Chapter 195
Chapter 195
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Lioness Queen (4)
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“My daughter stepping up for someone else’s sake. Who would have thought the day would come.”
Rozanna looked fondly down at her daughter, who stood defiantly before her.
Even in her uniform, her sensuous figure—identical to her own—could not be hidden.
“Quite the surprise.”
She glanced briefly at me standing behind Lea.
Then, she stared piercingly into my narrow eyes and let out a smirk.
“Getting charmed by a pretty face, just like your father.”
Lea showed no reaction whatsoever to those embarrassing words.
She simply stared at her mother with a cold, stern expression.
“I’m sorry, but it wasn’t just his face that caught my attention.”
The Empire’s First Imperial Princess removed the hat from her uniform.
Tucking it at her waist, she spoke like a noble knight.
“We complement each other’s shortcomings.”
Rozanna tilted her head indifferently at her daughter’s words.
With a blank, emotionless face, she opened her mouth.
“You sure have a hard time saying ‘I love you.’”
Her lips pursed in displeasure.
Lea crossed her arms alone and responded firmly.
“Anyway, don’t cross the line again.”
Her forearms rested against the undersides of her breasts.
Even in uniform, they stood out just like her mother’s.
“No matter how much of a birth mother you are, I can’t forgive you poaching what’s mine.”
A lone lioness who had left the pride to build her own force.
Lea now regarded the former pride leader with caution.
“Fine. I only came today to check who you are anyway.”
Rozanna stared straight at me.
Her brilliant blue eyes, which had passed down their noble beauty to Lea, gleamed.
“But... it’s a bit disappointing?”
The Empire’s First Imperial Consort lifted the corner of her mouth.
With a faint smile, she continued.
“You didn’t show your full strength. So disappointingly restrained.”
Rozanna had noticed I’d only defended.
Dissatisfied at not seeing my true power, she clicked her tongue.
“How could I dare point my sword at Your Highness’s sacred body?”
I replied in the sly tone I’d used so far.
Then, I bowed my head in proper courtesy.
However, at that moment—
*Oh my, worried about my body...?
Rozanna approached with magic-like speed, arriving right before me.
By the time I lifted my head again—
“...!”
Her voluptuous flesh was right in front of my nose.
Even the mole on her upper breast that stole my gaze.
“Certainly like Leonhardt—so very kind.”
A fresh, youthful flesh scent wafted from her mature adult body.
She looked straight down at me with a dangerous smile.
“Enough to stir up greed.”
Like a goddess from myth.
“...!”
Lea rushed quickly to our side.
She pushed between her mother and me.
“If you keep eyeing what’s mine, I won’t hold back.”
For the first time before me, Lea bared her fierce teeth.
Seeing that, I smiled warmly along with the onlookers.
“...”
Rozanna gazed down blankly at her glaring daughter.
Then, she shrugged nonchalantly.
“Got it. What choice do I have when my daughter is this ‘obsessed’?”
Rozanna snapped her fingers.
The shadowy veil surrounding us dissipated in an instant.
―――――.
The shadows returned to her dress, reverting to their docile state.
“See you again, Baron Veil.”
Rozanna turned away obediently.
And quietly departed down the corridor.
“But next time, show your full strength.”
Show your full strength.
A savage warning: be prepared to risk your life.
“...”
Once her mother’s footsteps fully faded, the Empire’s First Imperial Princess took a deep breath.
She turned to me and asked.
“You could have won easily, so why just defend?”
“How could I strike the First Imperial Consort?”
Lea knew her mother’s immense power.
For the first time in her life, she looked at me with worried eyes.
“She was trying to kill you...?”
She had always shown only cold composure as the Empire’s First Imperial Princess.
But now, she was just a woman fretting over her man.
“...”
Seeing her like that stirred tender feelings in me.
In response, I tossed out a lighthearted jest.
“Did I seem like I’d lose to the Consort?”
I placed a finger on the princess’s upturned face.
Gently smoothing her slightly disheveled hair from her rush over.
“You really are...”
Lea looked into my fox-like narrow eyes and smirked.
Then, she regained her queenly, icy demeanor.
“Still, don’t humor her next time. She’s no pushover.”
Today, more than usual, Lea wore her emotions openly.
Watching her, I pondered for a moment.
*Is she... jealous?*
She’d been utterly composed around Irina, Lydia, and Miya.
But with Rozanna and me, she seemed genuinely troubled.
Sensing this was a chance for honest talk, I cautiously ventured.
“Besides, there seems to be bad blood with His Imperial Majesty. I figured I needed to hear both sides first.”
“Both sides...?”
Lea turned to gaze at me steadily.
“Yes. The Consort said His Majesty betrayed her...”
I recalled the emperor I’d met.
“He didn’t strike me as the type.”
A wise ruler who loved his daughters and showed mercy to his people.
Hard to believe such a man had betrayed her.
“...”
Lea fell silent after hearing me out.
Then, as if resolved, she beckoned me to follow to her private guest quarters.
“I’ll tell you in my private room. Too risky here.”
I followed the Empire’s First Imperial Princess to her guest quarters.
We entered through a door warded with soundproofing magic.
Click!
Lea quietly locked the door.
She introduced the sitting room where her personal items were kept.
“Have a seat for now.”
“Won’t Your Highness join me?”
When I asked, Lea pointed to a screen in the corner of the sitting room.
“I have something I need to do first.”
“Understood.”
I sat obediently on the sofa.
Lea went behind the screen and began speaking.
“You know my mother was a princess of the Epina Duchy?”
“Yes, I’ve heard it’s a famous mercenary nation.”
Epina.
Renowned for the individual prowess of its soldiers, who participated as mercenaries in many wars.
Reportedly, the state oversaw all such arrangements.
That made Epina’s national value considerable.
“The royals and leaders were all a warrior race. Fiercely proud and belligerent.”
Was Lea’s steely charisma from there too?
Rozanna and her lineage seemed to inherit that haughty gaze.
“As Leon’s Empire grew under Father, Epina ended up bordering us.”
“Yes, so they formed an alliance.”
The sound of a thick jacket being removed came from behind the screen.
“So they married Mother off to Father, who was twenty years older, to seal the alliance through marriage.”
A white uniform jacket was hung on the screen.
Followed by a short skirt.
“But the alliance turned poisonous for Epina. Leon frequently waged conquests and kept demanding military aid from allies.”
Epina was a small duchy.
Manpower was precious to such a nation.
“Our elite troops were already few, but they kept getting siphoned off to others’ wars, weakening Epina bit by bit.”
I nodded silently.
At that moment—
Black military stockings were hung on the screen.
“So the Epina royals grew suspicious of Father. They thought it was a plot to drain their power.”
Understandable.
Their nation weakening while the emperor made ever more demanding requests.
“So they plotted to assassinate Father. Remove him, keep the alliance, just swap the head.”
Yet the emperor endured.
And Epina alone perished.
“They failed.”
“Yeah, a traitor emerged midway.”
―――――.
The sound of a cosmetics lid opening echoed.
Lea seemed to draw something with a pencil, falling silent for a bit.
“I’ve heard Epina’s people were fiercely loyal to the royals. No choice but to wipe out the family and state together.”
As I calmly summarized, Lea finally replied.
“Right. Mother felt deeply betrayed by the emperor in all that.”
―――――.
The lid closed again.
“But couldn’t His Majesty just explain? That her family tried to kill him.”
“He did, of course. But the real rift came over ‘prisoner handling.’”
War prisoners would be her blood kin.
“Mother begged to spare them—exile or imprisonment. But Father executed them all without mercy.”
As a conqueror king, ruthless to traitors.
I couldn’t exactly condemn his cruelty.
But did every royal need to die?
It felt like erasing their very history.
“Honestly, even I don’t get that part. Was buying Mother’s eternal resentment worth it?”
Lea agreed.
The soft sound of silk wrapping her skin came.
“Father’s hiding something, I suspect.”
She said no more, as if that was all she knew.
“But you seem awfully interested in Mother today?”
Her voice approached from behind me.
I didn’t turn around.
“Yes, her magic aside, she’s impressive in many ways.”
I simply quenched my thirst with water from the table.
“Impressive in many ways...?”
The voice from behind receded.
Soon—
“For example?”
Click.
The sound of checking the guest quarters door lock.
“Yes, I heard she’s in her early forties, but she looks far too young.”
Her appearance was mid-to-late twenties.
Her face brimmed with such vitality, it made one doubt the ‘witch’ moniker was literal.
“Really?”
“Yes, at first I thought she was Your Highness’s older sister.”
I answered honestly while sipping water.
At that instant—
“...!”
Voluptuous flesh enveloped my nape.
“Right, Mother was incredible.”
She pressed right up behind me, cradling my head with her breasts.
Tilting my face back, she gazed down intently.
“Do you know how Father—a war maniac—fell for Mother, twenty years his junior?”
She’d changed into a daring low-cut dress.
Just like her mother Rozanna.
“N-not... really.”
Her radiant golden hair cascaded like a curtain.
Shielding our surroundings, leaving only Lea’s visage in view.
“Once, Father was gravely wounded and couldn’t even drink water.”
A sweet scent of a woman in her early twenties enveloped me.
Lea reached out and took my water glass.
“That’s when Mother visited his bedchamber.”
Lea tilted the glass to her soft lips.
In a seductive tone, she said.
“Then she fed him water mouth-to-mouth, holding it in her own mouth.”
Lea’s lips glistened wetly.
Soon, the droplet on her lips drew nearer...
To mine.
“Like this...”
The princess cupped my cheeks.
Wrapping my face in her ample bosom.
“Like this...”
She fed me the warm, saliva-tinged water she’d warmed in her mouth.
“Mm...”
Lea’s hot flesh caressed my face.
Within that warmth, I drank the nectar she offered.
“You kept staring at Mother’s breasts earlier?”
Lea slowly turned my face.
Pressing it to her own deeply cleaved bosom in the dress.
Into the hot, flesh-scented chasm.
“You like breasts that much?”
My nose buried in the plush flesh.
Like an infant nursing at its mother’s breast.
Thanks to her, I felt—for the first time since my orphanage days—a mother’s scent through her.
“Haa...”
Lea flushed, tickled by my breaths.
Yet she held me with open-hearted embrace, unflinching.
“Mmm...”
A droplet from when she’d held water in her mouth earlier.
Instinctively, I stuck out my tongue to lap it up.
And licked Lea’s voluptuous flesh.
“Cute.”
The Empire’s First Imperial Princess looked down with gentle, lascivious eyes.
She cradled the man who’d so casually withstood her mighty mother.
Pride swelling, she caressed me.
“Like a baby, Veil.”
Dazed, I lapped at Lea’s water and fluids, nuzzling her breasts.
Then, suddenly—
A mole on her upper breast caught my eye.
In the exact same spot as Rozanna’s.
*Huh...?*
Lea’s breasts definitely had no mole.
Lost in thought—
I spotted a makeup pencil on the desk.
*No way...*
Had I stared at Rozanna’s mole?
Did Lea, noticing, secretly draw one on herself behind the screen...?
I blankly looked up at Lea’s face.
“No more staring at other breasts from now on.”
The once-icy woman had furtively dotted her own breast while grunting in effort.
Realizing that, I couldn’t stop my lips from curling up.
“Got it?”
It felt like becoming the emperor who once enchanted Rozanna.