Chapter 143
The aide who received the letter from the shouting Smith felt a dry lump slide down his throat.
Since Smith had made no effort to conceal it, he had naturally seen the letter’s entire contents.
During his time working under the Third Prince, he had endured all manner of abuse and carried out countless unreasonable orders, but this…
This was excessively dangerous, wasn’t it?
As the aide stood frozen in place, clutching the letter with trembling hands, his face drained of color. Smith grabbed the nearest object and hurled it at him.
—THWACK!
“What are you waiting for? Go!”
The pain from the blow to his shoulder made the aide reflexively open his mouth and hastily turn away.
“Forgive me, Your Highness. Forgive me.”
After the aide had scurried away in that pathetic state, Smith, unable to contain his impatience, wet his lips with alcohol.
To administer the poison, he would somehow need to meet with the Emperor directly.
He couldn’t possibly entrust such a crucial task as poisoning the Emperor to someone else.
But with his audience requests being repeatedly ignored, he needed to find another way…
On that day, as a pleasant breeze caressed Sierre’s cheeks while he returned to his palace, Smith’s grandiose yet thoroughly flawed plan to assassinate the Emperor had officially begun.
Jane summoned Hans back to her.
“J-Jane. Have you forgiven me now?”
Though it was almost unbearable to watch him rolling his hopeful eyes while being excessively conscious of her mood, Jane managed to restrain herself.
“I need another mechanical device.”
In the past, she might have offered soothing words—that she forgave him, that everything was fine, that he needn’t worry anymore—even if they were just hollow pleasantries. But now, such words seemed wasted on someone she would soon dispose of, so she cut straight to the point.
When Hans merely blinked stupidly, unable to grasp her meaning, Jane repeated herself with a painted-on smile.
“The mechanical device you gave me. I need another one. Absolutely.”
“An…other device?”
Thanks to the emphasis she placed on the final “absolutely,” Hans finally stammered a response.
“Yes. It’s essential. Otherwise, I’ll be in danger, just as the servant who came looking for you said.”
What she really wanted to say was that he had put her in danger, but now wasn’t the time for such accusations—not when she needed something from him.
“I told you I had a task for you.”
“Y-yes. I’m doing my best with that…”
“Forget about that. Just get me another mechanical device.”
She temporarily abandoned her plan to use him to strike at the impostor while simultaneously disposing of this useless man.
If the Third Prince became Crown Prince, getting rid of someone like him would be trivial.
Besides, the impostor would also be implicated in the Emperor’s assassination along with the Second Prince, so there was no need to slowly drive her mad with poison.
Rather, it might be better to give her a fast-acting poison so it would appear she took her own life out of guilt…
Though it had never been an especially intricate or meticulous plan to begin with, as the situation grew more urgent, Jane justified her shift to a strategy so flimsy that even a passing peacock would see through it.
While fantasizing about her own blood-soaked, rosy future, Jane suddenly realized that Hans hadn’t answered her.
“Hans?”
“…Jane.”
Like a dog being scolded by its master, Hans whimpered and hung his head low, unable to meet her gaze.
Jane’s eyes froze colder than winter as she looked at him.
“Are you saying you can’t get one?”
Despite her icy stare, her voice trembled pitifully.
At the sound of her voice, which seemed on the verge of breaking into sobs, Hans—terrified of falling from grace again after just being forgiven—finally raised his head.
Simultaneously, Jane lowered hers, deliberately covering her face as if crying silently, her shoulders shaking dramatically.
Despite having witnessed her despicable act countless times before, Hans failed to recognize it. Each time he saw her in such heartrending distress, his heart shattered, and he floundered helplessly.
“Jane, well… about the components for the mechanical device. I can’t obtain them, as I mentioned before. I even went to an auction to find them, and it just happened to coincide with when those parts were being released to the market…”
“Hic!“
In response to Hans’s rambling excuses, Jane let out a loud, deliberate sob.
Hans immediately clamped his mouth shut and alternated between reaching out to her and pulling back his hand.
Seeing Jane shed tears without making a sound, Hans fidgeted anxiously before starting to pound his own head.
Desperately hoping to think of a way to help her, he hit his head so hard it made audible thuds. Whether this effort paid off or not, Hans suddenly jerked his head up and shouted:
“I’ve got it! There’s a way!”
His voice boomed so loudly it could be heard through the walls, and Jane stared at him with cold eyes, as if she had never been crying at all.
“Hans.”
“I’m sorry. But there is a way.”
Hunching his shoulders and muttering to appease her—he couldn’t bear to see her cry again—Hans responded to Jane’s chin gesture urging him to continue.
“We can swap out the poison.”
“Didn’t you warn me that the poison vial is fragile and needs careful handling?”
“Yes. The vial itself is weak, but replacing it is different. It should withstand being handled once.”
Impressed by his unexpectedly professional explanation, Jane nodded with a subtle smile.
In any case, the “suitable tool” the Third Prince wanted had just become available.
This would allow her to execute the plan much faster than if she had demanded he create another mechanical device.
Just before summoning Hans, a messenger from the Third Prince had delivered a letter to her.
Naturally, it was a letter urging her to obtain the tool quickly.
He had insisted that the matter must be handled while the Second Prince was away at the border.
Though the Third Prince’s impatience irritated her, she agreed with his assessment.
How could they possibly miss such a golden opportunity when their greatest obstacle had conveniently removed himself?
Replacing the poison would render the mechanical device unusable afterward, but she only needed to use it once—to administer poison to the impostor once she became a criminal.
Jane never considered the possibility of failure.
She firmly believed that she had done well so far, and even though she had been pushed into this situation, just a little more patience would allow her to reclaim her rightful place.
Then she would finally be able to manage that insufferable mountain of paperwork herself.
Jane’s clouded blue eyes, gazing at the mountain range of documents that had considerably contributed to numbing her reason, grew hazy as she envisioned a future that would never come.
Riina couldn’t suppress the scornful laugh that escaped her at Lione’s report.
“So, they plan to replace the poison in that mechanical device and use it to assassinate His Imperial Majesty?”
“Yes, that’s what they said.”
“No, more importantly—they conspired like this in my mansion even knowing they’ve been completely exposed?”
“…Yes.”
Even Lione, who had witnessed and heard everything firsthand, seemed incredulous, answering after a slight delay.
Riina sighed and shook her head.
“I truly had no idea their competence level would be this low.”
Though objectively Jane’s actions were strange enough to make anyone question her intelligence, Riina’s muttering carried additional sentiment.
It was true that her assessment of Jane before the regression had been severely distorted, but even accounting for that, how could one explain the gap between then and now?
Well, such considerations were meaningless now anyway.
She had decided to remain with her family.
For Jane, who had already acted with intent to harm her, only one future remained.
Riina handed Lione a brief letter summarizing what he had reported.
“Deliver this to Einar. Thank you for enduring a reality less plausible than theater.”
“I’ve grown accustomed to such implausible realities.”
When Lione jokingly referenced his painful past with a hint of humor, Riina couldn’t help but laugh as well.
“Ah, and I suppose we no longer need to analyze the poison Jane supposedly possesses.”
“That’s not true.”
For the first time ever—or at least rarely—Lione strongly disagreed with Riina.
“You’ve already ingested the poison once, so we absolutely must identify what it is.”
“Well, it was just once, and I’ve undergone several thorough examinations with no health issues detected.”
After she had calmly revealed that she had consumed poison, the Duke had somehow managed to bring in the Chief Imperial Physician who exclusively attended to the Emperor. Einar, too, had accomplished the near-impossible feat of presenting before Riina—within just one day—a doctor so renowned yet elusive across the continent that receiving treatment from them was considered as unlikely as encountering a mythical creature.
The examination results had shown her to be in perfect health, which had relieved those who knew the situation.
However, they still needed to identify the poison’s nature, as no one could predict when or how this unknown substance might harm her if it had a dormancy period.
Yet the person most directly concerned showed no desperation at all and seemed willing to let the matter drop…
“Jane won’t use that poison anymore. If I take the blame for the Emperor’s assassination attempt, I’ll face the most miserable death anyway.”
“My lady!”
