The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 20

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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 20: The Two Zions’ Gambit (5)
A voice like scraped metal echoed from within the black mask.
“Dechion, you bastard. I’ll give you a taste of fire.”
Reyanna—one of the two heads of the Liberation Army, a commander of the Liberation Oath.
Today she meant to prove exactly why her epithet was “Charge Commander.”
“Wasn’t it enough that you sold out the nation? How dare you sell out the Crown Prince as well?”
Intelligence relayed through Kreyna. So the facts were beyond doubt.
She didn’t know precisely which tricks he’d used to ensnare the Crown Prince, but Dechion—that old dog—deserved to die right now.
The crime of betraying him outweighed even treason against the realm.
Whoosh!
As she swept her arms wide, the black cloak billowed behind her.
Reyanna appeared to be a towering figure of roughly two meters, but in truth, most of what filled that cloak was not her body, but other cargo.
The reason Reyanna was called Charge Commander.
She favored not mere charges—but Bomb Charges.
Click!
A building erected to serve as a filthy den, yet bearing the elegant name of Cheongsang Garden.
Mana Bombs were installed throughout, their wiring connected and ready.
“Should’ve killed him long ago.”
The Five Inner Court Traitors and the Five Outer Court Traitors had seized immense wealth and power as the price of selling the nation.
But Dechion lacked the cunning to maintain his position; his influence had withered considerably from its height. For the Liberation Army, he was a target they could eliminate whenever they chose.
They’d left him be only because cleanup seemed costly.
Now that they knew he’d had a hand in the Crown Prince’s arrest, everything changed.
The Liberation Army made their decision: obliterate Dechion with all their might.
“I’ll kill you. After making you suffer as much as possible.”
If the dream he poured everything into were to turn to ash in an explosion, what expression would the old traitor wear?
Reyanna smiled cruelly and pressed the switch.
Click!
A cascade of magical signals fired through dozens of detonators.
* * *
I met Winter outside the Hotel.
“Ah, Your Highness. As a humble subject of the Empire, to behold one of the great Divine Beings……”
I waved my hand dismissively.
“I told you not to do that. Skip the bow—you said I didn’t want it.”
“But in public, wouldn’t it be better for appearances if I observed the courtesy?”
“That’s exactly why I don’t want it. Public is precisely when you shouldn’t.”
“Your Highness seems simpler than I expected.”
Simple was an understatement—Zion Blioveldt, Crown Prince, could sleep on the roadside covered in fallen leaves without blinking.
“You wrapped up what we discussed?”
“Of course. It was easier than anticipated.”
While I’d gone to meet Kreyna, Winter had been meant to finalize negotiations with Reyjo.
“I’ve arranged with him that if Your Highness makes one more major purchase of Grain Commodity Certificates on the designated date, the support funds will be transferred immediately—or rather, the farm debt will be forgiven.”
One might argue that’s all the same, but it isn’t.
By making Reyjo a co-partner in Blen Industry, the rights to the farm debt became entangled in a complex web of contracts.
Different clauses that entwine when woven together—a trap dressed as a contract.
“I’ve secured Reyjo’s genuine trust.”
“How can you be sure?”
As we boarded the floating Magical Device elevator inside the Hotel, Winter answered.
“Reyjo withdrew about 30% more from the Exchange than projected. It means he’s scraping together funds even under strain.”
Meaning Reyjo’s probability of financial ruin had increased by 30%—no, more than that.
I shook my head slowly.
“Winter. How twisted is your nature that you can weave such wicked schemes?”
“But at the end of that wickedness lies something immense that Your Highness will seize.”
“Keep scheming well, then.”
Today, Reyjo bit the bait Winter dangled and committed to massive investment.
Aggressive investments that included not just ordinary securities, but even ‘futures’ contracts—the whole arsenal.
“You likely don’t know this, but high-ratio futures investments have a nickname.”
Bomb—because either the trader’s mind shatters or their fortune does.
“Since Your Highness first invested, rumors of impending war have circulated, yet the grain market has stabilized significantly. A Divine Being—and a Crown Prince no less—openly purchasing Grain Commodity Certificates proved it.”
Even if called a Failed Heir, a Crown Prince is a Crown Prince. His investment means he possesses certain intelligence!
Driven by that psychology, subsequent market investment placed its bets on grain price stabilization.
“As Reyjo, he must have felt quite keenly just how vast the intangible power wielded by the Crown Prince truly is.”
Zion turned the thought over in his mind quietly.
‘Winter, I felt it too. A single individual’s investment triggering market shifts—I never imagined the value of a Crown Prince’s station could reach such heights.’
Failed Heir or not, a Crown Prince remains a Crown Prince. In the course of events, Reyjo must have caught a strong whiff of money.
At that point, Winter had let slip a certain strategy.
“Just as predicted, the moment he grasped the possibility of Market Manipulation, his eyes lit up.”
He would have thought it was easy money—profit made from profit itself.
So he gathered every available fund, whether real or borrowed, and committed to short-term futures trading.
“I don’t follow the mechanics, but you said the profits are five times the grain price increase, yes?”
“The losses are equally fivefold if prices fall. Even the briefest downswing will do—we only need to induce a drop of twenty percent or more.”
That alone would strip Reyjo of his entire fortune and bring ruin to his house.
Using Winter’s phrase: profitable bankruptcy? The magic of cash liquidity? At any rate, he’d engineered such a trap.
“So casting the net is truly critical, Crown Prince.”
Ding.
The elevator doors opened. He stepped out into the corridor.
The question was who would cast the net that would ensnare two fish.
It was the final condition and the vulnerability in Winter’s dark scheme.
“You haven’t forgotten who I am, have you? Crown Prince—just a Crown Prince. A single word from me settles anything.”
Though in truth, it was not Zion Liobelth who resolved it, but Zion Blisé.
The terror the Liberation Army would perpetrate—that was the net Zion had cast.
“I mention it only as a precaution, but you need only command whenever you wish, sire.”
“There’s no need for that.”
“I worry, sire. Please do not forget—I have invested your entire fortune in a position opposite to Director Reyjo’s, using a proxy name. You remain aware of this, yes?”
In other words, if matters went awry, Winter too would be liquidated of all assets.
Consumed by anxiety, Winter had prepared his own net, separate from Zion’s.
From Zion’s perspective, it was far more violent, far more sinister—absolutely unacceptable.
“Winter Flowering.”
At the use of his full name, Winter stiffened slightly.
“Yes, Crown Prince.”
In the brief time Zion had observed him, Winter had revealed himself as a man of a disposition that stops at nothing to achieve his aims.
He was the sort who would orchestrate violence on a massive scale—indifferent to how many innocents might be caught in the aftermath—merely to drive grain prices into sudden freefall.
Perhaps Winter genuinely believed it convenient to serve the empire’s worst Failed Heir.
‘He probably thinks I’ll accept any extreme measure without hesitation.’
But Zion Blisé was not Zion Liobelth.
If he asked the Liberation Army, they could accomplish terror efficiently, spilling only imperial blood with a simple click. Why shed needless blood?
‘Simplicity is best. Besides, when the Liberation Army takes the stage, the shock and aftermath prove far more potent.’
“Don’t worry, Winter. A fortune awaits us.”
At last, Winter smiled softly. The memory surfaced of when he’d recently brought in additional Gold Bullion and poured it out in heaps before them.
The man maintained a razor-sharp poker face as a rule, but the moment gold lay before him, he became honest.
It was likely the environment in which he’d grown. The influence of Marquis Lemiconin probably played a part as well.
Zion touched the Ring on his finger.
‘Not a good man, certainly. But not one I can’t trust. Not one I must cast aside.’
Why the Ring responded to Winter when it had not on the farm—he still hadn’t determined.
So even if something about him seemed misaligned, Zion decided he would observe him further.
Beyond the Ring’s use and Winter’s utility, curiosity had begun to kindle toward Winter Flowering himself—this man of obscure origins.
‘Once I’ve dealt with Reyjo and Dechion, I’ll dig deeper into Winter.’
* * *
“A pleasure to meet you, Director Dechion. I’m Reyjo.”
“And I, likewise. I shall call you Director Reyjo.”
The two men shook hands and took their seats.
After a burst of applause, beautiful women filled their surroundings.
Yet Dechion, instead of admiring the women’s faces, gazed out the window at the magnificent building beyond and drained his cup.
The structure he was pouring everything into—a building laden with ambition.
“The reason I’ve summoned you here is to speak of the Ninth Crown Prince.”
Reyjo’s brow furrowed. Something in Dechion’s curt tone, stripped of honorific flourish, struck a chord.
“The Crown Prince’s brought quite the entertainment, I hear? How long do you think the momentum will last?”
A pause.
Dechion had struck a nerve. No market stabilized by a Crown Prince’s investment could sustain itself indefinitely.
“So we’d best profit handsomely while his backing remains potent, yes? Ha ha ha.”
This was why Reyjo had mobilized every available fund and undertaken high-risk investment.
“When the medicine wears off? Once the Ninth Prince’s temperament cools and patronage dries up, he won’t sit idle, will he?”
“Hmm…….”
“I have a good idea for you, Reyjo.”
Dechion leaned forward.
“Look out the window. I’ve named it Cheongsang Garden—what do you think? Suits it well, doesn’t it?”
“At a glance, it looks like enough capital to build a dozen decent enterprises. With ordinary ventures, breaking even seems difficult……but surely this is your doing?”
Dechion chuckled and tossed out a line.
“It will be a place where one can taste the pleasures of heaven.”
Reyjo, a seasoned businessman, grasped his true intention at once.
“So there will be someone to grant pleasures that ordinarily aren’t permitted.”
“Precisely.”
When he first resolved to sell the nation, Dechion was fifteen years old.
Fifty years after the fall, the old man of sixty-five that Dechion had become
“A pleasure palace where all things are allowed. What say you? Still think breaking even is difficult?”
“Then you must have a way to evade investigation by the Public Security Bureau?”
“Why else would this old man be selling everything he owns down to his bare hide and drowning himself in debt?”
He had invested in a single pleasure palace capital that would require selling a dozen enterprises to raise.
He was certain the profits flowing from the powerful men who would gather there would be at minimum tens of times over, perhaps far more.
He had also been blessed with the permission and encouragement of his patron.
“In return for raising me as a partner, serving the Prince and providing exquisite hospitality is only the duty of a subordinate, is it not? And if the Prince, drunk on wine and women and other such things…….”
Dechion had as many enemies as he had greed.
Should the estranged rival businessman’s daughter happen to encounter the Prince in his drunken state?
“From my perspective, the entertainment would be doubly delightful! Don’t you find the prospect doubly delightful as well, Reyjo?”
“Your intention in presenting such an offer to me…….”
“To be struck in the face by a boy and then be forced to kneel and bow every time we meet thereafter—the very thought is horrifying. Since I have no intention of facing the Prince, I’d like to entrust the arrangement to you.”
For Reyjo, it was an exceedingly tempting proposition.
For he would reap substantial rewards merely by bearing a small amount of trouble.
“The Ninth Prince, currently under Exile Status, has committed crimes too difficult to discuss openly. If word reaches the capital, it will trigger another massive upheaval. I understand you have connections with those in the First Prince’s faction, Director Dechion.”
Were he to convey the Ninth Prince’s shameful secret—the prince who belonged to the Third Prince’s faction—to the First Prince’s side?
The First Prince, armed with a weapon to strike at his rival, would reward him with joy.
A perfect scheme indeed—eating the pheasant and the egg both.
“Come now, let us toast. To our dazzling future, as brilliant as Cheongsang Garden itself.”
“Haha, splendid!”
It was the moment the two men raised their glasses high.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!
Flames writhing like a demon’s tongue.
In place of Cheongsang Garden, which had vanished in an instant, a mushroom cloud bloomed.
“…….”
“…….”
Reyjo gazed with vacant eyes at a sight he would never witness again in his lifetime.
It was a devastatingly beautiful explosion.
* * *
BOOM! BOOM! Crack, BOOM!
Zion whistled as he watched the spectacular fireworks display.
“Whistle—Reyanna’s touch is still flawless.”
Reyanna is the master of terror capable of demolishing only her target building without a single casualty.
It would be no exaggeration to say she was responsible for more than half of all bomb attacks carried out by the Liberation Army.
“Winter.”
“……Yes.”
Winter’s expression showed something like weariness.
“I never imagined you’d prepared a bomb attack as well…….”
It wasn’t exactly something she’d prepared.
‘And besides, isn’t the one who suggested causing large-scale violence by throwing money around the last person to complain?’
Then.
An old pig came rushing like an arrow from far off. Beside him trotted a middle-aged pig as well.
“Dechion! Imagine meeting you here!”
“…….”
Not so much as a bow, not even a reply. He didn’t even slow his charge.
His eyes had gone mad.
And well they might—he had invested his entire fortune, and the building had been on the verge of completion before it collapsed in ruin.
Even madness is blameless in this case.
‘Though that’s only true when you haven’t committed any actual crimes.’
Reyjo, who followed in his wake, was equally bereft of reason.
When instability spreads through terror and unrest, the Empire’s market intervention drives grain prices downward.
In other words, Reyjo’s investment capital was evaporating in real time.
“P-Prince!”
Upon spotting Zion, Reyjo’s face lit up as though he’d been tossed a lifeline from heaven.
“Prince! I had no idea you were here! W-we must go to the Exchange at once. Immediately, please!”
“I’d rather not.”
“……What did you just say?”
“Winter. Go and seize him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Winter rushed forward and threw Dechion to the ground.
Even with eyes rolled back in madness, an old man stands little chance against a young man’s strength.
Zion linked arms with Reyjo in a half-forceful grip and walked toward Dechion.
“Dechion. Reyjo. My dear business partners.”
He withdrew the partnership contract.
“Though there remains time on the agreement… it seems your most precious assets have melted away like spun sugar as of this very moment. How unsettling that must be.”
Zion smiled coldly.
His lips twisted into a savage sneer.
“You both know there’s such a clause in the contract.”
The clause stipulating that investment capital must be deposited into Blen Industry’s account by the designated date.
Not a single minute’s delay is permitted, yet advancing the deadline is always possible.
In fact, should one investor make an early deposit, the funding deadline for all others accelerates to the very next day—a Poison Clause of remarkable cruelty.
“It was a clause that you, Dechion, drafted and you, Reyjo, consented to. I understand. You must have worried that I might postpone payment indefinitely.”
“That clause was never ours—Winter Flowering, you scheming…!”
‘What’s that expression? Like someone betrayed.’
Somehow this whelp Winter had managed to slip in exactly the clauses he desired without anyone noticing.
‘So he was acting the whole time, as though plotting behind my back.’
Well, even if Winter engineered and orchestrated it all, those who fell for it bear the fault themselves.
Now came the time to strip the flesh from two fish already caught in the net.
“Beginning tomorrow, I shall grant you the honor of becoming my official business partners in earnest. Refusal is not an option.”

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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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