Chapter 47

They clicked their tongues and began grumbling again.

“This all happened because we live too far away. The information we got didn’t match the current situation at all.”

“I didn’t expect Demius to be there, let alone Natalianne.”

“Maybe…”

Someone suddenly narrowed their eyes with suspicion.

“Do you think Natalianne’s trying to join the succession fight too?”

“…She might be.”

Groan.

They all sighed deeply in unison.

One man, clutching his forehead in frustration, muttered under his breath.

“Not a single piece of our information was right. What does that information guild even do? A blind man throwing stones into a lake would hit a frog more accurately than they do!”

Another pointed accusingly at the man sitting across from him.

“This is all your fault. We could’ve bought another house with the money you wasted!”

“If we’d gone to Merzel Street instead, we could’ve been drinking and flirting with women all night, damn it.”

“Wait a second. Wasn’t that money supposed to be for my necklace?”

“Damn it, does that even matter right now?”

“Yes, it matters, you idiot!”

“Why, you crazy—”

Wham.

They grabbed each other’s hair, and the cramped carriage erupted into chaos.

They shouted back and forth, blaming one another, until the sound of something clattering oddly beneath the carriage finally made them stop.

“Bloody hell.”

One of them spat a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the carriage floor and rubbed his bruised cheek.

“We shouldn’t be tearing each other apart. Damn it, this is all because of those worthless bastards.”

The disheveled woman beside him nodded eagerly.

“Exactly. You can’t expect good blood from lowborn trash.”

“I thought Natalianne was the only troublemaker, but Demius turned out just the same. Like brother, like sister!”

“The children of bastards are all alike.”

“Tch.”

They all clicked their tongues in perfect agreement, as if they hadn’t been fighting seconds ago.

The Grand Duchess Isilan.

That bastard-born woman with nothing but a pretty face had lucked into marrying the Grand Duke, so it was no surprise her children were rotten to the core.

One man rubbed his frostbitten hands and muttered irritably.

“Think about it. Did that man ever leave us a single coin? Did he give us a mansion or a mine?”

“If he became the Grand Duchess’s husband, shouldn’t he have at least bought us a deed to some land or an island, or maybe even a house in the capital?”

“Right, exactly!”

They had long forgotten the days when they leached off the money Isilan brought in and now shook their fists in anger.

“And even after he croaked, he didn’t leave a single inheritance. Damn it, every time we come here hoping for scraps, it ends like this!”

“Actually…”

One of them suddenly lowered his voice.

At his serious tone, everyone turned toward him.

Becoming the center of attention, he looked smug and continued.

“According to the information I bought, there’s a rumor that he deliberately married into the Eisenhart duchy because it’s the farthest place from our territory.”

“What? Why would he do that?”

The others looked puzzled, and he whispered quietly,

“To run away from us.”

“…?”

For a moment they blinked, then burst out laughing.

“Hahaha!”

“That’s ridiculous!”

They laughed so hard they were wheezing.

“He couldn’t stand the cold!”

“And you’re telling me he ran into a lion’s den just to escape us?”

“No, not a lion’s den, a beast’s den!”

“Hahahaha!”

They howled with laughter, mocking the title of Seres, known as the Monster of Antaras.

“And you’re saying that weakling actually did that? You wasted money on another stupid rumor.”

“Stop going to that damn information guild. You’d be better off drinking like Ebel!”

Ebel, whose nose was red from years of drinking, wiped it proudly at the unexpected praise. The man accused of wasting money on rumors threw up his hands in frustration.

“Have you all forgotten already? When that trade ship from Iqben sank, I sold the rights to its cargo before the news even broke. And when you wanted those new shoes from the Kaneville Isles that were all the rage, who got them for you? Me! And you, yeah you, the one whose debtor hired a bounty man to track you down, who found that out for you? You owe me your life!”

“…”

After a short silence, the others exchanged glances and reluctantly admitted,

“That’s true.”

“Yeah, maybe once in a thousand tries you’re right, but you’re not completely useless.”

“Once in a thousand? More like once in three hundred!”

“You’d have better odds buying a lottery ticket.”

“Do you even know the odds? Anyway, this next one’s the really interesting part.”

They all rolled their eyes as he suddenly lowered his voice again, but he spoke with a grave expression, as if daring them to laugh.

“Let’s see if you can still mock me after hearing this. Did you know that His Imperial Majesty, the one who was the Crown Princess at the time, proposed marriage to both the Monster of Antaras and that bastard-born man at the same time?”

“…?!”

Their faces twisted in disbelief before they broke into laughter again.

“Pfft! Hahaha!”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“He’s addicted to that damn guild, I swear. Just like those old fools obsessed with fortune-tellers, wasting money on nonsense.”

“If you’re going to keep talking like that, pack your things and leave! Go marry that information guild or have its baby for all I care!”

“And now you’re saying he threw away a chance to become Emperor Consort? What utter nonsense!”

“Wait, wait. Don’t get worked up.”

Even as his siblings shouted, he held his ground, waving his hands calmly.

His unusual composure made the others pause. When he finally saw he had their attention, he smiled mysteriously.

“Just hear me out, alright? There’s logic to this. The Grand Duchy is much farther from the capital than our territory is. Practically on the opposite side of the empire.”

“That’s not enough to make sense.”

His brother shook his head, but he went on patiently.

“And after that bastard went to the Grand Duchy, he cut contact with us almost completely. The money he sent became smaller and smaller, and during his funeral, he didn’t even invite us.”

Some of them frowned, feeling uneasy as the pieces began to fit together.

Encouraged, he spoke more passionately.

“When we went after the funeral, we were thrown out. The Grand Duke himself ordered us banished from his lands.”

“…”

For a while, no one spoke. Then one person said cautiously,

“So what, you’re saying that bastard ran off to avoid giving us money? Even if it meant turning down the Empress?”

“If that’s true, the fool practically signed his own death warrant.”

“He was weak to begin with. Choosing to live in that frozen wasteland, he must’ve lost his mind.”

“He got what he deserved.”

Heh heh heh.

A chorus of cruel laughter filled the carriage.

Isilan, thirty-two years old at the time of death.

He had always been frail, and life as an illegitimate child in House Arke had only made him weaker.

And that weakling had chosen the coldest land in the empire instead of the mild capital.

Fool.

Still, his death was inconvenient for them.

There had been too many mouths feeding off him, and now their easy source of money was gone.

“Irresponsible wretch.”

“Selfish and heartless.”

“I never liked him from the start.”

“That’s rich, coming from you. You were the one trying to get close to him.”

“You shut your mouth!”

Insults turned into bickering again until one voice rose above the noise.

“It’s all that bastard’s fault.”

“Yeah. He shouldn’t have been born looking like that.”

“Sly-faced thing.”

Their voices merged into one spiteful chorus.

Then someone suddenly asked,

“So what now? Are we just going to go back?”

“What else do you expect? Should we make a scene here?”

The noblewoman who had been watching them raised her hand to quiet them.

“Hold on. Listen to me.”

A strange smile appeared on her face, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Didn’t you say Demius has a wife now?”

“So what? We won’t be invited to the wedding anyway. It’s over.”

“It’s not over.”

Her red lips curved into a knowing grin.

“Demius already had a fiancée, remember?”