The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 56

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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 56: Wings of the Bat (1)
Four days had passed since that opening day when half the account had melted away overnight.
Today, too, the Marquis sat before the casino’s card table.
The reason he remained here despite such staggering losses.
It was the memory of winning so decisively the very next day that he not only recovered every loss but came away ahead.
The result of playing cards once more, driven by the desperate pleas of the desperate and his own boastful promises.
‘If I just recover what I lost. If I can just get back to breaking even, I’ll walk away.’
That was what he told himself now, but even if he did win back his stake, he wouldn’t leave immediately. Just as he hadn’t on the second day.
What was the harm in enjoying himself a little longer?
Only four days had passed, after all.
Suddenly the Marquis’s eyes lost their focus.
Four days. Only four days… had it really been only that long……?
He’d wolfed down hastily grabbed meals here more than twenty times…… well.
He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember.
What mattered was spitting in front of the casino’s main entrance with a grin on his face.
After he’d won back all the money he’d lost, and more besides.
“Sir Marquis. Your chips have run out.”
He turned his head blankly. The chip case sat empty.
“Bring me more chips.”
The dealer bowed apologetically, looking troubled.
“I apologize, sir. Without a check or cash, I’m afraid I cannot process the conversion.”
“The bank. Send someone to the bank.”
“…It’s dawn. There are no banks open at this hour.”
“Don’t you know who I am!”
A shout erupted without warning.
His straw-colored hair, usually combed neatly back, lay matted with oil, tousled and disheveled to reveal ashen roots beneath.
“Get me chips. Now.”
“According to regulations, credit conversions are… not permitted.”
The Marquis’s eyes, bloodshot and inflamed, were baring his teeth when—
“That’s enough. I’ll handle this.”
A young man in dignified, elegant formal attire—ash-gray hair, cold and beautiful—someone who somehow evoked the image of a casino dealer himself.
Winter Flowering, the owner of this vast and splendid casino.
“Sir Marquis… No. Father.”
Until now, Winter and the Marquis had never publicly revealed their paternal relationship.
The Marquis had given a hint about it before.
But now, Winter spoke the word “father” regardless of who might hear.
With concern for his father, with sincere affection.
More precisely, with his tone carefully calibrated to feel that way.
“Father. Let’s call it a day, shall we?”
At the second mention of “father,” the businessmen around them suddenly lit up, reaching for their calculators.
By tomorrow, this rumor would likely spread through several circles of Seiel’s high society.
“You seem to be wearing yourself out. If you return tomorrow, I’ll have everything set up. Besides, conversion isn’t possible right now anyway, is it?”
The reason he knew conversion was impossible: the Marquis hadn’t gone home in over a week. There couldn’t possibly be any cash or checks left.
Though the Marquis himself seemed too numb in the brain to even realize it.
“Winter. Are you trying to thwart my wishes?”
“How could I? I merely thought that since your complexion looks poor, we should have you rest a moment and then continue.”
“So you are trying to thwart my wishes?”
“…….”
After a brief silence.
Winter answered in a tone heavy with sorrow.
“Do as you wish. However, in order to convert chips, either a check or cash is required. This is an absolute rule of the Zeonia Casino, mandated by His Highness, and it can never be broken.”
Just as the Marquis was about to growl again—
“But. I’m thinking I might show a little consideration at my discretion as the owner. If you have collateral, I’ll exchange the chips with my own money and give them to you, Father.”
“Ah! Yes! You are truly my son, Winter! Hahahaha!”
Watching his father rejoice sincerely, Winter continued.
This time, pressing his mouth close to his father’s ear, speaking in a voice kept deliberately low so no one else could hear.
“Collateral, as the word suggests between father and son, is merely a formality. Surely you hold many High-interest Deberite Bonds? I’ll exchange chips according to the bonds you give me.”
Bonds whose debtors are those who’ve been squeezed so dry they’re borrowing from loan sharks.
These are malignant securities that no securities market will even handle.
From the Marquis’s perspective they’re all worth money, but in reality, it amounted to lending far more than their actual value.
‘I simply cannot fathom it. Why would His Highness order me to acquire such bonds in the first place?’
It was a secondary directive carried out while orchestrating the Marquis’s destruction, yet for Winter—a man whose sharp eye for numbers had never failed him—the whole affair left an uncomfortable sting.
Because the signs suggested His Highness hadn’t abandoned that earlier proposal: to infiltrate the Liberation Army under false pretenses and play the spy.
‘Surely he doesn’t intend for me to waltz into the Liberation Army clutching a bundle of toxic bonds.’
No. Surely not.
He’d think about it later.
For now, there was only the pleasure of watching his father—the man who’d tried to murder his mother—crumble to dust.
Winter raised his voice so all could hear him plainly.
“Well then? Will you accept this son’s consideration?”
* * *
That night.
Or perhaps four nights later.
No—five.
Perhaps it was a week hence.
Having left the casino, the Marquis collapsed at the foot of the marble stairs.
Dignity had abandoned him entirely.
His hollow eyes fumbled through the darkness pooling on the floor.
“How much… how much have I lost…”
Wrong.
He should have said it differently.
“How much debt… have I accumulated…?”
Collateral was merely collateral—debt remained debt.
For the Marquis, the High-interest Deberite Bonds were the instrument by which he could conjure sums far exceeding the chips he’d borrowed.
He had to repay them.
Failure meant bankruptcy.
Remikoning—counted among Deber’s two great noble houses alongside Aristh’s Raysial—would crumble in his generation.
“I…”
A curse-laden murmur escaped from the depths of his chest.
“How did I let Raysial surpass me.”
Raysial had remained loyal to the crown to the very end, and now it paid that price.
Aristh Raysial was likely still wandering the wastelands of Gizkal at his age.
But what of Remikoning?
Through masterful cunning, hadn’t it survived the tumultuous times with flying colors, preserving both its name and its power?
…Until recently, at least.
“I must repay it.”
Somehow.
By any means necessary.
The Remikoning name could not be tarnished.
To preserve this house intact—no, to expand it far beyond its current glory!
To pass everything Remikoning possessed down to his son MacAlister—that was his final duty.
‘It hasn’t crumbled yet. There must be a way.’
The Marquis tried to pull himself to his feet with this refrain.
But strength had fled his legs, and he sank back down.
His legs had forgotten how to rise.
Just then.
“Marquis.”
A voice seeped into his ears.
He turned, startled, and recognized the face.
A portly businessman from some night he couldn’t recall—the one who’d offered consolation, saying His Highness had stepped away temporarily.
But he was in no condition to console anyone now.
His eyes bore the telltale flush of a man who’d lost more than he could bear.
“What is it.”
“You need money, don’t you?”
“Silence.”
“I need it too. Desperately.”
“I said be silent.”
“Within a month, there’s a way to earn far more than what you’ve just lost.”
The Marquis, reaching to swat away the man’s hand, went rigid.
“There is an opportunity to make money. Your son—he’s a naval officer, isn’t he?”
“…Get out.”
At the mention of his son, the Marquis’s mind briefly returned to him.
But.
“I myself climbed to this position through trade alone. You understand? Unlike merchant vessels, military ships—the customs inspectors don’t dare open the cargo holds, do they? That means there exists one type of business opportunity, perfectly safe, that everyone whispers about and conducts quietly…!”
Already being conducted quietly.
Very safely.
“Are you suggesting smuggling?”
“How could goods carried by military ship bear the mark of contraband? Your Grace, hear me out a bit further.”
The Marquis couldn’t push him away.
His legs still had no strength in them.
Yes, that was it.
“With each passing of a military ship, profits multiply five-fold. No—what if we’re talking about goods that can’t pass through customs at all? Hah, hehehe. Your Grace need only lend your flag.”
Only after hearing the full explanation did strength return to his legs.
“Would my son cooperate with such things? Get out of here.”
“Your Grace. Even if he is your son, in the end he is a vassal—if you command it, must he not obey…!”
……
“Trust me, I beg you. I too am desperate. Perhaps even more than you. Please, please…!”
‘There is no deception in his expression.’
……With only his son MacAlister’s cooperation, there would indeed be no hole through which this wretch’s whispered scheme could be discovered.
The problem was that son.
A character like bamboo that will not break. As his father, he knew this better than anyone.
Why else would the boy have abandoned everything his father built, calling it so filthy he could barely breathe, cast off the family, and become a soldier?
That wretch would never cooperate.
……But.
“Yes. Mac is…… my son, after all.”
Just as Winter, that lowborn creature, would come to respect his father—so too would MacAlister.
Everything he had built by lowering himself so humbly was meant to become his own!
‘Mac! Even your early promotion to major—that too is the fruit of this father’s reach.’
He had given birth to him, raised him, swiftly advanced his rank, and would continue to do so.
So once.
Surely once he could receive his son’s aid.
The Marquis grasped the businessman’s sleeve.
“……Let us change our venue.”
* * *
The top floor of Zeonia Casino.
Through the glass wall stretched the most glittering street in Seiel.
A luxury Zion could never have enjoyed.
Clink. Gulp.
The Crystal Glass in his hand and the golden liquid within were no different.
‘Enjoy it fully, why not.’
His comrades were still living hidden in the wastelands of Gizkal.
But he felt no guilt.
To fully indulge in this luxury and savor it—that was the task Zion Riobert must prioritize above all for the liberation of Deber.
‘So, Marquis, surely you too must enjoy what you deserve to enjoy.’
“Your Highness. The Marquis Remikoning has moved as expected.”
This was the private office of the casino owner.
The door was locked, and on the desk for business lay the casino’s secret ledgers spread open.
“He will conduct smuggling via military ship using Colonel MacAlister’s connections.”
A voice continued, flat as reciting tomorrow’s weather.
“And he will be caught.”
The simultaneous ruin of biological father and half-brother.
Winter’s design—revenge for his mother.
“…Winter.”
“Yes.”
“You’re more frightening than I thought, aren’t you.”
“Black painted over black—surely such a thing would show, would it not.”
Meaning: they deserve their fate.
Well, he does have a point.
100% agreed.
But here’s the thing.
What concerns me isn’t their downfall.
Because somewhere down the line, he might harbor even a fragment of regret.
And that would wound his heart.
“You’re certain? No hesitations? Think carefully.”
“No, sir. I am overjoyed right now—truly delighted. I can only express my gratitude for this opportunity.”
Winter dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
‘Is this really the right call?’
His gaze drifted down to the middle finger of his right hand.
The Guide Ring. A royal heirloom that trembled at irregular intervals, pointing the way toward a brighter future.
The ring did not vibrate.
‘I wonder what triggers it. If it trembled whenever I wished, there’d be no better weapon.’
Still.
As a lord, I ought to step up in moments like this, shouldn’t I?
“The High-interest Deberite Bonds?”
“All collected as ordered, sir. Right here.”
He accepted the document case and turned to leave.
“I’ll be going now.”
“I shall escort you, sir.”
“No need. I’d rather drive myself today—enjoy the open road.”
It was a lie.
He hadn’t brought a car.
The last time he’d grabbed a steering wheel, he’d nearly hit someone.
Ever since, he’d always had Winter do the driving.
‘Damn… driving might actually be fun if I didn’t almost kill people.’
But then again, he possessed a far better means of transport than any automobile.
A spot some distance from the casino—the boundary between Luminous Street and the Slums.
Specifically, just ahead of the back-alley gambling den where he’d first met Winter.
Zion began to chant.
“Quere Stellam Orbita. Soul’s visage, descend upon me.”
With each step forward, the transformation commenced.
Golden hair darkened from the roots, turning pitch black.
The blood-red light of his eyes inverted, sinking into the deep blue of abyssal waters.
And in that instant, the right eye held a star, gleaming bright.
Fwoosh!
Black and translucent Magical Power swirled forth—dark as raven’s wings.
He clenched and unclenched his fists.
The creases of his palms remained unchanged.
“I’d planned to hold this back, only revealing it when truly necessary.”
Zion Brijeh would have to return from death.
To shield his servant from even a fragment of future regret.
That was the moment.
Buzz!
A vibration felt at his fingertip.
A smile bloomed unbidden.
“Well then, shall we be off?”
A nocturnal stroll after so long.
Fwoosh!
The raven took wing.

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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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