Chapter 99
‘How did you know that…’
‘It’s not important, so let’s move on.’
After looking Lione up and down, Becky heaved a sigh.
‘Tsk, how can you protect anyone when you’re such a mess? Take this.’
Recalling Becky, who had pretended indifference while providing an ointment she claimed worked wonders, Lione laughed silently.
He found her attitude amusing—grumbling yet taking care of him in various ways.
‘I heard you can hide anywhere. So.’
‘So?’
‘Please watch the shadow.’
Her adorable cleverness in not missing the opportunity to make proper use of him was astounding.
And the Young Miss had also commanded at the right time:
‘Watch what the shadow does and whom she meets for a while.’
Lione, who had begun moving, soon reached the end of the annex where the shadow was said to stay.
Easily seeping into the room, he immediately found the shadow.
A woman moving her pen frantically over documents.
Lione watched Jane while leaning obliquely against the shadow.
How much time had passed like that?
Jane, who had been engrossed in the documents as if in a frozen scene, suddenly put down her pen.
She groped for a teacup with practiced ease and took a sip with great elegance, while Lione didn’t even blink, unwilling to miss a single moment.
“Hm.”
After exhaling briefly, Jane stood up.
A gentle smile spread across her lips as she looked down at the document she was finally satisfied with, the perfect document.
But that smile didn’t last long.
Her gaze lingered on the red letters stating “Investigation into suspicious groups is not permitted” before falling away.
She hadn’t expected the document she had surreptitiously inserted to pass easily, but still…
“In the end, I have no choice but to act directly again.”
Why were there no useful people around?
Shaking her head, Jane then scrutinized her surroundings.
Though she knew she was alone in this room, she never lowered her guard.
What she was about to take out and caress was something precious beyond measure that must not be revealed to anyone.
But this was Lione, who had received the evaluation that he could deceive even the formidable Einar’s attention two times out of ten.
Naturally, Jane failed to notice his presence, and certain that no one was around, she impatiently took out the tool that would fulfill her life’s goal.
Lione narrowed his eyes and slowly moved to face her directly.
When Jane came fully into his field of vision.
He tilted his head, unable to hide his puzzlement.
For what Jane was rolling with extreme caution was a very small vial.
At a glance, it appeared empty, but judging by how light refracted, it contained a transparent liquid.
Lione, who was about to examine the vial more closely, paused when he saw Jane opening her mouth.
“I should go back.”
The voice that emerged was so small that even she herself couldn’t hear it, so naturally Lione couldn’t either.
But he heard exactly what Jane had said.
No, he saw it.
He read her lip movements.
If asked how that was possible, even Lione couldn’t answer precisely.
He simply knew the technique and could execute it.
Click.
Eventually, Jane returned the vial containing poison to its place and once again surveyed her surroundings.
Watching this, a clear furrow formed between Lione’s brows.
No matter how much he tried not to jump to conclusions, just looking at the scene before him, wasn’t it suspicious?
Tap, tap, tap!
After gathering and organizing the scattered documents, Jane left, and Lione stared at where she had hidden the vial for a while before speaking.
“Go back?”
Even before the voice echoing her words had dissipated, Lione’s form dissolved into the shadow and disappeared.
Around the time Lione was questioning Jane’s suspicious behavior.
Riina and Einar had just heard an anticipated story from an unexpected encounter.
“Should I call them a suspicious group, or a group trying to strike a blow against the Empire?”
Max, with a broad smile, poured out the information he had collected—truly a mass of information.
“They seem to have been preparing for quite a while. Well, the Empire has been taking excessive profits through commission fees for a long time.”
Even in front of the heir to Bolshevik, the Empire’s largest and firmest pillar, and the Second Prince, Max fearlessly criticized the Empire.
Of course, neither Riina nor Einar expressed any displeasure at his words.
They simply cut off Max’s grand tale of how he obtained this information.
“Any new information besides what we could easily predict?”
At Riina’s indifferent expression, Max exaggeratedly slumped his shoulders.
“You won’t even listen to how hard I worked?”
To this, Einar smiled knowingly and replied:
“Write it in a letter. I’ll read it carefully.”
“…Your Highness is worse. They say people grow similar when they’re in love…”
“Max.”
“Yes, yes. For new information, the suspicious group is amassing military supplies. Things like food and weapons. Since we’re not at war and there isn’t even a hint of war in this peaceful era, they’ve been extremely cautious, but it seems they’ve been able to gradually gather military supplies.”
At Max’s answer, Riina and Einar instantly exchanged a conversation with their eyes.
Military supplies—so it is a border dispute after all?
Probably.
Toward the two, Max’s eyes sparkled as he suddenly lowered his voice and whispered:
“What this group, diligently gathering military supplies, intends to do is none other than the overthrow of the Empire.”
That was certainly tremendous information.
If the person listening to Max had been an ordinary person, or even the First Prince, they might have been so shocked they couldn’t utter a word.
But before Max now were Riina and Einar.
The two were simply staring at Max with completely unimpressed expressions.
“You’re not surprised this time either? This is truly unrewarding. I thought I’d see some interesting reactions with information of this magnitude.”
To Max, who was showing signs of genuine disappointment more clearly than before, Riina mercilessly asked:
“Any other information?”
“No. There isn’t. I’ve confirmed the suspicious group’s purpose and how far their plans have progressed, but I haven’t yet definitively identified which faction they belong to.”
Though Max pouted like a child, he fluently poured out words, and Riina and Einar simultaneously tilted their heads in the same direction.
“Quite impressive.”
“Indeed. Quite capable.”
At their sincere surprise, which they made no attempt to hide, Max’s face fell.
“Aren’t you being too harsh? Even though you’re publicly acknowledged lovers…”
“If there’s nothing else, you can go now.”
After Riina curtly cut off his words again with a jerk of her chin, Max turned to Einar with undisguised disappointment, but Einar merely smiled and patted his shoulder.
“Riina told you to go. Hurry up.”
The words ‘What a cockroach-like couple!’ rose to the tip of his tongue, but Max wasn’t completely devoid of tact and held it back.
Every time he had tied the two together with words like “lovers” or “love,” Riina had cut him off, hadn’t she?
Hmm, this seems different from what’s publicly known.
But for something like that, the Second Prince seems terribly sincere.
Max’s judgment was quick as he tilted his head.
There’s a saying that if you stick your neck into others’ love affairs, you’ll get kicked by a horse’s hind legs.
No matter how much he pursued fun, he had no hobby of playing with people’s hearts.
“Well then, I’ll go gather more boring information. You will read my letter, won’t you?”
At Max’s plaintive plea, Riina chuckled, and seeing her, a heart-tickling smile spread across Einar’s lips.
Looking back and forth between the two, Max shook his head and was about to hurry away when he paused.
“Ah, and I heard that many people who worked at the place where those fellows stayed have fallen ill.”
“Fallen ill?”
“Yes. It could be from overworking people, but for that kind of thing, the symptoms of the sickness strangely overlap in many ways. However, some people have recovered after a mild illness.”
What was a passing comment to Max struck like lightning in Einar’s ashen eyes, which had remained indifferent to serious stories about the overthrow of the Empire or the gathering of full-scale military supplies.
Eventually, Einar firmly pressed down on Max’s shoulder as he was about to leave and said:
“Tell me more about that in detail.”
At his sudden action, Riina immediately realized.
That Einar had sensed a “bad premonition” from the story Max had dismissed as insignificant.
At the time Max was making a fuss in front of Riina and Einar.
In the youngest prince’s palace, frail shoulders that seemed about to break were trembling greatly.
“Ugh… mmph.”
Sierre curled up with all his might, covering his mouth to suppress the rising nausea.
After hunching his back for a while, the child soon wiped his blackened lips and murmured while looking down at his stained clothes.
“Can Nanny stop?”
