The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 25

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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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Chapter 25: The Prince in High Society (1)
“Gebel’s wife? You? Then you must be the daughter of some high noble house that has maintained bloodlines for centuries… How could you possibly be so plain?”
“And what brings you all the way to Debel? Why are you showing that ugly face to the Prince? Surely not because of Gebel’s marquis business. You’re the lady of a marquis household—it would be pathetic to still harbor grudges over the past. There’s no way you’re that small-minded, is there? Wouldn’t you agree, Winter? Ha-ha-ha-ha!”
“If you’ve come begging for forgiveness, you may as well leave. Gebel may have committed grave sins against this Prince, but I’ve no intention of punishing his wife as well. This Prince is not some petty creature to exact retribution through a woman.”
The Ninth Prince, Zion Riobelt. Words vicious enough to warrant death by the sword itself.
“Kyaaaaaaaahhhhh!”
Unable to release her fury through screams alone, the Marchioness tore at her own hair.
Her carefully arranged waves dissolved into the tangled mess of a witch’s mane.
“Steward! Mobilize every resource the main house possesses! I will see the Ninth Prince kneel and beg my forgiveness!”
It was a decision born of rage, yet also profoundly aristocratic in its cold calculation.
The Gebel House had risen meteoric-swift from a failing noble line barely clinging to a barony to the rank of marquis.
Without her husband regaining consciousness—the source of that ascension—she had no choice but to crush the Ninth Prince utterly.
If she failed to do so, she would be devoured.
It was then.
“Madam. A distinguished guest wishes to see you. They say you will know them if I mention the name Marquis Lemiconin.”
“Marquis Lemiconin?”
In his youth, Gebel had spent long years in Debel and once held high office in the Governor’s Office.
There was no way she could be unfamiliar with the Lemiconin House, which occupied one corner of the Five Palace Thieves.
“It has been far too long, Madam.”
The nobleman before her—a figure as though painted from canvas itself—offered an elegant bow.
Though at an age now rightly called elderly, he possessed the bearing of a man in his prime, his attire not a thread out of place.
This was Marquis Lemiconin, known throughout Debel as “the greatest wing.”
“I confess I heard the screams just now and inquired of my servants as to the circumstances. They tell me you were insulted by the Ninth Prince. How fortuitous.”
“Forgive me—did I mishear you?”
Elegantly. Coldly.
Marquis Lemiconin replied.
“You heard correctly, Madam. The probability that you will accept my proposal has increased markedly. It is indeed a stroke of good fortune.”
The Five Palace Thieves. Five thieves within the palace who sold the nation itself.
One of them gazed upon the opportunity before him, eyes gleaming.
“I should inform you first, Madam, that Vice-Governor Kishinian shares common cause with this Lemiconin.”
To seize more, one would sell the nation itself if need be.
Marquis Lemiconin intended once again to fatten his own coffers by selling the property of others.
“Are you aware that the Ninth Prince has set foot in Debel yet not once shown his face at the Governor’s Office? The Governor is most displeased. Moreover, of late he has reduced two diligent merchants—industrious souls who were contributing to national development through their enterprises—to financial ruin simply to indulge his own appetites…”
Nor was it without reason that he was called the empire’s worst degeneracy.
Truly, there was no one else in all the empire capable of such systematic wickedness.
“Do you wish to bring down the Ninth Prince, Madam? The Governor’s Office intends to render him unable to make trouble for at least several months. Perhaps we might have a lengthy conversation together?”
Having finished, Marquis Lemiconin lifted the corners of his mouth.
* * *
The first method of rapidly acquiring power:
Power springs from connections.
It was no accident that High Society spoke of social activities and social circles.
Now Zion too had reached a point where he needed to make his debut in High Society.
Soon enough, he would need to establish distribution networks for the Refrigerators that would be mass-produced.
“That Your Highness should wish to make your debut in Debel’s High Society through our humble club is an honor beyond measure. However, our social club has certain… shortcomings, and among these numerous drawbacks, one is such that we dare not presume to host Your Highness. There are many other superior clubs, and we beg your understanding. We submit this letter in respectful decline.”
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Winter set down letter after letter before Zion, whose expression had turned sour as spoiled milk.
“Every club has submitted a rejection. The contents are all identical, more or less.”
To penetrate High Society quickly and acquire power, one must engage in social activities.
Social activities require, by definition, socializing—making connections—which cannot be done alone. One must belong to a venue of socialization, such as a club.
To be rejected from club membership?
There would be no High Society debut to speak of.
“We’re finished. What’s the reason?”
One cannot simply contact them and ask.
Litania is a nation that lives and dies by honor and face. One does not commit acts that damage one’s own honor.
‘A prince’s title has its drawbacks too, it seems.’
The very reason all the clubs could issue rejections in unison was precisely because of his station.
When applying for membership, one could only send letters offering to provide such honor to the Prince—no more than that.
It was possible to decline under the guise of humble modesty, on the grounds that they were unworthy of such an honor.
“As to the reason, there’s hardly anything to ask about. It’s ostracism.”
Winter spoke matter-of-factly, and Zion’s brow darkened.
“Ostracism? Against a prince?”
“More precisely, a worthless prince who arrived in Debel under an unprecedented exile punishment and promptly devoured two thriving businessmen.”
Hmm. Put that way, there’s not much to say.
“Everyone’s caught on. They understand that exile punishment and prince title revocation aren’t enough to stop the empire’s worst degenerate.”
Powerful people who have nothing to fear won’t approach him in the first place—disgusted; the lesser figures who should be afraid know their place and flee well in advance.
That current became what you’d call ostracism.
“Even the Seiellia Social Club rejected him?”
Seiel—or rather, Debel’s greatest gathering place for high society.
Which is to say, the center where all power converges.
Among the pile of letters, I found one from the Seiellia Club.
“The venue is too modest for a prince to grace with his presence, and we must regretfully decline his membership.”
Unlike the other letters, this one used the word “decline” directly.
In other words, this letter was the Debel elite’s mockery delivered to the prince.
“Even though the former governor established the club personally, they come out and say this—so they really don’t want him there. They think being with a rogue like me would lower the tone?”
“Surely no one would think such a thing. There are simply other inconveniences and dangers involved—”
He cut himself off mid-sentence.
“No, no. I can feel it. Are these fools really daring to treat me—the most noble among the Divine Race itself—as beneath them?”
“…”
Winter fell silent, giving up on words.
He’d grasped what it meant to build a pretext.
‘If the disadvantage is that as a prince I can’t show eager interest in membership, then I simply bury it under a much larger advantage.’
“Let’s go, Winter.”
“Where to?”
“Where do you think? The club.”
Would they really turn him away to his face?
A prince’s face, at that.
If they dared, they’d have to answer for such audacity.
“If you’re rejected, you’ll suffer irreparable damage to your honor and face. Are you certain about this?”
Ritania had a culture where any damage to face and honor demanded retaliation—or alternatively, self-termination from shame.
Even those unwilling to take their own lives would be urged to do so by their surroundings.
“Why, worried?”
“Yes.”
Hm. I hadn’t expected him to agree so readily.
“I’m worried about what kind of outrageous behavior you’ll display there. Please, I beg you, keep it within the bounds of what I can manage afterwards.”
A different sort of worry, then.
In any case.
“That’ll be difficult, I’m afraid. I intend to show you why I’m called the empire’s worst degenerate.”
Zion grinned wickedly.
His mouth twisted in its accustomed way, a habit his body had never shed.
* * *
A luxury airship bound for Debel. Below, small lights twinkled.
“Seiel, perhaps.”
A distance so vast that a nation’s capital appeared as a mere point, yet high enough that it remained visible.
From this altitude, one could quite literally look down upon the world.
Even in the age of Grand Arcane Engineering, a privilege enjoyed by only the rarest few.
…A privilege that even the Deputy Director of Treasury Administration—one of the top ten power-holders in the Debel Colonial Governor’s Office—would never dare to claim.
‘If it weren’t for those two.’
Turning his head, he glimpsed a silver-haired youth and a young girl enjoying tea.
An elegant pair—no, elf parent and child.
‘Just how vast must their fortune be?’
Not a passenger vessel, but an airship. Even pooling the entire wealth of Debel’s finest businessmen wouldn’t buy a single ticket.
Yet the elf before him—Smarag of Eldrich House, councilor—had paid not only for his entourage but for the passage of his escort as well.
The deputy director felt the truth of the age crystallize within him once more.
An era where wealth that another might spend a lifetime earning was mere pocket change to someone else.
‘No wonder I’ve ended up serving as an escort to a former councilor, and I’m the real power behind the Governor’s Office.’
His superiors had even warned him that they wouldn’t tolerate the slightest lapse in protocol.
‘Still, she’s impossibly beautiful.’
Smarag’s daughter. Her name was Noksilunas Eldrich.
Though she bore the appearance of a young girl, one could never judge an elf’s true age by looks, and rumors spoke of sudden growth spurts, so her actual years remained unknowable.
Silver-white hair cascading to her waist.
Her hair was thick and perfectly arranged without a single strand out of place, catching light with the cold gleam of polished metal.
Though her skin held no flush of color, it evoked not pallor but rather the pristine snow of a glacial peak.
One might have said she resembled a marble statue—one in which veins would never show, for they had no need to.
“Father. How much longer until we reach Debel?”
“Two more days, my dear.”
“I see.”
Her voice was equally exquisite.
Neither high nor low, neither rushed nor lingering—pitched precisely to please the ear, with flawless tonal control.
Yet it carried at the same time that crystalline vitality peculiar to elves, shimmering with an almost preternatural clarity.
Though, if there was one flaw to speak of—
‘Such absolute absence of emotion is almost miraculous.’
Noksilunas Eldrich was inhuman.
Not merely her beauty, but her very essence as a person.
A face drained of all feeling, desolate in its composure.
Eyes like glass spheres that rarely blinked—a frozen, ice-blue gaze that could send shivers down one’s spine without cause for alarm.
Though some might argue that the contrast between such beauty and such coldness worked a peculiar charm, heating the blood precisely because of the chill.
One might call it a chilling beauty……
Chill.
That deathly still gaze had somehow fixed itself upon him.
“Why were you looking at me that way?”
“Ahem. Miss.”
“Why were you looking at me that way?”
“That is…… My apologies.”
“Why were you looking at me that way?”
Noksilunas tilted her head slightly to one side.
“Deputy Minister Rainik.”
Smarag’s soft call.
Seizing upon the extreme tension in the air, the deputy minister clicked his heels together sharply and snapped to attention.
“A misunderstanding, Councilor!”
“Think nothing of it.”
“……Pardon?”
“When a man sees beauty, his wits scatter—it’s only natural. Haha.”
The young elf laughed pleasantly. There was no rebuke in it for the middle-aged man harboring such thoughts toward his young daughter.
……In another sense, this too was an inhuman response.
“I mean it sincerely—don’t trouble yourself. You are, after all, ‘human.’ I understand perfectly.”
His daughter would likewise pay it no mind.
Or more precisely, she could pay it no mind.
Smarag was confident that should Noksilunas ever express displeasure, he would leap for joy and scatter money in all directions.
Her emotions were that precious.
“But now that Debel draws near, I find myself wanting to review our arrangements once more.”
The reason Smarag had brought Noksilunas along as they journeyed toward Debel.
It was the price the First Prince of the Empire had set.
Should his daughter make her social debut as a princess receiving royal treatment in a kingdom’s palace, it would become a cherished memory when she eventually recovered her emotions.
Though his primary purpose was to attend to both official business and personal affairs, the reason he had chosen Debel among many candidates was unmistakably his daughter.
“Thank the First Prince on my behalf. His suggestion to visit Debel instead of the Imperial Capital has made this a wonderful opportunity.”
In truth, Smarag would have refused the arrangement entirely had visiting the Imperial Capital been a condition.
The Imperial Court was arrogant enough to call itself the Divine Race—an insufferable lot.
But there was yet another reason why it had to be Debel.
“Do make certain that the celebration we prepare for our daughter is absolutely magnificent!”
Smarag clasped his daughter’s hand, chuckling warmly.
‘My dear. It’s coming soon. Soon you’ll recover what was lost. For we shall meet that wretch Zion in Debel.’
Zion would have to honor their agreement.
If he wished to live.

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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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