Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 77

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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 77
Robin’s voice calling for his sister must have carried all the way into the building.
“Robin, where have you been?”
A girl who looked about twelve years old suddenly burst out and shouted.
‘Is this the sister Robin mentioned?’
She seemed awfully young to be a guardian for a seven-year-old.
I dismounted from my horse and observed the two children with belated interest.
More children of similar age to Robin filed out from behind the girl, who stood with her hands on her hips.
“Where did you go?”
“We looked for you for ages.”
“Yeah, you’ve been gone since this morning.”
“You’re supposed to tell your sister before you go anywhere.”
“If I’m not around, you have to tell someone else, Robin. You understand?”
The children who had appeared stood with their hands on their hips like the girl and peppered Robin with questions.
“Look, wait—I was just over in the woods.”
Cowed by the endless stream of scolding, Robin mumbled his way through an explanation.
Surprisingly, Robin’s pickpocketing seemed to have been entirely his own doing.
Robin glanced slightly toward Everett and me, the ones who knew the truth.
When we showed no sign of interfering, he seemed reassured and pushed out his thin belly, pressing the lie further.
“I said I was going out to find something to eat this morning.”
“Who heard you say that?”
Robin’s sister narrowed her eyes suspiciously and looked around at the others.
But among the more than twenty children present, not a single one reacted.
Robin flinched and hurried to add an explanation.
“I told Nancy.”
“What? Me?”
So Robin’s sister was named Nancy.
Nancy tilted her head as if hearing this for the first time.
“I must have been sleeping. I didn’t hear you.”
Robin spoke rapidly while avoiding Nancy’s eyes.
‘He deliberately told only the sleeping one before sneaking out.’
I could see right through Robin’s scheme.
It was as flimsy as you’d expect from a seven-year-old’s mind.
“That doesn’t count if I’m not awake to hear it, you little brat!”
Robin’s response only made Nancy angrier; she stamped her foot and shouted.
Robin backpedaled, afraid Nancy might come after him and give him a beating.
Once he had put some distance between them, he seemed to find his courage and shouted back.
“But I did tell you I was going!”
‘This won’t do.’
I decided to intervene to cut short this exchange that threatened to stretch on indefinitely.
“Hello there.”
I stepped forward a few paces and greeted them loudly, drawing all the children’s eyes to me.
“Robin, come here.”
When a stranger appeared, Nancy called Robin over without taking her eyes off me.
She looked like a slightly larger chick protecting its smaller siblings.
“Oh, okay.”
At Nancy’s serious call, Robin shuffled over to join the group of children.
He kept glancing back at us every few steps.
“Who are you?”
Once she was confident Robin was far enough away, Nancy asked me with guarded eyes.
Several answers flashed through my mind, ranging from the philosophical to internet memes.
“I’m Lina.”
What came out was a simple, straightforward answer.
I smiled as brightly as I could, but Nancy remained wary.
‘She’s been taught well how to behave with strangers.’
“We came to try to help you all.”
“Are you a patron?”
‘Anyone who provides support is a patron, technically.’
Even if my real purpose was to investigate corrupt priests.
“Yes.”
At that, Nancy’s wariness finally eased.
“Would you like us to take you to the Temple?”
“Actually, we’d like to see the Orphanage first.”
Everett answered Nancy’s question.
When the large man with his expression coldly set advanced toward her, Nancy startled and flinched.
From Robin to Nancy.
To most people’s eyes, Everett’s face would look quite handsome.
But to the children’s eyes, he seemed frightening.
Wariness flickered back into Nancy’s gaze.
“The Orphanage?”
It was customary for patrons to receive honeyed praise from the priests, sign patronage agreements, and only then make a brief stop at the Orphanage.
Nancy’s confused reaction didn’t seem excessive.
I tapped Everett’s arm.
When Everett turned to look at me, I mouthed silently while smiling brightly.
‘Smile a little.’
Everett interpreted my lip-reading and raised the corners of his mouth in a smile.
Even that small gesture softened his cold demeanor considerably.
It was a smile like early spring flowers blooming on a snowy mountain.
Nancy’s cheeks flushed slightly.
“Oh, yes, please come in.”
The question of why a patron would want to see the Orphanage first seemed to vanish entirely.
‘The handsome man effect works on children too.’
Nancy quickly recovered her composure and led us into the Orphanage with a gracious, mature smile.
“There’s not much to see, but…”
“Please come in.”
The Orphanage children echoed Nancy’s words in unison as they gathered around us and walked together.
Everett and I stepped inside, examining the condition of the Orphanage building as we went.
The interior was far worse than what we could see from outside.
The room where the children slept contained only a few moldy blankets scattered across the floor.
The food stores in the kitchen were woefully inadequate to feed more than twenty children.
And on top of that, the food was spoiled.
‘Sprouted potatoes shriveled with age and vegetables wilted beyond recognition.’
The stone walls were cracked in places, and the wooden structure, long neglected, seemed to be actively rotting.
‘So they only touched up the parts visible to the public eye.’
Beyond the trees, the Temple building was visible—old but well-maintained.
The original work had identified this as the Empire’s worst Orphanage, the place where Ibeta spent her childhood, so it was hard to imagine anywhere worse than this.
After surveying the small Orphanage, I whispered to Everett, speaking with the last shred of my rational judgment.
“The Blue Hawk was planning to start cleaning up the Temple soon anyway. What do you think about starting right here?”
We had already collected sufficient evidence of the Temple’s wrongdoing.
We were simply waiting for the right moment to seize upon a pretext.
No matter how well-founded the Blue Hawk’s plans to reform the Temple, my personally conducting an inspection would be a clear overreach of authority.
But I didn’t want to leave these children here for even the few days it would take for reports to reach the Emperor and gain his approval.
Fortunately, Everett seemed to be of the same mind.
“I think it’s perfectly justified.”
Everett smiled with a dangerous edge.
As if he might end several lives on the way.
“Exactly?”
But this time, I had no intention of stopping him.
* * *
There was no need to delay. We headed straight for the Temple.
It was a small temple with only two resident priests.
By some blessing of Minos, both happened to be inside the Temple at that moment.
The priests, thinking visitors had come to pray, came out to greet us but grew terrified the moment they saw Everett drawing his sword.
“W-what is the meaning of this?”
“This is a temple. Please sheathe your blade.”
Everett did sheathe his sword.
After subduing the priests in an instant.
He knocked the priests unconscious, bound them, and tossed them carelessly into a corner.
“The underground dungeons of Peram Territory might have space.”
“Wouldn’t the Imperial Palace dungeons be more suitable?”
“Those have plenty of room.”
We made grimly mundane conversation as we searched the Temple for incriminating evidence.
“These people didn’t even bother trying to hide things.”
A ledger recording the Temple’s subsidies was sitting right in the head priest’s desk drawer.
Even a cursory glance made it clear these priests were too incompetent to even keep a double set of books.
Their embezzlement of the subsidies was recorded plainly and transparently.
‘In a sense, they’re transparent. Very transparent indeed.’
Whether a villain was clever or stupid, there was always something to be angry about.
I clicked my tongue and resumed my search.
A list of bribed officials turned up in the gap between bookshelf and wall.
Behind a framed religious image, we found debt records showing the head priest had been living beyond his means.
‘Hiding things between books and behind pictures—not exactly inspired.’
Once we had collected the evidence easily, we left the Temple with the unconscious priests in tow.
Was it the blessing of Minos, or a trick of fate?
The entire affair flowed as smoothly as water downstream.
‘Must be my lucky day.’

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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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