The Scoundrel Prince Sold Out the Empire - Chapter 9

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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 9: Winter Flowering (2)
Not merely a noble—but a member of the Divine Race had arrived.
Every gambler in the establishment trembled with dread, sensing the horrifying future of execution that awaited them.
Even Winter could not escape that fear, though among them all, he remained the most composed.
“I have committed the grave offense of failing to recognize the Divine Race. I beg your forgiveness.”
“No. No, that won’t do.”
He should have led with the crime of operating an illegal gambling den.
That was the weightiest offense of all.
This place lay in a back alley between Luminous Square, a bustling district, and the Slum District, a haven of poverty.
The location of the gambling den meant that among their victims were poor residents of Deber.
‘Must be nice, fleecing your own countrymen to survive?’
He couldn’t voice such an honest thought aloud.
But he could certainly punish them in another way, couldn’t he?
“Everyone, get down on the floor!”
“……?”
“……?”
“Would you rather be executed, or would you rather get down?”
“…….”
“We’ll get down, sir!”
Zion leapt onto a nearby card table, affecting the tone of a military drill sergeant.
“On one, drop down and remember: never exploit the poor! On two, come up and vow: let us not hunger for money! Repeat after me, one!”
“Never exploit the poor!”
“Two!”
“Let us not hunger for money!”
They were probably quite humiliated. The thugs who prowled the underworld all staked their lives on pride and face.
They acted as if they were Ritanian or something.
After ordering roughly a hundred push-ups, men began dropping out and retreating.
“Huff. Huff, huff.”
“Men who make their living with their bodies, yet so weak? Cut back on the drinking and smoking from now on.”
That was when it happened.
“May I rise?”
It was Winter Flowering. His face was calm and expressionless—a gambler’s Poker Face.
It was a fair guess that he’d been rolling in gambling dens since early childhood.
“What if I said no?”
“It would be tedious for you. And for someone of your station, I cannot fathom any reason for this beyond mere entertainment.”
“Huh?”
Look at this one.
True to his reputation as the boss of a back alley gang despite his youth, he had considerable nerve.
‘All guesses, though.’
“I also understand why you would carry a Magical Tool that evades detection.”
Winter continued speaking with composure. From an early age, he had thrown himself into gambling dens and seized his current success; he carried the pride of being counted among Deber’s finest gamblers.
“May I ask your name? I have never heard of the Divine Race visiting Deber.”
For Winter, equanimity and Poker Face were more powerful weapons than anything else.
Even now, they shone brilliantly—
“Me? Zion Riobelth.”
The weapon shattered.
The light didn’t shine; it went dark.
“Your Imperial Highness.”
Thump!
Interesting—he’d just gotten up, only to return to position immediately.
This time, he’d dropped to both knees.
‘Of course. Among the Divine Race, an Imperial Prince is in a different league altogether.’
“Please, spare my life. I will do anything you ask.”
For a moment, Zion gazed down at the back of his head, lost in thought.
As to why the Wayfinder’s Ring had reacted to Winter—he had no inkling whatsoever at present.
He might as well keep him close and run some experiments, see if he could analyze it.
“Winter, work as my lackey for a while.”
He offered the proposal to take him on as a subordinate in the worst possible manner.
Since Winter was young and already running the show in the underworld, it was partly to seize the initiative.
He had learned that earning loyalty through coaxing and persuasion was impossible for Zion Riobelth, even if it might have worked for someone else.
As a disgraced prince, it was more efficient to simply bulldoze his way through—the reputation his body had already built would carry the weight anyway.
‘That said, telling him to act like a dog is a bit heavy on the conscience… but if he’s been crawling through back alleys, he’d have to accept it.’
In fact, Winter Flowering felt no offense whatsoever at being told to act like a dog.
“Why would the Divine Race wish to keep a half-breed as a pet?”
“…What?”
I hadn’t put it quite that harshly.
But from the way he spoke, it seemed he genuinely wasn’t offended at all.
“If you keep someone worthless like me at your side, your natural…”
‘Huh?!’
“…nobility will surely be tarnished…”
I cut him off.
“Winter Flowering. Silence.”
Damn. Too late. It was already gone.
But I’d seen it clearly.
A certain scene that had flickered past in an instant.
‘Today’s been nothing but inexplicable nonsense.’
The figure in that scene—I knew him.
Without thinking, I muttered his name aloud.
“Remiconing…”
One of the ten traitors who sold Deber to the Empire.
Marquis Remiconing, specifically one of the five known as the Five Palace Enemies.
‘Why would I suddenly see his phantom?’
In that very instant.
Winter Flowering’s eyes snapped open and he cried out.
“Everyone out!”
“Boss?”
“What’s wrong all of a sudden?”
“I said out. Don’t come back in until I call for you.”
After his subordinates shuffled out hesitantly, Winter Flowering asked quietly.
“How did you know?”
…I still didn’t know myself.
For now, I bluffed.
“Want to know?”
“Of course. Even Remiconing himself doesn’t know.”
“If you want to know, show me your hand.”
His face flushed crimson in an instant. His forearm rose reflexively, barely restrained.
“What is that hand?”
“Ah!”
Winter Flowering startled back to awareness and stretched.
“It’s just my body stiffening from tension. Ha ha ha… I never imagined the prince would know who my father is.”
Ah. So it was his father.
His father?
“You bastard. So you’re a traitor’s son?”
Winter Flowering’s gaze grew strange.
“Well, setting aside the fact that we don’t exactly have a harmonious father-son relationship… what word would be appropriate for the Empire’s prince to use…?”
Oops.
Change the subject. Change the subject.
“Winter Flowering. If you don’t swear your loyalty right now, this prince is going to the Governor’s Office.”
“…”
“And you’ll naturally ask why this prince is suddenly going there.”
“…Why are you going, sir?”
I smiled spitefully.
“To report illegal gambling.”
Winter Flowering let out an unwilling sigh.
“I’m joking. I’ll swear loyalty. This prince has no reason to hold crimes against you.”
‘You roll around in filthy places and live filthily, but you too are a citizen of Deber.’
Meanwhile.
Winter Flowering’s inner thoughts were hopelessly tangled.
‘This prince… he’s the type who’s resolved to live his life completely recklessly, as he pleases.’
There was no way to grasp the thread of this conversation.
Winter had thrown himself into gambling at a young age, making it his habit to calculate every exchange, to read the depths beneath every surface. It was the bedrock of how he moved through the world.
That was precisely why Zion’s words and deeds—the chasm between outer mask and inner truth—stood in such sharp opposition to him.
‘Is everything I’m seeing pure performance? Or rather… is it a bluff designed to make me feel that way?’
So misunderstandings accumulated.
‘A spoiled noble brat learns sense quick enough once his house crumbles.’
The Ninth Prince was a wastrel abandoned even by the Imperial Family, or so the court whispered. That he’d grown into such an incorrigible wreck despite his antics meant he had a sturdy pillar of support behind him, someone willing to catch him no matter how far he fell.
At least, that was how Winter understood such things.
Lose that backing, and any man’s manner would shift.
‘Unless… could it be? Has he been hiding his true self all along beneath the wastrel’s reputation?’
The misunderstanding had piled high, yet it had stumbled onto the truth regardless.
“…Your Highness.”
“Well? Have you made up your mind?”
Winter had seized the tone of the exchange.
‘If you know who my father is, then you’d know what I think of him too, Your Highness.’
And yet here he came alone, threatening him outright?
It meant the carrot was waiting on the other end of the stick—tender meat for a dog to chase.
But that was precisely why he had to gamble, even against a prince.
Winter knew exactly what meat he was hungry for.
A judgment befitting a man who numbered among Deber’s finest gamblers—perhaps the finest.
“You’re telling me to abandon everything I’ve built and become Your Highness’s lapdog? Fine. Beautiful. But I have to ask: what exactly changes for me if I stake my life on you?”
A bet placed with the confidence of a man who knew his worth.
It was Winter’s best move.
But then.
“Nothing changes.”
“…What?”
“Don’t stake anything. Don’t stake your life—I don’t need it. Just serve until I tell you to stop.”
“……”
“Once I don’t need you anymore, I’ll let you go clean. That’s no lie.”
He meant it. Once he understood why the Wayfinder’s Ring had responded, he’d cast Winter out immediately.
“So we’re agreed on service, then? Start with dinner. Go make something to eat.”
“……”
Winter stood rigid for a long moment before he finally forced words out.
“Food preparations… I fear humble fare may not suit Your Highness’s palate.”
“When you’re broke, you eat what you can get.”
Winter’s ears nearly deceived him.
“No sugar? Hey, you lot! His Highness is out of sweets—go buy some chocolate!”
Chocolate, by the way, was a luxury import that had only recently begun arriving from the distant lands of the other races.
An effort, in his own way, to accommodate the prince’s refined tastes.
“Wait, chocolate? I said we’re broke.”
“Broke. You… you actually said broke, didn’t you? I heard that right? His Highness can actually be broke?”
Zion grinned.
‘Smart that I didn’t go straight to the Governor’s Office, wasn’t it?’
If Winter was reacting like this, the high officials would’ve been far worse.
“I caused trouble and got exiled. Prince title revoked, entire fortune seized. All I have is one travel bag and the clothes on my back.”
Winter had spent more than half his life as a gambler, and Poker Face was as native to him as breathing.
Yet even he flared his nostrils now, raw emotion spilling out.
There had been exactly two moments in his life when he’d experienced genuine shock.
The day he learned who his father was, and now.
“Had I even polished Your Highness up proper, you still couldn’t have presented yourself to the Governor’s Office, could you? With nothing to your name.”
“Your tone is remarkably disrespectful, but your face is funny enough I’ll allow it.”
“…Hhhhh. I shall prepare a meal at once.”
Winter scratched his head vigorously, then let his gaze settle on Zion as he continued.
“Call it a leash if you will, but since I’ve already grasped the other end—or rather, been grasped by it—I’d like to do this properly. Could you stay quiet for a few days?”
“Hmm.”
Thrummmmm.
‘Does this mean the current result is the right path?’
A vibration from his finger. Zion’s mouth quirked upward.
“Then so be it, Winter Flowering. But know this: if my days are wasted on you, there will be a price to pay.”
And as he finished speaking, a thought crystallized within him.
He needed to understand why the Wayfinder’s Ring had reacted—as soon as possible.
* * *
When I first decided to choose exile to Deber, the plan looked nothing like it does now.
I hadn’t considered the confiscation of my entire fortune, or the revocation of my imperial prince status.
‘Though my standing as a direct-line Divine Race remains… to use it properly, I need at least minimal dignity and justification.’
The problem is that “minimal” has a different meaning when you’re Divine Race.
Take Winter alone—he clearly thought a member of the Divine Race should spend at least the cost of a fine meal and a night at a luxury hotel without blinking.
“The best money-making method I know is shaking down the scum of the underworld… but the question is when I’d ever have that kind of capital to throw around.”
Earning it myself would damage my standing—the Divine Race doesn’t work. Borrowing it means I have nowhere to turn.
Reaching out to the Governor’s Office would be handing the First Prince my weaknesses on a platter.
If I still had Zion Blidje’s strength, I could at least rob a precious metals transport train. But this body’s Magical Grade is too low for that.
“Damn. With money, I could move mountains. But getting that first piece in place… it’s brutally difficult.”
I can stay in this gambling den for a few days at most—a week and a half at the stretch.
‘This is no place to linger. And Winter’s not someone I can trust anyway.’
Zion’s assessment of Winter Flowering was clinical.
A perfectly healthy man content to gamble in back alleys.
Young enough to have earned boss status through sheer nerve, but that’s all he has.
So the ring must have been reacting to bloodline—that was what I thought.
To the blood of Marquis Remiconing in the scene the ring had shown me.
‘Or so I believed…’
Perhaps not.
Thud! Clink-clink-clink!
“Your Highness, I’ve secured the capital.”
……
The heavy pouch Winter set down.
To anyone’s eye, it was stuffed with gold coins, jingling at every movement. A receipt of sorts was tied to the knot sealing the opening.
But the amount written on it… I blinked, wondering if my eyes were deceiving me.
Had I miscounted the zeros?
“Your Highness?”
If the first digit was a 5 and there were six zeros…
Ah. I counted correctly.
“You won half a million Luon in one night?”
“Pardon? After expenses, a clean five million Luon, sir.”
…I’d counted right the first time.
I was at a loss for words.
Truly.
“Five… million Luon?”
‘That’s a respectable manor. He’s claiming he won a fortune like that in a single night—am I supposed to just believe it?’
The problem was the evidence sitting right in front of me.
A pouch of gold coins, shifting and jingling on its own.
“When barely a day has passed, how?”
“Word of your exile has been circulating quietly through the upper circles, Your Highness.”
“And?”
“There exists a VIP casino lounge accessible only to the highest echelons—one where entry costs roughly the price of a luxury automobile.”
“But?”
“That’s all there is to it. I posed as a gambler in your employ and walked in, then cleaned them out.”
“…I already knew your skill at cards was exceptional. But how did you manage proxy gambling without my authorization?”
Winter slipped something toward me. A lavishly decorated golden identification plate.
‘When did he take that?’
Divine Race bloodlines are strictly managed at the Imperial level.
Pure-blooded Divine Race, for instance, receive identification plates stamped with the Imperial seal. Naturally, I as a prince carried such a Divine Blood Identification Plate.
That Divine Blood Identification Plate, Winter had just produced.
“The hand is faster than the eye. Well used, I’d say.”
I took the plate from him, studying him intently.
‘I was locked away analyzing the ring for days. He must have lifted it from my quarters.’
Look at this bastard.
When you adopt an adult dog instead of a puppy, it tests your hierarchy—the way a grown dog will.
There’s this sense of them prodding boundaries, sounding you out through subtle probing.
If you don’t establish firm control from the start, you’ll pay for it for years to come.
“Will you rebuke me, sir?”
I closed my mouth and looked down at the plate in my hand.
To be precise, the Wayfinder’s Ring.
“Wait? Bwahahaha!”
He lunged toward the sack of gold coins and fumbled frantically at the opening knot.
A heap of gold coins—the sight of them was genuinely blinding.
Glittering. Absolutely glittering.
“I’m rich now! Bwahahaha!”
He grabbed a fistful of coins and scattered them into the air.
It was just a room anyway, so they wouldn’t fly far.
He tossed another handful.
“Winter, you bastard—if you had a plan like this, you should’ve just asked! You should’ve taken me along!”
Winter was the one caught off guard by Zion’s reaction. Rather than scolding him, he was far too delighted.
“Your Highness… do compose yourself. Anyone would think you’d never seen gold coins before.”
“I haven’t, not this much.”
“Pardon? You’re a crown prince. How does that make sense?”
Well, in essence he was the crown prince of a fallen kingdom!
“I’d assumed five million luon or so was merely a month’s allowance for maintaining appearances—I didn’t realize Your Highness was so frugal.”
Now Zion’s eyes went wide as saucers.
The Third Prince had seized his entire fortune?
Wait.
All assets confiscated—that bastard, the Third Prince!
“Winter, Advisor. Or rather, Winter, Butler? In any case, congratulations. I’m promoting you to my right hand.”
Winter’s expression shifted instantly.
Beneath the shock, a thin smile emerged—a smirk.
“Don’t make that face. I haven’t gone back on my word. I’ve simply shifted strategy.”
“I understand.”
Winter continued in his flat voice.
“Those of high station often do such things before their inferiors.”
The reason was simple.
The higher one rose, the less one saw those below as human.
Marquis Remiconing—who had abandoned his mother without hesitation the moment she became pregnant—was proof of that.
“Enough. How could a mere cur ever become a crown prince’s right hand?”
“What’s wrong with that? A doomed prince’s right hand being a dog?”
……
Winter opened his mouth, then closed it again.
An answer that slipped out so naturally. One he could never have anticipated.
“Are you in earnest?”
“Mm? Yeah.”
A doomed prince and a dog—they did suit each other well.
Though no other prince would ever think such a thing.
It was nothing much, but for that very reason it resonated deep in his chest.
“A pet should be precious and beloved, no matter what. Whenever I see someone sneering about pure breeds or mutts, I want to hit them.”
……
Winter fell silent for a while, rolling a coin between his fingers inside his pocket.
An old habit, ingrained somewhere along the way.
‘Pure and mixed the same… surely those words didn’t just come from a prince’s mouth.’
“Don’t you like being an advisor? Would you rather just be a dog?”
“No.”
His lips curved upward in a thin smile. Ambition kindled in his eyes.
“I shall gladly serve the greatest among the Divine Race.”
He’d been offered the position of advisor, but his master was a crown prince.
He could be discarded without a moment’s hesitation whenever they tired of him.
And the prince held the secret of his birth—a weakness that bound him completely.
‘So I’ll prove myself, again and again.’
“Please, give me your orders. I shall do all in my power to serve you well.”
“Then shall we go buy a car first?”
……?
It went without saying that mana-powered automobiles were frighteningly expensive.
Being products of cutting-edge technology, even the base models exceeded the cost of a decent house.
“I rode in a car the other day and it was comfortable and impressive and wonderful. I think I should get one—foreign make, preferably a dwarf-crafted model.”
……
“I should buy some clothes. Get some jewelry too. Hmm. What else? Oh, right. Some wine that costs a house per bottle. Hehehehe.”
Scratch that. It costs dozens of houses.
Five million Luon might not even cover it.
“Your Highness.”
“Hmm?”
“Before I brought in the money, weren’t you completely broke?”
“That’s true.”
“So the moment you have money, the first thing you want to do is indulge in luxury?”
Zion’s expression hardened.
“Luxury? I assure you, I’ve no personal taste for excess. It’s simply that this prince has a constant duty to maintain dignity.”
…….
It was an answer untainted by even a shred of falsehood.
Yet Winter remained silent.
Of course, Zion paid no mind and issued another command.
“As it happens, I know a resourceful merchant when it comes to luxury goods. There’s a Baroness Krayna—go find her.”
A single thought bloomed unbidden in Winter’s inner mind.
He knows nothing about anything else, yet he remembers the name of a luxury merchant by heart?
For a moment he’d been fooled by the unexpected behavior, but the prince before him was indeed the Empire’s worst degenerate.
‘Sigh. If I’m going to coax and cajole while supporting him, I’ll be sweating for quite some time.’
But what choice did he have? He’d already made up his mind, and the flame of ambition was already burning.
“……I shall serve you. Yet I must humbly ask that you spare a moment to consider the money I earned through hardship before you spend it.”
“Now, now. The way you speak, it sounds like this prince squanders money on frivolous things.”
To say it once more: Zion Blije did not enjoy luxury.
Though now that this body belonged to him, he would have to learn to indulge for the sake of playing the Divine Race, but certainly not now.
There was another reason for seeking out Baroness Krayna.
‘I told you, Madame. That I would come shopping at your gallery.’

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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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