This Emperor Is Running a Marriage Scam - Chapter 27

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 27

 

I quickly ran over and pulled Baron into a tight embrace.

 

“Baron, where were you! I was so worried!”

 

Feeling his small body in my arms finally made it real that Baron was safe.

 

Baron’s eyes went wide as he looked up at me.

 

“You were worried about me?”

 

“Of course!”

 

Relief washed over me and the tears I’d been holding back burst forth like a waterfall.

 

“An earthquake happened right while I was foraging. *sob* I rushed back home, but *sniff* you weren’t there and I thought something terrible had happened.”

 

“…Ah. The earthquake.”

 

“I’m sorry, Baron. If I’d known there would be an earthquake, I wouldn’t have gone.”

 

I cupped Baron’s face with both hands and examined him all over.

 

“Are you okay? *sniff* You’re not hurt, are you? You must have been so scared.”

 

“Yeah, I’m fine now. So.”

 

Baron rolled his eyes for a moment before speaking again.

 

“The house was shaking like crazy. I got scared it might collapse so I ran to the village.”

 

Just as I’d expected. Baron was only seven years old – how terrified he must have been all alone.

 

“I ran into Raven who had come outside.”

 

Raven had grabbed a torch and brought Baron back home, saying Hailey would be worried if he wasn’t at the house in the middle of the night.

 

“Thank you, Raven.”

 

“Not at all. It was the natural thing to do. But you seem quite shaken, Miss Hailey. Are you alright?”

 

I nodded my head.

 

“I’m fine since Baron is safe.”

 

Flustered Baron reached out his small hands and wiped away my tears while apologizing.

 

“I’m really, really sorry, Nuna. I didn’t think you’d be this worried…”

 

“No, it’s understandable that you were scared. I’m just so relieved.”

 

Baron didn’t seem to be injured anywhere, but just to be safe I was checking him over when I glanced up and saw Raven’s jaw-dropped expression.

 

‘Why does he look so surprised?’

 

The question didn’t last long.

 

‘…Huh?’

 

Looking down, what I could see peeking out was Baron’s small, cute belly button.

 

That’s when I snapped back to my senses.

 

‘Even if he’s young, I shouldn’t just lift his clothes without permission!’

 

Even though I was his guardian, I wasn’t his mother. I quickly let go of his shirt.

 

“You’re really not hurt anywhere, right?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Baron answered readily and seemed to be in surprisingly good spirits. Fortunately, my worry didn’t seem to be excessive meddling.

 

“Ahem!”

 

Raven cleared his throat and opened the door to the house.

 

“Well, your clothes are wet too, so it would be better to go inside.”

 

I nodded and went into the house with Baron.

 

* * *

 

Pop!

 

“Eek!”

 

Princess Nelloa of Kelite, startled awake by the sudden loud popping sound, tried to get up in a hurry and fell off the bed.

 

“Ugh. Ow ow, my butt hurts.”

 

Nelloa rubbed her sore bottom with her hand and checked the direction the popping sound had come from. It was from the leather bag she’d placed on one side of the dresser so she could see it at any time.

 

‘Really, even if you’re going to burst a gate, doing it suddenly in the middle of the night…’

 

When she opened the lamp cover on the nightstand, light from the crafted small magic stone brightly illuminated the room.

 

Nelloa took out the leather bag and checked its contents.

 

Inside the bag were ten cloth pouches numbered 1 through 10 and one small notebook. But one of the cloth pouches was torn to shreds.

 

“Let’s see.”

 

After confirming that what had been inside the pouch was broken with only fragments remaining, Nelloa checked the numbers embroidered on the other pouches in order.

 

‘The one that burst was seed number 8.’

 

Nelloa took out the small notebook from the bag. When she turned the pages, a folded map appeared with numbers written on it.

 

Soon the corners of Nelloa’s mouth twisted upward.

 

‘Ah, so he’s in Snoril? Then he went to solve the kidnapping case.’

 

Nelloa hummed as she lay back down on the bed. The high, elegant ceiling of the guest bedroom in the Imperial Palace of Ilpein looked particularly beautiful.

 

‘Ha, time seems slow but passes quickly.’

 

It had already been a week since she’d arrived at the Imperial Palace after receiving Anna Beldenburo’s invitation. And it was her tenth year since possessing this body.

 

In other words, it had been ten years since Nelloa began preparing to claim Bloden, the male lead of the novel.

 

‘I’ll finally see his face. His portrait at fifteen was insanely handsome, but what will he look like in person now?’

 

Nelloa recalled the romance fantasy novel she’d read before possessing this body: “This Princess Commits Financial Fraud.”

 

That novel was the story of Princess Robena of the Tillan Kingdom and Emperor Bloden Ilpein, who fought monsters with special abilities.

 

After marrying Bloden, Robena commits large-scale financial fraud against Anna to save her impoverished homeland and flees.

 

Anna is furious when she realizes she’s been scammed. But since it was Robena who committed the fraud, not the Tillan Kingdom, Anna’s protests amount to little more than expressions of regret.

 

The only option was legal action if they caught Robena.

 

And Bloden had his own response.

 

‘If you needed that pittance, you should have just asked.’

 

He compensated Anna for double her losses and brought back the escaped Robena. Then he assigned her duties as empress and put her in charge of all administrative work.

 

For Bloden, who frequently had to go north, Robena was still better than Anna.

 

Honestly, Nelloa couldn’t really understand what part of this novel was supposed to be touching romance.

 

She’d managed to read it to the end, but she couldn’t relate to the enthusiastic reactions of others in the comments, and even looking back, her opinion hadn’t changed.

 

‘Is it exciting because the male lead is rich and handsome?’

 

That would be nice in its own way, but no matter how she looked at it, Bloden seemed to be choosing the lesser evil to avoid the worst.

 

And she had possessed Princess Nelloa in that world.

 

Fortunately, she’d possessed the body at a time when not even the introduction of the novel had begun.

 

‘Then couldn’t I change the original story?’

 

If he was such a wonderful man, someone much cleverer than a fraudster princess would be better.

 

Besides, since Bloden often left his post due to wars, she might even be able to seize real power in the Empire if she played her cards right.

 

As it happened, Tillan where Robena lived and Kelite where Nelloa lived had been at war for a long time. If Robena, a princess of an enemy nation, became empress of the Ilpein Empire, it wouldn’t be good for Kelite either.

 

‘Since we’re at war anyway, let’s change everything while we’re at it.’

 

From this point on, Nelloa decided to eliminate Tillan entirely and looked for a way to do it.

 

That’s when she learned that a demonic ability book that could create derivative gates was sealed away in extreme secrecy in the underground of the Kelite Royal Palace.

 

When the ability was used, seeds that would grow into gates and signal stones were created in pairs, and if the seeds were planted in appropriate locations, derivative gates would form and grow.

 

This secret was passed down orally only to the King and Queen of Kelite and their children. It wasn’t passed down for them to use the ability, but to protect it from evil forces.

 

The royalty of Kelite had traditionally been reluctant to use this ability.

 

They judged that creating derivative gates would cause massive damage rather than benefit the nation.

 

While they could create derivative gates, they couldn’t control the monsters that emerged from them as they wished. They also couldn’t remove the gates.

 

So if the Ilpein Empire learned of this, they obviously wouldn’t leave Kelite alone.

 

Kelite would be destroyed by the Empire’s hands, not by monsters.

 

And Nelloa couldn’t understand the Kelite royalty’s way of thinking.

 

‘Stupid fools. As long as I don’t get caught, it’s fine, right? Of course I should use my abilities. There’s only one known way that Derivative Gates are created. They won’t even suspect it!’

 

Nelloa secretly entered the Royal Palace Underground, broke the seal, and obtained demonic abilities. After that, she successfully used the Gate to throw Tillan into chaos and kill Robena.

 

In the midst of all this, she heard rumors that Princess Adelaine of the neighboring small kingdom of Meridian was extremely beautiful.

 

‘Wait, princes usually marry princesses, right? Then it seems like having just me as the only princess around the male lead’s age would be enough.’

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