Chapter 79
Chapter 79
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: The Sham Betrothal
-----------------------------------------------------------------
“What?”
“It’s a disguise! A fake engagement. It’s not real.”
Enoch denied it firmly. It was a rare case for him, who never said or did anything to embarrass others, to refuse so resolutely.
Lukeya chuckled lowly, as if she were enjoying it.
“Right. It’s actually a sham betrothal. That Damian bastard has been clinging too much lately, unlike before.”
“Didn’t the Third Prince have a fiancée?”
As far as Rachel knew, Damian had a fiancée he’d been promised to since childhood.
She was well aware of his playboy antics, but there was a world of difference between fooling around with commoners while having a fiancée and harassing the daughter of a marquis family.
“Didn’t you know? Her family fell after getting implicated in that last baron incident.”
Rachel murmured at Abyss’s explanation as he emerged from inside.
“I see. So the engagement must have been called off.”
A lot had changed since Paris Emporus’s arrest. She’d tried to grasp the updated information, but some details slipped through.
“Maybe because things have changed so much, he’s been flooding our house with marriage proposals. Do I look insane?”
Rachel nodded emphatically without a word. There was no way she’d marry Damian unless she’d lost her mind.
“His Majesty the King seems to welcome it too, so I had no choice but to ask Enoch for help. That’s okay, right?”
Lukeya looked down at Rachel with her grass-green eyes and asked. Rachel felt a bit unsettled.
‘She seems a little upset. Is it because of the Damian talk?’
“I’m fine with it. Marrying the Third Prince? Just hearing it is horrifying.”
Rachel forced a smile as she said it. For a moment, Enoch’s expression seemed to stiffen, but when she looked again, he was fine.
Clap.
Abyss clapped his hands. Everyone’s attention focused on him.
“Let’s move and talk again for now.”
They used an artifact to change locations. The once green field was now filled with yellow wildflowers. The pavilion still stood tall in the distance, and a small path led toward it.
“We come every week, so a path formed.”
“With a vegetation-attribute mage around, that’s not strange.”
Lukeya giggled happily at Abyss’s mention of “mage.”
Soon, the four arrived at the pavilion.
“Let’s begin the tenth meeting.”
Even with just four people, Abyss always started so formally. Lukeya called it cringeworthy but never stopped him.
Enoch was the first to speak.
“A few days ago, there was an incident, so we’ve decided to strengthen patrols in the capital.”
“What happened?”
“I was attacked.”
“Something like that happened? And you came here alone? You’re crazy, crazy!”
Lukeya’s hand stung subtly. From the situation, Abyss already seemed to know about Rachel’s incident, while Lukeya appeared to be hearing about Rachel’s attack for the first time.
“Ow, ow, that hurts. I was worried too, but patrol frequency increased starting the day after the attack.”
“When a black sorcerer appeared in the capital and attacked Rachel, His Highness the Second Prince readily increased support.”
“His Highness Carion must really care about Rachel!”
“He does. She’s a highly capable slave who gets things done.”
If she vanished right now, they’d need to hire at least ten more bureaucrats.
Rachel had thought herself lacking in many ways before working at the administrative office.
Back when she was Jung Yu-ri, she’d always been the kid who fell short compared to others. School said you just needed to build basics from textbooks and study. But reality had gaps that public education couldn’t bridge.
No matter how hard she studied, she couldn’t catch up to kids getting expensive private tutoring. The starting line was different, so she always lagged behind. She could never line up with them.
But here, the middle and high school curriculum Jung Yu-ri had learned in Korea equated to higher education.
On top of absorbing local knowledge, working with Abyss had sharpened her skills, and briefly managing a territory had steadily built her specs.
“Comparing herself to a slave—Rachel, honestly.”
In a world where slaves actually existed, Lukeya couldn’t grasp Rachel’s metaphor.
“And nobles under the Third Prince tried to win me over. With bribes.”
“Did you take them?”
“Of course. Then I told the Second Prince and His Majesty. They told me to go ahead.”
“Pfft.”
Lukeya and Abyss couldn’t hold back their laughter. Those fools thought they were buying Enoch over, but they’d only tarnished their own and Damian’s reputations.
“They’re marked now.”
“Marked for sure. You know the Second Prince’s temperament?”
“I do. He’s ruthless if he thinks it harms Cudas.”
Rachel stuck out her tongue. Carion, with his strong pride in his ancestors and homeland, wouldn’t tolerate anything weakening Cudas’s national power.
“Thanks to that, he’s really clamping down on the Third Prince this time.”
‘As expected, having gone through the 20th round together, Enoch knows Carion’s changes well.’
“Yeah. Because of that, the Third Prince’s faction is aggressively courting the neutrals. Proposing to me was probably to pull in my father and brothers.”
After the Crown Prince’s death, the Nerus marquis family had strictly maintained neutrality.
In this round, they’d support Carion because of Lukeya, but for now, they were still at the center of the neutrals alongside Enoch.
“So I had no choice but to fake-engage with Enoch. But once His Highness Carion ascends the throne, I’ll break it off right away.”
Even though it concerned her social reputation, Lukeya said it nonchalantly.
“We’ve prepared thoroughly for the rainy season.”
Abyss spoke briefly about rainy season reports, which they’d covered multiple times before, then turned to Rachel.
“We’ve done what we can here too. Incorporating Lukeya’s input, we’ve worked to prevent water source contamination and moved existing grain from warehouses to higher ground.”
Lukeya’s joining impacted their planning far more than her magical abilities.
Before, no matter how much intel Abyss gathered or how many temple forces Enoch pulled in, they were always late to respond to capital events.
They lacked social circle information. Especially palace intel!
But Lukeya’s addition had largely resolved that.
Vague info about Carion faction nobles dying en masse, weakening their side while Damian gained citizen support and won the civil war, became far more detailed thanks to Lukeya’s reports.
Carion had defended the palace, but floods contaminated water sources and rotted stockpiled food. Weapons ran short, putting them at a disadvantage.
Meanwhile, Damian had ample supplies backed by merchant forces led by Paris Emporus.
They could now distinguish most deaths from plagues, noble disease, and curses by symptoms.
Exploiting this was their current task. Especially with Rachel in the administrative office, utility had skyrocketed.
“And that green pigment I mentioned before—it contained arsenic.”
In past rounds, vivid emerald green had trended. Many noblewomen wore green dresses and painted walls and doors green. But it brought many deaths.
The disease mainly afflicting nobles was called noble disease. Lukeya had inferred the green was the cause but knew no more.
“Digging further, it was made at a factory owned by Emporus Trading Company. So I issued a business suspension and sent out official notices.”
This preempted the noble disease that had killed most of Carion’s nobles.
“They’ve committed so many crimes.”
“They’re involved everywhere.”
Rachel shuddered at Paris Emporus’s endless evils, no matter how much they dug.
“And finally, the Daimon organization has reached out to Father. Execution is the day after tomorrow.”
“Finally, a chance to wipe them out?”
Abyss clenched his fist so hard veins bulged.
They didn’t know why the Daimon organization invited Henri.
But without intervention, Henri dies. A noble’s death is no small matter, so if they timed it right, it was a chance to sweep away a chunk of Daimon.
‘High risk, high return.’
Failure means Henri dies and regression; success scatters Damian’s base, halting his power growth.
“His safety…”
“I’ll ask Mother.”
Mobility and secrecy were key here. The informant guild had them but lacked force. Deploying large armed groups risked alerting Daimon to hide.
“We can trust Lady Evelyn.”
As long as she didn’t inhale poison or tire out, Evelyn was the strongest. Her mobility and secrecy were proven in the 19th round assassinating Paris Emporus.
Enoch and Abyss nodded, while Lukeya blinked.
“How strong is she?”
“The best among anyone I know.”
“But her visibility is risky. Once Baron Iasis’s safety is secured, she withdraws, and you step in, Enoch.”
Only with Enoch—who’d been delegated black sorcerer hunts by the king—out front could they justify striking Damian’s forces.
Afterward, the four planned their actions for the day after tomorrow.
***
“Phew.”
White smoke spread in all directions. Viscount Noema set down his pipe.
‘This is dangerous as is.’
Lost in thought, Viscount Noema stroked the handle of the staff in his left hand repeatedly.
With the Crown Prince gone, Damian was closer to the throne than before.
But after emerging force leader Paris Emporus died and Fourth Prince Enoch’s existence surfaced, cracks began forming in Damian’s supporters.
Daimon, Damian’s backers, had existed since the Crown Prince’s time. They were disparate groups united by self-interest or goals.
At the center was Damian, who craved the throne, but he paid little heed to the organization.
He saw their support as natural and enjoyed all they offered, promising rewards once king.
Damian believed he could control Daimon, but that was impossible.
Regardless of his will, individuals in Daimon prioritized their own aims.
To them, Third Prince Damian becoming king was just a process, a means. A mere symbiotic relationship without loyalty or bonds.
That symbiosis teetered after Enoch formed the Silver Knight Order.
Scholars pursuing truths beyond causality in black magic couldn’t abandon black sorcerers.
But nobles and merchants preferred befriending the new power center, Enoch, over execution tied to sorcerers.
Some even feared execution for mere association.
The unrest spread like ripples, leading to defections. Hel tried holding them by killing defectors and miraculously reviving the dead.
But Daimon crumbled like dropped cookies, moving independently.
Some abandoned defectors and sorcerers to court Enoch; others couldn’t accept it.
Damian, however, failed to grasp this. He just fumed over missing large funds.
A few merchant-barons who’d bought titles with money had already approached Enoch.
Yet many would suffer if Enoch backed Damian—Damian himself, and Viscount Noema too.