The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 30

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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 30: The Prince of High Society (6)
Tremble, tremble.
The Duchess’s hand, clutching her fan, quivered like the failing wings of a sick bird.
The banquet hall had gone silent as a tomb—no laughter, no clinking glasses, no music from the orchestra.
Only the perfume hung thick and suffocating.
‘What an expression.’
While speaking of the Duchess’s dead husband before the widow who had lost him by Zion’s own hand, an absurd sense of amusement stirred in him.
‘Zion Riobert. You really have lived a comfortable, entertaining life.’
A reception held for diplomatic courtesy, complete with ceremonies—even foreign dignitaries in attendance.
And yet he’d caused such a spectacle. Who wouldn’t lie awake fretting over the fallout?
But.
Zion Riobert could afford to.
He was the Empire’s worst Degenerate and, at the same time, the Empire’s most noble being.
“Why do you all look so grave?”
Zion tilted his head slightly.
“The Crown Prince is observing mourning.”
………
………
………
“Ah, I see. You’re all paying your respects as well. Of course—Gebel, a Duke no less. One of the Empire’s most esteemed figures! It’s only natural everyone should hold their tongues in tribute.”
As Zion finished speaking, he couldn’t contain himself—his lips twisted.
Ah.
He laughed.
It was the memory of something Gebel had said once, before his father.
“This Gebel is a being who can even look down upon a puppet dynasty, Your Majesty. Hahahaha!”
He continued, gazing down at them all.
“Before everyone here, let me express once more my condolences. Gebel was a fine man—so fine that he even dared to offer counsel to one of Divine Blood.”
Now everyone understood.
Ah, that was why Gebel had died.
For daring to offer unwanted counsel to the Crown Prince.
Though he had fallen as a Degenerate and been cast out by the Imperial House, a Divine Being remains a Divine Being, and a Crown Prince remains a Crown Prince.
“See that his funeral is held with great ceremony. Gebel would have wanted that. The Crown Prince won’t be attending, of course. As you know, I’m in exile.”
As Zion gave a small shrug,
the Duchess’s lips trembled.
No sound came.
Indeed, it was better to say nothing at all.
To speak would be to admit that everything she’d built—all her talk of her husband improving, of his return as Governor—was a lie.
“Ah, and I’ll send mourning robes myself. As a special privilege, I’ll permit the imperial color—gold. A token of the regard I cannot express in person.”
Gold-threaded mourning robes?
That wasn’t condolence. That was desecration.
‘Well then.’
It was time to leave.
It would be harder to savor this fully if he remained.
He needed to disappear now, to leave the aftertaste lingering.
“If any lady here would be honored to accompany the Crown Prince for a stroll in the Garden, let her step forward. Haha.”
Naturally, no one moved.
It would have been strange if anyone had.
‘Good. I was a bit worried—I’m rather handsome, after all.’
If even one person had followed him, the plan would have unraveled.
He had something else prepared for while the chaos settled and he slipped away.
“Never mind then. I’ll go alone.”
As he walked, eyes clung to him relentlessly.
Curious glances, perhaps—though he’d certainly given them something worth staring at.
Well, today the Ninth Prince had made himself a spectacle.
In a few hours, he’d need an excuse to approach the elves.
‘……That’s what Winter said. For now, the Garden should do…….’
Then—a gaze settling on the nape of his neck.
The guest section. Silver-white hair.
An elf sat watching him without so much as a blink.
……Something felt off.
‘Please, no. Don’t let me have caught her fancy.’
If she were to say she’d follow me, the entire plan would crumble.
In truth, what I need to do now matters far more than leading the elves to Ainchen tomorrow.
Fortunately, she soon looked away.
“Right. Time to slip out.”
* * *
The Deber Colonial Governor’s Office. Once, this was the royal palace of old Deber.
If not for the Empire’s scheming, wouldn’t I myself be sitting on the throne by now?
‘Though Father never had the chance either.’
Zion called his father the Late King; officially, Late King Exon the Thirteenth was Deber’s last monarch.
Yet he never once sat upon that throne.
One of the humiliations the Empire had inflicted upon House Blije.
‘Still, this is where I was born and raised.’
Zion Blije had grown up within these walls.
Every bent corner of the corridor, every shadow behind a pillar, every hidden path to the Garden—he knew them as intimately as the lines of his own palm.
He moved with silent footfalls.
‘Quere Stellam Orbita.’
Mana-sensing wards were embedded throughout, but it hardly mattered.
The void-magic that erased footsteps transformed him into a phantom drifting through the palace.
‘I’ve arrived.’
Deep within the Garden, an old chapel half-swallowed by ivy.
It appeared to receive no maintenance.
‘Mother.’
Mother’s prayers had always been long. He hadn’t understood why as a child, but she must have had so much to pray for.
The young prince would grow restless, unable to wait for them to end, and whimper until she finished.
This was such a place.
When he’d hide beside the altar and peek his head out to catch her attention, she’d pretend not to notice, pretend and pretend, until finally she’d laugh and sweep him into her arms.
‘Mother.’
Bloodstains, faded by time, rose before his eyes.
He shook his head to dispel them.
Not yet. Not now.
“Quere Stellam Orbita.”
As he stood before the chapel’s inner prayer chamber, the ring on his finger grew warm.
‘It’s responding to the royal seal.’
The one who stood here was a prince of the Empire, yes.
But the Sacred Treasure that responds only to the true bloodline of the kingdom announced its master’s return to the sanctuary.
And the sanctuary, long sealed, opened its lips to reveal the hidden space within.
A staircase descending into darkness.
The smell of mold and ancient stone.
A secret chamber untrodden by any soul for ages untold.
And there, at its center, upon a pedestal, it waited.
Light the color of starlight in a night sky.
A sphere of luminous blue, its center swirling with a pupil-like pattern.
‘The Star Eye.’
Deber holds one legend.
[The king is the one who stands foremost; you who have made covenant with me must live as the guide.]
[Thus I grant you both a staff and eyes.]
The North Star Staff was that very staff, and the eye of stars was another Sacred Treasure.
An eye to pierce even the darkest night, to illuminate the path.
“Idiots, all of them.”
Laughter escaped him in a murmur.
It was common knowledge that the Empire had ransacked the entire realm searching for Deber’s Sacred Treasures.
They’d even stolen the Guide’s Ring—worthless trinket to outsiders—in their desperation.
A relic of salvation that they’d failed to find for fifty years, until they finally branded it myth and legend.
“And here it was all along. Heh heh.”
“Indeed it was.”
“Gaaahhhhh!!!!!”
Zion spun around, startled out of his skin.
Flower-scent. And silver-white radiance.
An elf. And unmistakably one of the highest rank among the delegation.
Silver hair was evidence.
Those locks marked one of the unlucky seven—an Eldrithi.
“…You saw it?”
“Yes.”
The reply was businesslike.
“What did you see?”
“Everything.”
Hmm. So that was it.
She’d seen it all.
“Will you tell anyone?”
“Yes.”
“Could you keep it secret?”
“No.”
“This is troublesome.”
I stared straight at her. She returned my gaze without flinching.
This time I hardened my eyes and glared.
The Empire’s worst degenerate was attempting intimidation, but she didn’t blink an eye.
‘Should I just suppress her?’
I poured mana into the Star Eye.
There was no reaction.
‘Of course.’
It was absurd for a Sacred Treasure of House Blije to respond to the body of an imperial prince.
Hoping for it because of the Guide’s Ring was my mistake.
‘It seems I’ll need to find a way to graft the royal house’s sacred relic onto the Empire’s body.’
Getting past the immediate crisis had to come first, though.
Suppressing her at once… no. That’s impossible. I sensed an enormous amount of mana emanating from this elf.
Good heavens, was she wearing undergarments made entirely of Magical Artifacts?
Or not? From the first time I saw her, her expression was oddly vacant. Could she be a Bisque Doll—one of those mechanical dolls?
“I’m not a Bisque Doll.”
“…”
Did she have mind-reading abilities?
“I get that misunderstanding often. If I was thinking of something else just now, I apologize.”
“Ah. I—or rather, the prince himself—”
“I see the confusion. Well then, I’ll be on my way.”
The elf turned to leave, and I jumped up in alarm and rushed after her.
“Wait.”
“Yes?”
“…”
“If there’s nothing else, I’ll go.”
Damn it. How was I going to silence that mouth? Should I knock her out?
“I could keep the secret. I’ll even swear an oath.”
Does she really read minds?
Well, in any case. While I was pondering how to silence her without being too rough, welcome news arrived.
“An oath? Really?”
“Yes. Playing the strongest hand is my second choice.”
This answer troubled me somewhat.
“And the first?”
“To earn the trust of the Empire’s worst degenerate.”
Zion had pulled off something remarkable once again.
“I’ll use this.”
What she produced was an antique-looking fountain pen.
The Oath Quill. A Magical Artifact that made any sworn promise impossible to break.
It was costly enough to be used in treaties between nations.
“Such an expensive thing…”
“Pardon?”
“Ah. Your family manufactures and sells these, don’t they?”
“Yes.”
The quill shone with light. She wrote in the empty air.
“Having read it, you understand: I cannot speak of what happened today to any being but you.”
Having written such terms, it would become binding inevitably.
The Oath Quill was precisely a Magical Artifact that held the power to absolutely compel a single person.
Of course, it came with a price.
The Oath Quill was, quite literally, an oath—a Magical Artifact that bore witness to a promise made between two people.
Give and take. That’s how it worked.
“Fine. What do you want?”
I had to hear out whatever condition this elf was going to propose. Refuse, and the Quill would lose its power.
Then the entire world would learn that Zion Liobelt had acquired the Sacred Treasure the Empire had been searching for these past fifty years.
“Would you answer just one question?”
‘Better to silence them at any cost than let that secret slip out.’
I meant it.
If it came down to it, I’d seal their lips by any means necessary rather than let it be known I’d gotten the Star Eye.
“Two separate souls in a single body. What does that mean?”
It wasn’t.
* * *
At that same moment, in the guests’ section of the banquet hall.
Governor Maizreon swallowed dryly.
“I ask again. Arrange for me to meet Zion Blije.”
“Councilor, what did you just—”
“The Grand Mage. The Raven of Deber.”
It was a request that left the governor deeply unsettled.
“Councilor. Why would you take interest in such a dangerous being…?”
Smarag tilted his glass, glancing toward the hallway where his daughter had disappeared.
Luna had been gone for quite some time now, supposedly getting some air.
Today, his daughter had made her debut in society, treated as a princess in a royal court no less.
It wasn’t a bad thing.
When she recovered her emotions someday, it would become a cherished memory.
Yet as the true purpose, it was far too shallow a pretext.
The real purpose was Zion Blije.
‘The sole Grand Mage of this age. One who commands magical power not through technique, but through the soul.’
Zion Blije might be capable of restoring his daughter’s emotions.
The reason Smarag had journeyed to this remote, insignificant nation despite his grueling schedule.
The odds were quite favorable.
Because it was Zion Blije himself who had said so.
‘I only hope he wasn’t speaking lightly.’
If, contrary to expectation, Zion Blije proved unable to cure his daughter.
He would not remain idle.
With that thought, he continued.
“The governor need only relay a message to the First Prince.”
That an Eldrithi councilor from Elpia wishes to speak with Zion Blije to satisfy an academic curiosity.
“And that the compensation shall be no small matter.”
A declaration from one of the world’s foremost powers.
The governor swallowed hard.
It was the moment an urgent dispatch for the homeland became necessary.

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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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