It wasn’t difficult for William to obtain the Emperor’s permission. Was it because he had gained the Emperor’s trust with Daniel’s help all this time? Or was it because Daniel, whom he had seen at the exhibition hall, looked obviously wise and well-mannered, which pleased the Emperor?
The Emperor expressed his displeasure with Lord Ridden and said he would entrust William with full authority over this matter. However, he told William to handle it well without going against Lord Ridden’s immunity privileges as a family of meritorious subjects. William had been troubled by exactly that point, which was why he had pretended to comply with Lord Ridden’s demands while planning to extract Daniel.
Having obtained the Emperor’s permission and been told to create justification for revenge against Aren, William went to Lord Ridden’s castle with nothing to hold him back, accompanied only by one knight and Behern.
“Your Highness, you’ve arrived?”
“Where is Daniel?”
Lord Ridden grinned sinisterly, showing his yellowed teeth.
“Lord Daniel is being safely attended to by me, so first, please have some tea I’ve prepared…”
William forcibly suppressed his desire to slash Lord Ridden’s throat with his sword.
‘I must endure until I can safely extract Daniel.’
With that thought, William took out the papers he had brought and placed them on the table.
“Let’s skip the pleasantries and get to the point. This is a contract to make Miss Ellawud Ridden the Crown Princess and transfer exclusive rights to lopeia trade to the Ridden family. Sign it. If you return Daniel safely, I’ll even keep quiet about the fact that you dared to attempt such a transaction with royalty.”
Lord Ridden began examining the contract carefully. Though it had been written hastily, it was prepared by a scribe directly under the Imperial Palace, so there would be no flaws in it. It would be nice if he accepted it without much suspicion, but the cunning Lord Ridden wouldn’t do that.
Lord Ridden looked up from the contract and stroked his chin. His eyes were full of suspicion.
“I would be more than satisfied if you would do this for me… but things are proceeding so smoothly and naturally that I can’t help feeling uneasy.”
William answered nonchalantly.
“Didn’t I commit this act knowing this would happen?”
“That’s true, but…”
When the other party starts to suspect, you mustn’t give them time to think. William began pressing Lord Ridden.
“As you know, Daniel has been with me since I was young. For such a person, I should be willing to bear this much. Anyway, Daniel’s status is too humble to make him a companion Omega, and the lopeia trade was to solve the food shortage, not for the Imperial Palace to have exclusive rights, so I have nothing to lose, don’t I?”
At William’s persuasive explanation, Lord Ridden slowly nodded.
“I didn’t know Your Highness the Crown Prince would be so mature, rational, and pragmatic.”
“I’m grateful for the compliment, but state affairs are busy, so I’d like to proceed now.”
“Yes, yes. Let’s do that.”
Just as Lord Ridden was about to sign the contract, William blocked the signature line with his hand.
“Why are you doing that?”
“I can’t hand this over so easily either. The signing will be done after I get Daniel back.”
Lord Ridden’s eyebrows twitched. William smiled triumphantly to himself. He had done this partly because he wanted to see Daniel quickly, but also to prevent Lord Ridden from saying anything else. It was the nature of cunning people to pretend not to know about returning something once they easily got what they wanted.
“I understand.”
When Lord Ridden gestured, soldiers brought in Daniel with his hands bound. His condition was terrible – who knew how much he had suffered in just one day. Seeing that sight made William want to overturn the contract and everything else, but this was Lord Ridden’s castle. He had to endure until they safely escaped from here.
“Your Highness…”
Daniel’s eyes, which looked ready to cry at any moment, struck William’s heart painfully.
‘I’ll kill him. Immunity privileges or whatever, I’ll use any means necessary to kill him.’
William gripped his trembling hand with his other hand, trying hard to maintain his composure.
“Release him immediately.”
When the soldiers untied Daniel’s hands, he ran into William’s arms as if he had been waiting for it. William held Daniel in one arm and spoke sharply to Lord Ridden.
“I don’t want to stay here even one more moment, so sign it.”
By the time Lord Ridden signed both copies of the contract, kept one, and handed the other to Behern, William had already left Lord Ridden’s room with Daniel.
***
After returning to the Crown Prince’s Palace, William didn’t leave me alone for even a moment. He called the Imperial Palace physician to examine every part of my body, then personally applied medicine, brought good food for me to eat, and wouldn’t let me go anywhere.
When I asked what he planned to do from now on, he said I should only focus on recovering my health for now and wouldn’t tell me anything.
You were really worried, weren’t you, William.
Normally, I would have shown some signs of annoyance, but I could feel William’s mental anguish in his every action, so I obediently accepted his touch as he wished.
“Try eating this too.”
I showed my protruding belly to William, who kept putting things in my mouth.
“Your Highness, I feel like my stomach is going to burst.”
“You always eat only as much as a bird, that’s why you’re so frail. How can you properly assist me when you’re so weak?”
I chuckled sheepishly while chewing fruit. It’s my job to raise William well, but looking at this, I don’t know who’s raising whom.
Is he planning to become a doting parent?
The thought made me laugh.
“What are you laughing about when you haven’t done anything praiseworthy?”
“Just, because I’m happy.”
“…About what?”
“We’ve been too busy to do this before, but it’s been a while since we leisurely ate delicious food together and chatted just the two of us.”
“You like being with me?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
When I smiled broadly, William’s ears turned red.
***
After some leisurely time passed, around dinnertime, Aren came to visit.
“Your Highness, I found it easier than expected…”
Aren, who had opened his mouth without even sitting down, saw me and shut his mouth tight.
“Should we move to another location?”
William looked back and forth between Aren and me with a troubled expression.
What? Has he gotten a secret from me?
For a moment, I felt hurt, but I immediately understood the reason. Since there had been a kidnapping incident, they were probably here to discuss the aftermath of that matter. And there was probably something more that I didn’t know about.
Before William could exclude me, I quickly grabbed his arm.
“Your Highness, I want to know too. I was actually very curious about this.”
William blinked and pondered for a while.
What scheme are they plotting? Looking at how things are roughly going, it seems like they handled it wisely as I expected.
William nodded as if he had no choice.
“Fine. But don’t object to our plan. I’ve already been very patient even allowing this much.”
“Of course. What am I to dare object to Your Highness the Crown Prince’s words?”
“You only say that with words, but you show your displeasure anyway.”
“I won’t do that.”
“Should I come back later?”
At Aren’s words as he stood watching the situation, William pointed to a chair. Aren sat there.
“You said you found something?”
“Yes. I thought Lord Ridden had accumulated vast wealth through cotton trade all this time, but that wasn’t the case.”
“Then what?”
“He accumulated wealth by pretending to trade while going around neighboring countries to buy and resell illegal weapons.”
“Illegal weapons?”
William and I both opened our mouths wide simultaneously.
The Stamili Empire wasn’t at war, so it wasn’t a place where weapon production or sales were smooth. However, several neighboring countries were still at war, so Lord Ridden apparently went around various places under the pretext of trade to buy and sell illegal weapons.
The problem was that visiting warring nations to trade weapons was a serious matter that could lead to national disputes if handled wrongly.
Aren continued bitterly.
“What Kelton did was shameless and dirty, but it wasn’t big enough to lead to war. However, what Lord Ridden did shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
“Did you also find out which countries were involved?”
“I haven’t found out everything specifically, but…”
Aren furrowed his brow and trailed off. What more serious problem could there be for him to act like this? I swallowed hard.
“It seems the Ohariko Empire is involved.”
The Ohariko Empire was where Kalroy was. It was connected to that place? It was heart-stopping news.
William also realized the situation was serious and said while holding his forehead.
“Uncle, let’s go to His Majesty immediately.”
“Let’s do that.”
“But…”
William, who had risen energetically, hesitated for a moment when he saw me. Since he hadn’t left my side even once after the escape, he seemed reluctant to leave me alone. If I just told him not to worry, he wouldn’t listen, so I needed another approach.
“Your Highness, you know what Duke Ridden did to me. I want you to get revenge as soon as possible! So please hurry back.”
William nodded solemnly.
Shortly after William and Aren went outside, Erica came in. It was nice to see her face for the first time since the escape.
“Oh my, your face is half… wait, it’s not?”
Erica asked with a somewhat disappointed expression.
“Did you want me to be hurt, Erica?”
“That’s not it. His Highness the Crown Prince was like walking on thin ice for the few days you were here.”
I couldn’t understand what Erica was saying. For the past few days, William had been in the most stable and gentle state I’d ever seen him in. Walking on thin ice?
When I made a puzzled expression, Erica began confessing what had happened.
“He was so on edge that we had to walk on our tiptoes, and later we had to hold our breath. So all the attendants thought something terrible had happened to Lord Daniel… but you seem better than expected.”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
