Chapter 122
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Chapter 122
At that moment, in the Imperial Palace.
"What on earth is taking so long?"
An hour had passed waiting for Dain.
Orpen, who had initially waited for Dain with patience, was now growing restless as the wait wore on him.
His fingers drumming against the armrest of his chair had grown irritable in tandem.
"Surely... this isn't all some kind of trap?"
The Chief Attendant, watching Orpen's paranoid suspicions spiral with unease, finally stepped forward.
"I shall send someone to the Lowswide Marquess Residence."
It was just as the Chief Attendant, having calmed Orpen, was about to leave the room.
Boom—!
A heavy, resonant tremor, as if something were shattering, reverberated clearly throughout the entire Imperial Palace.
The Chief Attendant, not a mage, merely felt the vibration, but Orpen understood.
'The Imperial Palace's barrier...'
Someone had shattered the Imperial Palace's barrier.
'Who on earth?'
Throughout imperial history, few had ever broken the Imperial Palace's barrier.
Which meant this was a matter of grave consequence.
Orpen burst from the room.
An intruder who had breached the Imperial Palace's barrier on the very day he was meant to depart for the Demon Realm.
And Dain, who had not arrived despite the appointed hour.
An ominous premonition enveloped him.
Yet just as he was about to leave the Imperial Palace, an attendant came rushing urgently toward him.
"Your Majesty!"
It was one of his close attendants who frequented the Research Facility of the Abandoned Crown Prince's Palace.
"What is it?"
"Intruders have entered the Research Facility."
At this unexpected news, Orpen's expression twisted grotesquely.
* * *
Upon hearing the news, Orpen immediately came to the Abandoned Crown Prince's Palace.
His eyes, as he headed toward the prison within the Research Facility, burned with fury and madness.
[Of the three intruders, one escaped, and we succeeded in capturing two alive. One of them is...]
The attendant reporting on the intruders' capture hesitated briefly before continuing.
[...the Imperial Princess, Your Majesty.]
Orpen let out a hollow laugh at the unexpected identity of the intruder.
'Hildegard—so you are what finally strangles Father's breath.'
That thorn in his side, born with a mage's aptitude in a woman's body, had threatened her brother's position and had ultimately become his obstacle.
Perhaps because he had long anticipated this outcome, the fact of Hildegard's involvement was hardly surprising.
Orpen casually issued a confinement order to the Princess Palace for Hildegard and stepped deeper into the prison.
What gnawed at his nerves more than Hildegard was something else entirely.
His footsteps came to a halt before the prison cell, and within it....
"I pay my respects to His Majesty the Emperor, the supreme authority of the Empire."
Despite being captured, Lahedis greeted him with an impudent smile, as though he had been the one to invite me here.
He was the very person who had shattered the Imperial Palace's barrier moments ago.
Orpen recalled the report he had received from his attendant, and his teeth clenched involuntarily.
The Imperial Palace's barrier was so formidable that few in history had ever broken it.
To shatter such a barrier would surely have required an astronomical amount of mana.
'And yet this wretch cast magic immediately after breaking through the barrier.'
That meant if the barrier hadn't been restored at once, he would have possessed enough mana remaining to rampage far longer.
Despite expending such vast reserves of power.
No, more fundamentally.
'If he still possessed that much mana, he could have simply teleported away and escaped.'
Yet Lahedis had not fled. Instead, he had stalled for time before allowing himself to be captured.
More precisely, it would be accurate to say he had 'allowed himself to be captured.'
The reason was likely to buy time for the other intruder to escape.
The fact that without that other intruder, Lahedis would never have been caught at all—the disparity in strength between them that this truth revealed—scraped at Orpen's nerves anew.
That worm of inferiority that had gnawed at his spirit across the long years.
Orpen confirmed that Lahedis was securely bound in restraints that suppressed his mana, then stepped into the cell.
As he faced Lahedis's visage, which still faintly bore traces of Leopfried's features, a visceral revulsion surged through him.
The lingering specter of something horrible and loathsome.
"You've been ransacking the Imperial Palace as though it were your own backyard."
"Having grown up guarding myself during childhood, unable to play freely like other children, old habits from those days still linger, it seems."
It was a jab at the fact that he had been forced to live in disguise to evade Orpen's surveillance.
Orpen suppressed the roiling turbulence within himself and spoke in a measured tone.
"So, was it amusing?"
"It was a most meaningful time, allowing me to glimpse Uncle's deep-rooted inferiority complex."
Lahedis touched his nerve without hesitation, no longer bothering to conceal anything.
At that, Orpen's hands began to tremble with rage.
Seeing this, Lahedis's lips twisted into a crooked smile.
"However, Your Majesty."
As Lahedis continued, even the mockery from moments before had vanished, leaving only cold eyes.
"Whether you kill me or seize the Demon King's heart...."
"...."
"No matter what you do, you will never surpass my father."
"...."
"You will merely become a monster."
For an instant, the figure of Lahedis speaking those words overlapped with the image of Leopfried.
[No matter what measures you take, you will never surpass me, brother.]
Those eyes, that expression—gazing at him with pity even as he stood condemned as a traitor.
Every detail of that moment remained as vivid as yesterday, even now, twenty years later.
The inferiority and defeat that had weighed upon him transformed into a despair from which no escape was possible—that very moment.
Orpen's eyes trembled violently as he gazed upon Lahedis.
Orpen snatched the sword from his subordinate beside him and pressed it against Lahedis's throat.
"Let's see if you can still boast so brazenly with a blade shoved down your throat."
What shook him first was fear, and next was rage.
That fury was palpably felt beyond the trembling blade pressed against the nape of his neck.
Yet even as the sharp blade bit into his throat, Lahedis merely laughed.
As though pitying his uncle, who thrashed about wildly in the grip of fury.
"Can you truly kill me here, in this very place?"
At those words, the blade that had been drawing blood from Lahedis's throat faltered.
The Imperial Knights Order was told the barrier had briefly deactivated due to a minor tremor, and the fact of Lahedis's intrusion was concealed.
To reveal Lahedis's intrusion would require revealing that he had infiltrated the Abandoned Crown Prince's Palace.
'If that were to happen, the Imperial Knights Order would learn of the Research Facility beneath the Abandoned Crown Prince's Palace as well.'
That could not be allowed.
Yet he could not summarily execute the captured Lahedis either.
Some still believed the rumors that Orpen had once tried to kill Lahedis.
If Lahedis were to die a violent death, he would be the first suspect.
So for now, Lahedis was confined to the Prison beneath the Research Facility.
Fabricating false evidence of attempted treason, framing him as a traitor to be dealt with legally.
Just as he had done with his own father.
Since Lahedis himself had seen through this scheme, he remained composed.
'This cunning fox....'
Orpen, who had glared at Lahedis as though to kill him, finally threw down the sword he held.
One could not allow momentary emotion to ruin everything.
"Today will be the last day you can afford such composure."
Orpen ignored Lahedis's cold gaze and turned to leave the Prison.
Then he issued a command to the Attendant who followed behind him.
"Fabricate evidence. Evidence that will surely tighten the noose around that wretch's neck."
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Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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