The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 22

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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 22: The Long Game of Two Zions (7)
“Assume the Ninth Prince exploited our Liberation Army’s terrorism. Investigate the possibility that information leaked from within our ranks.”
Craeina smoothed the back of her hand.
A terrifying order—root out the spy. Yet instead of despair, her mind began to work.
Just yesterday, the Ninth Prince had reaped enormous gains.
Anonymous gift trades in the grain market, Blen Industry stock, collateral from both Decheon and Reyjo.
He’d swept the entire pot from the gambling table where he’d played against the three of them.
All thanks to the terrorism carried out by the Liberation Association itself.
‘Winter Flowering. More capable than I gave her credit for.’
There was no spy in the Liberation Army. At least, not one reporting to the Ninth Prince.
She was certain of this because she already understood the precautions Winter Flowering had put in place.
Judging by how she’d spent a fortune hiring street thugs, she must have been preparing for violence all along.
In other words, the Liberation Army’s terrorism and the Ninth Prince’s gambit had aligned by pure chance.
‘No need to calculate reversals upon reversals.’
The Ninth Prince was the source of the intelligence that sparked the decision to carry out the attack. Winter’s preparations could have been a smokescreen.
None of it mattered.
The Ninth Prince could never have deliberately leaked information hoping the Liberation Army would strike. He could seize far greater profit far more easily.
Herself.
Exposing even a single spy embedded in the upper echelons would yield more value than all the gains the Ninth Prince had pocketed today.
Tap. Tap-tap.
Drops of fragrant oil falling. A scar etched into her palm, never to fade.
The memory of that night blooms afresh. The young lord’s laughter when last they met.
“Craeina. You’ll prepare formal attire at your gallery beforehand, won’t you? I’m certain to shop there. Understood?”
The voice of someone else, layered over.
“Madam. Shall I prepare formal attire for His Highness?”
Revulsion surged.
An eerie familiarity embedded in that sickening visage—golden hair and bloodshot eyes.
Why did she sense the young lord’s orphaned loneliness emanating from the Ninth Prince?
To steady herself, she caressed the smooth back of her hand—the scar, precisely.
“A castaway with noble blood? That outcast gives off the same atmosphere as the Crown Prince.”
Perhaps that was why Winter Flowering served the Ninth Prince.
Judging by her conduct over the past month, Winter was undoubtedly a capable talent.
She’d even been tempted to report her to headquarters, to induct her into the Liberation Army.
Yet, bearing Deber’s ashen hair and clinging to a castaway prince, her character must be thoroughly corrupted.
‘Still, talent is talent. How vexing.’
It was while Craeina deliberated.
A magical signal indicating urgent contact was detected.
[18X4X: Urgent report. North Star’s Stem missing again.]
[18X4X: Immediately investigate anomalies in your sector.]
A sacred treasure of the kingdom, recovered with help from an unknown hand.
It was cause for celebration, yet the Liberation Army could hardly claim to possess the sacred treasure completely.
The North Star’s Stem had vanished of its own accord not long ago.
‘I heard they applied strict sealing measures after its return.’
She needed to move immediately.
The moment Craeina rose to her feet with that resolve—
another message arrived.
Hum.
This time it was from one of her intelligence operatives.
[86X15: Decheon missing. Suspected to have fled by night. Pursuing.]
A breach had opened in the surveillance network.
Since the majority of operatives were deployed to investigate whether a spy existed within the Liberation Army in connection with the incident surrounding the North Star’s Stem, it was inevitable.
“Damn.”
This was more pressing than the North Star’s Stem itself.
Craeina immediately issued orders to her subordinates.
* * *
A single star’s light reflected in Decheon’s retina.
Bright, yet not dazzling.
A gentle, wavering light that guides the wanderer through darkness.
The North Star.
‘Your eyes have lost the right to hold this light, Decheon.’
Whoosh!
Black, translucent magic pooled together in fragments, shrouding the North Star’s Stem.
Raven’s feathers. The reason Zion Blije bore the epithet “Craeina’s Raven.”
“Ah, Your Highness…….”
Decheon had no choice but to acknowledge it.
The Ninth Prince Zion Liobelt was, in truth, Crown Prince Zion Blije of Deber.
“So you believe me now. Then stand. You were never one to kneel before me, were you?”
Decheon of the Five Exiles of the Outer Palace. Fifteen years old when the Empire seized Deber.
With deeds enough to earn him a place among the Five Exiles of the Outer Palace even after the Empire’s conquest, he was, in a sense, a formidable man.
In any case, Decheon had never knelt before Zion a single time.
“You said yourself that a fallen king and crown prince are essentially no different in station from a commoner like yourself.”
“That is…….”
“Stand. A deference to a fallen crown prince would be excessive, ha.”
Every time Decheon knelt before the Ninth Prince Zion Liobelt, he carried an unpleasant weight in his heart.
He had not lived sixty-five years with such diligence merely to kneel before an abandoned castaway, however grand a prince’s title.
But now it was different.
His body and spirit alike refused to rise.
Pressure. Disparity. Dread.
An intangible gravity, inherent to the human form, bore down upon Decheon.
“It seems you have no intention of standing. Well, you’re to be executed soon enough—a befitting posture for the condemned.”
“……Your Highness.”
Whatever the circumstances, survival demanded that he move his lips, or so his mind whispered.
Nonsense began to spill from Decheon’s mouth.
“I will prove my usefulness. Use me as a pawn, I beg you.”
“Oh?”
“I have assets hidden in foreign lands. I will surrender all of it, together with what I now possess. Command me to go anywhere, and I shall go. Since Your Highness has slain the Ninth Prince and stolen his appearance, you may expose my identity to the Empire whenever you wish. Thus this old man’s life hangs by the thread you hold…….”
“Silence.”
“…….”
“Quere Stellam Orbita.”
He cleansed his ears with pristine water conjured from thin air.
“Speak no more filth. Your sins grow heavier still.”
Decheon’s mouth gaped open, but the warning took hold—no further barking followed.
“Fifty years too late. If only it had been fifty years ago. Or better yet, just one year sooner.”
‘Before I, cornered beyond measure, took it upon myself to assassinate Zion Liobelt directly.’
He would have accepted Decheon’s offer without hesitation.
Personal revulsion meant nothing weighed against the greater cause.
But circumstances had changed considerably since then.
He felt no regret.
Not now, with the station of Zion Liobelt added to the privileges bestowed by the mysterious visitor in his grasp.
The aid of a mere traitor to the nation held no appeal.
“A hollow dream it was. I swore I would judge both the Five Exiles of the Inner Palace and the Five Exiles of the Outer Palace with my own hands—yet I harbored such doubts within.”
The North Star’s Stem emitted a brief flash, and ten rat silhouettes materialized in the void.
An X was carved upon one rat, and Decheon’s fate was sealed.
“You will regret this, Decheon. Die by my hand and become a vengeful spirit, one that dwells within the fifteen-year-old Decheon to prevent him from repeating his wrongs.”
“…….”
He looked to see if there would be a response.
Decheon was full of regret.
He should have killed the young crown prince then and there, nipped the bud in the cradle.
If he meant to sell his nation, if he meant to fatten himself through treason, that was how it should have been done…!
“What have I done wrong!”
It was the beginning of his thrashing.
“A nation already fallen—if I, one of its people, could patch its wooden boards and sleep warmly, would that not be the true duty of the state, Your Highness!”
“Continue.”
“You would have made the same choice! A new age has come! One where the common folk need not be trampled by the ruling class! Where raising one’s head cannot be branded as treason!”
The birth of a new class—commoners wielding the power of wealth, the bourgeoisie—was the very proof of it.
“You too wish to be free before your own greed! Stake your heart and answer me, Zion Blije! Would it have been different if you were I!”
“Of course.”
Swift and cutting, the reply came. Decheon faltered.
“You never tasted freedom. What you reached through various pretexts and indulgence is merely where you stand now.”
The Celestial Garden bears witness to this.
“Still, I thought I might indulge in a bit of freedom myself from now on.”
Zion could allow it.
More than that—he should consider it a duty.
The more freely he wielded what deserved to be called liberty, the nearer he drew to his homeland’s liberation.
Proof lay in this very moment.
At the end of indulgence, he had finally executed one of the ten exiles he had long desired to eliminate.
‘Pay for your sins with death, Decheon.’
Thus did Zion, wearing Reyjo’s face, fulfill the duty that belonged to Blije.
“Quere Stellam Orbita.”
Flash—
Starlight flowing along the inscribed runes suddenly surged upward as a pillar.
No deafening boom. No blinding flash. No ripple of magical force. Nothing at all.
Silence. No one in this desolate street tonight could detect that magic had been unleashed.
Whoosh—
Black, translucent raven feathers enveloped Decheon.
When the light withdrew, the space was empty.
Decheon was erased without even a corpse remaining.
“Decheon. You who corrupted yourself with excessive ambition. The world shall remember you thus.”
Zion continued.
“A pitiful old man who fattened himself by selling his nation, descended into ruin, chose to flee under cover of darkness, and ultimately vanished without a trace.”
The headlights of the now-masterless car. The North Star’s Stem dissolved into empty air, returning to its proper place.
He gathered all of Decheon’s tangible assets from the vehicle.
‘Every coin of this must go to Craeina.’
The traitor’s last fortune would become the Liberation Army’s funds.
Even as that thought crossed his mind and his lips curved upward—
Hummmmm—
He felt the ring on his finger respond.
Lavishly gilt in gold, yet its true nature was a royal treasure.
The Guide’s Ring reacted to Decheon—more precisely, to Decheon’s death.
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A familiar place.
The Royal Capital, Seiiel. The northern plaza of Deber’s royal palace—now to be called the Deber Colonial Governor’s Office.
‘An execution. Am I the one again?’
“We now proceed with the execution of the criminal Zion Blije!”
It seemed so.
The future in which a false execution would serve as bait to capture most of the Liberation Association had vanished.
“Long live the Empire!”
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
No. It hadn’t vanished—only been postponed.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions and pillars of flame erupted from all sides.
At the same moment, familiar figures cast off their hoods and robes, launching into the air.
Loyal servants who regarded Zion as their lord. The Liberation Association—one of the two heads of the Liberation Army—was here.
“They’re coming!”
“Fire!”
“Kill them!”
They rushed toward the flames like moths to a torch.
Watching the silhouettes of his comrades charging past and surging forward.
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The scene ended.
A newly acquired ability of unknown nature—the Guide of Branching Points.
The scene it showed was, once again, the worst possible.
‘So it wasn’t something I could only see in dreams.’
And yet he welcomed it.
However dire, the future remained the future, and through witnessing this scene, he could avert the worst.
More than that—bad as it was, it had clearly improved since last time.
‘My actions following that first vision altered the future toward something more favorable.’
As for the ring responding to Decheon—to the death of one of the Five Exiles of the Outer Palace—and thereby causing the Guide of Branching Points to show him a future scene…
“One down. And the smallest one at that.”
Nine remained.
Perhaps the nine tasks were also nine opportunities.

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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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