Chapter 87

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Translator: Harry Potta

Chapter: 87

Chapter Title: The Crown I'll Steal from You

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Everyone's arms were embroidered with rose patterns coiled around crosses.

Yet they exuded an air closer to knights than mercenaries.

"The leader up front is their head?"

Jason paused, catching their identity from the murmuring Baldinians.

The straw-haired man striding at the forefront wore formal attire bursting with more vibrant colors than ever.

A red hat adorned with a duke's feather sat atop his head.

He brimmed with fresh, lively energy, like something straight out of a midsummer coastal scene.

Without knowing who they were, no one would dream they were the continent's infamous arms dealers.

"Why is Facade here?"

The Kazenians were just as thrown by their arrival.

Some members of this delegation had fought in the conquest war.

In that war, Facade had supplied weapons to Kazen while doubling as mercenaries. They knew all too well.

That these entrants to the banquet hall, feigning normalcy, were living angels of death.

Facade rarely surfaced, sticking to the shadows—so why show up suddenly in Baldina's royal palace?

'No way they've sided with Baldina? What's their game?'

This, as Fourth Princess Angelique scowled.

"Garo of Facade greets Baldina's enduring light."

Garo advanced majestically, parting the crowd. He doffed his hat to the Queen Dowager in greeting.

"For this glorious event fostering cooperation between our nations and laying the foundation for continental peace, Facade wishes to partake as well. We humbly beseech the Queen Dowager's gracious allowance."

His cheerful tone carried far more courtesy than the Kazen delegation, who had brushed past even a greeting to the Queen Dowager earlier.

Even she, long in seclusion, had heard the name Facade.

With a figure treated like a sovereign anywhere on the continent approaching first—right before the Kazen delegation's eyes, no less—her expression softened somewhat.

"We are nothing but grateful for your presence. In pursuit of peace, borders and birthplaces hold no sway."

Garo turned.

His mischievous eyes met the Fourth Princess's. She lifted her chin, as if demanding recognition.

She had adorned herself extravagantly for tonight's banquet, swathed head to toe in Kazen's emblems.

A tiara studded with fifteen sapphires crowned her head, while her shoulder ribbon bore a medal emblazoned with her father, the Kazen Emperor's portrait.

Her intent to crush opponents under the empire's prestige shone through.

Garo smirked, preparing to withdraw.

Just as she faced total dismissal, the enraged princess fired back.

"A mere weapons peddler can't discern the weight of envoys? Seeking a minor kingdom's nod before a great power's?"

She bristled already that Facade's leader had greeted Baldina's Queen Dowager first.

"When guests arrive, one seeks the host's permission first. Does that place another guest playing host ahead?"

Yet Garo countered with his unwavering grin.

"Kazen truly clings to peculiar customs. Then again, even in the empire, your ministers always sought me out first."

Mocking the princess while subtly flaunting his trading company's clout in Kazen, he made her bite her lip.

For the first time, the Baldinians felt a surge of fondness for Facade's leader.

"How dare—"

Then, the princess's maid restrained her.

"Your Highness, hold back. That white half-masked mercenary guarding the leader is truly dangerous, they say. He'll cut down anyone, status be damned, if outnumbered."

The maid, intimately familiar with the white-masked mercenary Akkares's notoriety, prayed her lady would let it slide quietly.

Should that mercenary draw steel, she'd have to shield the princess—and lose her own neck in vain.

"In the continental wars, Facade's one-man armies were all like him."

"……."

The princess chewed her lip. Despite her maid's terrified plea, the Fourth Princess still flushed red and blue from Garo's humiliation.

She wheeled to glare at the Baldinians.

Venting on these easy Baldinians beat tangling with the continent-spanning arms dealers too formidable to touch.

"Enough with the facades, all of you. Without Kazen's charitable slogans propping you up, the peace you barely scrape by wouldn't exist, would it?"

Her gaze raked the Baldinian assembly with open scorn.

"Had your late king not been a warmonger, the people could have feasted contentedly all these years, fretting not over bitter winters. All because of one king's vain ambitions masquerading as royal duty—innocent folk dying pointlessly. Truly tragic."

Her barbs doused the Baldinians' faces like ice water.

"Fourth Princess!"

Unable to stomach the slur on her dead son any longer, the Queen Dowager erupted.

"The sovereign must not judge rashly, nor chase fleeting gains alone," she proclaimed.

Despite the old woman's thunderous roar, the Fourth Princess merely shrugged with brazen flair.

"I merely pitied how the leader's dim judgment led his people astray. Pray do not take offense, Queen Dowager of Baldina. I spoke no untruth, did I?"

"I, I...!"

Fury overwhelming her, the Queen Dowager staggered. Marchioness Pinatelli swiftly steadied her.

"Kazen's arrogance knows no bounds!"

"I, daughter of the great empire, enduring your slights? Hahaha—Father would feel so hard done by."

Taunting further, the princess cackled.

The Baldinians shot her death glares. Yet none could speak.

'To swallow such a sight wide-eyed—powerlessness is our sin, our crime!'

The Fourth Princess, teeth gritted yet holding her rage, thrilled even more at the Baldinians' restraint.

'Just as Mobi said. They can't lay a finger on me.'

A euphoric rush hit her, as if grasping power to topple kingdoms. And this as mere envoy—what if she claimed the throne...

"The Fourth Princess holds most curious standards."

Then, a serene voice shattered her smug reverie.

"By your words, then, your father Perdiccas II seizing the throne from Grand Duke Castulo—the late emperor's rightful heir—wasn't chasing immediate gain?"

The retort flew sharp, stabbing the princess's unguarded flank.

The infamous tale of Perdiccas II, post previous emperor's death, wrenching the throne from his nephew via might and pretext, was continent-renowned.

Right down to his shameless refusal ever to relinquish it.

A truth all knew but none dared voice—now spilling from Baldina's princess's lips.

"W-what did you just...?"

The Fourth Princess gaped, as if slapped across the cheek.

Medea pushed through the crowd, stepping one pace forward.

Her face, still touched with youthful innocence, faced the delegation squarely.

Her brilliant green eyes skimmed past the Fourth Princess to Jason himself. Then she cocked her head.

"With my dull wit, I dare not presume the difference between sovereigns who burden their people with war and those blinded by power, forsaking blood bonds. Thus, I implore the wise Fourth Princess to enlighten me."

Once more, the calm voice echoed the princess's own words, striking her cheek anew.

The Queen Dowager, on the verge of vaulting from her seat to confront the Fourth Princess head-on, sank back down.

Medea had intervened, mercifully preserving her poise.

Her grandniece's thrust dismantling the Kazen emperor's visage had quenched the boiling wrath.

The Baldinians hid no hint of their grim satisfaction.

"Who does she think she is, yapping about sovereigns? Fix her own hovel first."

"Who truly abandoned all measure?"

Snickers rippled outward.

In a heartbeat the butt of ridicule, the Fourth Princess quivered with fury.

The delegation reeled in shock, words failing them.

Fuming inwardly, yet as retainers they knew their lord Perdiccas II too well.

He'd sooner the forcible usurpation from his nephew go unmentioned than wring an apology from this Baldina princess. Thus, swallow it they must.

Much like the Baldinians had moments prior with the Kazenians.

"How dare you insult my father!"

But the Fourth Princess—ever sheltered beneath the emperor's doting and the co-empress's shadow—lacked the maturity to read her father's deeper mind.

She balled her fists.

Never had she, spoiled rotten, endured public shame.

Her shame-flushed face ablaze, she raged.

"Baldina's princess—your gall scrapes the skies! A wretched fringe speck daring hoodwink the mighty Kazen Empire? As my father's proud daughter, I won't let you off unscathed—"

In that instant, something whipped through the air before the princess.

A pair of white gloves.

"……."

Medea, their owner, fixed the Fourth Princess with a steady gaze.

In continental noble society, hurling a personal item—gloves especially—at another held one clear meaning.

A duel challenge.

And as a matter of honor, any result—even wounds or death—must be wholly embraced, per ironclad rules.

Only the challenger's identity as Baldina's princess, pitted against Kazen's own, left all aghast.