.
His right ankle was twisted completely out of the normal range of human motion.
‘Damn it! Damn it!’
Where had things gone wrong from the start?
The assassin bit back the urge to cry out as he crawled across the ground.
‘There’s a reason no one wants to take contracts in Adamant, curse it all!’
The request had been simple enough—the young heir to the throne had only recently begun walking and running—a commonplace contract that filled the Assassination Guild’s ledgers.
“How dare you.”
The crawling assassin’s body went rigid.
As though he had heard Death’s own voice, he turned slowly with a face gone pale as chalk.
“And what makes you think this place is safe?”
A figure in a deep hood stood silhouetted against the moonlight.
Bright emerald eyes gazed down at the man sprawled on the ground with undisguised contempt.
“Who sent you?”
Those eyes burned with fury, yet her voice and expression remained perfectly composed.
That dissonance struck the assassin with even greater terror, and his face had gone corpse-pale.
“Well?”
“I—I can’t tell you!”
The assassin answered hastily.
Not that it was the answer she wanted to hear.
“Hmm.”
The lips hidden in shadow curved into a wry smile.
“You’ve had proper training, at least. When I saw you crawling in here like a mouse with no sense of your place, I thought you were simply stupid.”
“Wh—what?”
“But then again.”
The hood bent down, and a hand gripped the assassin’s jaw firmly.
“That sort of thing only works against those who don’t understand the nature of your kind.”
The assassin’s eyes went wide as saucers as he saw her face up close.
‘I didn’t realize from the voice alone.’
The masked figure who had caught him in the sleeping prince’s chamber had detected his presence with such ease, had chased him down without mercy, had shattered his ankle without hesitation.
‘She was a woman?’
He could not believe that something so gentle-eyed could render him so utterly helpless. Before he could even respond, the hooded woman forced his mouth open and thrust her fingers inside without hesitation.
“Mmph!”
The assassin jerked his head in shock as she withdrew the poison pouch for self-termination he had kept beneath his molars. A moment later, she shoved a handkerchief into his mouth as well—cutting off even his last resort of biting through his own tongue.
“What are you doing?”
The woman rose and removed her hood.
Above her elegantly pinned-up hair sat an Adamant Jewel Ornament, symbol of the Adamant Royal Family, blazing with brilliant blue light that pierced the darkness.
“Standing idly by while a criminal attempts regicide?”
Before she had even finished speaking, Silver-armored Knights burst forth from all sides.
‘Since when?’
He prided himself on his ability to sense presences.
The startled assassin stared blankly at the Knights lifting him, then thrashed to resist being dragged away.
“Should any of you let him escape,”
The woman watched the struggling assassin with cold eyes as she spoke.
“You shall face the same punishment.”
“We understand, Your Majesty the Queen!”
Wait—Your Majesty the Queen?
The assassin stared at the woman with even wider eyes.
‘Then the person I’ve been fighting all this time is….’
Not some specially trained royal killer, not a secret agent.
‘The Queen of Adamant?’
The assassin stared dumbly at the back of the woman’s head as she walked ahead under the Knights’ escort.
‘Then the rumors were true?’
Rachel, Queen of Adamant.
A commoner-born adoptee from a noble family of the Bentrum Empire.
Once served as Caretaker to the current Crown Prince of the Empire, and an ambitious woman who had pursued a love match with the King of Adamant after their chance meeting in the Bentrum Imperial Palace. This was the public assessment of the Queen of Adamant.
‘…The rumor about her being an assassin in a past life?’
But there existed a rumor about her known only to a select few.
An extraordinary tale that the Queen had in fact been a highly skilled assassin in her previous life, and had been resurrected through strange Sorcery.
“That fool cost us time. If we prepare now and depart, can we reach Bentrum before it’s too late?”
Queen Rachel, brushing back hair disheveled from removing her hood, opened her mouth to speak.
“Yes, I believe we shall make it in time.”
“Good.”
At the Knight’s response, the faintest smile bloomed on Rachel’s otherwise impassive face.
As though merely the thought of someone could make her smile.
“Has Ed fallen asleep?”
“Yes, the Prince is sleeping soundly, we are told.”
A wave of relief crossed Rachel’s features.
Yet the Knight who answered her question added another comment, his expression troubled.
“More pressingly, the King is in a terrible rage, and we know not what to—”
“What? But Ed is safe. Why would he be angry?”
The Knight answered Rachel’s bewildered question with a sigh.
“Why, on your account, Your Majesty!”
“On my account?”
“You left without informing His Majesty and rushed out alone! We only managed to catch up after the fact, or he would have grown even more furious—”
“There he goes, borrowing trouble again, our King.”
Rachel laughed softly and continued walking with unhurried ease.
The Knight, stamping his feet anxiously, followed at her heels.
“Please, Your Majesty, refrain from moving about alone in the future. You know how His Majesty commands us….”
“All right, all right.”
She had acted on the judgment that moving alone was faster and more efficient.
The Queen of Adamant answered her subordinate Knight with an amused tone.
“Still, don’t worry about tonight. The moment we return to the Palace, I’ll explain everything to His Majesty myself.”
“I beseech you, Your Majesty. Have mercy on us.”
“I said I would.”
Rachel waved a hand toward the pleading Knights and lightly mounted the horse they had prepared.
“The business is done. Let us make haste back before my husband’s temper worsens and he drives you all even harder.”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
Neigh.
With a light snap of the reins, the horse broke into a gallop.
Though she wore no ornate finery, as Rachel rode through the forest with the moonlight at her back, an air of regal authority and confidence emanated from her figure—the presence of a queen.

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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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