Chapter 24
Viante, who had lost his reason, panicked and stuttered his words.
Why was the one who had lost all power and been confined to the tower as punishment for incurring the divine beast’s wrath here?
The man standing before Viante let out a weary voice.
“If we leave it like this, it’ll only become a source of trouble.”
“W-Wait a moment, brother. Just a moment!”
Viante, sensing his own fate, let out an urgent cry.
However, he soon became unable to speak even though he had a mouth.
“Guh, guh….”
With a sword stabbed into his chest, he let out a pained breath. And after a short while, the twitching movements completely stopped.
The man, who had changed Viante’s posture to make it look as if he had taken his own life, opened his mouth.
“Was it a mistake to hand the woman over to Edenver for no reason? I should have just quietly ended it myself; this unnecessarily made things troublesome.”
At that, the small brown fox by his side rubbed its head against him coquettishly.
It was that very fox that had guided him to where the vassal’s wife was.
He stroked the fox’s head and moved his feet.
“Let’s go to the capital.”
“Keng?”
The fox tilted its head as if asking why go there.
In response, the man, shaking off the dust from his golden hair that had become soiled from sneaking into the prison, opened his mouth in a dry tone.
“I need to go help my son.”
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Chapter 3.
The capital, the center of the empire and the focal point of high society, overflowed with all sorts of stimulating rumors.
Like how a certain count’s second son had run off with his brother’s wife, or how a certain baron’s daughter had an affair with her mother’s lover, and so on.
In that place where even the most ordinary rumors couldn’t be chewed over, from some day onward, the three letters ‘Munlepe’s suddenly surged in popularity.
“Again with the Munlepe ducal family talk?”
“Hasn’t that family collapsed yet?”
The nobles with slow news shook their heads.
Because over the past few years, they had chewed, torn, and enjoyed it enough, there was no fresh amusement left.
They had heard the story of the young family head colluding with the imperial family to summon a monster, but that was it.
Seeing that they hadn’t made the summoned monster into a divine beast, the nobles, unaware of the inside story, speculated that they must have failed to control it.
“We saw it coming from the moment they said they’d summon a monster. I wonder if it even understands words.”
“If it failed to control it and got gobbled up in one bite, that would be a bit entertaining.”
No matter how interesting a topic, without change, it becomes boring.
One noble, haughtily fanning himself with a fan, said let’s stop talking about that ruined family.
In response, the noble who had first brought up Munlepe raised his voice.
“Oh come on. How do you all manage to stay here with such slow news? There was a civil war in Munlepe!”
Civil war? At the sudden word, everyone’s eyes in the room widened in surprise.
A noble who had taken some bribes from Viante keenly grasped the situation.
“Viante has finally started something. But since there’s no word of the family head changing, it looks like it failed.”
“That’s right. You know that monster the Munlepe duke summoned? They say that monster fought off hundreds of knights all by itself and stopped the rebellion.”
Rumors inflate the farther they spread from the source.
It was the moment when vassals and holy beasts turned into hundreds of knights.
The surprised nobles’ eyes all grew even wider. The noble spreading the false rumor continued to chatter.
“The moment he saw the knights spread out in front of the castle gate, the Munlepe duke said this: ‘Go, my faithful divine beast. Go and drive off the enemies and seize victory.’ In response, the monster rushed in without a word and annihilated the knights, they say.”
“Good heavens….”
“Such….”
At the story so fairy-tale-like, the nobles narrowed their eyes, trying to discern how much was true.
One among them muttered.
“If it’s a monster that strong, why didn’t they make it a divine beast sooner?”
“Now that I think about it, wasn’t it to lure Viante into complacency?”
After saying that much, the nobles flushed red in the face.
It wasn’t something to call Viante foolish for.
Hadn’t they themselves been looking down on Munrepe and letting their guard down?
“We’ve been too complacent.”
“We need to look into it properly now.”
Soon, the big players in high society moved. The information about Asil, which had been shrouded in veils, spread in an instant.
“They say it breathed fire without any magic tools.”
“They say it smashed an orihalcon gate with its bare hands?”
“They say it always carries a rabbit around as emergency rations.”
Before long, in the nobles’ minds, an image arose of a gigantic monster waddling around with a live rabbit tucked under its side, breathing fire.
‘For something like that to become Munlepe’s new divine beast….’
The power of a divine beast is the power of the family.
The faces of those who had chewed, torn, and enjoyed Munlepe’s without a divine beast over the past few years turned pale white.
Among them, some couldn’t accept the current situation and raised their voices in protest.
“That’s ridiculous. They’re trying to take some rootless monster and make it a divine beast!”
“Let’s formally petition the imperial family!”
“Let’s protest so it can’t be recognized as a divine beast!”
On the other hand, there were those genuinely curious about the emergence of such a powerful divine beast.
“Is the Munlepe duke’s monster really that strong?”
The Third Imperial Princess, Iocaste Lynn Aliope—who had proposed a political marriage to Edenber and been rejected—was exactly such a person.
Iocaste, the only one in the imperial family characterized by brilliant silver hair to possess dark navy blue locks and black pupils, was a girl with a bewitching allure like a cat spirit.
Iocaste, folding her eyes, smiled peevishly.
“Daring to reject my marriage proposal to that extent?”
“Y-Yes, th-that’s right.”
The maid, prostrated like a table to support the princess’s cup on her back, answered.
Having maintained that posture for so long, her whole body was cramped with pins and needles.
Due to her body trembling like an aspen, a bit of the drink in the cup spilled over.
At that, the princess frowned and kicked the maid away with her foot.
“Aaaah!”
“To fail to properly hold even one cup for the imperial family you serve. For that crime, repay with death.”
“I-I’m sorry! Your Highness! Your Highness!!”
She clasped her hands and begged, but it was no use. The maid was dragged away by the knights as is.
As if nothing had happened, Iocaste calmly opened her mouth.
“I want to see with my own eyes just how strong that monster is.”
“W-Well, since Your Highness’s birthday banquet isn’t far off, how about sending an invitation?”
A maid waiting behind hurriedly stepped forward to offer her opinion.
Because if she said nothing at a time like this, the princess would send her to the execution grounds for ignoring her.
Iocaste, narrowing her brow, parted her fine lips.
“That’s a very good idea.”
‘Phew, thank goodness….’
“You’re sentenced to death.”
“Pardon?”
“Do I have to go through the hassle of attaching some contrived reason to summon Munlepe’s monster?”
And so, yet another maid was dragged to the execution grounds.
In the coldly frozen air, the third maid, pale as a sheet, bowed her head.
“Who would dare defy Your Highness’s command? If you just summon them without reason, they will be so moved by Your Highness’s mercy that they will come running at once.”
“Even if its power has waned, a ducal family is a ducal family. Do you think they’ll come running just because a princess summons them without reason?”
At the princess’s whims boiling like porridge, the third maid bowed her head deeply and shut her mouth.
Iocaste burst into laughter at the maid’s quivering body.
“Ahahaha! Why are you so scared?”
“I-I was just….”
“Send a letter to the Munlepe duke. Invite the duke and the duke’s divine beast to my birthday soon.”
After saying that much, the princess, thinking for a moment, added a postscript.
“The duke doesn’t have to come, but emphasize that the divine beast must absolutely come.”
“Y-Yes, understood!”
“Then get out.”
At the finally issued dismissal, the third maid scurried out.
While fiddling with the nape of her neck as if to check if her head was still attached.
Gazing pitifully at her retreating figure, Iocaste muttered lowly.
“Kill that one too as soon as the letter is sent.”
The knight standing behind quietly bowed his head.
“For such cowardly things, I wonder how they all responded to the crown prince’s offer to be his spies.”
Clicking her tongue in disbelief, she languidly leaned back against the chair. And then, she slowly closed her eyes.
“A monster strong enough to defeat Viante’s knights.”
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By Anna 💓
