Chapter 29Where the Monster Disappeared (7)

Translator: Kimmy

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“You must have had a hard time.”

“……….”

Diego went blank for a while.

or maybe his soul left his body. Since either way, he would be recalling his “travel” with Maximilien.

Karlos thought Diego deserved it for writing such a vile letter but on the other hand, he also felt sorry for Diego.

This young fellow suffered so much for being defiant just once, so Karlos was not comfortable with the fact that his cousin was the one who made him suffer.

“I thought you would be hungry, why didn’t you eat?”

“It’s rude of me to eat before the host.”

“There’s no poison in it.”

Karlos took a bite out of the sandwich.

He thought showing this vigilant baby lion the sandwich had no poison by eating it would be more effective than trying to convince him with words.

Unexpectedly, Cartul’s crown prince was more cautious and instinctive than he thought.

Karlos was suppressing his intimidating aura with the newly acquired method of cultivating inner peace but the crown prince still must have sensed something.

Karlos chucked internally.

Instinct is surely important.

Seems like it wasn’t just words when he said he wanted to become a swordmaster.

So Karlos became curious.

Sabina must have given him a proper education, and he didn’t seem like a totally reckless person. So what was he thinking when he provoked us?

“Eat up. You should eat well when you are young.”

“Excuse me but could I know who you are?”

Diego still hasn’t reached out for the sandwich. He must be starving but he still didn’t put his guard down.

It was such an animalistic response that Karlos wondered if he would have run away if Karlos didn’t suppress his intimidating aura before coming in.

When Karlos first met him, it reminded him of another person who had a similar response.

He thought of the silver-haired berserker and grinned.

“You’ll figure that out eventually…..”

Karlos ate the rest of the sandwich and spoke.

Diego’s eyes shook with regret.

“Why have you fainted in the palace?”

“The immoral duke, that guy………!”

Diego burst, then cleared his throat.

He was indeed still young.

He was trying as hard as he can to calm himself but he couldn’t control his facial expressions that his face was convulsing between frustration and composure.

Oh, gosh. He’s such a child.

Karlos thought what that little guy was doing was adorable but he held in his giggles for the sake of Sabina and Diego’s dignity.

“………He destroyed Cartul’s buildings so I said something to him, and I was captured here…..”

“Oh, that must have been tough. It’s horrible when targeted by him. Thank goodness your limbs are still intact.”

Diego removed his uneasy face and made a confused face instead.

Was he not a bad guy? He’s so scary though? But he’s so compassionate? And he is a citizen of Lesa?

Karlos saw his confusion and bit his inner cheeks.

Oh, my! Sabina! Who knew your son would be this naive.

“Was it related to the swordmaster verification? I was aware that Duke Gardelli went to Cartul for that matter but I don’t know the details because I was busy working here. Could you, Dideyr, tell me what happened?”

“How do you kno….., well, it doesn’t matter.”

Diego studied Karlos once again and then grabbed the remaining sandwich.

He made an awkward face–though he was probably trying to hide it–as he bit almost half of the sandwich in one bite. He spoke after finishing it.

“I think this is Lesa. So, you are probably a citizen of Lesa too. Do you work here?”

“Yes.”

“Your Emperor. Is he really even interested in the Emperor position?”

Karlos was surprised and slowly leaned his back on the wall.

Diego was dubious at how he suddenly became so quiet but he decided to finish the topic he brought up.

He didn’t seem like a bad person so he wouldn’t say anything like ‘Die here right now!’.

Thanks to Duke Gardelli, his standard of a ‘good person’ became extremely low.

“Lesa’s Emperor never moved out of the capital ever since he succeeded the throne. He’s not caring about the border situation and the border area. The North is occupied with his supporters so it’s fine but the other places? Are they too far away for the great son of Lesa to overlook?”

Karlos shrugged at his venomous words.

Some people, it seemed like, thought the Rumilesas were some kind of half-god like a dragon’s cousin.

Even though his eyesight was good, how could see every corner of the vast land of Lesa?

He was not a son of a god, he was a son of an ordinary man.

“This is off-topic but, Lesa is allowing refugees and immigrants to move into the country freely, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So,”

Diego poured the water down his throat and admired the taste of the sandwich.

“Cartul at the moment is lacking a young workforce. Every one of them is in Lesa. Right now Cartul is not a country but a satellite city* of Lesa. It’s because your beloved son of Lesa has been ignoring our requests to punish those who cross borders into your country illegally. For five consecutive years. He doesn’t care about anything else other than Lesa.”

Cartul was a small country, to begin with.

There was no such thing as a special product.

The lands were not even plains, they were mostly mountainous so there were even lesser lands to use as farmland.

In such a disadvantageous circumstance, the only reason they could exist until now was that they focused on their people.

But a problem arose 5 years ago.

Lesa became peaceful and the Emperor lowered the regulations of the foreigners’ entry and departure of the country.

He remembered the Emperor talked about the unity of the people or whatever.

Cartul and Lesa were close and they used the same language. And Lesa was clearly more prosperous than they were.

The people who left eventually stopped coming back. The population significantly decreased and so did taxes.

It was still fine but if this continued, by the time Diego succeeded the throne, anything could happen.

“He could at least regulate the people properly, or report us about the missing persons’ whereabouts. So you see how we would feel when he requests us out of the blue to send them our swordmaster after he ignored us that much?”

“Wait.”

Karlos separated his back from the wall.

Diego cowered.

It felt like a beast lying in front of him suddenly stood up.

Sweat rolled down his neck.

“I never heard about missing persons.”

*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

“Ah, dang.”

Alex chewed on her gum.

She was trying to quit smoking but she wanted to smoke so much.

She couldn’t smoke right now even though she wanted to though.

Two corpses were laid in front of her.

“Do you think it’s TT?”

“No, this is obviously a copycat. This is why I told the reporters not to release all the information to the media. Ah, these fu–”

“Lieutenant, there’s a reporter here.”

“fuuuuaaantastic weather today.”

Alex spoke robotically looking at the reporter outside the yellow tapes.

The reporter that caught eyes with Alex swore under his breath and left.

The anxious inspector beside her let out a sigh of relief.

Why did he have to pair up with Lieutenant Alex today?

“What did you find?”

“Ah, we found a wallet. The other things were sent over to the alchemist’s lab.”

“Alright, is there anything out of the ordinary in the wallet?”

“There was a note……..”

Alex held the crumpled paper with her chubby fingers.

There was a map and an address but we can’t be sure if this note was the corpse’s or not until the alchemists confirm it.

“Let’s look around the scene while we wait for the analysis results.”

She flicked the note.

It was this town of all places. She could sense that things would be troublesome and scowled.

“3rd Terrier Road house number 621. I just hope it isn’t a noble.”

*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*

“Can you tell me more about it, in detail?”

Diego could feel his under-eye shaking.

Calm down, Diego Siraq Cartul, the huge thing in front of you is asking politely with gentle eyes, he’s not being threatening at all.

Just by the looks of it.

He gulped.

But even with this effort, he couldn’t stop his voice from shaking.

“W, why would you…….”

“I never heard about the people disappearing. I need to know about it.”

“N, no way. Cartul has sent complaints multiple times already. That the gate was working fine but that the people were not—”

Diego was confused.

He sent his servants to file a complaint multiple times.

Sabina put him in charge of this matter so he asked Lesa’s gate manager about the numbers not matching up several times already.

And at every time, the gate manager always said, ‘I checked but the gate on this side worked properly. Perhaps the gate on your side has a malfunction? We are not responsible for it.’

It was his first official work as the crown prince so he didn’t want to report it to his mother before he made sure of certain things.

But within these few months, the number of people disappearing increased.

The missing persons were usually commoners so their background information was not recorded accurately so no one noticed it.

Cartul’s gate managers didn’t care about it either.

They only cared about whether the important people like nobles came over and just thought a few commoners missing was no big deal.

The officers in charge of the entries and departures became indolent when traveling to Lesa became easier, just blankly stamping documents.

The job was relatively easy so most of the officers were the sons of high nobles.

The officers just regarded Diego as a childish crown prince and took him lightly.

Since even though he was a crown prince, he wouldn’t be able to do any harm to the officers without evidence especially when there were no cases of important people disappearing.

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TL/N:

Satellite city: A minor city nearby/surrounding a major metropolitan area.