Chapter 100
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 100
Chapter Title: Catching the Devil Worshippers
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Catching the devil worshipper among Princess Lilian’s closest aides wasn’t all that difficult.
The only complication came from meticulously linking them to clean out even those in the palace, but I could’ve just buried every single one of those closest aides the first day I laid eyes on them.
My face twisted viciously at the thought flashing through my mind.
‘Am I starting to think more like Aiden?’
Unbeknownst to me, I was growing more radical by the day.
It might feel awkward to split myself into such black-and-white categories, but if I separate it just a little, I am Aiden—yet not Aiden.
Even if this body’s original owner was Aiden, that didn’t mean I had to follow his thought patterns to the letter.
The body had been cooperating well enough, aside from the occasional words slipping out against my intent, but I could feel myself assimilating into it bit by bit.
The changes happened so gradually that I rarely noticed them, but the fact that I was feeling this sense of dissonance now...
‘My approach to this incident is just too different.’
Up until now, I’d been the type to swoop in right after an incident and clean up the mess, but this time, I’d flipped the board with an offensive maneuver.
My gaze settled calmly.
There had been a clear precursor.
When I snapped one of Silbeia’s fingers, I’d been certain she wasn’t the collaborator.
If she were a devil worshipper, she wouldn’t have feared pain like that.
Devil worshippers were a cult through and through—they proved their devotion by clawing open their own flesh.
Pain was something they were intimately familiar with.
You could spot it even through acting, in the subtle tells.
The look in their eyes, the contracting pupils, the twitch of facial muscles, the faint quiver of eyebrows, the tension in their muscles, their breathing—all of it screamed that Silbeia wasn’t one of them.
‘Truth be told, it didn’t matter who it was.’
There was no need to tediously pinpoint anyone.
Just like before, I’d simply smash whoever reacted.
Still, there was a reason I’d shattered every finger on her left hand right in front of the head maid and threatened to do the same to her right soon enough.
It was to make them desperate.
Even accounting for the brutality, the outcome had left the situation crystal clear.
I blocked the blade hurtling toward me from behind.
The aide’s eyes bulged wide.
Princess Lilian blinked in confusion, oblivious to what had just happened.
“…Wh-what!”
A faint glint of madness flickered in the aide’s eyes as he stared at me.
The dagger in his hand wasn’t aimed at the princess—it was precisely targeting my back.
Unless I had eyes back there, it would’ve been a perfect ambush.
‘Trying to take out me first, since I might have an ace up my sleeve.’
They still believed I was Charlotte.
“Charlotte’s magic isn’t half bad. Voice alteration and augmentation spells, wasn’t it?”
The aide’s face flushed red as he trembled, unable to wrench free from my grip.
“You…”
The head maid turned ashen and stumbled back a step from the aide.
Her face drained of color, as if the scene was so shocking she might faint.
And if my hunch was right, then around this alleyway…
*Click, clank, shing.*
The escort knight order, who had been lying in wait hidden along the path, drew their swords in unison.
With the masked ball yet to begin, they faced the dimming sunset, their razor-sharp blades taking on a crimson glow.
Princess Lilian’s face went pale.
“Lady Charlotte!”
The princess screamed for me to abandon her and flee, but her words fell on deaf ears.
The escort knights—led by Philia at the forefront—were glaring at me with endless irritation.
“Ha… Nothing goes right. Not a damn thing.”
She ruffled her hair, unleashing a sticky wave of murderous intent.
Princess Lilian shivered at the ominous aura swirling around Philia and bit her lip.
“Kn-Knight Philia? What in the world is this? Surely you, at least…”
“Shut your mouth. You’re annoying me.”
“Speaking so crudely to the princess. You’ve really gone and done it now.”
Philia’s eyes darkened as I let out a chuckle from the side.
“Damn it, did the intel leak? How the hell did you know?”
“Was there even intel to leak? It was that obvious.”
A flash of bewilderment crossed Philia’s eyes.
No need for deduction—the sequence of events was plain as day.
Philia and the aide, both devil worshippers, had colluded with the closest aides to isolate the princess.
By restricting her movements and choking off her information flow, they’d make it easy to abduct her.
But then I stuck my nose in, and everything went sideways.
I pictured Silbeia, who had stared at me like I was some monster, quaking in terror inside.
‘She must’ve lost it.’
Right after I broke her finger, Silbeia—having endured it herself—would’ve been stunned, and the head maid, witnessing the whole thing, would’ve felt compelled to do something.
With the aide and Philia holding such sway, they’d need to show some kind of action.
They wouldn’t want the fragile unity they’d forged to shatter before the grand plan came to fruition, nor would they risk any rash moves.
‘Above all, they probably planned to pin it on the two of them once things kicked off.’
To reassure everyone, they’d needed to put on a show.
‘And that got eavesdropped.’
Their intent was probably something like, ‘We’ve grasped Aiden’s scheme down to the finest detail. If anything seems off, we’ll let you know—don’t worry.’
Which made it all the easier for me.
If they couldn’t inflict physical harm on me, their options were limited.
Eavesdropping was one of the simplest.
And when I noticed the device—when I realized it and spoke as if deliberately letting them hear…
“Everything was right here in the palm of my hand.”
“……”
The game was over before it even began.
“Once I got involved, overpowering the princess by force became impossible. The power gap is too vast. So you’d just need to watch for indirect plays, but how easy would that be right in front of me?”
“How……”
I couldn’t help but take a bit of pleasure from their dumbfounded stares and continued my explanation.
“I’ll give you a few reasons why you got so hasty.”
I extended my fingers one by one.
Princess Lilian stared at me as the situation took a bizarre turn.
“First off, with your grand plan nearing completion, your vision narrowed. After all that long-suffering patience, you finally saw your reward—and it made you fools of yourselves.”
That was one.
“And weren’t you keeping tabs on me? No matter what I did in the mansion, you had eyes and ears everywhere. Even if I acted in secret with the princess, you’d pick up on it.”
Harsh as it sounded, devil worshippers were a capable bunch.
So I turned their own competence against them.
All of this hinged on one premise: ‘I’m being watched.’
By reporters, by citizens roaming the streets, by students in the crowds.
The public eye was fixed on me and Princess Lilian.
“You started by digging into my connections. Isel, Radia, Elin, Arion… You gathered intel on everyone linked to me and infiltrated the academy to verify it.”
It wasn’t for nothing that I’d told Princess Lilian to head to the academy.
“Even if the princess passed a letter to Lianel Roosevelt through the countess’s daughter, your cautious types would’ve grown suspicious just from the fact that she’d made contact, and flagged anyone associated with her.”
That’s how the devil worshippers reached the same conclusion I had.
“Ah! Lianel has Court Baron Roosevelt behind her, so they must be after palace secrets, right?”
Haha… I layered on a touch of theatrical flair, playing the fool like a comic jester.
Disbelief welled up in Philia’s eyes as she glared daggers at me.
“Lianel’s on friendly terms with Elin. And that Elin’s the master-disciple pair who’s always in and out of my lab. It’s that blatant—anyone with a brain would think, ‘Who’s she trying to move?’”
It was obvious.
The reason I’d routed it so transparently was to make it seem like I was desperately trying to hide it.
They weren’t a group that needed hard evidence—they acted on suspicion alone.
I trusted in their competence and caution.
“You already knew the princess was prone to disguises, and that I’d use the same trick. So you knew I’d received something at the academy. Suspicion turned to certainty.”
Ironically, I trusted the enemy more than my own allies.
I believed they’d share my field of vision.
That they’d harbor the same suspicions, and if even a speck of doubt arose, they’d cut ties from the start.
I believed it.
Me, of all people.
“And on top of that… I even threatened to bury you all based on suspicion alone……”
A long, sly curve crept across my lips.
“You must’ve thought I’d round up everyone suspicious from Court Baron Roosevelt and torture them. Which meant your spies across the kingdom would be nabbed soon enough. Better use them while you could, right?”
That was two.
But even that wasn’t enough.
Which was why I needed the Silbeia card.
“Silbeia—that girl pulled off a huge feat.”
“……”
Philia glared at me like she wanted to devour me whole.
“Thanks to her tantrum, you installed the eavesdropper for me.”
“Eavesdropper?”
Princess Lilian whipped around to me, wondering what I meant.
She seemed to have pieced together my identity by now, but she was still only half convinced.
“Yeah. So I laid out every plan I had with the princess. Thanks for that. What I’d do, what I was aiming for—even I wouldn’t have believed it coming straight from my own mouth. But it gave me the perfect chance to explain in detail.”
If I couldn’t hide it anyway, better to lay it all out.
“No matter what I said at the end, you figured the plan would just shift a little, core unchanged. So you tried to backstab me over it.”
But that wasn’t what I was after.
“Did you know this too? Unconsciously, that I’d have to receive a commendation from His Majesty the Emperor and step away. That if I stuck to the princess, you’d never get your chance.”
“So we danced to your silver tongue and got trapped in a narrow mindset?”
Philia’s voice dripped with menace as she toyed with her sword hilt.
She hadn’t conceded yet, but curiosity burned in her eyes, so I obliged.
“At that point, didn’t it lock in the place and time for your grand deed? Without you even realizing.”
Princess Lilian gasped in shock beside me.
That was three.
I’d clouded their vision, driven them to desperation, and pinned down the place and time.
“To backstab me, you’d monitor my every move that day. You knew Charlotte and Radia entered my residence.”
“No way… it started from there?!”
“Didn’t the eyes you had on me—no, on Aiden—report it like this? ‘Aiden has arrived at the masked ball as normal.’”
“……”
“That was Charlotte, my cute little sister. It let me dodge your eyes and fool you.”
They should’ve factored this in ever since I’d asked one of the princess’s stylists for a disguise job.
‘Ah, did it not occur to you that I’d cross-dress?’
No matter.
The magic was wearing off, and my voice was returning to normal.
I’d asked Charlotte for a quick voice-alteration spell, but it seemed the effect had run its course.
With the loose-fitting dress, I just needed to bend my knees a touch, and I looked like nothing more than a slightly tall woman.
My build was concealed by the long draping hair.
“You figured I’d either personally escort Princess Lilian until the commendation, or attach someone reliable for that short trip to the ballroom. One or the other.”
That’s why they’d sent someone so easy to deal with.
The reason I hadn’t come to escort her myself was to narrow the time frame even further, despite having the place and time set.
Anyone but me—say, Charlotte—Philia could’ve handled easily.
But there was one more thing.
And that brought us to the grand finale…
“You didn’t expect me to blow off my own commendation, huh?”
Of course it was an imperial decree. My commendation, no less.
My lips split into a wicked grin.
A scoff I couldn’t hold back burst through my teeth.
Ha, haha, hahahahaha…
Truth be told, that part made me the happiest.
I hadn’t wanted it anyway, and now I had the perfect excuse to ditch it.
“I never wanted that commendation in the first place. Screw it. His Imperial Majesty? Like I give a damn.”
Social galas and parties for others were just a den of cockroaches to me.
Philia’s and the aide’s faces contorted in horror.
But Princess Lilian’s face twisted right along with theirs.