This Emperor Is Running a Marriage Scam - Chapter 221

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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 221

I pressed the seed between my fingers.
“It’s surprisingly hard—feels almost like stone. But why would numbers be written on it?”
I muttered the question aloud before asking the maid directly.
“What about the other one you found?”
Bloden glanced over my shoulder at the numbered seed, and at his reaction the maid tensed visibly, lowering her head before answering.
“You’d have to go to the room to see it.”
“You’d have to go to the room?”
“Yes, sir. A small hole has appeared in the guest room—it glows a deep blue.”
“What?”
Incredible as it seemed, based on the maid’s description, that hole was a Derivative Gate.
“How did such a thing appear inside a room?”
“Take us to that room. Now.”
I followed Bloden’s grave command, bewildered as I was, while the maid led us down the corridor.
“When I first discovered it while cleaning, I thought it was just a large stain.”
She explained how, unable to reach it directly, she’d used tongs to grab a cloth and scrub at it—and received quite a shock.
“The cloth just vanished through it, which is when I realized it wasn’t a stain at all, but an actual hole. Though when I checked the ceiling of the room below, I couldn’t see it from that side.”
The maid pointed beneath the bed.
“The hole is there, under that bed. I found the stone seed with numbers written on it near the dressing table.”
Bloden called for Camen and had him move the bed aside.
And there it was—a genuine Derivative Gate, now fully revealed.
“This is impossible. How could this be inside a—”
Bloden exhaled sharply and immediately summoned Black Libia.
“Bring Raven at once. And search the entire manor immediately for any other Derivative Gates.”
“Acknowledged. Your Majesty’s command. Black Libia.”
Black Libia bowed formally and vanished before my eyes. Less than thirty seconds later, Raven came rushing in.
“Your Majesty! A Derivative Gate inside the manor? Did I hear correctly?”
“You did. What of the count and his knights?”
“Upon receiving Black Libia’s message, I had them all secured and put to bed immediately.”
Raven examined the Derivative Gate and gasped in shock.
“Good heavens. This is the first impossible situation of this kind I’ve ever encountered.”
He then took the stone seed marked with 128 from me and began to study it carefully.
“I’ve never seen anything like this either. It looks like a seed, but it’s stone. What possible function could it serve?”
So it really was stone.
Bloden and Raven began to speak in low voices, speculating on the connection between the stone seed and the gate.
I was trying to recall if numbered stone seeds had ever been mentioned in the original work, when the maid, who had been watching nervously from the corner, approached me with fear etched into her features and whispered her question.
“Is that… is that really a Derivative Gate? The kind that monsters come through?”
“It appears so. Do you know when it first appeared?”
“Last night, or this morning. I clean this room every day, so I would have noticed.”
“I see. Has anyone been staying here in the past few days?”
“The Princess. She was here until yesterday.”
…….
In that moment, the harsh words I’d almost said to Nelloa came flooding back to me.

‘Your precious ability… wasn’t it the one that creates gates?’

‘Didn’t Nelloa react rather strongly to that?’
Recalling how she’d gone pale, my feelings grew complicated.
There were only two ways to know the location of a gate.
Either you sensed it through an ability, as Nelloa had claimed, or you created it yourself.
‘But the latter… surely not? Creating a gate is far too dangerous.’
No matter how much I disliked Nelloa, this seemed like my imagination running wild.
‘Even if someone had such an ability, they wouldn’t use it, would they? That would be insane.’
Yet I also remembered that the King of Ortix’s ability was related to gates.
‘If that’s the case, then there’s no guarantee that gate-creation abilities don’t exist in this world. And besides, Nelloa was a war criminal.’
That last thought made me wonder if someone like her would truly value human life.
‘Wait—aren’t Meridian and Tillan both overrun with monsters right now?’
At that moment, Raven clutched the stone seed and spoke.
“Still, it’s fortunate we found it early. At this point, I should be able to close it without much trouble.”
Bloden nodded and drew a small dagger, plunging it into the interior of the Gate. As a mysterious force bloomed from his body, faint tremors rippled outward for a moment.
‘Ah, so that’s how you close a Gate.’
That was when it happened.
Crack!
Something burst with a sharp sound from Raven, and blood began dripping steadily from his hand.
“Ah! Raven, are you all right?”
“Hmm, what on earth just happened?”
Raven, his brow furrowed in pain, opened his injured hand. Cradled in his palm—tattered and soaked in blood—lay the shattered remains of a stone seed.
“The moment the Gate closed, it burst apart.”
“I’ll—I’ll fetch the doctor right away!”
The maid, her face drained of color, bolted from the room.
“Oh no. I had no idea it was so dangerous.”
Startled myself, I quickly pressed a handkerchief into Raven’s hands. “Here, take this.”
“Please sit in this chair. Just wait a moment for the doctor to arrive, won’t you?”
“Thank you, but a doctor won’t be necessary.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“There’s no need for ointment or bandages for a wound of this degree.”
Raven’s hand transformed into dark mist, then solidified once more. The stone fragments fell to the floor, and his mangled palm had become pristine, as if it had never been injured at all.
“It’s an extraordinary mercy that His Majesty and Hailey were not holding these.”
The scattered stone fragments on the floor were drawn back to Raven’s hand by the pull of his power, reassembling as though magnetized.
“I shall examine this more thoroughly, but honestly, now that this has happened, I believe I understand the stone’s function.”
Our gazes turned as one toward the closed Gate.
“It looks like it burst when that Gate shut.”
I nodded at Bloden’s observation.
“Perhaps it serves to signal that the Gate is closing.”
At this point, I couldn’t keep back what had been nagging at me.
“Your Majesty, this may be presumptuous, but I have a question.”
“What is it?”
“You said that Kelite destroyed both Meridian and Tillan, and that Nelloa led the effort.”
“That’s right.”
“Both kingdoms are overrun with monsters now. Did those monsters appear before the war, or after? And during that time, did Kelite suffer any demon beast attacks?”
Bloden’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
“The two happened around the same time. As far as I know, Kelite’s army advanced while the others were occupied dealing with the monsters.”
Raven added quietly, “We regarded Kelite as utterly ruthless for taking advantage of another nation’s calamity.”
“But what if that calamity itself was brought about by Nelloa?”
“……What?”
“……Excuse me?”
At this point, I find myself questioning whether Nelloa’s power truly is the ability to discover Gates, or if it might be something else entirely.”
Raven couldn’t hide his shock, pressing his fingers to his brow.
“Good heavens, Hailey. What you’re suggesting is…….”
“I’m well aware this could be nothing more than prejudice born from my dislike of Nelloa. I know it may seem far-fetched. But since she did stay in this room, I believe we ought to investigate properly.”
Bloden’s expression grew solemn as he nodded.
“Even with an ability, I never imagined a person could do such a thing. Yet hearing you speak of it… the possibility doesn’t seem so remote anymore.”
“I share that assessment. After all, whoever creates a Gate would know its location as well.”
“Black Libia.”
At Bloden’s call, Black Libia appeared in an instant and reported.
“Not here. Derivative Gate in Manor.”
“I see.”
Bloden’s crimson eyes grew cold.
“Nelloa Kelite has gone to the Imperial Palace. Kimarise went after her, but you go as well. Find out where that woman is.”

Bloden offered to have me ride Crockel’s back with him.
“It’s fine. I can just take a carriage home.”
Even if the world were on the brink of upheaval, there was little I could practically do about it.
I needed to focus on returning home and managing my skewer stall. Since Nelloa had made off with every scrap of food and ingredient in the house, I had quite a bit to prepare anew.

Not long ago, I’d placed three large earthen pots into my Pocket Dimension Pouch, keeping only what I needed in containers of about two kilograms each, stored in the warehouse.
‘At least the pots themselves weren’t stolen.’
Still, the loss of the red pepper paste, soybean paste, and soy sauce stung.
‘I shouldn’t have kept them there if I’d known this would happen.’
But Bloden shook his head.
“Close the shop for now. I’d like you to come with me. I need to head to Kelite.”
“……What?”
Why would I need to go to Kelite?
“I’ll be moving quickly, and there’s no one here to protect you. I can’t travel with peace of mind if I leave you behind.”

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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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