The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 68

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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 68: The Beginning of Treason (2)
The hand holding the letter trembled in McAllister’s grip.
The paper itself bore no creases.
Only the fingertips pressing it had gone white with tension.
He remained on his knees, unable to lift his head.
His father was dead.
Aleon had died.
When he’d first learned of it, he’d felt calmer than this.
He’d always known it would end this way.
The sins his father had accumulated would not vanish simply because his son had donned a uniform and fled to the sea.
But he’d never imagined death would take this form.
‘What, then, should I do?’
The most precious thing that made up McAllister Remikoning was a scale.
A scale that tilted toward neither side without cause.
He had grown in a house built with the price of a nation sold, wearing clothes purchased with money extracted from the poor, and in doing so had acquired it naturally.
With that single scale, he had denounced his father; with that same scale, he had protected his own heart all this time.
‘Father has paid the price he deserved.’
One side of the scale’s pan descended.
Upon the opposite pan lay Zion, the Crown Prince of this realm.
A light weight.
Insufficient.
But then—
Zion was also one who had lost a father, both to his own bloodline and to the Remikoning family.
The pans came level.
No—they began to tip the other way.
‘The Crown Prince has the right.’
The right to command atonement from the one who took his father’s life.
He could not deny it, try as he might.
‘But then, the prince before me—’
McAllister slowly raised his head.
The golden-haired, red-eyed prince sat in a chair adorned with ornate armbands, looking down upon him.
‘Your Highness. Have you made alliance with the Liberation Army? One might reasonably say you too walk the path of treason.’
The Ninth Prince, Zion Liobelt, was also his father’s enemy.
Though built upon wealth darkened by ash, his father’s ruin had this prince as its architect—a father who had once been desperately rich.
He was also the one who had put the final period at Naval Headquarters in that final moment.
‘By the Crown Prince Zion’s command, to the Ninth Prince Zion Liobelt, loyalty is sworn. A simple matter in words. But—’
He had to ask before making his choice.
Did the prince have the right to bring down his father?
No.
The prince had never been robbed of anything by his father.
The scale tipped to one side again.
But in that moment—
The tilted beam righted itself once more.
‘No. He does.’
If one condition were met.
If the prince cherished his subordinate Winter, called Flowering, and sought vengeance on his behalf instead—
Then Winter had the right.
No one could deny it.
All the more so because he himself knew intimately the pain of losing one’s sole blood relation.
‘If the prince destroyed my father out of selfish desire, or if he did so for Winter’s sake—’
In truth, either way changed nothing for McAllister.
Father, family, even his name now—
All of it was as good as gone.
Which was why he had to know the answer.
For all that remained to him now was the scale within his heart.
“Your Highness. What reason had you for harming my father?”
The golden-haired, red-eyed prince answered without hesitation.
“Had it not been for Winter, that man would never have crossed my mind.”
* * *
“Had it not been for Winter, that man would never have crossed my mind.”
Zion leaned back against the chair’s backrest as he spoke.
‘True enough,’ he thought.
Had he never met Winter, the Guide’s Ring would never have shown him the Marquis Remikoning’s phantom.
Without that phantom, he wouldn’t have spared a glance for someone like Aleon Remikoning.
Of course, he would have executed him eventually.
He had no intention of leaving the Five Thieves Inside the Palace alive.
‘But it would have been years from now,’ he reflected.
Without Winter at his side from the beginning, he wouldn’t have accumulated wealth and power nearly so quickly.
So it wasn’t a lie, in that sense.
He watched the kneeling man’s shoulders go slack.
The rigid, unbending spine curved for the first time today.
“Your Highness, I have one request.”
“Speak.”
“Would you be willing to conduct my father’s funeral yourself?”
Zion’s eyebrows rose slightly.
“A funeral?”
“And if you would grant me a few days, I shall consider it carefully and give you my answer.”
McAllister lifted his head.
It was the first time today his face met the Prince’s gaze directly.
“My father… faced a proper death.”
He felt a sudden curiosity.
What form does the heart of a son take when he calls his father’s end fitting?
‘I’m not sorry. But… I am genuinely troubled for you, McAllister.’
Zion had always had a fondness for men like McAllister.
Which made it all the more painful.
“So you’re asking me to preserve at least a shred of honor through the funeral.”
The Divine Clan—and among them, the most direct of bloodlines—was none other than the Ninth Prince, Zion Riobert.
By the culture of the Empire, having a descendant of the divine oversee a funeral was the highest honor.
All the more so if the deceased had died in shame—the benediction spoken by a tongue tinged with divine blood was worth more than any ordinary title.
“My decision should come after that. I humbly ask this of you.”
‘No reason to refuse,’ he thought.
“Very well.”
McAllister’s shoulders dropped once more.
This time not from exhaustion, but as though he were setting down a burden.
‘This works out well, actually.’
The Marquis—or rather, Aleon Remikoning—was believed to have been murdered by Zion Blije.
And conveniently, Zion Riobert stood in a position where he had to burn with rage against Zion Blije.
Which meant he could use Aleon Remikoning’s funeral as a pretext.
By presiding over the funeral, the Prince would have the perfect stage to publicly display how much he despised Zion Blije.
* * *
Four days later, at the Cemetery outside Seiel.
The sky hung gray.
It should have been that few mourners would come to the funeral of a traitor to the nation.
Yet carriages lined the entrance to the cemetery.
Word that the Ninth Prince would personally oversee the rites had circled Seiel in a single day.
Winter stood as the chief mourner.
He was the one who had inherited the title.
“…the chief mourner is a bastard, not the legitimate heir.”
“It seems the legitimate son never came after all.”
“He severed ties long ago, I heard. The Marquis was so disappointed he passed the title to another son.”
“Still, a bastard. Unconventional to the very end, was he.”
The low murmurs reached Winter as well.
He did not avert his gaze from the coffin.
He simply pressed the edge of the funeral registry with his white-gloved hand, keeping it perfectly straight.
No tears, no twisted expression.
To any observer, it was not the bearing of one sunk in grief, receiving mourners.
Yet no one spoke against it.
After all, wasn’t it the highest elite society where such things simply didn’t become an issue?
“You must be bearing great sorrow, Marquis Flowering.”
An elderly businessman paid his respects and moved on.
Duke Flowering.
It was the first time that title had been spoken aloud before others.
Yes, from today onward, Winter was Duke Flowering.
‘How strange it feels. Your Highness, is this what it’s like to be addressed with such a title by someone?’
Lost in thought while receiving mourners, he watched as the funeral ceremony began at its appointed hour. No one seemed to notice that Winter, who held the place of chief mourner, felt no weight to it at all.
Even as he grasped anew one of the great powers held by the nobility—that even mistakes become no mistakes at all.
“Subjects of the Empire, hear me.”
The prince began his eulogy.
“Aleon Remikoning, who lies here, was a faithful servant of the Empire. Yet such a man was toyed with by a traitor and ultimately slain.”
Several faces grew subtly rigid.
For one who had died through treason and smuggling, the words rang hollow.
Zion pressed on undeterred, raising his voice.
“The culprit is Zion Blije, the Raven of Deber. Even had the deceased possessed fault, it should have been punished by the law of the Empire. A mere vagrant of a fallen nation has no right to take a life as he pleases.”
Whatever private opinions individuals harbored, the words were objectively sound.
Some still frowned; others nodded, and before them all, Zion made his final declaration.
“Therefore, I stake my name as a prince and swear an oath: I shall capture Zion Blije, and this time—I shall kill him without fail!”
* * *
After the funeral ended, Winter asked the prince if he might remain at the Cemetery.
Strange feelings lingered, and thoughts kept welling up within him.
“Fine, do as you please. You’re grown—why do you need permission for such a thing?”
……or so he said.
Yet Zion sent Dien and Reianna ahead to the Hotel, then turned back toward the Cemetery.
Not out of worry for Winter, but because if he found his brother anywhere alone, letting his emotions crack and shedding tears when he thought no one was watching, Zion fully intended to torment him mercilessly about it.
With the mourners departed and all the carriages gone, the Cemetery was quiet and desolate.
“Hmm?”
He stopped as he approached to find Winter. It seemed he was about to witness a scene other than the one he’d expected.
A uniformed figure climbing up from below the hill.
McAllister Remikoning. Winter’s half-brother.
Two brothers who had never once exchanged the words “older brother” and “younger brother” now stood face to face before their father’s grave.
‘Quere Stellam Orbita.’
The ambient sound amplified, and the conversation taking place in the distance reached his ears with crystalline clarity.
“……Winter Remikoning.”
“Flowering, Colonel McAllister.”
“…….”
“…….”
‘Gods, how awkward. This is excruciating just to watch.’
A silence so profound it was almost grotesque.
McAllister was the first to speak.
“Father atoned for his sins through death.”
“I see.”
“He met an end fitting for the path he walked and the life he chose. Though it pains me that you shaped him thus…… given what he did to you and your mother, you bear no fault.”
“How remarkably cold of you.”
“But…… I find I cannot acknowledge you as my brother.”
As McAllister spoke, his face looked genuinely tormented.
Indeed, a man of upright heart.
Winter, by contrast.
“As you wish.”
‘A man without sentiment, that’s what I am.’
“Your feelings toward me are of no consequence, Colonel. Only this—”
Winter smiled coldly and continued.
“I hear you have not yet accepted the offer to join the Liberation Army.”
“That is……”
“You, who are devoid of all conscience, hesitate for what reason?”
McAllister went rigid with shock.
Zion, watching from afar, also went rigid with shock.
“…….”
“My mother and I were beaten nearly to death by your father for the crime of possessing ignoble blood. Blood runs deep indeed. So too will yours.”
The true meaning woven into his words was this:
Hesitation?
There were no choices to begin with—so what was there to deliberate?
“It matters not what the Crown Prince of Deber has done, nor whether it was an Imperial Prince who made the offer to join the Liberation Army. What does any of it concern you?”
Winter stepped closer.
“What possible grounds do you have for hesitation, McAllister?”
……
“It seems you’ve never once considered the Empire your homeland. If that’s true, then the Prince’s decision to turn against the Empire and join hands with us can only benefit us both, can’t it?”
……
McAllister’s fingers tightened against the seam of his military coat.
The answer had already come.
It was only a matter of time before he admitted it.
Winter turned to leave, but offered one final word.
“Go to the Prince directly. You have no right to waver.”

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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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