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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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I possessed the body of a villainess locked away in a desolate tower. ‌
Chapter 5
'I'm ruined.'
Truly, utterly ruined.
Faced with a face so breathtakingly beautiful it made ‌‌‌my chest constrict, this was all I could think.
But I quickly collected myself and shook my head, flashing an awkward smile over my shoulder.
"W-well, I'm not entirely sure what you mean, I...."
The truth was, I knew the future. ‌‌This world was the novel I'd read, and I had possessed a character within it.
But I could never say that aloud, no matter what.
There was no evidence anyway—playing dumb was the only way to survive!
I decided to feign complete ignorance.
"That wasn't something I did. Haha."
"Princess."
The Grand Duke then called out to me in a heavy tone.
"Do you know how The Empire deals with liars?"
"...."
"They employ extremely cruel torture as a ‌‌‌matter of course. And if you still refuse to confess, they slit your mouth."
What?
B-but! Would they ‌even ‌‌‌‌believe me if I told them?!
At best, they'd lock me away in that Mountain Convent in the remote valley—essentially an asylum for the mad.
...Wait. Was convent life really so terrible?
"You're thinking of something else entirely while standing before me."
"Eek!" ‌‌‌
Why was his perception so sharp?
I was about to blurt out something, but my voice was too quiet. The Grand Duke spoke first.
"However, you are no ordinary criminal, so I cannot treat you as such."
'Why does he keep toying with my emotions like this?!'
The finger that had been lifting my chin withdrew, yet I remained frozen like stone.
The Grand Duke, now a step away, smiled again with that practiced grace.
"I deliberately left ‌‌‌‌you in impoverished conditions, yet you remained quiet. I heard you didn't ‌‌complain ‌‌even once. Were you thinking the Salt Kingdom would come rescue you someday?"
"...?"
"Having lived as royalty, you couldn't have imagined receiving such treatment. I wonder—is it simply boldness, or do you have ‌‌something to rely on?"
His words suddenly sparked my curiosity.
My identity was so easily discoverable, yet I'd hidden it with lies. So why ‌‌was the room I'd been given so comfortable?
Why had my meals been sufficient, three ‌‌‌times a day, despite the sparse furnishings?
Why did Liam keep assuming I would attempt to ‌‌‌escape from ‌‌‌this cozy place?
'Could it be they don't actually know how I've been living?'
Then, everything I'd enjoyed so far was a kind of punishment?
For someone like me, who'd spent days in a room hot by day and cold by night, befriending insects, this was absurd.
Fearing I might laugh ‌‌bitterly, I clenched my ‌‌‌jaw with ‌‌‌‌all my strength.
If my counterpart is laboring under a ‌‌‌misunderstanding, and that misunderstanding flows ‌‌in my favor, there's no reason to correct ‌‌‌‌them. ‌‌
I steeled myself and opened my mouth.
"I'm not certain what you mean, but... even if I did know, I am a princess of the Salt Kingdom. I cannot divulge matters of state."
The Grand Duke's expression turned glacial.
"So you won't ‌‌reveal where the information leaked from."
Yet unlike before, I felt no blind panic.
If he'd decided to kill me, he wouldn't bother with this tedious interrogation.
Moreover, ‌‌since the Grand Duke suspected an information breach, he'd ‌likely keep me alive to uncover something.
Which meant... ‌‌‌
'Which meant I was in ‌luck!'
According to the original story, the Salt Kingdom was doomed anyway.
I'd worked hard initially because I hadn't realized I'd been possessed, and later because I worried for the innocent people who would ‌suffer needlessly.
But now I was powerless to change anything.
So there was ‌‌‌only one thing I could do.
"If you don't ‌‌trust me, just lock me away!"
"...What?"
"I can't pretend to know things I don't, just to save my own skin, and cause harm to innocent people in the process...."
The Grand Duke stared at me with an expression of disbelief, but I pressed on undeterred.
"Of ‌‌course, ‌‌being trapped in a suffocating room with nothing to do is agony beyond measure—like flaying skin and grinding bone—but... I'll accept it humbly!"
After a prolonged silence, ‌‌the Grand Duke uttered a simple remark, then approached me soundlessly, like a predator stalking prey.
Thump, thump, thump.
My heart ‌‌‌hammered wildly in rhythm with his advancing steps.
"...Stubborn, aren't you." ‌‌
Fortunately, after uttering ‌only that single phrase, he brushed past me ‌‌‌lightly and sat down.
"Then, to a princess who knows nothing, let me share some unfortunate news for those who do know something."
His calm voice carried no emotion whatsoever.
"What...?"
But before I could finish my question, I understood his meaning.
Rustle.
The ‌‌Grand Duke withdrew a document from his breast pocket and showed it to me.
It bore a format I recognized all too well—identical to those used in the ‌‌‌‌Salt Kingdom.
"Ah...."
There was no way not to understand.
I stared at the seal stamped boldly at the bottom and my mouth fell open.
'Did he just stamp it ‌‌right there?'
A ‌‌transaction certificate.
The ‌‌‌commodity was wheat I'd stockpiled to prepare for ‌‌‌‌‌Cletan's unilateral export embargo.
Lemeia had sold it all to The Empire.
Was she insane!?
"Wait, just a moment."
Why would the Empire, drowning in wheat to the point of rot, purchase it at ‌‌‌such exorbitant fees through middlemen?
Yet even as bewilderment threatened to overwhelm me, I methodically read through the documents—and froze solid.
"This... this can't be..."
"Is something the matter?"
The matter?
Of course there is.
"Give it to me!"
Whoosh.
I lunged to snatch the documents, but the Grand Duke deftly intercepted them and tucked them back into his chest.
"You said you didn't understand."
"I don't understand! I don't know! I don't—but—but still!"
Gasping for breath, I cried out in protest.
"Even so, this is something anyone with half a brain would recognize!"
"So then, what is it."
Faced with his relentless questioning, I answered with a grimace.
"This transaction... it's fraud."
The Merchant Guild's seal stamped beside the princess's ‌mark was one I'd never seen during our previous trade with the ‌‌‌‌Empire.
Typically, inter-kingdom commerce was handled by certified major trading houses—so why would an unknown merchant guild suddenly insert itself?
In most cases, this was a trade scam designed to siphon off goods or fees in the middle.
The practice was so ‌‍common that anyone handling actual affairs would be utterly blind not to recognize it.
'Lemeia!'
So this is how quickly one can drain a nation's ‍‌‌‌coffers.
I truly cannot help but marvel.
"Ah."
I suddenly stared at the Grand Duke in dismay.
"Surely you didn't do this on purpose...?"
My ‌‌‌‌face reflected perfectly in the Grand Duke's beautifully curved green eyes.
"Normally ‌in such cases, the one deceived is the fool—yet strangely, the princess Lemeia's office, lacking your presence, seems to be struggling to function properly."
I clenched my teeth and replied.
"That is... not my concern."
"Right, it wouldn't be."
The Grand Duke chuckled with ‌‌ease before issuing his command flatly.
"Take her away as the ‌‌‌princess wishes. Watch her thoroughly—ensure she cannot escape under any circumstances."
"Yes, I shall comply."
Though the voice was not particularly loud, knights appeared from somewhere and seized both my arms.
Dragged away like a criminal arrested by detectives, my eyes remained fixed on the Grand Duke.
'This is too much.'
In the original work, there was a passage describing the Salt Kingdom ‌‌‌‌‌on the brink of collapse.
「Trade routes had already been severed, and there were no food reserves whatsoever.
People ‌‌starved to death, and plague spread from the corpses, creating a literal hell on earth.」
I wanted to mitigate the situation, even if ‌‌‌only slightly.
What was written in the book was merely ‌‌the book's contents, but the Salt Kingdom where I lived was... a real world where actual people ‌‌‌‌dwelled.
Yet Lemeia had discarded even that minimal refuge with her own hands.
In that moment, a plaintive cry escaped my lips before I could stop it.
"Could you just show a little mercy...?"
"Me?" ‌‌‌
The Grand Duke responded as though he'd heard something amusing.
"There's no particular reason for me to do that."
Thud.
With those words, the door ‌‌slammed shut before my eyes.

---------------
Brought to you by Valir Scans! To support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
---------------