The Protagonists Of The Novel Escaped – Chapter 25

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: TushChen
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Until Elizaveta’s matchmaking ended, the imperial palace remained quiet.

Of course, it was natural.

Ludmilla, who was about to depart.

The Seven Generals of Valtaria were summoned from all over the empire.

The subordinate knight orders deployed at the palace and gates, waiting for orders.

And even Zebeline, who had reached her limit, rushed to the restroom.

With overwhelming forces stationed, the imperial palace of the Valtarian Empire was like an impregnable fortress.

To use an analogy, it was like a beehive filled with angry hornet warriors.

However, it was too early to make hasty judgments.

There were always variables and twists.

“Why do you look so serious?” Elizaveta asked, tilting her head.

“No, it’s nothing,” I replied, smoothing my face and suppressing the rising emotions.

‘Suddenly, my intuition started sending warnings… But I don’t know what it is.’

It was like losing an item and needing clarification about where you had left it.

Vigilance lingered.

A sharp sense of crisis seemed to pierce my mind.

What could it be?

There was no reason to feel a sense of crisis in the imperial palace, which was like an iron fortress.

Could a traitor have snuck into the heavily guarded imperial palace? I even considered such a thought for a moment, but it was just a mere hunch, so I didn’t act rashly.

“We shall take our leave now, Your Highness Elizaveta,” the young men whose faces had turned ashen approached.

They were the suitors who had been rejected by Princess Elizaveta without even having a chance to adequately express their hearts.

It was a pity.

They had lost their only chance for a meteoric rise.

If they had become the companion of the Emperor’s most favored youngest daughter, they would have walked a smooth path to success.

They could have become a powerful margrave stationed at the border or a chancellor wielding unchallenged authority.

However, the villainous princess of the imperial family was a challenging opponent.

That’s why none of the suitors could win the princess’s heart and were eliminated from the competition.

“Cheer up, there will be good things ahead,” Rue consoled a young man.

“I didn’t expect to receive such comfort. It’s alright, it was my own shortcoming,” the young man responded.

I witnessed the unfamiliar scene of Rue conversing with a young man.

That young man was the son of a prestigious family who had proposed to Elizaveta.

Were they acquainted with each other?

No, that couldn’t be…

The young man who had been Elizaveta’s suitor was not a character in the original work.

He was just an extra who wasn’t even mentioned by name. Naturally, there was no way he could have met the mascot of the Hero’s Party.

“I met him in the corridor just now!” Rue explained.

“Is that so?”

It seemed the young master she had bumped into while carrying a bundle of snacks was a suitor.

Judging by his humbly accepting Rue’s clumsy consolation, he seemed to be an innocent young master.

But for some reason,

I felt a sense of unease from his eyes filled with kindness.

I watched the suitors’ retreating figures as they left the matchmaking venue in defeat.

Whenever I sensed an unfounded unease, the aftermath was never good.

“Did something happen?” Rue, holding my hand, asked, sensing my suspicious reaction.

“I felt uncomfortable seeing those young men who looked like male courtesans,” I replied.

“Jealous Edan,” she teased.

Despite saying it was not a big deal, I asked Elizaveta for the list of suitors. I wanted to uncover the cause of the unease.

Flip-, Flip-

I quickly flipped through the binder.

The list contained names, family backgrounds, and brief information.

I quickly browsed through the recorded data to discover the strange unease.

‘Dagilec Branon. The second son of the Branon family. Red hair and black eyes. A talented individual who graduated from the theology department of the Elysty Academy with excellent grades. He has won awards in piano concours.’

The young man who had given me an unpleasant feeling was an exceptionally outstanding talent.

The word “perfect” suited him well.

Dagilec Branon boasted a special A-grade among the numerous suitors.

The fact that he had graduated from the theology department of the prestigious Elysty Academy with excellent grades thoroughly denied any connection to heretics.

It was even more so since the Valtarian Imperial Family would have thoroughly investigated and selected the suitors.

‘If he graduated from the theology department, he must have been baptized by a priest of the Holy Kingdom. Then, he shouldn’t be a cult worshiper… Because cult followers can never receive the baptism of the Earth mother. Well, there are exceptions.’

It was impossible for a cult follower who worshiped a forgotten god to receive baptism from a priest of the Earth mother.

They had accepted the divinity of the cult.

That’s why the divinity of the earth mother couldn’t invade them.

If they forcibly attempted baptism, a “divine collision” would occur, causing an overload.

Therefore, cult followers had been searching for ways to disguise the Earth mother’s baptism.

“Rue!” I called out.

“Yes. What is it?” she responded.

While examining various possibilities as I browsed through the list, Rue sipped cocoa with Elizaveta.

How carefree.

With whipped cream smeared all over her lips, I asked Rue.

“When you bumped into the handsome male courtesan… Was there anything suspicious?”

“Umm…” Rue’s hair swayed vigorously as she tried hard to recall the fleeting moment, using her lacking brain.

“He helped me up when I fell. And he handed me the bundle of snacks I had dropped,” she recounted.

“And?” I prompted.

“Nothing else,” she replied.

“……”

I felt the tension dissipate at Rue’s answer that there was no peculiarity.

The fairy’s answer further supported the pure innocence of the young man named Dagilec Branon, who was utterly unrelated to demons and cult worshippers.

Was it just my overcautiousness?

I had suspiciously doubted an innocent person.

Sighing, I closed the file. It was because of the frustration of not grasping even a hunch.

“He smelled like Edan. I guess he doesn’t wash often,” Rue suddenly said, as if remembering something.

“What?”

“He reeked of rotten soil! And there was also the smell of rusted metal! I don’t know why he didn’t even spray perfume when meeting a pretty princess. He was the dumbest fool I’ve ever seen, even more than my Luinong friends,” she continued.

“…Stench.”

Dagilec Branon had a stench?

No, it was an absurd statement.

If there had been a stench, Elizaveta, sitting across the table from him, couldn’t have missed it.

I had also briefly passed by Dagilec, but he only had a faint perfume scent.

Only the fairy Luinong had detected the “stench” that no one else had noticed.

What could that mean?

Stench.

It was evidence of corruption and a symbol of decay.

It was also like the Earth mother’s punishment given to the followers who worshiped a forgotten god.

I narrowed my eyes at Rue’s testimony that a foul stench had emanated from Dagilec.

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The suitors, whose ambition to become the Emperor’s son-in-law and rise to power had been thwarted, expressed their dissatisfaction with Elizaveta, who had shown a thorny attitude.

They had entered the palace with dignity as suitors. Still, they had only experienced the notorious ill-tempered reputation of Elizaveta, who was famous for her sharp personality, before leaving.

What’s so great about her when she was dumped by the hero…!

Damn it.

In the end, it was just a waste of time.

They had only been humiliated in front of the Platinum Princess.

The suitors who had left the imperial palace expressed their disappointment and scattered in different directions, wondering how to deliver the devastating news to their families.

“……”

Dagilec, the suitor from the Branon family, was no exception.

After leaving the castle gate, Dagilec boarded the Branon family’s carriage, waiting for him.

“I was half in doubt, but it seems you made it out safely. I had predicted a pessimistic outcome,” a red-haired woman inside the carriage spoke.

Surprisingly, although she appeared to be a young woman, her voice was very hoarse. It was undoubtedly close to the voice of an elderly man.

“Heh, hahahaha!! Indeed, she was a princess who had inherited a noble bloodline! It was like receiving a goddess!” Dagilec’s face, which had been that of a handsome young man, crumbled like rotten meat.

The skin covering his face became as mushy as melted mud.

After all, no mask in the world can conceal malice.

As if to prove that, every time the monster disguised as Dagilec Branon thrashed around, his once charming face crumbled miserably.

“With such vivid pure blood, she would be the perfect vessel to contain our god. Surely, the god will also be pleased! I was convinced of that when I saw the princess as beautiful as platinum!”

The princess Elizaveta von Valtaria, whom he had faced across the table, was the ideal holy grail he had been desperately searching for throughout the continent.

A body to incarnate a god.

The noble, pure blood that would ultimately complete the ascension of evil.

It would become even more perfect if extreme pain and fear were injected into her body.

Disguising himself as a suitor to the princess and infiltrating the palace was to visually assess Elizaveta’s suitability.

“…Well, the hardship was worth it,” the woman remarked.

How much effort had they put in to infiltrate the palace, which was like a den of wolves?

They had killed Dagilec Branon, who had been selected as a suitor.

They had skinned him and worn his skin.

Then, they manipulated Dagilec’s soul and possessed his body.

They had shown meticulous care, such as blocking their presence to pass through the strict security and abusing blessings to temporarily seal their power.

They had even done their best to avoid being detected by divine power. Thanks to mobilizing numerous cult worshippers, they had succeeded in their deception.

“But 4 hours is the limit. It’s difficult to go beyond that. If we had delayed even a little longer, we would have been immediately spotted by the Red Dragon of the empire and the White Dragon of the Holy Kingdom. Then, you would have been caught in a state where you couldn’t use any power,” the woman warned.

Even after mobilizing numerous cult worshippers, 4 hours was the limit.

Infiltrating an impregnable fortress was a task that even experienced cult worshippers had to risk their lives for.

It was a perilous deception.

But the significance was great.

Didn’t they confirm that Princess Elizaveta was the ideal holy grail?

After being abandoned by the hero Maximilian, Elizaveta completely cut off her outings.

That’s why they had no choice but to take the risk of infiltrating the palace and making contact with the Platinum Princess.

And…

“Did you plant ‘it’ on the princess’s close associate?” the woman asked.

“Of course,” the monster replied.

The group was formed by the cult worshippers who had escaped from the great demons of the Demon King’s army and the oppression,

“The Guides”

The purpose of the cruel and ruthless criminals was to sacrifice and incarnate an evil god.

The cunning malice that aimed to bring a miserable end to the villainous princess Elizaveta began to slowly reveal itself like a poisonous fog rising from the abyss.

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