Chapter 149
Chapter 149
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 149
Chapter Title: The Broken Seal
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“Princess… you must feel terrible. I’ll give those spreading such nonsense a proper dressing-down, so please cheer up.”
“Nanny…”
Seria rubbed her cheek against the nanny’s bosom, which enveloped her tightly in comfort, and pouted her lips.
“I’m so upset… I’m too embarrassed to even step outside…”
“Oh dear, to think they’d dare mention such a wastrel to our princess… It’s shameful just to speak his name.”
Her child, forever so innocent and endearing. A beloved existence. A noble and flawless princess untouched by even a speck of dust.
Seria’s nanny trembled at the corners of her eyes, unable to tolerate the scandal now clinging to the child she had nurtured so preciously, as if her own life depended on it.
“How dare they spout such nonsense…”
It was like smoke rising from a chimney not baking bread—but now she knew smoke could rise even from an empty flue.
A scandal between that worthless good-for-nothing Adelian and the angelic Princess Seria.
Someone of the nanny’s stature could hardly be an ordinary noble.
‘I need to contact my family and dig out the source of these rumors.’
Those who spread such vile gossip—their tongues cut out, their fingers…
“Nanny. Juice.”
Her thoughts, thick with the scent of blood, were interrupted for a moment. At the call of Seria, who looked as delicate as a flower dipped in water, she said to wait just a bit and stepped out. Then the childlike angel’s face hardened coldly.
“I have no idea where things started going wrong.”
Seria propped her chin on her hand, lips still pouted, after provoking her own nanny to stoke her animosity toward Adelian.
“Fine, the monopoly rights didn’t end up in my hands—but that aside…”
Seria lowered her gaze, recalling those who had secretly approached her.
“Princess, are you aware that the herbs and food entering Prince Shahad’s palace have changed slightly of late? This is a gift from the Holy Church, in anticipation of our future alliance.”
Seria snorted at the words.
Worshippers of a god unknown to the continent, whom they called a “living god” in their tongue.
In a land where polytheism reigned supreme, any deity unregistered with the All-Gods Temple was obvious: either an evil god or a pretender bearing special traits.
Suspicious either way, yet their capabilities demanded respect.
The sheer power and secrecy that reached even her, Seria, the empire’s First Princess. That intelligence alone.
Conversely, the fact that their information was so difficult to unearth independently proved they were no mere ragtag group.
‘A cult at best. Not a bad pawn to use and discard.’
If it truly worried her, she could simply eradicate them once she seized real power.
“But their intel is genuine.”
Truth be told, it came down to focus and discernment. Seria’s own intelligence network had long monitored the shipments to Shahad’s palace.
‘But I lacked anyone capable of piecing it together properly.’
Only one versed in every herb and reagent could grasp the implications from those patterns.
A mere handful of substitutions. Effects largely unchanged.
Pain relief remained the same, but blended with certain others, they boosted muscle density or smoothed mana flow.
Seria herself kept her traits under “seal,” and only after hearing the details and connecting the dots did she realize Shahad had slipped from her grasp.
“Never saw it coming.”
Seria’s possession, “Seal,” was a rare trait.
It had been A-rank when she first awakened to it; now at SS-rank, it could forcibly seal any trait of lower grade.
Initially limited to one trait per target, it now allowed up to three in total.
Targets had expanded from three to ten individuals.
She had believed the only ways to break it were vast distance from her or her own release.
‘How did he find out? How did he undo it?’
Special traits always carried restrictions. One was absolute: excluding herself, if a seal was ever broken on a target, it could never be reapplied.
Thus, the moment she learned Shahad’s seal had been undone via some unknown method, resealing him became impossible.
Moreover, sealing others’ traits required either a yearly cooldown or vast offerings of magic stones.
‘Caution is key.’
She needed to uncover how he knew and what method he used—but rash action was folly. With Shahad now aware of the seal, he would be on high alert.
For now, he had no clue she was the culprit. No need to draw suspicion with needless fuss; better to play it cool for the time being.
How could he possibly know? It was a secret unique to her in this world.
He wouldn’t rampage recklessly just because his trait was back; he had a brain, after all.
Publicly, none among the high-succession royals possessed a worthwhile trait.
That was why Seria, the eldest with her pristine reputation, remained the frontrunner—and she had clung to that edge until Shahad’s seal broke.
‘Must resolve this before the emperor finds out.’
Seria gnawed at her lower lip.
Her innate traits: [Seal (SS)], [Arrogance (S)], [Cruelty (A)].
If the emperor caught wind, she’d be stripped of succession rights on the spot.
That was why she had sealed them herself, only for [Diligence (B+)] and [Drawing (B)] to surface instead.
Even lowly traits—common swordsmanship or martial arts—would have been preferable, something she could cultivate.
What choice did she have? She had to cripple her rivals’ talents too.
Thus, over long years, evading even the emperor’s eyes, she had burned through her hoarded magic stones to seal the other royals.
Just a bit more effort, and perhaps better traits would replace those mundane ones.
Then she could have surged ahead in one leap.
‘What was Shahad’s trait again?’
But what was done was done.
Resealing him immediately was impossible, and with her forces built carefully to avoid irking the emperor, she had no underhanded agents in the capital at present.
‘No other way.’
Handling it through those fanatic cultists would be cleanest.
Trading Shahad’s head for whatever they desired wasn’t a bad deal.
“Princess, your delicious juice is here. Sorry it took so long—I picked the fruits myself and made it by hand.”
“No, juice made by you is my absolute favorite!”
With her thoughts roughly sorted, Seria beamed at the returning nanny like an angel from a mural.
The nanny’s and Seria’s eyes met.
‘Shahad must die.’
‘That wastrel Adelian can’t be left alive.’
Even as they gazed tenderly at each other, their fleeting thoughts aligned perfectly, as they had since their inseparable days as children.
* * *
“At that rate, doesn’t it point to a control problem?”
His black eyes gleamed with serpentine sheen, fierce and predatory. His face bore a mild, smiling expression, but only the mouth smiled—those eyes remained sunken deep as Chaser, executor of the Evil God Order, fixed them on the black mage.
“Kekeke… How dare you regard me so.”
A voice like rusted iron rasped from the lich’s flesh submerged in the mana fountain.
Dank black mana roiled violently within. Chaser drank it in with those snakelike eyes and let out a sly chuckle.
“You once wielded power to hoist a dark sun into the heavens, yet now you’re a lowly lich, helpless without your mana fountain.”
At Chaser’s words, crimson-black light blazed in the black mage’s eyes like tongues of flame.
“You insolent cur! How dare you!”
“You haven’t forgotten our arrangement, have you?”
Thick black mana took on tangible form, exploding toward Chaser—only to halt abruptly.
‘Of all times for that old monster to return to the capital.’
Ganax. The mightiest being alive. A human surpassing dragons, perhaps even touching demigodhood.
Rumors swirled that every soldier in Teitaria combined couldn’t best him alone.
He alone safeguarded the imperial family—and thus the entire continent bore the name Teitaria.
The skeletal jaw worked, grinding its teeth.
The tether binding a familiar to its summoner thinned with distance, fraying to the breaking point.
The black mana embedded in the soul prevented full severance, but it could no longer serve as a direct extension of sight and thought like when nearby.
That was why the sluggish relay of intelligence, hopping familiar to familiar like stepping stones, had allowed things to spiral this far—who could have foreseen it?
Of all places, Familiar No. 8 had chased that rat Kane straight into the capital where he awaited.
‘Preparations elsewhere proceed without a hitch.’
The black mage let out a low groan, and the polluted mana fountain bubbled ominously.
“Once we discovered our goals aligned and forged this alliance, no one in the Order raised objections to our aggressive support.”
Chaser gripped his snake-headed staff, carved from black crystal to replace the shattered ebony one, and chuckled softly.
“But with this report going up, even I can’t predict the Order’s response.”
“Arrogant fool, kekeke. If you think my lowly lich vessel diminishes me, you’ve misjudged gravely.”
The man who single-handedly guarded not just the imperial family but the capital itself.
Yet faint psychic echoes suggested his life hung by a thread.
“Sounds like you’ve got something in reserve?”
“You’re bold enough because I allow it—but know your place.”
Sensing an undercurrent in the black mage’s tone, Chaser—who had been quite imperious—tilted his head.
He knew the lich’s capabilities well. A black mage of fearsome might in life, yet his lich ritual had failed catastrophically, slashing his power to a quarter—or less—of its former glory.
‘Still, his knowledge and mastery of black mana are the real deal.’
That was precisely why the Holy Church had backed him so fervently: endless mana stones, reagents, monsters and demi-humans for live experiments.
‘But he fell all the same—to a boy’s lucky blade, right at the pivotal lich ritual.’
Chaser grinned as he eyed the tainted mana fountain.
“Very well. I’ll bundle this with the next results for the report—so do deliver some success.”
Chaser struck the floor with his black crystal staff, and shadow magic—one of the forbidden arts—activated. His form melted into the air like ink in water, vanishing.
“His arts have ripened impressively, yet even whelps like that dare scorn me… kekeke.”
But the Order’s haughty posturing wouldn’t last much longer.
Slay the imperial guardian, and he could dispatch familiars through the labyrinthine sewers, whipping the resident monsters into a massive undead uprising.
Or, should the Order grovel later, they could pool their strength to uncover the fabled passage linking the sewers to the palace and raze the Teitarian imperial house to the ground.
“Isn’t it heaven’s law that the strong claim all?”
From mindless vermin to mighty dragons, the mightiest always seized control—why then did humans alone cling to birth and blood?
‘And they called it a “living god.”’
If he could but claim Kane’s body, wresting the throne from their so-called deity would be child’s play.
The black mage chuckled slowly, the mana fountain bubbling in rhythm.