Chapter 10

Lia entrusted Rafaella to a nearby maid for a moment and followed the butler to the front of the first-floor reception room.  

‘Why did the Duchess Dowager call me? And why didn’t she call Raffy along?’  

The door to the reception room opened, and Lia saw the Duchess Dowager seated on a sofa.  

Unlike Johann, she was a middle-aged woman with reddish-brown hair and greenish-brown eyes.  

The Duchess Dowager, sitting gracefully, truly looked like a noblewoman of the highest rank, unlike anyone else.  

Feeling more nervous than when dealing with Carolina, Lia sat in the seat the Duchess Dowager gestured to.  

She had expected the Duchess Dowager to look at her with a hostile expression like Carolina.  

“Nice to meet you. Would you like some tea?”  

The Duchess Dowager greeted her with a gentle smile.  

“Y-Yes.”  

When Lia answered, the maid standing next to the Duchess Dowager poured tea into the cup before Lia.  

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you, but I’ve been so busy taking care of my daughter that I called you rather late.”  

“…It’s alright.”  

“You’re my son’s savior. Please forgive my rudeness.”  

Even her apology was graceful.  

As an elder of the same household, she was so different from someone else that it was almost disconcerting.  

“…Yes.”  

“I’ve heard a bit from Johann, but….”  

The Duchess Dowager then began asking her various questions.  

Where exactly in the North she lived, how she met Johann when he was injured, and so on.  

“…You learned from your grandmother?”  

“Yes.”  

“Does that place have its own wisdom? It’s hard to detoxify monster poison….”  

“…I was lucky.”  

“Whether it was luck or not, it doesn’t change the fact that you saved my son.”  

The Duchess Dowager raised the teacup to her lips.  

“…I truly appreciate it. You’re genuinely a lifesaver.”  

When Johann mentioned her as a “lifesaver,” it didn’t seem like a big deal.  

But for some reason, Lia felt embarrassed and shy when the Duchess Dowager sincerely thanked her for what she had done.  

She had only wanted to save him, but seeing such heartfelt gratitude made her chest feel warm.  

“Thanks to you, the late Duke was able to see his son’s face before he passed….”  

The Duchess Dowager murmured as if to herself.  

“…As a grandmother, I should take care of Rafaella wholeheartedly, but it won’t be easy because of my daughter.”  

“It’s alright.”  

“Have you met Johann’s aunt?”  

“…Yes.”  

“That’s good. Then no further introductions are necessary. If you need advice or help while staying at the mansion, speak to Carolina instead of me.”  

“…Yes.”  

Lia thought to herself that she would never do that, no matter what.  

“And neither you nor Rafaella should ever go to the fourth floor.”  

The Duchess Dowager spoke with a stern tone, warning Lia.  

“No one is allowed to enter the fourth floor…. There are no exceptions to this rule.”  

Although she didn’t know how sick her daughter was or when it began, whenever the Duchess Dowager spoke about her daughter, she seemed less like a grand noblewoman and more like an ordinary mother struggling with a sick child.  

So, despite the hardened tone, Lia felt compassion as a fellow parent.  

Not that there was anything she could do to help.  

***

After his audience with the Emperor, Johann headed to the Crown Prince’s palace to meet him.  

The real reason he came to the Imperial Palace today wasn’t the Emperor but to see Matthias von Valerius, the Crown Prince.  

“So, I hear you have a daughter now.”  

The Crown Prince greeted him with a hearty laugh as soon as he saw him.  

Then, he pestered Johann with questions about how the child came to be.  

Johann told him only as much as he had told his family.  

“So, during that lost time, this is what you were doing….”  

“I was wasting time on useless things.”  

“Useless? Children are precious, you know!”  

“To nobles, children are usually….”  

“Not all nobles are cold toward their children!”  

“Are there any who aren’t?”  

“Of course there are. My uncle, for example….”  

Matthias trailed off, frowning slightly as if regretting his words.  

“In any case, if she’s your daughter, you’ll grow fond of her quickly.”  

“…….”  

“Enough about that. Have you found the one who tried to assassinate you?”  

The Crown Prince lowered his voice, asking him seriously.  

“I found him, but he was already dead.”  

“What?”  

“He killed his family and then committed s*icide.”  

“…He killed his family? What a lunatic.”  

Johann had been returning to the capital after a successful monster subjugation mission under the Imperial command.  

On his way back, he was stabbed by a knight who had been assisting him throughout the subjugation.  

It happened when he had let his guard down, thinking everything was over.  

The knight was a veteran who had helped him throughout the mission.  

Tracking him down afterward had been quite challenging.  

Whether someone had hidden him or not, neither he nor his family could be found in the capital or the knight’s hometown.  

Just when he was about to give up the search, he found him.  

But by then, the knight was already dead in an unmarked rural village.  

“He killed himself less than a week after arriving there?”  

“Yes. It was such a peculiar and gruesome incident that the villagers said they all remembered that day vividly.”  

“If he was going to kill his family and himself, why bother fleeing there?”  

“…That’s the strange part.”  

“Hmm. If that man was a pawn of the Empress….”  

“Perhaps they didn’t want anyone to discover that the Empress was behind the assassination attempt.”  

“If he was a loyal pawn, that might explain it.”  

Naturally, they suspected the Empress as the mastermind behind Johann’s assassination attempt.  

After all, there were many suspicious circumstances surrounding the Empress.  

From her alleged involvement in the Empress Dowager’s assassination to her schemes against the Crown Prince.  

She was a woman who would stop at nothing to make her son the Emperor.  

“…But the Empress had once considered you as a potential husband for the Imperial Princess.”  

Given his strong mana and status as the youngest Swordmaster, many noble families had sought Johann von Blumhart as a son-in-law.  

To avoid the Imperial Princess, he had become engaged early to a lady from a friendly noble family who wouldn’t bother him.  

“…While I was in the North for the monster subjugation, she persuaded my fiancée’s family to marry her off to another noble.”  

“That’s what I’m saying. But then she tried to assassinate you?”  

“…….”  

“She was desperate to marry you to the princess, even knowing you were on my side.”

The Crown Prince rubbed his temples as if his head hurt.  

“After you returned, she eventually forced an engagement between you and the Imperial Princess.”  

“…….”  

“If only I could expose the darkness inside her and prove she killed my mother….”  

Matthias sighed deeply as he muttered.  

“…Still, you managed to deal a blow to the Empress.” 

Matthias relaxed his frown and smirked.  

“That child of yours—Raffaella, was it? Just imagine how annoyed the Empress and Princess must be.”

“I hope the Princess finds her unbearable.”

“Hah! With that temper, she’ll never put up with her. The real problem isn’t the Princess—it’s the Empress.”

The Crown Prince leaned back on the sofa and sipped his now-cold tea.  

“Johann, bring your daughter to the Imperial Palace someday. I’m quite curious about her.”  

“…Yes.”  

Johann nodded slightly.  

***

Inside the luxurious Empress’s Palace, a woman with beautiful platinum blonde hair tied up was having lunch, bathed in the sunlight streaming through the window.  

Narcissa von Valerius—the Empress, the most noble woman in the empire.

She was in a relatively good mood today.  

At least until a maid approached her in haste.  

“Your Majesty, the Empress.”  

“…What is it?”  

The Empress, who detested being disturbed during meals, raised her sharp gaze.  

Even though she had almost finished eating and was about to have everything cleared away, she did not hide her displeasure.  

“It’s about….”  

“If you’ve interrupted my meal, then speak up quickly.”  

Her voice, though calm, was so intimidating that it instilled even greater fear.  

The maid chastised herself for speaking up before the Empress had completely finished her meal, no matter how urgent the matter was.  

“This morning, Duke Blumhart had an audience with His Majesty the Emperor….”  

“And?”  

“Well, it seems that during his disappearance, the Duke married a woman and had a child.”  

“…What?”  

The Empress, who had been lounging lazily on the sofa, straightened her posture.  

“The woman brought her daughter to the Duke, and it’s said that she saved the Duke when he was gravely injured at the time.”  

“She saved the Duke?”  

“Yes.”  

Without a word, the Empress gripped the soft fabric of the sofa tightly.  

“As a gesture of gratitude, the Duke officially registered the woman’s daughter into the Blumhart family.”  

Johann had sought the Emperor’s understanding, explaining that he had no choice as she was his “lifesaver.”  

The Emperor, who disliked overthinking and lacked the ability to scrutinize details, accepted the explanation, saying, “There’s nothing we can do about it,” and permitted Johann’s decision.  

‘How foolish!’  

No matter how prestigious the Blumhart family was as one of the Empire’s five great ducal houses, allowing the fiancé of the Imperial Princess to arbitrarily register an illegitimate child into the family was unacceptable.  

The thought of the Imperial Princess whining about breaking the engagement over this issue gave her a headache.  

As it was, the engagement had been delayed due to someone misinterpreting her words and attempting to deal with Johann on their own.  

On top of that, Johann had been making excuses to postpone the marriage.  

‘And now I have to placate my immature daughter as well.’  

The maid and attendants shuddered quietly, sensing the Empress’s foul mood.  

‘How audacious, trying to use some child from who-knows-where to break off the engagement with my daughter. That’s not going to happen.’  

Though it was an unexpected variable, if that wretched child resembled Duke Blumhart….  

She might even become a useful pawn in the future.