Chapter 36Where the Monster Disappeared (14)

Translator: Kimmy

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But mother wasn’t this intimidating.

Diego gulped. Even the soft sofa felt rock hard so he pushed himself into the corner.

The big room now felt suffocating.

“If the situation was this severe, you should have told someone. We have started investigating it too but it started way too long ago, so we are having some difficulties.”

Diego lost his temper at the Emperor’s criticism.

He was still terrified of the monster Emperor but the vigorous baby lion decided to believe in himself and act boldly.

It was also because he instinctively knew that Karlos wouldn’t kill him like Duke Gardelli.

“That’s because no one believed it was severe! Someone would have removed that case before it even reached my mother…!”

“Then you should have made it sound serious. You could have made it a case about the gate malfunction not about commoners going missing.”

Diego made a face like he just got slapped by Karlos’s criticism but he shook his head unbelievably and spoke.

“B, but that’s a lie?”

Ah…

Karlos put his hand on his forehead.

He was young, naive, and reckless in action. It was the perfect combination to the path of hardship.

He was a pain in the neck.

The Emperor sighed looking at Diego studying him with wary, widened eyes.

“It’s not a lie, it’s a fact with a little touch of exaggeration and selective emphasis.”

“But…”

“Excuse me for asking but prince, how old were you when you found out about this?”

Diego made a confused face at Karlos’s self-composedness.

The Emperor was not what he expected to be like.

Unlike Duke Gardelli who was as arrogant as the Rumilesa surname’s fame was, the Emperor–who was more ‘Rumilesa’ than the duke was– has not lost his temper even once yet.

Diego was aware that he caused a big scene.

He expected the Emperor to at least yell at him but the Emperor was asking a puzzling question instead.

“I, I was 17…”

Karlos buried his face in his hands and moaned.

Ah! Sabina! Lionness Queen that never retreats! Why would you let a kid handle such a big case!

He scowled.

Certainly, Karlos knew it in his head.

Diego Siraq Cartul was a royalty.

They were born and raised to be rulers so they learned the disciplines of kingship and politics at the age of 10.

Diego would not have been any different. 17 was when most of the royals began official duty.

No, actually, it was quite late for a royal family.

But that didn’t matter to Karlos. Karlos was the type of person that could say ‘no’ when everyone else said ‘yes’.

The first thing young Karlos learned from Glenn was to protect the children and that children shouldn’t be allowed to do dangerous things.

Though ironically, Glenn was behaving against his own principles nowadays.

Anyway, Diego was still a child in Karlos’s eyes and what he was doing was dangerous.

And Karlos had to protect the children so he had to protect this naive little lion from that crazy dog Maximilien. Or perhaps from the Chancellor too.

And that was as difficult as dancing the tango in hellfire.

Though technically, Karlos could dance in hellfire since he was a Rumilesa.

The Emperor pulled himself together to not get soft.

“Crown prince.”

“W, what.”

“From now on, you shall not think. Okay? I, the Emperor, will do the thinking. Now, repeat after me. ‘I will not think from now on. And I will not speak without thinking first’.”

The Emperor pressed his temples with his index and middle finger and suggested.

And obviously, Diego talked back.

He was the honorable prince of Cartul. He could not allow himself to simply say ‘yes’ to such offensive words.

“W, what!”

“Oh, heavens, just do it.”

“E, even though I’m a crown prince of a small nation, I will not tolerate this high-handed treatment…!”

“Didn’t you just hear me tell you that you are not to speak without thinking again? Did you even listen to me? Am I talking to a wall?”

The Emperor started bursting out on Diego, using the sharp words of the Chancellor he adopted.

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“These bastards never help. Useless garbage. I would throw all of them into a river if I could.”

Informant A cowered hearing the Chancellor.

The Chancellor was wiping his glasses while glaring down at the ‘Morning of Glory Newspapers’.

If glares had heat, that newspaper, including his office table would have burned down to ashes.

Informant A imagined him getting burned by the Chancellor’s glare too and started organizing the files all over again.

Then the Chancellor spoke.

“Are the reports yet to come?”

“Y, yes! Uh, it’s still…”

“You can just skip His Majesty’s whereabouts so just organize the others and put it on my table. What about the crown prince?”

Informant A flounderingly went through the files.

If he couldn’t answer as soon as possible, he will be scolded again.

Fortunately, he found the compiled file within the few seconds the Chancellor patiently waited.

“Ah! Uh, the thing is, there’s nothing fishy from the 2nd order of Knights. There’s nothing odd in their written report too. Ah, also, all the traps inside the chimney were all functioning properly. But they all missed.”

“….Is it even physically possible to dodge all those?”

“H, he definitely didn’t die though? They found footprints on the roof…”

“Is he insane?”

The traps in the Sun Palace were so complex and meticulous that even an experienced top assassin couldn’t dodge everything.

If there was anyone that did dodge all of them, they were a legendary assassin that deserved to be written in history books or a very lucky person who was blessed by Goddess Fortuna* three times.

“That lil kid did bring us some good information though…”

Glenn signed the documents and pulled the folder beside him closer.

The folder had the list of the nobles of the West and the locations of all the gates and mines.

Informant A studied him and carefully placed the files of murderer TT and the collection of the public sentiment on the table.

“Uh, what should I do with these?”

“Go give this to the Foreign Affairs Division first.”

The Chancellor handed him the document he just signed without even looking at Informant A.”

When Informant A curiously took a glance at the document, his face turned as pale as the paper’s white color.

What a cruel person!

He felt sorry for the crown prince.

“It’s obvious what His Majesty is thinking anyway…”

Glenn, who practically raised Karlos, knew the Emperor like the back of his hand.

That meek Emperor is probably trying his best to think of a plan to send that annoying ass kid back to his home safely.

Well, that kid did deliver an important case but wanting to punish him was a different thing.

The Chancellor had zero intention to set the crown prince free gently

“This loyal servant should mess that plan.”

Informant A thought the Chancellor’s devilish face was nothing like a loyal servant, but he kept it to himself to save his life.

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TL/N: WARNING SLIGHTLY GRAPHIC (blood/gore)

[I understand some of you readers are sensitive so if you are sensitive to these things, there is a brief summary of important points at the end of the chapter so please don’t risk and skip! Also, to those with brave hearts, I advise you to read the summary as well for full understanding and enjoyment!]

On August 26, the first missing person case was reported.

The missing person was Miss C, an employee of a local bakery and a petit bourgeois* who was saving up for the academy.

But her dreams were shattered even before she set foot in the academy.

Beside the boarding house she disappeared in, there was a deadly amount of blood and hair, and pieces of organs.

It was the debut of murderer TT that appalled the whole kingdom.

His or HER crimes did not end in Avenue Road and expanded to all areas of the capital, causing the civilians to live in fear.

But the City Hall, established by the Emperor himself, showed no concern for the civilian’s fears and safety, claiming that there was no body found.

His (or HER) uncanny and inhuman crimes accelerated as time passed.

The City Hall belatedly began the official investigation but they failed to make any progress because they couldn’t find any connections or similarities between the victims.

But last Saturday, the bodies of the victims have been found under the Underhat Bridge at last.

They were found when a civilian noticed something was stuck on a rock, not flowing away with the current. The bodies were completely drained of blood and their scalps were removed, both a signature move of murderer TT.

……..

And so, a question arises.

Was the City Hall really unable to make progress in the investigation? Or did they simply did not want to?

A law should not be lenient depending on the person, yet why is the City Hall finally taking action after the victims were found out to be professors of the Callaheim University, despite them being notorious as scammers?

Why were their frauds not punished?

One anonymous City Hall staff says, ‘We are aware of the complaints. But we cannot start an investigation without proper, concrete evidence. Some civilians seem to not know of that fact.’

……

– Morning of Glory Newspapers, Lockhart.

(Source of portrait: Callaheim University Staff Directory)

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“Why the hell are they writing it this way?”

“Right? But these type of papers sell well, sadly.”

There were many words Brigitta did not know in the newspaper Eva brought in today.

Eva taught her the meaning of the words and helped her understand the context of the newspaper. And as Eva explained, Brigitta’s face distorted.

This article was depicting the City Hall as a corrupted institution that masked all the crimes and mishaps related to the nobles, rich people, and the Emperor if they just bribed.

The funny thing here was that this article was articulately written to give that impression but not directly stated, so it couldn’t even be reported as fake news.

“This company was never on good terms with the current Emperor.”

“Then why does it still exist?”

“I wonder that too, but I think it’s to avoid any words coming out that it’s media censorship.”

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Brief (non-gore) summary of important points of the news article:

This is an article about murderer TT and it’s mocking and making the City Hall and the Emperor look bad and corrupted. Also, it’s discreetly implying that the murderer TT could be a woman that has the support of the Emperor/nobles/rich people thus the City Hall not investigating the case “properly”. (If you have figured out who the journalist is implying, good job. But if you haven’t it’s alright, it’s Brigitta. Brigitta is a woman who is also a soon-to-be-swordmaster and who is close to the Emperor and has a hostile relationship with the two dead professors. So you can see why Eva is so disturbed and worried that people will start pointing fingers at Brigitta.

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vocab of the chapter~:

goddess Fortuna: Goddess of fortune and luck.

petit bourgeois*: a member of the lower middle class

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