The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 144

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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 144

4. Festival

June 3rd, 1770.

The day of the masquerade party hosted by Prince Joseph.

The party venue was the banquet annex attached to the Adicl family’s town house, ‘Grapevine Manor’.

True to the Adicl family’s fame for grapes cultivated in the vast basin of the empire’s west and the premium wine made from those grapes, their town house was also covered in grapevines, hence the name.

Lillieta fidgeted with the mask she had prepared inside the carriage heading to Grapevine Manor.

A half-mask of dark blue silk embroidered with silver thread and adorned with small gems, giving the impression of a night sky scattered with stars.

At the bottom, star-shaped charms and small diamonds dangled from thin silver chains. The design matched perfectly with the dark blue dress embroidered with silver thread that she wore today.

Hanna, who had helped with her attire, tied thin, translucent ribbons like dragonfly wings over the silk dress that draped in wave-like layers, then held up the mask for a final check and covered her mouth, stamping her feet in excitement.

“What should we do, you’re too beautiful! Everyone will lose their minds and think they’re dreaming! The problem is they’ll all recognize you at first sight…”

Since this wasn’t a party attended to hide one’s identity and enjoy anonymously, that wasn’t much of a concern.

The main purpose of attending this party was to identify and extract Crown Prince faction members among the attendees who might become targets of the Grand Duke faction’s schemes, with the secondary purpose being to extract clues about Pascal from Prince Joseph.

And there was one more hastily added personal objective of hers.

‘Having a proper conversation with Gid.’

After hearing from Olivia about the shocking process of Beacon’s return, Rita waited for Gid to come deliver the results of the Garden Salon.

She had so many things she wanted to ask him. So many things she needed to say, and wanted to say.

However, contrary to expectations, it was Ethan who came that night with news from the Garden Salon.

“He said something urgent came up suddenly and asked me to pass on the message instead.”

Though greatly disappointed, she didn’t show it and quietly listened to the results Beacon had discussed.

“As planned, we’ll announce the existence of the Tritoma Special Knights during the Foundation Festival, and additionally reveal Pascal’s existence to officially pursue him. Of course, excluding the Ash-covered Era story—just as a mage who’s the mastermind behind the magical beasts that have been appearing.”

They planned to organize the clues collected so far as evidence and release his description based on what Ethan had witnessed.

By designating him as an enemy of the empire, issuing a warrant, and activating the official investigation network, even if they couldn’t catch Pascal, they expected it would limit his freedom of movement.

“Conversely, it’ll become much easier for us to operate.”

They also planned to properly announce the research results on the Kraken corpse at that time. They would define the existence of magical beasts and reveal that aura or mana could be contaminated upon contact with magical beasts.

The venue for announcing all this was set as the opening ceremony marking the start of the four-day Kairam Empire Foundation Festival.

The opening ceremony, which also served as the opening ceremony for the founding commemoration martial arts tournament, would be held at Rhamcard Arena, the empire’s largest stadium, with nobles as well as many citizens of the capital attending as spectators.

‘Seems like a good choice. Since it’s a stadium, they can immediately show combat between captured magical beasts and the Tritoma Special Knights right there.’

Since ordinary magical beasts that weren’t named had been appearing continuously for four years, Beacon apparently had quite a few specimens captured for research and training purposes.

They planned to demonstrate the contamination caused by magical beasts on site to instill wariness about magical beasts, while simultaneously showing Tritoma defeating magical beasts to prevent excessive fear from spreading.

‘This way it’ll be easy to make people understand Tritoma’s significance as a magical beast specialized unit. It’s a decent plan.’

Several special agents were also scheduled to participate in the subsequent martial arts tournament to display their skills.

“So they want you, Rita, to train the special agent marksmen kids a bit. If those pathetic rookies get eliminated quickly in the martial arts tournament, it won’t look good for the Special Knights.”

For Rita, who had received loads of letters from special agents and ended up creating individual customized training schedules while writing replies, this was a welcome proposal.

After swiftly setting specific training schedules, receiving documents summarizing Beacon’s theories about Pascal’s purpose and current state—essentially Olivia’s solo presentation with only Gid’s additions—she finally heard about Hanna.

‘They decided to proceed with the gift operation as planned, just changing the method slightly.’

Since Pascal heard Hanna’s oath while possessing someone, he had no choice but to suspect Hanna.

However, they still didn’t know how much Pascal shared his information with Duke Adickl. Because they didn’t know what relationship Pascal and Duke Adickl had.

‘Reflecting on what Ethan witnessed at the hunting competition, Pascal tried to hide from Baroness Naporoa, the Duke’s mother, even while knowing Hanna’s bloodline. This means Pascal and the Duke’s positions might not align.’

Regarding why the Naporoa household servant had approached Hanna, Ethan had gathered some information through his subsequent tracking.

What they discovered was rumors that the Duke’s mother remembered and managed all the women her son had been involved with, handling things to prevent illegitimate children from being born.

Stories circulated secretly in Adicl territory that more than a few illegitimate children and women had been ‘handled’ this way. The Duke not only tolerated but subtly cooperated with his mother’s actions.

When Joanna realized she was pregnant with Hanna, fleeing to Raskail territory beyond the Duke’s family’s influence before being discovered was a very wise choice.

‘That old woman must have remembered Joanna’s face all this time, right? Though she didn’t seem to know Hanna had been born…’

Since the servant bewitched by Pascal had said ‘the mistress found Hanna’s face familiar and told me to lure her away separately to find out about her parents and bring back her hair,’ it was almost certain.

‘So through the reaction to the gift that is Hanna, they can find out how close Duke Adickl and Pascal are, whether their purposes align, and so on.’

It would serve as both bait and an attempt to draw Pascal out.

Though it would become much more dangerous than when she had simply agreed to spy, since Hanna had conveniently awakened as a transition-type oath-bearer capable of long-distance communication, and Ethan had decided to follow her for close protection, they concluded it was sufficiently feasible.

‘Hanna herself is being proactive too… Really, that girl is surprisingly fearless.’

Gid had decided to take charge of informing Duke Adickl about Hanna’s bloodline. Since if the imperial family proved the bloodline, Duke Adickl would have no choice but to acknowledge it.

‘They said they’d design it so Hanna’s status would be revealed naturally.’

Using letter paper that reacted to family trees and could only be read by people from specific families, often used among nobles.

Gideon had decided to meet separately with Duke Raskail to discuss this matter, so the meeting between the family members and Gideon that Lillieta had planned before but postponed due to the actor operation would finally happen this way.

‘Though Leonhardt won’t be able to attend that meeting since he needs to rest and recover for a while…’

After conveying all the discussion results from the Garden Salon, Rita stopped Ethan as he was about to leave.

“Ethan, I heard everything from Oli.”

“About the process of your return. About Gid’s… ‘stunts’ too.”

“How did he seem to you? Gid…”

At her question, Ethan remained silent for a long time before speaking with his gaze averted.

“While you were gone, I recognized Gid as my master. Since that bastard couldn’t move freely being the Crown Prince, I did a lot of work as his hands and feet. So… I saw him most often among us.”

“Until we succeeded in returning and found and gathered Beacon, our captain seemed reasonably okay. He had gotten a bit strange, but I still thought he was in a fairly normal state… I was mistaken.”

“But damn… shit, anyway, when one year passed and two years passed without you appearing… that bastard Gid gradually lost it. No, maybe he’d already lost his mind and it just reached its limit and showed up belatedly.”

“That bastard barely slept. He talked less and less, constantly trembling… He could only sleep a little when drunk, but even that seemed to stop working gradually.”

“Senior Is couldn’t stand seeing him like that and made sleeping pills from herbs, but they didn’t seem very effective either. Eventually he made something using poisonous herbs that was practically poison. That worked somewhat… though you couldn’t tell if he was sleeping or damn well unconscious from poisoning.”

“Once when I went to make a regular report, he’d completely destroyed his room. His hands were bloody but he still couldn’t come to his senses, so when I asked if he was going to give up looking for Rita, only then did his eyes focus, and shit… no, damn it, that was scarier than just staying crazy.”

“How do I think Gid is? He’s definitely not sane. What I find most insane about that bastard is that he can pretend to be normal.”

“Honestly, I was worried about what he might do after finding you, so we were secretly preparing among ourselves. But… he acted like he’d returned to how he was before? As if nothing had happened… how is that possible? I don’t understand that bastard.”

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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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