This Emperor Is Running a Marriage Scam - Chapter 206

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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 206

Two in the morning.
High Priest Meltears paced the Audience Chamber with anxious steps, candlelight flickering in the stillness. When he heard a soft knock, he hurried to the door and opened it with care.
The two figures standing outside drew back their robes’ hoods in unison.
They were Anna and Duke Roan.
“I’ve been expecting you.”
Meltears bowed respectfully and stepped aside. Anna settled into the sofa’s highest seat, with Duke Roan taking the place to her left.
Meltears sat carefully on the sofa to Anna’s right, studying the pair’s expressions.
Both looked terribly worn. They seemed hollow-eyed from sleeplessness.
Things had taken this turn ever since Bloden had personally settled the matter between Duke Utra and the Otix Kingdom.
Though each had attempted damage control from their respective positions, the incident had been so severe that mere containment was the best they could hope for.
Meltears swallowed a deep sigh and asked carefully.
“How stands the situation? Should the Clergy prepare as well?”
He had named no one, but both Anna and Duke Roan understood what Meltears was asking.
Depending on how much Duke Utra revealed—and how far—the backlash could be devastating.
Leaning back against the sofa, Anna exhaled her answer as a sigh.
.
.
.
These past weeks had been nothing short of hell for Anna.
Duke Utra, Baron Aer, and everyone connected to them.
It was fortunate she’d been careful to leave no evidence. But if she slipped even once during interrogation, giving them the slightest opening, what would follow was unforeseeable.
The single mercy was that Bloden was still a minor and therefore barred from conducting state affairs.
Even though Bloden had raided the scene and brought Duke Utra in with evidence in hand, all subsequent procedures had to pass through Anna’s hands.
So she had spoken to Bloden as if offering counsel.

‘Your Majesty, mercy has no place for those who betray the Empire. I shall thoroughly investigate Duke Utra according to Imperial Law and deliver punishment befitting his crimes.’

Bloden had nodded, though he could not hide his displeasure.
At that reaction, Anna felt cold sweat run down her spine for the first time.
Someone who had caught wind of the Foreign Exchange Attempt and gone to the scene himself to arrest Duke Utra—it was possible Bloden knew far more than she’d thought, perhaps even her true intentions.
Moreover, he had deployed so many commanders, yet there was no sign of injury.
What these facts suggested was unmistakable.
She had less than a year left to rule as Regent.
The moment Bloden came of age, he would reclaim his throne, and the nobles who had stood beside Anna would pledge their loyalty to him—a man of overwhelming power.
When that happened, everything Anna had done to maintain her authority could reach Bloden’s ears.
To prevent this, she had to be the first to position herself on Bloden’s side.
That way, the nobles who saw loyalty to the Regent as loyalty to the Emperor would not dare speak carelessly.

‘Should you require any measures regarding this matter, please command freely. This Regent shall spare no effort to accomplish whatever Your Majesty desires, in full accordance with Imperial Law.’

Bloden sighed through his nose and spoke several directives to Anna.

‘First, the restoration of the Frediki Family’s status and honor; the revocation of titles from Duke Utra and Baron Aer; the complete elimination of the Utra Family save for Lora; the renaming of Utra Territory and its incorporation into the House of Enox.’

Bloden’s instructions favored a dramatic increase in the House of Enox’s influence, which displeased Anna greatly.
Yet as if that weren’t enough, Bloden went on to mention granting posthumous rank to Lord Frediki and recognizing his son Kyle’s succession.

‘Baron Aer’s domain should be granted to the Frediki Family. It borders Frediki Village conveniently.’

No matter how she considered it, the rewards seemed excessive.
Still, she had no choice but to grant them now. The slightest objection to Bloden’s words would make it appear she was protecting Duke Utra.
That would be excellent fodder for the nobles who despised her. The moment they sensed the truth, they would descend on Anna and her allies, tearing them apart without hesitation.

‘Yes, it shall all be done as you command. Leave it to me.’

After that, Anna had employed every method at her disposal.
She tightened control over the Imperial Palace Prison to block any avenue the condemned might use through his connections to escape, strictly limited visitation rights, and replaced the guards and interrogators.
And they mixed a sedative into the food provided to the key detainees, including Duke Utra and Baron Aer.
According to Imperial Law, if criminals became so paralyzed by terror that interrogation became impossible, a reasonable dose of sedative could be prescribed to allay their anxiety.
However, the amount actually administered to Duke Utra and Baron Aer was several times greater than what was written in the prescription.
An overdose of sedative wouldn’t kill a person, but it would cloud their mind. They would be incapable of making a coherent statement until their execution.
If we dragged things out a little longer and then executed them all, we could wrap this whole affair up without a single spark landing on me or House of Roan.
So busy managing all that—day and night without rest. But yesterday, Bloden returned from somewhere with a cold expression and issued a command.

‘Ah, I forgot one thing. Those wretches need to die too. Right.’
‘……I beg your pardon?’
‘Tell the King of Otix to come crawling at once and bow his head, then choose between destruction and becoming a vassal state. Give him exactly one month.’

Whether from anger or not, Bloden’s tone was rough, unlike his usual manner.
But this wasn’t the first time Bloden had spoken with such harshness. Anna recalled him using this tone before and tried to dissuade him.

‘But… destruction? Your Majesty, while the Otix Kingdom is certainly troublesome, we may be heard to say the Empire’s hand is cruel.’
‘Have you already forgotten? If anyone starts spouting such nonsense, I told you to drag them before me, didn’t I?’

Bloden’s red eyes gleamed coldly as he displayed an arrogant smirk.

‘I need to set a proper example of what happens when someone harbors disrespectful thoughts toward me.’

The moment their gazes locked directly, Anna felt a chill run down her spine—she couldn’t move. It sounded as though that warning was directed at her.
By this point, Anna had to admit it.
Bloden had changed. He’d become extreme and vicious, and he was no longer a child she could keep tethered to the Northern Region with a few words and manipulate at will.
.
.
.
‘When he comes of age, he might check my authority. Somehow I have to pull the initiative toward myself.’
As Anna recalled the past and anxiously gnawed at her nails, Meltears’s urging voice was heard.
“The Regent?”
“Ah……”
Then, snapping to attention, Anna exhaled a long sigh.
“This incident cannot be buried. His Majesty’s anger is beyond measure. It’s not something else—we caught him red-handed attempting foreign exchange. The Duke has become a card we must discard.”
Duke Roan, who sighed along with Anna, interlaced his fingers.
“I always thought Duke Utra’s scheme was too rash. Indeed, it has come to ruin.”
Upon hearing that, Meltears made a dry-washing motion with both hands and asked,
“Then what should we do going forward?”
Anna furrowed her brow in silence, then clicked her tongue as though having no choice.
“It’s not as though there’s no way at all. Where is the Saint?”

* * *

After finishing breakfast, Nelloa walked the promenade of the High Priest’s Temple and, observing Clark’s face as he followed at a slight distance behind her, sighed.
“Clark, take heart.”
Clark, whose shoulders sagged, had been looking as though he bore the weight of death every single day recently.
Small wonder.
After betraying Kyle’s location, Clark had been undergoing the formal process of being recognized as a member of the Utra Family.
But when only the final step remained, the blade of destruction fell upon the family.
After learning through media contacts that the entire Utra Family would be executed, Clark hastily halted the process and immediately discarded the family name.
The very next day, members of the Utra Family were arrested en masse. He had barely escaped disaster by a hairsbreadth.
But there was nothing to be done about the sense of loss from letting go of something he had so desperately wished for, and so he now stood in that dazed state.
At the sight of Clark exhaling a deep sigh even in response to her comfort, Nelloa pouted her lips and recalled the original work.
In the original, there were frequent mentions of the Otix Kingdom attacking and the Duke repelling them. Later, Bloden even personally led troops into battle.
‘But it was barely a single line of text. Moreover, there was no mention of it being a staged incident… How did things come to this?’
No matter how much she thought about it, the truth remained unknowable. But given how things had twisted, there was only one place to direct her suspicion.
The transmigrator’s interference with the original plot.
‘Hailey—she would know the original too, so she must have made her own moves, right?’
The more she thought about it, the more it seemed likely.
The motive was clear.
The entire Empire was abuzz with talk of Saint Nelloa, and she was even being mentioned as a candidate for Empress, so it made sense that Hailey would spark a bigger issue to pour cold water on that fervor.
Nelloa, inwardly convinced, ground her teeth together.
‘Damn her. How am I supposed to deal with that abomination?’
Just then Clark stopped in his tracks.
His eyes widened as he stared ahead, and Nelloa turned her gaze in the same direction—only to discover an unexpected sight.
There, standing together, were Anna the Regent and Duke Roan.

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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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