The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 29

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 29: The Prince of High Society (5)
Just before the door opened.
“It seems the Prince truly isn’t coming. I thought it was an opportunity to have an audience with the Divine Race—what a shame.”
“An audience, indeed.”
After dismissing her friend’s remark, the woman covered her mouth with the back of her gloved hand instead of a fan, letting out a derisive laugh.
She resembled less a lady than a woman of business dressed in an evening gown.
Her spine was rigid, her chin held high, and her voice carried an undisguised note of displeasure.
“I’d far prefer an opportunity to have an audience with the Elves.”
Now they would be worthy of such a word.
There’d be money in it, after all.
“In any case, do collect yourself. In this day and age, people fuss over a Prince based on blood alone.”
“Kiria.”
The low voice of her father, Baron Kiodor. She struck preemptively.
“But it’s true, isn’t it? This is an age of skill and capital. The time when people upheld titles based on lineage alone has passed.”
“……Is that what you tell your father?”
“Oh dear.”
Baron Kiodor clicked his tongue in disapproval.
A spirited daughter, and yet she displeased him.
The child who would inherit his title placed greater faith in ledger figures than in the proprieties of nobility.
It was the thinking of a merchant, not an aristocrat.
“Whatever his reputation, whatever unprecedented exile he may have received—he remains of the Divine Race. All citizens of the Empire must always bear this in mind.”
“When you think about it, the whole notion of ‘Divine Race’ is rather absurd—”
“Kiria.”
“My apologies. That was truly a mistake on my part.”
A degenerate. And yet, by virtue of being a Prince, all must concern themselves with him.
To some he represented obsolescence; to others, an object of envy.
But such feelings could never be allowed to show.
“Baron Kiodor, since your daughter has spoken so wisely, surely you’ll offer her a word of praise?”
The woman who approached with the clack of heeled shoes was the Marquise of Gabel.
“We cannot put the Imperial household’s blemishes on display before the Elves, can we?”
This was the logic and pretext for why the Ninth Prince had not been invited to tonight’s banquet.
“We all know the outrages he has committed. It’s only three months in, and already it’s happened twice—twice!”
She was speaking of the director of the Gaigen Department Store.
The Marquis of Gabel, Dechion, and Lejoy.
“Had he chosen me that day…… I would not be standing here now.”
I would have become one of the victims sacrificed to the Empire’s worst degenerate instead of Lejoy.
“I cannot fathom it—that such a monstrosity could flourish even within the sacred Imperial household.”
Zion Riobelth was a monstrosity. She dared to speak so of the Divine Race.
The Marquise’s words were potent enough to deliver a thrill of guilty pleasure merely in hearing them.
“Ahahah! Surely you’re being too harsh, Marquise?”
The young Lady Kiria laughed even more loudly and pressed on.
Though the House of Gabel had fallen into difficult circumstances, it remained a marquisate. If she could curry favor and win approval, business opportunities might yet arise.
“Indeed, who could fault you! For someone to dare such a thing to the Marquis, renowned throughout the Empire for his character and influence—it’s scandalous.”
The young Lady Kiria shook her head with exaggerated dismay. From a distance, someone watched her.
Kreyna of Madam de Gallery set down her glass quietly.
‘The people of the Empire’s perception of Zion Riobelth is exactly as I predicted. I’ve gathered enough about the Prince for now.’
The reason she had attended the banquet today, having asked a regular customer for an invitation.
She needed to discover why the Elves had come to Deber.
If by any chance the Elpia Federation and the Litania Empire were to draw closer…… it had to be prevented.
Otherwise, the cherished goal of liberating her homeland would slip beyond reach.
‘But that woman’s tongue is rather poisonous.’
It made sense enough—her high-born husband had been beaten senseless and lay in a coma.
Yet her words kept pushing further across the line.
“Did I mention that our Marquis has been improving to the point where he occasionally regains consciousness? The Ninth Prince will spend the rest of his life in Deber. Under the governance of my husband, now the Governor. Don’t you wonder? Whether even the Divine Race can be made to kneel! Ahahaha!”
It was at that very moment.
Thud!
A heavy sound reverberated throughout the entire Banquet Hall.
The laughter stopped first.
The sound of glasses clinking from all around gradually faded.
“Is there another guest arriving……?”
“Aren’t there distinguished guests worthy of using the main entrance for their official arrival?”
There aren’t. All the guests have already taken their seats.
Those who possess the credentials to enter through that door couldn’t be numbered on both hands, even in a hall this grand.
Clang! Whirr-whirr-whirr-click.
A door so massive that no human could possibly open it moves of its own accord.
Light radiates from the carved circuits—the power of magic.
A silhouette emerges between the rays of light.
At the same moment, a voice cries out.
“His Highness, the Ninth Prince Zion Riobelth, has arrived.”
Between waves of light, the silhouette begins to take on solid form.
Hair gleaming as though spun from golden thread.
Eyes like crimson rubies set into flesh and bone.
A formal robe of deep midnight blue, carrying the stern bearing of military discipline.
His pace was neither slow nor hurried.
‘That person is the Ninth Prince…?’
The corners of Kiria’s mouth fell open.
She had believed the Ninth Prince to be nothing more than a husk of royalty, possessing nothing of substance.
She had thought Zion Riobelth pitiable—born with the most, yet having built nothing that could match what she herself had achieved.
Thump-thump!
The thunderous roar of a lion.
The majestic vista of a mountain peak.
Or perhaps, someone one could never forget in a lifetime.
Upon encountering such things, the body sends forth a single response.
Thump-thump!
The heart pounds.
Wildly.
There was no processional music.
This wasn’t some medal ceremony or formal state occasion.
Yet several people, Kiria among them, found themselves convinced they were hearing music.
An invisible string section drawing the bow in slow measure, invisible brass singing out high—the illusion was perfect.
“Good to see you all.”
His voice resonated through the hall.
Deep and soft.
Fluid, yet it clung to the ear and would not let go.
Something spread outward with that voice.
It came like a mist, inexorable and enveloping, until there was no choice but to be caught within it.
The Divine Race.
Those who reign supreme at the pinnacle of the great Litania Empire.
There was no need for anyone to explain it.
Everyone simply knew why such humans were called Divine Race.
“I am Prince Zion Riobelth.”
Breath caught audibly in throats throughout the room.
The Marquise of Gabel froze, her fan still raised in her hand.
Gaigen reflexively began to bow before catching himself.
“Hmm.”
The prince’s head tilted slightly.
Something else layered itself over his golden bearing.
If one had to find words for it: refined violence, dressed in courtly garb.
“Who shall have the honor of being the first to pay respects to me?”
In that instant, Baron Kiodor knelt on one knee.
Despite his noble rank, his obeisance far exceeded the station to which he was born.
“A subject of the Empire beholds a member of the Divine Race.”
“A subject of the Empire beholds a member of the Divine Race.”
It was the daughter who followed in her father’s footsteps.
Kiria, the baron’s daughter, made her deep bow as though entranced, her dry lips parting slightly.
‘Divine Race. This person… Prince Zion Riobelth.’
For the first time, Kiria understood her father’s values and bearing—and she accepted them.
She could do nothing else.
“A subject of the Empire beholds a member of the Divine Race!”
“A subject of the Empire beholds a member of the Divine Race!”
“The subjects of the Empire honor a member of the great Divine Race!”
“The subjects of the Empire honor a member of the great Divine Race!”
Waves of bowing rippled endlessly through the crowd.
Only Kreyna stood rigid, her gaze fixed upon the prince.
Days ago, at Madam de Gallery, she had received orders to forgo the bow.
She ran her thumb across the back of her hand.
‘So he does have the right to bear the name Zion.’
Zion Riobelth possessed the bearing of an emperor.
He matched her young master’s presence perfectly.
* * *
I must be capricious.
I must be violent.
I must be merciless.
I must be greedy.
I must not invite suspicion.
And at the same time, I.
‘Must be more charming than anyone else.’
A degenerate possessing charm?
Then people would never use the word degenerate.
Instead, they’d wrap it in the packaging of troublemaker.
In other words, Zion Riobelth must become the premiere troublemaker of Deber.
‘Never mind drawing people to my gatherings—my urgent task is escaping this isolation.’
Zion Riobelth must become a loss to Litania and a gain to Deber.
The ostracism that had begun with the Marquise of Gabel and the Saiellia Social Club must never happen again.
If you ask why, the answer is simple.
‘Watching the Five Traitors Outside the Palace and the Five Traitors Inside the Palace, I learned one lesson well: how to sell out a nation.’
To sell something great, one must play greatly.
One must even harbor grand ambitions.
Treason cannot be the deviance of one alone—it must be an ideal that serves everyone.
In other words, here’s what it comes down to:
‘I must commit treason while packaging it to seem like something else, making people believe in it and follow.’
So the first step to liberation had to be transforming Zion Riobelth into a troublemaker.
With these calculations in mind, I’d even conferred with Winter on how to strike the right attitude, the right expression, and I’d entered with every flourish calculated for maximum effect.
‘But I never expected people to be this spellbound.’
Several familiar faces were visible. Faces from the photographs Winter had shown me.
The heads of social clubs who had dared to refuse the prince’s request for membership.
Their expressions, stiffened along the edges of tension and terror, looked absolutely beautiful.
“Prince Zion Riobelth carries an air that recalls the very etymology of charisma.”
“The god-given, natural talent—in other words, Heavenly Endowment. The exclusive domain of the innately gifted, wasn’t it?”
“Exactly. It seems the Imperial family has real grounds for calling themselves the Divine Race. Is that why your father wanted to come to Deber?”
Even the elves in the distant guest seats were exchanging words of admiration as they watched Zion.
Elves, who looked down upon humans—they were reacting like this?
Remarkable.
‘Wait, could it be?’
One fact people didn’t know.
A being imbued with mana emanates an intangible presence.
A mage who weaves mana into soul and spirit cultivates an especially potent aura.
And Zion Blije had been a grand mage.
I grasped a fact I had overlooked.
‘The Void Attribute is masking my mana presence—people never sense it at all.’
In Deber’s Royal Palace, the Governorate, anyone who brought a mage or a Magical Tool without authorization was sentenced to death.
In other words, mana-detection sensors were installed everywhere.
‘With this in mind, I could craft things with magic without consequence.’
A thrilling realization. Once, those of high status carried Magical Tools and cast spells to create halos or wrap themselves in intangible presences, adorning themselves thus.
After mana-detection sensors were invented, this old custom vanished—people said that getting caught would damage reputation.
‘But I’ll never be caught, will I? No one would even imagine it.’
Even if I crafted an aura of intimidation and wrapped myself in a halo of light through magic, they’d attribute it to innate imperial majesty.
Who would suspect magical interference when sensors are scattered throughout?
Oversight and blind spots—one more advantage of the Void Attribute, I realized anew.
‘Quere Stellam Orbita.’
She wove magic subtly through the air, crafting an atmosphere of noble refinement and elevated grace.
As expected, people’s eyes refused to leave her.
In every sense, Zion Riobelth had become the star of the Banquet Hall.
‘At this rate, my debut in society is an unqualified success, wouldn’t you say?’
The first button was fastened well enough. Time to move to the next.
It would be nice to have a scapegoat or two.
‘Still, I won’t personally lose today, so whoever gets caught, so be it!’
A strong impression had been made. Next came the chaos—the scandal.
The second button, cementing her image as a troublemaker.
The only problem was deciding on whom and how to orchestrate the whole affair.
She knew too little to plan it all in advance.
‘In a way, this moment matters more than when I first arrived, but hmm.’
Then a face caught her eye.
A smile spread across her lips without thought.
‘Worrying about it was pointless.’
There was one face that made her want to cause trouble the moment she saw it.
The Marquise of Gabel.
“I never expected to run into you here, did I?”
She spoke with a deliberate smile, but the Marquise’s response was glacial.
“No, I hadn’t anticipated Your Highness would attend. How remarkable of you.”
Her aristocratic sarcasm was thick and layered.
An eye for an eye, then. She’d return the favor in kind.
“I made a point of coming, precisely because of you. There was something I simply had to tell you.”
‘Daiyen, I’m grateful.’
In truth, waiting to say this later might have been wiser.
But saying it now would feel absolutely exquisite.
“I heard from someone in the Gabel house—that Gabel is dead?”
The Marquise’s expression froze in an instant.
She began to tremble as though struck by lightning itself.
Zion savored the reaction and continued.
“I pray for the peace of the departed. Though I wonder whether Gabel would have appreciated the grace of a prince’s prayers.”
Just as she’d expected.
Forgetting the future consequences was worth it to humiliate her now.
Ah, how satisfying.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————