The Imperial Palace was silent until Elizaveta’s matchmaking ended.
Well, that was to be expected.
Ludmilla was preparing for deployment.
The seven generals of Valtaria summoned from across the Empire.
Knight orders stationed at the Imperial Palace and gates, waiting for commands.
And even Zebeline, who ran to the restroom after reaching her limit on the urge to urinate.
The Valtarian Empire’s Imperial Palace, filled with overwhelming power, was like an impregnable fortress, a hive buzzing with angry wasps.
But conclusions couldn’t be drawn so hastily.
There were always variables and plot twists, after all.
“Why so serious?”
“Nothing, really.”
Elizaveta tilted her head and asked.
Had my expression accidentally given it away?
I swept my face and suppressed the emotions I had just shown.
‘Suddenly, my intuition started sending warnings… but I have no idea what it’s about.’
It’s like losing something and not recalling where I left it.
A sense of alertness lingered.
A sharp feeling of crisis pricked at my brain.
What on earth could it be?
There was no reason to feel a sense of crisis in a palace that was as solid as a fortress.
Could there be a rat sneaking into the heavily guarded palace? I had that thought for a moment, but since it was merely a vague suspicion, I didn’t act recklessly.
“We will take our leave now, Your Highness Elizaveta.”
Young men with faces tinted ashen approached.
They were the suitors who had been rejected by Princess Elizaveta before they even had a chance to express their feelings.
What a pity.
They’d missed their one and only golden opportunity to rise to fame.
If they had become the beloved of the Emperor’s youngest daughter, they could have climbed the path of success easily, perhaps becoming a powerful duke or a minister wielding absolute power.
But the villainous princess of the Imperial Family was no easy opponent. Thus, none of the suitors managed to charm the princess’s heart and ended up getting eliminated from the competition.
“Hang in there! Something good is bound to happen!”
“I didn’t know I needed comforting. It’s fine; it’s my fault for being inadequate.”
Rue observed a strange scene as she saw a young man talking to Elizaveta.
That young man was from a prestigious family who had proposed to Elizaveta.
Were they acquaintances?
No,
There was no way that could be…
The young man who had proposed to the princess was not a character in the main storyline. He was merely an extra not even mentioned in the story. Naturally, he couldn’t have run into the mascot of the Saintess Party anywhere.
“I just ran into him in the hallway a moment ago!”
“Oh really?”
So it seemed that the young man, carrying a bundle of snacks, had bumped into a suitor in the hallway.
From the way Rue humbly accepted the young man’s casual comfort, he seemed like a simple and innocent gentleman.
But why did I feel a sense of unease?
I gazed at their retreating figures until the suitors who had been defeated at the matchmaking left in a flurry. Every time I sensed that vague unease, there was always a bad aftertaste to it.
“Is something the matter?”
Did Rue sense my reaction and feel suspicious?
She asked, holding hands with me.
“I just felt bad when I saw those young men who looked like parasites.”
“Jealousy, Edan.”
Even though it was said dismissively, Elizaveta had requested the list of suitors and taken it.
She wanted to uncover the source of her unease.
Snap. Snap-.
I quickly flipped through the documents.
The list included names, families, and brief notes about each one.
As I quickly skimmed through the records, I tried to get to the bottom of my strange unease.
‘Dagilec Branon. Second son of the Branon family. Black-eyed. A top student who graduated brilliantly from the Elstie Academy’s theology department. Has won prizes at piano competitions.’
The young man who gave off an unpleasant sense of unease seemed like an exceptionally gifted individual.
The word “perfect” suited him well.
Dagilec Branon was among the best of suitors.
His characteristic of graduating excellently from the prestigious Elstie Academy’s theology department thoroughly denied any connection to the demon. Since the Valtarian Imperial Family would have investigated the suitors thoroughly, it was even more so.
‘If he graduated from theology, then he must have received baptism from a priest of the Holy Kingdom. So he is not a cult worshipper… Cultists cannot receive the Earth Mother’s baptism. Well, there are exceptions, but…’
It was impossible for a cultist who worshipped the Forgotten God to receive baptism from the Earth Mother’s priest.
The cult’s divinity had been accepted.
Thus, the Earth Mother’s divinity could not invade.
If forced, a “Divine Collision” would occur, causing overload. Therefore, cultists had been exploring ways to disguise their baptism from the Earth Mother.
“Rue!”
“Yeah? What’s up?”
While I was scanning the list and considering various possibilities, Rue was sipping cocoa alongside Elizaveta.
How relaxed.
I asked Rue, whose mouth was smeared with whipped cream.
“When you bumped into that pretty-looking parasite… did you feel anything suspicious?”
“Umm…”
She asked in a flustered voice.
Whoosh-.
Suddenly, Rue’s hair whipped around violently and very quickly.
She seemed to be desperately wracking her brain to recall the fleeting moment.
“He helped me up when I fell. And he handed me the snacks I dropped.”
“And then?”
“Nothing particularly special.”
“……”
With Rue’s response that there was no oddity, the tension visibly eased.
The fairy’s answer further supported the pure innocence of the young man Dagilec Branon, who had nothing to do with demons or cult worshippers.
Was it just my overthinking?
I ended up suspecting someone who was perfectly fine for no reason.
I sighed as I closed the documents. In the end, I had failed to grasp even a hint of suspicion.
“He smelled like something, just like Edan. Maybe he doesn’t wash often.”
“What?”
Just then,
Rue suddenly recalled something and lifted her head.
“The smell of rotting earth was terrible! Plus, it smelled like rusty metal! I don’t understand why he didn’t wear perfume when meeting a pretty princess. I’ve never seen a fool duller than my Luinong friends.”
“…Stench.”
Dagilec Branon smelled of stench?
No,
That was absurd.
If there had been a stench, Elizaveta, who had sat across from him at the table, would definitely have noticed it.
I had briefly brushed against Dagilec and only caught a faint whiff of perfume.
Only the fairy Luinong had detected the ‘stench’ that no one else could sense. What could that possibly mean?
Stench.
It was evidence of corruption and a symbol of decay.
Moreover, it was like the Earth Mother’s punishment to those worshipping the Forgotten God.
At Rue’s testimony about the foul stench emanating from Dagilec, I furrowed my brow.
*
The suitors, whose violent ambitions to become the Emperor’s son-in-law had been thwarted, expressed their discontent towards the seemingly cold Elizaveta, who seemed as harsh as thorny bushes.
They entered the palace puffed with pride as suitors but soon retreated, having only experienced Elizaveta’s notorious sharp character.
What did they think they were, getting rejected by the hero and still feeling all high and mighty…!
Damn it.
In the end, they had just shot themselves in the foot.
How could they report to their families that they had been humiliated in front of the Platinum Princess? The suitors who exited the palace scattered, each showing signs of distress.
……
Dagilec, who had been a suitor for the Branon family, was no exception.
After passing through the gates, Dagilec boarded the carriage that had been waiting for him.
“I was half in doubt, but it seems I was safe. I expected a pessimistic outcome.”
A woman with red hair greeted Dagilec from the carriage.
Surprisingly, while her appearance resembled that of a beautiful woman, her voice was very thick, resembling that of an elderly man.
“Haha! Indeed, the noble bloodline runs deep! It felt like welcoming a goddess!”
Dagilec’s face, once handsome, now squashed like a lump of rotten flesh. The skin draped over his face slumped down like mud dripping from a mask.
There is no mask in the world that can hide malice.
As if to prove that, each time the monster disguised as Dagilec Branon rampaged, that beautiful face crumbled miserably.
“If such clear purity exists, it will serve excellently as a vessel to contain our god. Surely, the god will be pleased! I felt that certainty when I saw the beautiful Platinum Princess!”
Before the table had been set with Elizaveta von Valtaria, she had been the Holy Grail that they had been desperately searching for across the continent.
A vessel to summon a deity.
A noble ancestry that would ultimately complete the ascension of evil.
Extreme pain and fear injected into the flesh would only make it more perfect. Disguising himself as a suitor to infiltrate the palace was solely to calculate Elizaveta’s suitability with his own eyes.
“Well, at least I got something out of the hardship.”
How much effort was put into infiltrating a palace that was like a den of wolves?
He killed the chosen suitor, Dagilec Branon.
He donned his skin.
Then he manipulated Dagilec’s soul and possessed his body.
He exhibited meticulousness by blocking his presence and temporarily sealing his powers even while crossing numerous high-security barriers. He even took every possible measure to avoid detection by the saintly power. Thanks to gathering many cult worshippers, the scheme had succeeded.
“But just four hours is the limit. It would be hard to go beyond that. If I had delayed for even a moment, I would have been caught immediately by the Crimson Dragon of the Empire or the White Dragon of the Holy Kingdom. Then you would have been caught, unable to use any power.”
Despite mobilizing many cult worshippers, just four hours was the limit. Infiltrating an impregnable fortress was an endeavor that even seasoned cultists would risk their lives to achieve.
It was a very high-risk deception.
But the significance was grand.
Hadn’t Princess Elizaveta confirmed that she was the Holy Grail?
Since being rejected by the hero Maximilian, Elizaveta had completely cut off her outings. Therefore, they had no choice but to embark on an adventure to infiltrate the palace and make contact with the Platinum Princess.
And—
“Did you plant ‘that’ with the princess’s entourage?”
“Of course.”
A group formed by cult worshippers who had fled from the Demon King’s army’s great demon,
“The Guides”
The cruel and ruthless criminals’ objective was a sacrificial offering to summon the deity.
A cunning malice intent on delivering a miserable end to the villainous princess Elizaveta began to rise like a noxious fog.
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