Chapter 120

Marquis Shuan’s mind went blank the moment he saw the emperor’s face.

“Ah, this, here, this…”

To the man who couldn’t even form a proper sentence, Aivert said coldly, “You’re not even showing proper respect to His Majesty.”

Aivert himself wasn’t exactly a stickler for etiquette, but he was quick to demand it from others. Marquis Shuan instinctively began to bow but stopped. The emperor was alive! He had no idea how, but this was an opportunity. If he could somehow get out of here and inform the world of the emperor’s survival and location, what greater achievement could there be? And Duke Benerix didn’t yet know that Aivert Royden and Rodella Syveric were here. He had to tell him quickly—

“Don’t even think about escaping.”

At that moment, Rodella spoke, as if reading his mind. Seeing the Marquis flinch, Aivert suggested with a look of displeasure, “Should we just get rid of this one and bring someone else? He doesn’t seem very cooperative.”

“Oh, really?” Rodella looked back at him, pretending to be interested.

Threatened with his life, the Marquis jumped. “N-n-no, I’m not—”

“He’s loud, too. Doesn’t seem like he’ll cooperate,” Aivert said.

Marquis Shuan’s voice immediately shrank to a whisper. “…I will.” He seemed to genuinely believe they would kill him.

Rodella glanced at Aivert’s stern face. Aivert wasn’t the kind of person who would go out of his way to do something useless. There must be a reason he chose Marquis Shuan out of all the nobles of the noble faction in the tower. It looked like he had a plan, so she decided to play along.

But the Marquis couldn’t have known that.

“Then we’ll get rid of him and find another…” Aivert’s hand began to slowly move toward Marquis Shuan’s head. This was the Aivert who could crush not only people but buildings with a single hand. Marquis Shuan stared, his face pale, at the shadow of the hand looming over him and began shaking his head frantically.

“Wait, I think he wants to say something?” Rodella interjected.

“Y-yes, yes! I’ll, I’ll tell you everything! What do you need?”

Only then did Aivert withdraw his hand.

“He’s more reasonable than I thought.” The emperor, who had been silently watching, spoke with a satisfied smile. “That’s not the skill of a pair who have only worked together once. Truly befitting of the empire’s representative duo.”

‘What do you mean, ‘truly’?’ Rodella wanted to shout. ‘This is my first time doing something like this!’ But unlike Rodella, Aivert naturally accepted the praise.

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

‘Don’t you thank him, too!’

“As you can see, unfortunately for you, His Majesty is alive. And Benerix is brazenly wielding the power of the imperial family,” Aivert said, gesturing toward the outside. “Disarming the palace guard and the royal knights is a power reserved solely for the emperor. That makes him a traitor. And you, who served under him, are also sentenced to death.”

Marquis Shuan’s face turned ashen.

“However, if you testify about the plot Benerix devised, you might be able to save your neck.”

Marquis Shuan’s eyes darted around. His mind seemed to be spinning rapidly. The emperor being alive was a variable, but the Red Knights and troops outside still occupied the Imperial Palace. If he sided with the wrong party, wouldn’t he be branded a traitor by the noble faction? But he couldn’t ignore the emperor’s side either.

“It, it’s a great relief that His Majesty is alive,” he said, prostrating himself.

“It’s only now you find it a relief,” the emperor said with a chuckle. There was, of course, no friendliness in that laugh.

Marquis Shuan began to tremble. Should he go outside and join them now? It felt wrong to join the imperial faction, didn’t it?

“If you dare to ask for leniency from His Majesty, you should at least,” Aivert paused, as if deep in thought, “explain your relationship with the assassin who had the explosive artifact. Oh, and even more so if you have a relationship with Duke Benerix.”

Marquis Shuan’s mouth opened and closed. Aivert’s words made it clear he already knew everything.

“Decide quickly. We don’t have time, and there are many people outside who can talk besides you.” Aivert’s words were the final nail in the coffin for the conflicted Marquis. “If you think you have a chance because there are still many Red Knights in the palace, I’d like to inform you that the Azure Knights and Sir Latine are coming here.”

At that, Marquis Shuan visibly flinched. He had been struck in the heart.

“But Sir Latine Modilac has been stripped of his position…!”

“That doesn’t mean his power is gone, does it?”

Sometimes these people seemed to think that power and authority appeared and disappeared together. To Rodella’s bewildered words, Marquis Shuan stammered, “That, that’s…”

“They probably wanted to drown the two of us at Port of Pomers… but as you can see, we’re alive.” Rodella spread her hands. “It seems their plan went very wrong, and you were the first to get a chance to jump ship. What do you say?”

Marquis Shuan looked at Rodella. When he had occasionally seen her in the Administration Bureau, he never imagined she would speak to him so informally. He had thought that, as someone from a family with no deep roots, she would naturally bow to an established noble. But it seemed that wasn’t the case. Her informal speech was so natural it seemed… to resemble Aivert Royden’s.

Two of them? Two people like Aivert Royden, who not only destroyed buildings and objects but also trampled on the etiquette of noble families? This was not a situation where common sense would apply!

Finally, Marquis Shuan completely abandoned his other thoughts and nodded frantically. “Just, just save me. I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Shall we move to another location then?”

Once the Marquis became “cooperative,” Aivert used a rope he had gotten from somewhere to bind him. After stuffing a cloth into his mouth, he looked back at the emperor.

“Your Majesty, I’ll escort you.”

He said that, but the hand he took was Rodella’s. It was clear to anyone that Rodella was more precious than the emperor.

‘Is this okay?’

Rodella, flustered, looked at the emperor, who, as if he hadn’t expected anything else, put his hands behind his back and followed.

* * *

The imperial family’s secret passage was surprisingly large, deep, and connected to many places. After passing through a complicated network of paths, they arrived in the basement of a secluded building somewhere, where they began to interrogate Marquis Shuan.

Of course, given the situation, the interrogation didn’t last long. It was not difficult, as the frightened Marquis Shuan readily spilled all the information he had.

“So the artifacts all came from one source.”

“Yes, yes. They were mass-ordered under the pretext of developing a mine. They were explosive artifacts.”

“That explains it. I wondered why only explosive artifacts were showing up.” It seemed there was a secret to why so many of the same things were appearing.

“And the place that ordered them?”

“Adrian Lockmore, the family of the Head of Court Office.”

Everyone present knew that name.

“Lockmore?” That was a centrist family, wasn’t it?

“Yes, yes. It’s a sizable family, isn’t it? If the situation became equal with the imperial faction, they would have been tied down by the crime of selling artifacts to this side, so the plan was to force them to join us.”

Indeed, treason usually resulted in either death or a complete change of allegiance. One could say it was a very clever strategy. The problem was that Marquis Shuan had revealed everything in front of the emperor, who was the one to decide on punishments and rewards.

“I will keep that in mind.” The emperor nodded.

Just then.

—Knock knock.

Someone arrived at this deep underground location, which was part of the Imperial Palace but in an unclear location.

“People are gathering in the audience hall, my Lord.”

Rodella recognized it as the voice of Aivert’s personal servant, Denet.

‘Did he arrange to meet here beforehand? When?’

But there was no time to be surprised by that.

“He’s using the audience hall…” The emperor muttered with a bitter expression. It was clear that Duke Benerix was fully assuming the emperor’s death and trying to seize control of the empire.

Meanwhile, Aivert called Denet inside and gave him instructions. “Quickly verify if there are any errors in Marquis Shuan’s words. If there are no mistakes, secure the physical evidence as quickly as possible.”

“Understood.”

Had he been listening from outside for a long time? Denet nodded as if he already knew everything.

After giving his orders, Aivert pointed back toward the secret passage. “We’ll depart now.” It seemed the passage also connected to the audience hall.

“Hah.”

And the emperor, who, like Rodella, was clearly hearing this for the first time, held his forehead. It was proof that if Royden had turned his back on them, the imperial family would have been powerless.

It was a moment that cemented the clear reason why Rodella Syveric was a talent the emperor couldn’t afford to lose and why she had to be the next Chancellor.