Chapter 67

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: A Dark Rumor
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#67

“Excuse me.”

The person who entered the office with those words was the very man who had just become the topic of their conversation.

Unlike his usual casual attire at Central Command, Walter approached Lucy in a perfect formal uniform. Everything but his skin was black, making him look as if he were cloaked in darkness.

Walter clasped his black-gloved hands behind his back and stopped before Lucy with a disciplined posture.

“Your Majesty. The person who volunteered to be your lady-in-waiting is currently waiting in the reception room. If it pleases you…”

“Sir Hyverge! Perfect timing.”

Kill’s face brightened as he led Walter to the sofa.

Just as Walter, who had been unexpectedly seated, was about to ask what was going on, Kill spoke first.

“I just heard something utterly outrageous from Her Majesty. Is it true that Crown Prince Alejandro proposed to Her Majesty with the aim of uniting the three kingdoms?”

Walter reflexively glanced at Lucy.

With an indifferent expression, Lucy rested her chin on her knee, rolling a sugar cube around in her palm.

Seeing her seemingly nonchalant attitude, Walter began to speak in a calm tone.

“That is correct. It was a private discussion after he requested a separate audience with Her Majesty, so I imagine you were not aware, Chancellor.”

“I asked, but she said it was nothing, so I let it go! In any case, this is no time to be complacent. We don't know when the Empire might invade… Dopein is not the problem right now. What are we to do?”

“Is there some trouble with Dopein?”

“I'm told crime is rampant near the border. It seems they keep crossing the border and threatening our security.”

Kill handed over a document, adding a further explanation. As he listed the damages to pillaged villages and the scale of the bandits, Walter bit his lip and read the document with a more serious gaze.

Kill, who had been watching him quietly, pressed for an answer as soon as Walter put the document down.

“So, what did you tell Her Majesty?”

“Pardon?”

“I heard Her Majesty consulted you about the matter with the Crown Prince. About what to do if war breaks out.”

“Ah. Yes. I advised her that if they pick a fight, we should fight back.”

Kill felt his preconceived notions about Walter shattering. His impression of a young man who was always upright, detached, and rational was replaced by the image of a corrupted fighting cock, tainted by the queen.

As Kill stared at him blankly, mouth agape, Walter cleared his throat and changed the subject.

“I understand your concerns, Chancellor… but we can take our time in considering our response to the Empire.”

“Why is that?”

“Even if Crown Prince Alejandro holds all the power, he is currently nothing more than a regent. The Imperial Army's creed is stricter than ours. Do you recall the first article of the Parnas Army's code of service?”

Kill fell silent for a moment before speaking again.

“We pledge allegiance to the royal family of Parnas and will devote all our strength to its protection. And the Imperial Army's creed is…”

“‘Under the glory of the great Emperor.’ The Empire was founded after the legendary warrior Panar Terra conquered the continent. Our army is loyal to the royal family, but the Imperial Army is a force that truly moves for the Emperor alone.”

Panar Terra's martial prowess, having conquered the largest territory on the entire continent, combined with his title as the Empire's founder, elevated him to the status of a mythical figure.

Citing their founder's iron-fisted martial nature, the Empire had always organized its personnel around military officials rather than civil ones, a tendency most starkly revealed in the structure of the Imperial Army.

“The Crown Prince is a brilliant man, but not a man of great martial skill. Therefore, I have heard that his support among the soldiers is quite low. Of course, General Tulda, the head of the army, supports the Crown Prince, but it will be difficult for him to overcome the limitations of being a regent.”

“Then, the reason he didn't send troops to support Dopein is…”

“Based on this, yes. As long as the Emperor has not passed away, the Crown Prince cannot mobilize the army on a large scale.”

Kill felt as though gears that had refused to mesh were finally clicking into place.

Everything made sense now—why the Crown Prince went through the trouble of conscripting and sending Lycans, and why he came in person to threaten Lucy at her coronation.

From the Crown Prince's perspective, it would be far easier to intimidate her into submission than to go through the trouble of raising an army and starting a war. That's why he went so far as to leave his own country to attend the coronation in person.

“When I faced the Crown Prince, I worried that war might break out at any moment… It's a relief that doesn't seem to be the case.”

Lucy, who had been resting her chin on her knee, interjected in a somber tone.

“Well… we are dealing with Alex, after all. A guy like him is more than capable of assassinating the Emperor in secret and taking the throne. We can't let our guard down.”

“Your Majesty. Even so, the Crown Prince and the Emperor are father and son. For blood relatives to… Besides, he will naturally become emperor when His Majesty passes away. Would he really take such a drastic measure?”

“Alex would, and then some.”

Alex's way was to kill anyone who stood in his path, regardless of whether they were family or not.

He was the kind of man who had even killed his own mother to quell the ministers' suspicions that he was an illegitimate child born of the Empress's affair. And in her past life, he had already killed the Emperor twice.

But even if she said so, no one would believe her, and there was no need to say it anyway…

As Lucy nodded silently, Kill gave her a questioning look.

“I've felt this for a while, but you speak as if you know the Crown Prince quite well, Your Majesty.”

“Hmph. I despise him. Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will not be imperiled. So I did a lot of research.”

“Then do you also know why the Crown Prince is so bent on unifying the continent?”

Along with Kill's question, Walter urged her for an answer with an intrigued gaze.

It was a question she had always expected, but now that it was asked, the answer didn't come easily. Lucy opened and closed her mouth, choosing her words carefully.

“Continental unification… is that what you'd call it? The ideal world the Crown Prince desires has two conditions. One is to expand the territory to the size of the first great empire, and the second is to drive the other races from the continent.”

“Other races… Do you mean both the Raphi and the Lycans?”

“Yes. His primary motivation for becoming regent in the first place was likely the exclusion of other races.”

Walter, who had been silent all this time, spoke up heavily.

“Why does Crown Prince Alejandro hate them?”

Lucy looked up at the ceiling and gave a bitter smile.

She herself had asked the same question. *Why do you hate them?* she had asked countless times, but Alex's answer was always the same.

"There might be a reason for liking something, but there's no reason for hating it."

A fitting answer for a madman who wanted to shape the world to his whims.

However, to win Alex over, she had to dig into his subconscious—the one he hid, or perhaps wasn't even aware of—and uncover the motivation behind his desires.

For that reason, Lucy had gathered enough information about his upbringing and ideology to call it research.

The reason he wanted to unify the continent.

And the reason he wanted to drive out the other races was probably…

“This is just my speculation, but.”

A speculation she had never told anyone, fearing it might get back to the Crown Prince.

It was the first time she had ever spoken of it, and saliva unwittingly pooled in her mouth. Lucy fixed her gaze on the ceiling and continued in a low voice.

“The late Empress… Alex's birth mother, Beatrice. She was a princess from the free city of Alpiren. Unusually, from her childhood until she came to the imperial palace, she was said to have had a Lycan as an attendant.”

She recalled a story she had once heard from an informant.

The Empress's Lycan. Contrary to the perception of them as a rough and hot-tempered race, he was said to be an elegant Lycan with long, white fur.

That Lycan, whom Beatrice had personally taken in from a slave market in her youth, was claimed by all who knew of her childhood to have been inseparable from her.

“Even after becoming the Crown Princess, and later the Empress, she supposedly kept that Lycan close whenever she visited her family home. The problem is, that Lycan was male. And a strange rumor began to circulate in the imperial palace.”

“A rumor, you say…”

“A rumor that the Empress was having an affair. And coincidentally, the Empress, who had been unable to conceive a child, discovered her pregnancy right after a visit to her family home. The child born from that pregnancy is the current Crown Prince Alejandro.”

A silence colder than a winter mountain's chill enveloped the office at the chilling, unexpected truth.

Both Walter and Kill's faces were taut as they remained silent. The objection came from an unexpected person.

“That… that's impossible. A child cannot be born between different races.”

Whees, who had been standing guard by the door, moved his half-open beak and let out the words like a groan. Lucy nodded, acknowledging his point.

“So they say. Even if a physical relationship were possible, a hybrid could never be born. Besides, Alex looks completely human, doesn't he? No tail, no special ears… But no one knows the truth.”

In reality, no one knows if a child can be born between different races.

It's rare enough for them to see each other as equals, and even if they did, being attracted to each other as partners is another matter entirely.

Besides, a human and a Lycan.

For the people of the Empire, who considered Lycans to be less than human, if a rumor spread that their august Empress was having an affair with a Lycan, the imperial family's reputation would be in tatters.