The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 13

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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 13 — The Terra Slave Farm (1)
In the wake of such momentous events, one girl had been forgotten by everyone.
A mercy, truly.
That day, she had nearly died.
A Debell maid who had kept her life thanks to the reckless fool of a prince’s rampage—saved from the Marquis Gavel’s wrath. Her name was Daien.
“We’ve confirmed that Zion Liebelt has arrived in Debell, madam.”
Daien leaned against the door, straining to listen.
The Marquis’s wife’s voice drifted from within the reception room.
Deep emotion colored every word.
“Ah. So the Third Prince’s proposal was genuine. To inflict such punishment upon a pure-blooded Divine Being….”
“And to strip him of his title and confiscate his entire fortune besides. Eternal glory to Prince Garon Liebelt.”
The Third Prince had cast the Ninth Prince into the Foreign Lands, beyond the sacred realm.
A Divine Being, no less—a son of one who sat in the Divine Seat itself, and moreover, a brother bound by the same blood.
It was a punishment cold and cruel by any measure in the Imperial archives.
Though Daien could hardly empathize.
‘Praising the Third Prince for merely exiling the brother who put your husband into a coma? Doesn’t that strike you as strange, madam?’
Yet despite this, the Marquess remained overcome with gratitude, her joy spilling over.
Such was the prestige Divine Beings held within the Empire—a “mere” exile transformed into “dire” banishment.
“What do you suppose will become of that reckless fool of a Ninth Prince?”
“With not a single attendant to his name, left alone in the Foreign Lands, he shall endure hardship most severe.”
Should he conduct himself there as he did in the Imperial Capital, he would face not merely humiliation but mortal peril.
Unlike the Imperial Capital—a utopia crafted for Divine Beings—Debell was treacherous beyond measure.
It was moreover the domain of the First Prince, the Third’s rival faction, where his influence held no sway.
“The Ninth Prince will certainly clash with the bourgeoisie. How fortuitous. Should a prince be humiliated by these upstart commoners flaunting their newfound wealth, it would provide excellent pretext, would it not?”
“Ah…! The Third Prince’s insight reaches even further than that.”
“Hehehehe, indeed it does.”
“That reckless fool will surely serve as excellent justification. He knows his place not at all.”
Where the Marquess spoke with certainty, Daien tilted her head uncertainly.
‘That hardly seems like Prince Zion at all….’
Brief though it was, she had seen it clearly.
The face of the Prince as he smiled down at her that day.
“Should that anger-mad maniac lose control again? The incident of a year ago might repeat itself?”
She referred to the assassination attempt on the Ninth Prince, Zion Liebelt, by Debell’s Raven.
“I believe the likelihood to be quite high. They are… formidable people.”
The Debell Liberation Army… and within it, the Secret Society.
Should the Ninth Prince, lacking means, attempt to plunder the people of Debell—
They would rise again.
“Well, for now the Ninth Prince must scrape together coin just to eat. Assassination concerns come only after he’s survived the threat of starvation, yes? Hahahaha!”
Daien felt a pang of pity.
The Ninth Prince, exiled to that distant land… suffering beyond measure awaited him, if their words held truth.
‘They said he hasn’t even a single servant….’
Though all others might laugh, saying it was only fitting for a scoundrel, Daien could not join them.
She was Debellan, and Debellans did not forget a debt.
Reckless fool though he was, the Ninth Prince had given her salvation that day.
‘Should I simply go and serve him myself?’
In truth, Daien had been seized by an urgent need to escape the Marquis’s household as swiftly as possible.
The longer the Marquis remained unconscious, the thinner grew the thread of her survival.
A life hanging by a thread—one that could end at any moment without surprise.
“Ohohoho! In a month or so, I shall send someone to capture an image of the Prince subsisting on common food, lacking coin. It will be exquisite!”
Daien stepped away from the door and began to walk with quick, deliberate steps.
Not toward her own quarters, but inward through the manor, though their voices still reached her ears.
“Surely you can demand more. Use money as bait and require a humiliating apology, madam. The Ninth Prince might even comply? Hahahaha!”
“You think so? Ohohohoho!”
The two nobles, now seated close to one another, continued to laugh for some time as they enumerated the hardships that awaited the Ninth Prince in Debell.
…Yet.
At that very moment, something remarkable was unfolding in Debell.
* * *
“Your Highness! Allow me to serve you!”
“No, I am the suitable one! Will you not grant me the honor of supporting a Divine Being?”
Zion stared at the scene before him with a dazed expression.
“You’re out of the picture! What does a rice-peddling bumpkin know about serving a prince properly?”
“And what would you know, fresh off the boat in Seiael for barely a season? Who do you think you are, stepping forward to serve the prince?”
A portly middle-aged man and a gaunt middle-aged man.
They rushed at each other, competing to offer their money—or rather, to sponsor him.
‘So eager to throw money at someone?’
The sponsorship rivalry was fierce enough to make that thought seem natural.
To explain how this impossible situation had come to pass, the clock would need to be wound back about an hour.
To that moment when Winter had revealed his strategy for turning the two businessmen into open purses.
“Your Highness, if I told you everything, it would spoil the fun. Let me just outline how we’ll manipulate the two businessmen. I intend to use a business management strategy based on Divine Being branding as bait.”
For a moment, I thought I’d heard a foreign tongue.
“Branding? Business management? You mentioned it before too. What is that exactly?”
“Ah, business management is the methodology of running enterprises, just as the name suggests. It’s an emerging new field among the bourgeoisie class. Branding refers to intangible value that’s precious and desirable, something people want to possess—though this may sound complicated. To put it simply, it’s like raising the stakes in a poker game through bluffing: earning money purely from your existence as a Divine Being.”
Spoken like someone who knew something of gambling, apparently.
For some reason, Winter seemed delighted.
Perhaps it was the thrill of actually doing what he’d only imagined before—his excitement practically radiated from him.
“If we were to convert the intangible value of your Divine Being status into money, how much do you think it would amount to? Aren’t you curious? Haha.”
‘Curious, I’ll grant you. Still, this fellow knows more than you’d expect from someone who crawled out of back alleys.’
“For someone who rolled around in gutters, you’re surprisingly literate.”
“Well, I did attend university, at least. Though I was expelled.”
Expelled, he said.
Got caught gambling with his classmates?
“Ah, Your Highness. Might I ask that you occasionally employ language befitting a Divine Being during our conversation?”
“That’ll do the trick?”
“Of course. More than enough. You are, quite literally, a Divine Being.”
Winter’s expression was smug with certainty. Watching him, I could feel the actual power that came with Divine Being blood.
Stripped of the title of prince, and yet this was his bearing.
“Shall we begin? Allow me to escort you.”
The reception room of a luxury hotel. The place Winter had reserved in advance.
“I’ve spent no less than 200,000 Luon on this alone. It may seem trivial to your station, but I wished you to know the depths of my devotion.”
For Reizo it might have been nothing, but for Zion Blizet, it was far from a pittance—though I settled into the sofa as if unbothered.
After passing roughly thirty minutes killing time, a knock sounded, and a servant announced visitors.
Two figures entered the reception room: a gaunt middle-aged man and a portly middle-aged man.
Reizo, the grain merchant proprietor, and Gaigen, the department store proprietor.
“As a subject of the Empire, I pay homage to a member of the great Divine Race.”
“As a subject of the Empire, I pay homage to a member of the great Divine Race.”
A Ceremonial Bow. It was the proper rite and protocol that any imperial subject must observe when acknowledging a Divine Being.
Yet both businessmen made no effort to conceal the reluctance on their faces.
“Your Highness, perhaps you might rise now?”
Since inhabiting Zion Reizo’s body, I had never encountered anyone who showed such an attitude.
I had believed the standing of the Divine in the Empire reached toward the heavens themselves—but perhaps I was wrong?
No matter how deeply the bourgeoisie harbored their resistance to high rank, surely they’d fear the repercussions.
‘So that’s it. A former prince branded the Empire’s greatest scoundrel, ultimately stripped of title—such a man merits no deference.’
Their reaction made that plain enough.
Here were two of the elite Inner Territory Residents dwelling in Debell—perhaps I’d underestimated them.
‘Especially having forgotten that being imperial subjects would make them far less tractable.’
The Ritania Empire was a nation that placed rank and hierarchy above all else, and from that came an innate hunger for advancement embedded in its very character.
The Inner Territory Residents had chosen a life in occupied lands where resistance still lingered, all for the sake of rising in status.
Among such people, those belonging to the highest echelons of society could hardly be anything but formidable.
“Gentlemen, I beseech you to open your ears. Your Highness finds himself residing abroad for the first time. Ideally, he should have retainers to attend him, but their absence leaves him with considerable inconvenience—a regrettable state of affairs. Should a man of vision prove capable of rendering such kindness as to draw even one smile from His Highness, would it not be the glory of offering happiness itself to the Divine?”
Despite Winter’s silken eloquence, the two businessmen answered only with clearing their throats.
“Ahem.”
“Ahem-hem.”
Reluctance and refusal dripped from both sounds.
Winter had dressed it up nicely enough, but the underlying message was simply: hand over money.
‘If it were me, I’d have cast a spell straight away. But seeing such blatant expressions of disdain—it rankles.’
Winter had asked for this, so a bit of irritation slipping through would be acceptable enough.
“What foolishness! Tsk. Truly pathetic, both of you. For offending my royal temper, I shall grant my favor to but one of you.”
“……?”
“……?”
At the sudden pronouncement, the two businessmen exchanged glances with each other.
What benevolence could a deposed and exiled pauper of a prince possibly bestow?
‘Reizo, do you know something about this?’
‘I know nothing. It seems like mere bluster to me.’
At that moment, Winter opened his mouth.
He spoke of the benevolence a reckless prince could offer.
“His Highness will periodically invest ration vouchers into the grain distribution market. Unlike the common worry about the possibility of war based on recent circumstances, the Divine Being, who sees through high-level information, would only invest if the grain market were safe.”
Recent news of war had been pouring in from the Inner Territory—the Imperial Capital of the Empire—day after day. Reizo, the grain merchant whose head was spinning from the volatile grain prices that followed, snapped to attention.
“His Highness came in haste and has many items to purchase. He’s always enjoyed shopping, besides. But then a Divine Being of all people said he wished to visit the VIP lounge himself. If word got around that a Divine Being had come to the department store and shopped, there’d be absolute chaos.”
Gaigen was the inaugural manager of the Seiael branch—the Empire’s top-ranked department store chain’s first establishment in Debell.
He had to make the department store succeed; failure meant his career would evaporate.
In short, Gaigen’s eyes had lit up.
“Well then, Manager Gaigen. Manager Reizo. You both heard the order just now. Who will take it?”
And Winter delivered one final blow, whispering into the ears of both Reizo and Gaigen.
“Now, you both know His Highness’s temperament well enough. Let me remind you.”
A luxury wristwatch glinted on the wrist he extended.
It was far too expensive for a gray-haired Debell man to wear.
“He spends five million Luon in a single night. He is a man of extraordinary generosity.”
The two businessmen finally understood.
Even if a man were a pauper with every limb cut off and a deposed prince to boot, there were those who became profit itself.
Zion Liobeldt—the Empire’s worst scoundrel and its finest bloodline—was precisely such a man.
‘Five million Luon in debauchery in a single night. So the talk of poverty was a complete rumor.’
‘Of course. A prince would naturally secure funds one way or another, even if his entire fortune were confiscated.’
Perhaps the reckless prince’s talk of seeking favor and patronage was nothing but his idle amusement!
“If you wish to seize the opportunity to gain the glory of presenting patronage gifts to His Highness, then Manager Reizo, Manager Gaigen—beseech him earnestly.”
The glory of gaining the opportunity to present patronage gifts to the prince.
It sounded like complete nonsense, and yet.
Nonetheless, both businessmen leaned forward with their upper bodies and began shouting with fervor.
“Your Highness, I shall attend upon Your Highness!”
“No, it is I, Gaigen, who am the proper candidate! Will you grant me the honor of patronizing a Divine Being?”
“You should step aside! You’re barely solvent! How dare a farmer’s hand presume to extend itself to His Highness—that alone is disrespect!”
“You yourself have only just arrived in Seiael—know your place and step back! You understand nothing—how do you presume to serve His Highness?”
Their voices grew so loud and high and fierce and shrill that ears ached.
This was how Winter had turned two businessmen who moments ago had shown open hostility at first sight and launched subtle provocations into a complete about-face with merely a few words.
“Your Highness, choose one. Which would you prefer?”
Winter’s whisper left him in admiration.
‘So this is the power of Divine Being status.’
Even a scoundrel prince stripped of his entire fortune and royal title received this level of deference simply because he was of direct Divine lineage.
This must be the power of what Winter called Divine Being Branding.
“Winter, you seem far more useful than my original right hand.”
“It is an honor.”
Now came the moment of choice.
Which was the better option?
Though it was a process for squeezing money out of them, a price had to be paid regardless—so it was fair to call it a transaction.
Therefore, he should choose carefully.
“Your Highness, Gaigen possesses neither the fortune nor the means to serve Your Highness as I do. Please put your trust in this Reizo.”
“Reizo, you loose-mouthed fool—don’t speak so freely!”
“Is anything I’ve said untrue? For example, can you procure dozens of beautiful Debell women and let him choose as he pleases?”
Manager Gaigen faltered.
“Well, of course that’s possible. Beautiful women are a dime a dozen at any pleasure house—what’s special about that?”
“Then in my case, I can offer not just the services at pleasure houses but something more—special enjoyment. You understand, don’t you?”
“Enough.”
What either of them said anymore didn’t matter.
His mind was already made up.
“Manager Reizo, speak in detail. Your words have piqued this prince’s interest.”
Reizo’s face showed satisfaction.
‘Just as expected of a scoundrel—dangle women and he responds at once. Well, even a scoundrel becomes worth serving if he’s a scoundrel with money.’
“The farmland I oversee generates more than ten thousand jobs alone. A great many of them are Debell people.”
He meant he’d extort the women of families to give up to the prince in exchange for work.
“Moreover, I provide my farmland as a labor facility for the reform of Debell rebels who constantly incite riots, through which I satisfy the patriotic fervor.”
“I see.”
Those who rose up for the nation and were captured by the Security Bureau—he was extracting them through backchannels and working them like slaves.
“Reizo. From what I can sense, we seem to have remarkably compatible temperaments.”
Zion smiled.
Reizo’s lips twisted.
He had made a decision.
He would strip away every last piece of wealth this man had accumulated by exploiting the people of Debell—and then some, double or more.
“I shall grant you the honor of rendering service to this prince.”
‘I’ll bleed you dry. Until there’s nothing left but bones.’
“Thank you! I shall serve you without regret!”
Watching Reizo’s delight, Zion continued.
‘First, I need to rescue those being exploited.’
“For the first service I wish to receive from you, I would be pleased if one of your farms became mine. Of course, I shall ensure the compensation for such service is far from meager.”
“A farm, you say…? What crops would you wish to cultivate?”
“I haven’t decided on anything in particular. Just hand over any farm. Preferably somewhere quiet, a bit removed from Seiael—I’m thinking of building a villa.”
He would build it grandly. He needed to create work.
“What about one of our farms in Terra?”
Reizo’s eyes gleamed like a businessman who had spotted a profit opportunity, and he thrust a map forward. Winter’s quiet whisper came at once.
“Your Highness, Terra is nothing but wasteland. The yield from any farm there is obvious without even looking—please choose somewhere else.”
Zion felt the same way.
Would a crown prince not know the geographical characteristics of his own realm?
“Reizo. Are you toying with this prince? Terra is a week’s journey from Seiael alone…….”
He stopped mid-sentence and clenched his fist.
Not from anger, but because he didn’t want the resonance to be noticed.
Whirrrr…!
The Guide’s Ring—the royal family’s heirloom—was trembling finely in response.
Not to anyone else. To the greed-filled imperial merchant.
“I-I beg your pardon, Your Highness. I thought you might enjoy the beautiful scenery of Terra, so… then let this farm here be…….”
“Buy it.”
“Your Highness…?”
Perhaps it was the sudden change of mind. Despite being told he could have whatever he wanted, Reizo showed confusion.
Zion spoke again.
“I’m buying it. The farm in Terra.”
Zion’s gaze fixed on the farm’s location marked on the map.
He understood now.
It wasn’t reacting to Reizo the merchant.
It was reacting to the farm in Terra that belonged to Reizo the merchant.
“What price would you ask? I’ll pay whatever you name.”
A strange premonition washed over him. This was a farm he absolutely had to possess, regardless of the cost.
And as cleanly as possible.

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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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