Chapter 46
Chapter 46
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 46
Chapter Title: To the Cradle of Stars (4)
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It was around the time I was drinking tea that didn't suit my palate, having accepted the Crown Prince's invitation.
The Crown Prince, Lucas, the Black Knight, and I.
The faces seated across from me were the same as always.
The only thing different from usual was the content of the tea.
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【Diluted Hugo's Herbicide (☆)】
*A potion created by the alchemist Hugo Weidel and his disciple Russo to eliminate parasitic plants on the scales of the ancient dragon Gramakson.
*Its effect was so remarkable that even the ancient dragon Gramakson, who had long suffered from unidentified parasitic plants growing between its scales, was freed from its pain.
*However, neither Hugo Weidel, his disciple Russo, nor Gramakson anticipated that the herbicide's effect was potent enough to melt even a dragon's scales.
*Gramakson, having lost all its scales and been left bare, vanished thereafter.
*Since then, the herbicide has survived not for its original purpose, but as a catalyst for processing dragon scales.
*It is a topical ointment.
*Ingestion is extremely harmful to the body.
*It is especially toxic to the dragonkin.
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In that brief moment, countless thoughts flooded my mind.
Had the Crown Prince's future changed?
Had I mistaken the date?
One question led to another.
When I came to my senses, I had already snatched the Crown Prince's teacup.
A blade was already at my neck.
“What do you think you're doing?”
To Lucas's chilling voice, I belatedly explained.
“It's poison.”
The Crown Prince and Lucas stared at me, their eyes wide.
But that was all.
The reaction I had expected—making a fuss about finding the assassin, or asking me for the full story—never came.
Wondering if they hadn't heard me correctly, I spoke again.
“It's mixed with a poison that is fatal to those with the blood of dragons.”
But still, they didn't show the reaction I anticipated.
The Crown Prince and Lucas only exchanged unreadable glances.
The Black Knight was watching the situation unfold with a look of amusement.
It was a rather anticlimactic response.
“...It's treason!”
I insisted that we must immediately interrogate the attendant who brought the tea to find out how the poison was introduced and who the culprit was.
“If you think my words are baseless...”
“I do not think them baseless. I know you speak the truth.”
“Then we must hurry...”
“There is no need.”
“B-but... it's treason...”
“Don't make a fuss.”
Despite my repeated pleas, the Crown Prince remained unmoved.
I couldn't understand.
I could almost understand the Crown Prince, but Lucas's reaction was particularly baffling. He was the one who should have been losing his mind over his master's safety.
He should have been the one raging to find the poisoner before I even said a word.
For some reason, he only looked back and forth between the teacup in my hand and the Crown Prince with a bitter expression.
“There's no need to waste energy searching for the culprit.”
The Crown Prince finally spoke.
“Because I already know who it is.”
His words left me stunned.
He already knew the culprit.
And if that wasn't enough.
“The culprit is someone close to me.”
He said it was someone very close to him.
How was I supposed to take this?
“Give it here.”
While I stood there blankly, the Crown Prince held out his hand.
I handed over the teacup in a daze, my eyes widening.
*Gulp.*
The Crown Prince downed the teacup in one go.
“...!”
Startled, I froze as I was about to stop him.
I saw Lucas's face, his eyes squeezed shut.
His clenched jaw looked as if he had bitten into a handful of bitter fruit.
He looked even more pained than the one who had actually drunk the poison.
“Kuh. That's truly bitter.”
Having finally drained the poisoned tea, the Crown Prince spoke with a deep frown.
Bloodshot eyes, discolored blue lips and face.
They were classic symptoms of poisoning.
*Stagger.*
The Crown Prince leaned on the table.
As if on cue, Lucas took a pill from his pocket and fed it to him.
*Gulp.*
“Huu, huu.”
After swallowing the pill, the Crown Prince's complexion gradually returned to normal.
But his bloodshot eyes and pale blue lips remained unchanged.
“It seems this isn't the first or second time...”
It was then that Navian Gaznae, who had been watching with an amused expression, spoke up.
“A family squabble?”
The Crown Prince nodded at her words.
“My mother has always been rather displeased with me.”
The culprit's identity was completely unexpected.
I, who had imagined someone hoping to overthrow the empire—like the Blue Tower or the Black Tower—was left gaping.
*Shh.*
Just then, Lucas signaled me.
He raised a finger to his lips and gestured toward the Crown Prince with his eyes.
At that moment, we heard someone approaching outside the door.
“Your Highness. I will bring a fresh pot of tea.”
It was the Crown Prince's attendant, whom I had seen on the way here.
*Glance.*
The attendant who entered the room let his gaze linger for a moment on the empty teacup before it moved to the Crown Prince's face.
Seeing the pale blue lips and bloodshot eyes, the attendant gave a slight nod.
It was a gaze and a nod so subtle that I would have missed it under normal circumstances.
But things were different now.
Right after learning that someone had poisoned the tea.
The attendant's every move seemed incredibly suspicious.
Wasn't it as if he were confirming whether the Crown Prince had properly drunk the poison?
“His Highness is not feeling well, so there's no need for the trouble. Just clear this away.”
At Lucas's words, the attendant nodded and placed the teacup on the tray.
If we let him go, the evidence could disappear.
“Wait.”
Just then, Navian Gaznae stepped in.
I thought she might be trying to rectify the assassination attempt that had occurred in her family's presence, but I was mistaken.
*Gulp, gulp.*
She poured the rest of the Crown Prince's tea from the pot into her own cup and downed it in one go.
The attendant's eyes went wide.
He looked quite flustered.
My own expression probably wasn't much different.
“Hm. Not bad.”
After holding the tea in her mouth for a moment as if savoring the taste, she waved her hand dismissively.
Unlike the Crown Prince, whose face had turned blue immediately after drinking, her complexion didn't change at all.
The attendant gathered the cups and fled the room as if escaping.
“I have a personality that can't stand curiosity.”
Navian Gaznae shrugged at the Crown Prince and me, who were staring at her in disbelief.
*Shake, shake.*
The Crown Prince shook his head and then said with a hardened expression.
“I hope this allows Mother to ease her mind.”
“If she were the type, she would have done so long ago.”
“It was just something to say. I don't believe it either. It's enough that I've bought a little time.”
“It's only getting worse with time. You're having trouble detoxifying, are you not?”
“Still, it's bearable for now.”
Things were getting more and more absurd.
I had already suspected it, but it seemed this sort of thing had happened more than once or twice.
The way the Crown Prince and Lucas conversed looked all too familiar.
I didn't know what it was, but I felt like I'd gotten tangled up in something troublesome.
“You look like you have many questions.”
“No...”
“Yes. I'll tell you. Since you've seen everything, what is there to hide?”
“You really don't have to...”
“I don't know if you're aware, but the current Empress is not my birth mother. She entered the palace after my birth mother, the former consort, passed away.”
The Crown Prince's explanation, which began before I could stop him, went something like this.
The Empress, dissatisfied with the Emperor's decision to name Galadrian, the son of the former consort, as the Crown Prince, had started resorting to such schemes at some point.
My head was spinning.
Is poisoning people how royals normally express their discontent?
Words I wanted to say rose to the tip of my tongue.
My mouth was itching to speak.
If I pried, I'd get dragged into something tiresome.
I had to hold back.
But in the end, I couldn't, so I asked.
If His Majesty the Emperor knew.
The answer to that was truly a sight to behold.
“A dragon does not care for its young. It merely watches.”
He went on grandly about dragons and whatnot, but to sum it up, the Emperor couldn't care less about such a trivial (?) family squabble.
At least, not as long as the Empress didn't cross the line.
“What to do about this.”
The Crown Prince said, as if something terrible had happened.
“Now that you know a secret of the imperial family you shouldn't have, I wonder if you can handle it?”
At a glance, his words seemed concerned, but his expression was anything but.
Anyone could see he was welcoming it, enjoying it.
“I am a body that will soon leave this mortal realm. Why should I concern myself with another family's squabbles?”
Navian Gaznae said without hesitation.
It was an attitude only possible for the head of House Gaznae, which considered itself the foremost of the Eight Families.
She had the power and standing to handle secrets far greater than those of the imperial family.
But my case was different.
Since ancient times, the fate of an ordinary person caught up in matters beyond their capacity was generally not good.
There was a reason for the saying that when dragons fight, the innocent rabbit's burrow collapses.
And right now, I was that rabbit.
I looked at the Crown Prince.
The Crown Prince's face as he stared at me was no different from that of a fisherman who has cast his bait and is watching the fish's reaction.
After coaxing me day after day to live in the palace, to think he'd try to ensnare me like this.
But I had no intention of letting the Crown Prince drag me along.
“Your Highness, do you happen to know the name of the poison you just drank?”
“...?”
“It's a thing called Hugo's Herbicide.”
A look of confusion appeared on the Crown Prince's face.
“It's a substance made by someone named Hugo to eliminate plants that take root in a dragon's body and burrow into its scales.”
“And?”
“But do you know what this thing is used for now?”
The frowning Crown Prince gestured with his chin, urging me to answer.
“They say it's used as a catalyst for processing dragon scales.”
The Crown Prince's expression hardened.
It was only natural.
The Gesendina family, who ruled the empire, were descendants of the Azure Dragon.
They were a clan that inherited the blood of dragons, even if only half.
To them, weapons forged from dragon scales were not divine armaments, but abominations created by desecrating the bodies of their ancestors.
Naturally, the empire forbade the processing of a dragon's body under any circumstances, except in cases where it was directly bestowed by a dragon.
And there was only one group who ignored such imperial laws.
“Are you trying to say the source of the poison is the mages?”
Instead of answering, I asked a question back.
Could there be any other audacious group besides the mages who would craft weapons from a dragon's body?
“There wouldn't be. No one else has that kind of nerve.”
The Crown Prince ground his teeth.
Of course, neither he nor I could know if the Empress had truly colluded with the mages.
But it was clear that the poison's origin was related to them.
“Can I trust your words?”
“I would bet my life on it.”
It wasn't something I'd heard from somewhere.
It was a matter I had confirmed through the blessing of the stars.
There was no reason I couldn't bet my life.
“Hmm.”
The Crown Prince repeatedly sought my confirmation.
I explained the poison's name and its use several times over.
Because of this, I would probably have no choice but to become deeply involved in palace affairs.
It was exactly what the Crown Prince had wanted.
But I had gained something as well.
I didn't know if he would report this to the Emperor, but one thing was certain.
With the possibility of the mages' involvement raised, this assassination attempt could no longer be dismissed as a simple family squabble, and the Crown Prince could no longer afford to be as complacent as before.
Even if the Empress's intention was a simple warning or protest, there was now no telling what mischief others might get up to in the middle of it all.
Naturally, he would have to be more careful.
It was all just as I had wanted.
Just keep tapping every stone bridge before you cross it, Crown Prince.
Just enough not to get assassinated so futilely like in your past life.