Chapter 95

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 95
Chapter Title: The Lion's Feather
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The Parvellini ducal family owned one of the most expensive mansions in the capital. It was a grand estate passed down through generations.
The mansion of the historic and prestigious family had a classic exterior that bore the marks of time, yet its interior led the latest trends.
This ducal residence in the capital, where the modern and the classic harmonized, was a source of pride for the Parvellini family, along with their platinum blonde hair. It was proof that the Parvellinis were the very root and center of the Traon Empire.
Duke Parvellini, Asef, gazed at his ducal residence from the window of his car, a pleased smile on his face as he headed home.
Perhaps he had drunk a little too much at the soirée tonight. A renewed sense of pride in being a Parvellini surged within him.
“Yes, no matter how much that bastard runs rampant…”
The Parvellinis would be eternal. Even if the imperial family were to change, the Parvellinis would continue their history, like a great, ancient tree.
Asef fumbled in his coat and pulled out a cigar case. He opened the window and was just about to light a cigar.
The car jolted violently and came to a screeching halt. The cigar case on his lap fell to the floor. He also dropped the one in his hand, sending the finest cigars scattering across the carriage floor.
*Tsk.* Asef clicked his tongue and raised his voice slightly at the driver.
“What is it!”
He was an experienced driver and wouldn't have stopped so abruptly unless something major had happened. Asef was about to let it go with a lenient attitude, but for some reason, the driver didn't answer. He just stared ahead, his eyes wide.
As Asef tried to follow the driver's gaze, he squeezed his eyes shut. A sudden flash of headlights from an oncoming car had blinded him.
Soon, the light dimmed, and when he slowly opened his eyes again, he swallowed a dry laugh at the scene before him.
Armed soldiers had surrounded his car. Standing before the soldiers, who aimed their rifles with expressionless faces, was a tall man dressed in a suit.
Meeting those crimson eyes, Asef muttered a curse he hadn't uttered in a very long time. *Knock, knock.* A light rap sounded on the window. Outside the car door, a soldier with a massive build gave a command.
“Get out.”
It was a knight of Grand Duke Erzet. *Was his name Rotan?* Recalling the name vaguely etched in his memory, Asef opened the door himself and stepped out of the car.
As he planted both feet on the ground and stood fully outside, he felt the cool air. Asef belatedly realized the air felt cold because of the sweat he had broken out in. Swallowing dryly, he approached the Grand Duke.
The Grand Duke was wearing a simple suit, not his imperial military uniform. Nevertheless, he was more unnerving than the soldiers aiming their guns. The thick scent of blood drifting from him on the night breeze made Asef's lungs constrict.
“A fine evening, Duke Parvellini. The moon is bright.”
The Grand Duke, his hands tucked in his pockets, offered a casual greeting. Judging by his tone alone, one might think they had simply run into each other on a nightly stroll. Asef ran his tongue over his parched mouth.
Since becoming a duke, he had rarely had cause to fear or be intimidated by anything… But this feeling that made his legs tremble was terror. The primal emotion squeezing his heart felt foreign.
Grand Duke Erzet could not kill Duke Parvellini. He couldn't just execute him on the spot like this, without even the slightest legal procedure. The Parvellinis were a family of meritorious service to the empire.
Yet, even while clinging to this clear fact, he couldn't be certain the man wouldn't kill him. To put it bluntly, the Grand Duke could go mad, disregard the consequences, and turn him into a sieve right here. This was especially plausible considering the quiet slaughter the man before him had recently committed.
“…Your Excellency the Grand Duke, what brings you here at this hour?”
He couldn't even raise his voice, afraid Grand Duke Erzet might order his men to pull the triggers. As he carefully chose and uttered each word, the Grand Duke stared intently at him. A chill ran down Asef's spine at the gaze, which seemed to know exactly what he feared.
“A little rat seems to have found its way into my wife's laboratory.”
“…!”
Asef barely managed to suppress the flicker of agitation on his face. When he heard an outsider would be entering the Grand Duke's residence, he had simply picked a suitably pliable young scholar for the job.
He had ordered the man to observe what the Grand Duchess was doing and find anything that could be used as a weakness, promising him wealth and honor in return.
He had taken the risk because he'd received a report that the man, entering as a guest of the Grand Duchess, would be under far less scrutiny.
But the scholar, whom he'd thought was rather clever, had been foolishly discovered right away. No, perhaps it wasn't a matter of being discovered.
‘Could it be that the Grand Duke was waiting? He set a trap…’
Waiting for Asef to make a mistake. As Asef's mind raced with complex thoughts, the Grand Duke asked a question.
“Is Lady Parvellini doing well?”
He didn't bother to press Asef about his crime. With just a single sentence, he had him by the throat. Unable to withstand the elegant threat, Asef let out a deep groan.
Political calculations swirled in his mind, but in that moment, he answered not as the Duke of Parvellini, but as a father.
“Your Excellency… I was foolish. I beg for your generous mercy.”
This was a man who would visit the Duke of Parvellini in the middle of the night and point a gun at him. There was no guarantee he wouldn't lead his soldiers to the ducal residence right now and intimidate Ornella.
His daughter, raised as the Lily of Traon seeing only the most precious and finest things, could not endure gunpowder and blood. As Asef bowed his head and begged for forgiveness, the Grand Duke accepted it magnanimously.
However, as a condition for overlooking today's incident, he proposed something unexpected.
“Give me the Lion's Feather.”
He was demanding the sacred relic kept by the Parvellini family. The Parvellini relic was a golden feather, said to have fallen from the winged lion of the founding myth.
Whenever Asef saw that feather, he would scoff, wondering if it was really from a winged lion or just plucked from some nameless bird and painted gold.
But for Grand Duke Erzet, of all people, to demand the Lion's Feather left him bewildered. He was well aware that the Grand Duke was an unbeliever who detested superstitious acts.
He would, of course, hand over the feather if he wanted to live, but Asef couldn't resist a sudden urge to ask the Grand Duke a question.
“What is it that Your Excellency truly desires?”
He had been curious about the Grand Duke's intentions ever since he heard the news that he had beheaded the King of Kalpen.
Beheading the king was the worst possible choice. The Grand Duke surely knew that keeping the king alive and negotiating was the best course of action, which made Asef wonder how he planned to clean up the mess.
But it wasn't arrogance; it was confidence. Immediately after beheading the King of Kalpen, the Grand Duke had also annihilated the resistance army that formed around the Kalpen Crown Prince.
Normally, he should have been bogged down by the resistance for at least half a year. But the Grand Duke saw right through them—he knew which nobles within Kalpen were cooperating with the resistance, how they were procuring supplies, and where they were stationed.
The Kalpen resistance was practically dancing in the palm of his hand and was wiped out in less than a month. Such an unbelievably swift resolution would have been impossible without diHarry Potta aid.
Or unless he himself had become a god.
He had feared the Grand Duke in the past, but it was nothing compared to now. The current Grand Duke seemed to see the future, as if he had grasped all the principles of heaven. The way events unfolded as if Grand Duke Erzet were the protagonist of the world was enough to make one laugh in disbelief.
The Grand Duke's actions, akin to prophecy, continued even after his return to the empire. The nobles of Traon were helpless against a man who could see through the future.
Not content with just breaking the nobles' power, the Grand Duke began eliminating them one by one. Many lost their titles in disgrace or were quietly murdered in various ways. Most didn't even receive a proper funeral.
But why?
There was no reason for any of it. It was hard to say he was aiming to usurp the throne by seizing control of the empire, because even those who would have clearly been useful to him had shed blood. The Grand Duke was simply repeating a needless slaughter.
For whom was this quiet festival of slaughter, with its unknowable standards, being held? Asef truly wanted to know the Grand Duke's intentions.
“…What I desire.”
The Grand Duke, who had been pondering quite seriously, offered an answer as if talking to himself.
“If I had to say, it would be peace.”
Asef's face immediately contorted. He thought the Grand Duke was mocking him. Peace, truly desired by a man who brought with him a storm of blood.
The Grand Duke, reading Asef's thoughts, continued slowly.
“If I did not desire it.”
His eyes, the color of fresh blood, fixed on Asef as he gave a twisted smile.
“Would it not have been difficult for you, Duke, to be standing before me unharmed right now?”