This Emperor Is Running a Marriage Scam - Chapter 118

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

Chapter 118

The disappointed customers departed one by one, already anticipating the next sale day.
As I saw off the passengers and tidied the stall, Kimarise, who had been observing the departing crowd’s mood, spoke to me.
“Hailey, you’ve worked hard making all of this. Why don’t you go inside and rest first?”
“Hmm?”
“I’ll take care of the cleanup.”
I should have declined, but his offer was genuinely tempting.
In truth, since I’d resumed the business after so long, I’d made far more skewers than before. As a result, my entire body ached with muscle soreness.
“Go on, Nuna.”
Baron gave my back a gentle push.
“You look exhausted. Go inside and rest. Get some sleep if you can.”
Kimarise, whose eyes met mine, smiled warmly. Behind his mask, his gaze held genuine consideration.
“Thank you. I’ll rest for a bit then.”
After excusing myself and returning home, I was washing my hands and changing clothes when it happened.
“Ugh, uwaaaaah! What is that?!”
A man’s scream erupted from outside.
“What’s going on?”
I hurriedly finished changing and opened the window to look out. Baron and Kimarise, who should have been clearing the stall, were gazing toward the city.
“Baron, what happened?”
I called out loudly, and Baron answered just as loudly.
“Nothing serious. Sea lice appeared, that’s all.”
“Gasp! The people must have been terrified!”
“It’s fine. Everyone had already left, and there was only one person remaining.”
Kimarise urged me again.
“If any problems arise, I’ll handle them. Please, get some rest.”
True enough—Baron wasn’t alone, and with Kimarise there, I didn’t need to worry.
I closed the window and lay down on the bed. The moment my head touched the pillow, my eyes closed of their own accord.

* * *

“His Majesty will not be receiving audiences today due to his schedule. Additionally, all unauthorized access is strictly prohibited, and any attempt to do so will result in immediate intervention regardless of status. If you have any messages, please convey them through official correspondence.”
Upon hearing the Administrative Official’s announcement, Nelloa realized that an audience was completely out of the question. She decided to move to a different location where she could at least observe Bloden from a distance.
However, the Knights’ protective perimeter was wider than she had anticipated, and the only spots from which she could see Bloden’s face were crowded with Landowners and far too distant from him.
‘Even after moving to the closest available spot, I can only see Bloden’s back.’
Nelloa grumbled inwardly while carefully observing Bloden’s every movement and gesture.
The woman seated beside Bloden—even from behind—was unmistakably Hailey, the organizer of this farewell event.
She couldn’t discern what the two were discussing as they sat side by side across the long table. But they were so close that their shoulders seemed ready to touch at any moment, and Nelloa’s nerves sharpened.
‘Is that girl trying to seduce Bloden?’
The more she thought about it, the more absurd and infuriating it became. She had believed she’d eliminated all her competitors, yet here was someone unexpected appearing out of nowhere.
Just then, Bloden left his seat.
Nelloa felt relieved as she watched most of the Knights withdraw with him. Bloden’s attendance at the event appeared to be purely for the sake of the Orphanage children.
Meanwhile, a question arose in her mind.
‘If Bloden exerted power when closing the Orphanage Gate, he should have definitely weakened.’
Yet both then and now, Bloden appeared perfectly fine.
‘Does he really know how to break the curse?’
If so, she would need to consider a different approach.
After pondering briefly, Nelloa decided to change the keywords from the original work. She couldn’t immediately think of what to change them to, but there had to be a way.

* * *

After the event ended, the moment Nelloa entered her hotel room, an Employee knocked and entered, delivering news of the gate closure schedule and three letters.
One was from Baron Aer, another from the Lady of Lord Snoril. The final letter was from the Kelite Information Guild.
Nelloa sat on the sofa and opened Baron Aer’s letter first. It contained greetings along with quite lengthy contents.

[A package addressed to the Princess has arrived at the Imperial Palace.]

He was requesting that she visit his residence to retrieve it.
Baron Aer didn’t know it, but the package from the Imperial Palace was a copy of Bloden’s age-progression portraits that Nelloa had requested from Anna.
‘Since I’ve already found Bloden, I don’t really need these anymore.’
At best, they would serve as mementos now.
After brief consideration, Nelloa decided to store the portraits carefully in the Royal Palace of Kelite, then opened the Lady of Lord Snoril’s letter.
The Lord still couldn’t move about, but his condition had stabilized somewhat, and his son, who had been studying abroad, was returning to the Domain after abandoning his studies.

[The succession ceremony is scheduled to take place in one month.]

The closing of the update was an invitation to the succession ceremony. Finally, Nelloa opened the Information Guild’s letter.

[We have obtained a portrait of Adelaine Meridian. It is enclosed.]

Nelloa unfolded the paper that had been neatly creased to fit the envelope size, and she was startled. Though the woman in the portrait emanated a fragile atmosphere, her meticulously rendered features were unmistakably Hailey.
‘My instincts were right after all!’
I had thought she was dead, yet here she was, alive and well.
“Did she lose her memory and live so stubbornly that her appearance changed?”
As I recalled Hailey’s words and actions, I furrowed my brow.
“Or did she really possess someone’s body?”
I couldn’t be certain, but truthfully, it didn’t matter if Hailey had read the original work and possessed someone.
“Judging by her actions, she’s trying to become rich by selling tteokbokki, isn’t she?”
The flow was exactly that. So Hailey’s story wasn’t a romance—it was a business management fantasy. Even if it were romance, the male protagonist seemed likely to be Raven from next door.
What bothered me was that Bloden and Hailey had crossed paths twice.
“Don’t tell me the Emperor becomes obsessed with tteokbokki and keeps visiting?”
Thinking this far, I grew even more troubled.
‘Hmm, if this continues… before Bloden and Hailey meet again, should I just kill Hailey quickly?’
It would be easy to hire an assassin and dispose of her immediately.
But Nelloa soon let out a deep sigh. I knew this was no longer possible.
Hailey had recently become a landowner in Snoril’s domain.
Shortly after, she rescued kidnapped children and gained fame throughout the domain by selling tteokbokki and helping orphans. Even the Emperor knew of her now.
If Hailey were assassinated in this situation, the domain’s people would naturally seek out the culprit.
Even if I covered my tracks perfectly, if anyone let slip a careless word, the matter would spiral beyond control. Then it would become an incident where the Princess of Kelite Kingdom killed a landowner of the Ilpein Empire.
I understood well that this was no different from a declaration of war.
“The risk is too great.”
Telling Anna about Hailey wasn’t a good option either. It would only give Anna another political marriage candidate to replace me.
“Tch, I should have eliminated her when she was an illegal resident.”
Then the ground shook.
Nelloa quickly threw the Derivative Gate seed bag onto the bed and wrapped it tightly with blankets and pillows.
Soon, the sound of the Derivative Gate’s signal stone exploding rang out. Thanks to the blankets covering it, the sound was muffled somewhat.
Nelloa opened the bag after the signal stone burst once more. The two pockets where she had placed the signal stones were torn open, and the bag and blankets were slightly ripped as well.
‘The gates I opened in Snoril are all done now. What should I do? If I approach now, it’ll look desperate.’
As I pondered, a brilliant idea suddenly came to me.
“Ah! That would work.”
I decided to scatter the seeds of the Derivative Gates I would create not in Snoril, but throughout the entire Empire.
‘If I do that, Bloden will travel across the entire Empire, so he won’t meet Hailey again, right?’
Since I could determine Bloden’s approximate location through the pattern of the signal stones bursting, this would be killing two birds with one stone.
‘First, I need to let the world know through Clark how many gates exist in the Empire.’
Since people couldn’t even imagine that gates were man-made, I could simply package it as divine revelation.
‘Then I’ll wait quietly, and when only the last gate remains, I can visit Bloden as if by coincidence.’
In his current state, Bloden would refuse my proposal. But I was confident.
“Kekeke. It’s only a matter of time. Eventually, he’ll have no choice but to listen to me.”
After all, he couldn’t spend his entire life closing gates.
At the same time, I decided how to change the work keywords of the fictional world I lived in.
“Marry first, fall in love later—a saintly heroine. Isn’t that perfect?”

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