Augustum Palace, the queen's audience chamber. The Grand Duke held the queen in his arms and snapped.
"Please stop this."
The woman who had removed her hood that covered down to her forehead gave a bloody smile. Strangely, the woman with black bob hair that reached her chin showed no intimidation whatsoever before the royal couple of Osdern. Rather, it was the royal couple who seed intimidated.
"I can stop anyti, Your Highness. If only Her Majesty would make a decision."
"You would kill Galliston over just that one piece of land? Daria, he is my cousin!"
"And also your closest limb. Do you think I don't know that? Your Majesty, make your decision. Whether you'll lose your cousin because you can't give up 'just that one piece of land.'"
The queen's lips trembled as she glared fiercely. The scales that placed affection for blood relatives and the duty to protect her limbs on one side, and the morality she must uphold as a monarch on the other, swayed without being able to tip either way.
"Let
make the decision easier for you. Cyrus."
Cyrus, who had been standing behind Daria, approached. His large fra created an intense sense of intimidation just by taking two steps forward. However, the queen knew. What was truly dangerous was not that combat machine-like Cyrus. Daria, with her slightly shorter height than the queen and slender body, was the real poison.
But she had already touched it. After that, it was a swamp she couldn't escape from.
"Look at this."
Cyrus held out a device. On a screen with three dials, a poor-quality video appeared. Like a yellowed photograph with no movent whatsoever, it showed a spacious corridor.
Red-toned carpet and sparsely hung paintings that could be found in any luxurious mansion. But even with the colors almost completely faded, the queen could recognize it imdiately.
"You must know this place well. Isn't it where you spent your childhood?"
The second-floor corridor of Pinent House. As far as the queen knew, it had always been an impeccably elegant place. However, when the old paper-like video crackled and shook, an eerie ominousness was felt.
"Here they co."
Daria's lips twisted up crookedly. At the sa ti, people ca running from the end of the corridor. Two won, one man. Perhaps they were familiar faces. But before she could confirm their faces, they were swallowed whole by the monster that followed.
There was no sound in the video. But it felt as if she had heard it. The footsteps of weak humans, the monster's footsteps that buried those sounds, screams, crying, and even the cracking sound of bones breaking.
"Ugh!"
The queen covered her mouth and dry-heaved. Cyrus cut off the video. Daria whispered like a snake.
"Your Majesty. You must clearly see three pitiful people dying after being caught up in Your Majesty's and His Highness the Duke's wrong choices. Should you turn away without even looking just because your stomach is a bit upset? It's all Your Majesty's responsibility."
"Stop this! Your Majesty, please calm down. You don't have to watch."
The Grand Duke interrupted Daria's words and embraced the queen. The queen kept dry-heaving in his arms. The Grand Duke quickly wiped away the tears that had gathered in her eyes with his thumb. So they wouldn't see. But that was all.
The Grand Duke was Harriet II's husband, but he couldn't protect the queen from threats. His broad back that completely covered the queen's body had no power whatsoever. If Daria were to try to stab the queen in uncontrollable anger, that useless back might have so montary utility, but now it was rely a screen that briefly hid the queen's terror.
The queen knew this fact too. That there was nowhere to hide. The queen, who had taken a deep breath, asked.
"...Did you have to take the lives of innocent people too?"
"If Your Majesty had listened well from the beginning, they would still be alive."
As if even the eyes glaring at them without response were delightful, Daria shrugged her shoulders greatly. Only the queen beca more anxious as ti passed. Daria and Cyrus didn't care if the duke died. There were still three more pieces that could move the queen. And thankfully, they were weaker and more foolish than the troubleso Galliston.
"You really are stubborn. If your pride as a monarch is more important than your cousin's life, then abandon him. Loyal Galliston would gladly offer his life."
Daria, who had been looking at the queen's bloodshot eyes as if they were laughable, this ti smiled seemingly benevolently. It was chilling.
"Then what will happen next ti? Ah, I should set a trap in lovely Princess lissa's room. After that? Prince Louis? Or perhaps His Highness the Grand Duke?"
The queen, who had been holding the Grand Duke's arm, had been trembling since Princess lissa's na was ntioned. It wasn't anger. It was pure terror. The woman who had turned Duke Galliston's mansion into a tomb simply because he wouldn't ekly hand over the city property could do the sa to the queen's children.
In that woman's eyes, we are not human. That fact was felt chillingly to the bone.
"So the sooner you choose, the better it would be, Your Majesty."
"Please, spare them. Not the children!"
The queen had completely surrendered. But Daria was a predator who wouldn't open an escape route. She pushed aside the Grand Duke's back that couldn't block anything and approached the helpless queen.
"Very well, Your Majesty. Let's do this. If you sign here, I'll even save Galliston."
"What?"
"If you delay, he might die before I can go save him."
It wasn't a long contract. It was all stories the queen knew, but the queen tremblingly examined the contract thoroughly as if afraid there might be a clause about selling her soul in the middle. Even though it was an unfair contract at the level of a slave contract from the beginning, she read through every single clause without missing one. However, when she reached 'Article 15. Party A shall provide full cooperation for the realization of laws and policies demanded by Party B,' she unconsciously jerked her head up and glared at Daria.
"I do not interfere in parliantary and cabinet affairs!"
Daria couldn't not know that. The fact that while non-interference was the principle, the royal family's secretly exerted influence wasn't nonexistent. Such influence should only exist underwater, so if it were revealed to the outside, it couldn't escape great criticism. The embarrassnt at that ti wouldn't be shared by Daria.
The queen's anger was justified, but the other party just crossed her arms and stamped her feet as if bored. There was no understanding there.
"You seem to have leisure, Your Majesty? While you're pondering whether the clause is feasible, poor Galliston is dying while resenting Your Majesty. Which monster might be chewing on Galliston's bones and flesh."
Daria whispered with a creepy face. The queen reviewed the contract to the end even while trembling.
Right, no matter how precious a cousin is, he can't be more important than the responsibility as a monarch. No matter how much you act like you'd die embracing your younger brother or limb, he's just a subject.
Royals, indeed. Selfishness without ti to feel guilt. Daria's lips curved up in a grin. There was a separate way to handle selfish people.
"It's Pri Minister Tempton."
Cyrus, who had looked down out the window, said. The queen's hand gripped the pen more tightly. Daria smiled broadly. There was a reason it had to be today. Today was the day Pri Minister Raymond Tempton would have an audience with the queen.
Raymond Tempton.
The queen's political enemy and source of inferiority complex. He was a pri minister who had been in power longer than the queen, who was three years younger, and his very existence was a threat to the monarchy's symbolism. He was a reformist figure who constantly opposed the royal family, the guardian of traditional values, and at the sa ti, he was the person who had given the royal family the greatest glory of Paolun's annexation during his ti as foreign minister.
Since long ago, from when she had rejected his marriage proposal until now, the queen had been more conscious of him than anyone else.
Harriet II would never want Raymond Tempton to see her current state. Both as an individual and as a monarch. Daria gently dug into that inferiority complex.
"Today is the day you receive the pri minister, isn't it? Today I'll get to et that great Raymond Tempton too."
"...That won't happen."
The queen gritted her teeth. Raymond Tempton's figure disappeared from view. He had entered the palace. The pri minister could have an audience with the queen at any ti, so the queen's ladies-in-waiting would bring him to this audience chamber. How much ti was left until that happened? Ten minutes?
"Well, who knows. Judging by the speed at which Your Majesty is signing, Pri Minister Tempton will have to wait a bit longer, and the pri minister sitting in the waiting room killing ti and I might have a deeper conversation, mightn't we? For instance, about the truth of the Republican Party leader's disappearance case..."
"Daria!"
"Your Majesty. Perhaps because you've been revered all your life, you seem to have occasional misunderstandings. As if this were so kind of equal transaction."
Daria, who had snatched the contract from the queen's hands, irritably flipped through the pages, spread out the signature section on the last page, and threw it back into the queen's hands.
"Stop talking nonsense and just sign."
Daria's voice beca fierce. The queen trembled violently. It seed like she might grab and break her neck at any mont. Daria slamd her foot on the table. The dirty old military boots pressed down on the table. It was less than a span away from the queen's hand. Daria, who had bared her teeth and smiled like a beast, said.
"If Your Majesty doesn't do it, your son will have to do it. If you prefer that."
The queen's face was red and blue with anger and fear. But under Daria's gaze that looked at prey, there was nothing she could do. Her trembling hand slowly signed, pressing hard on the paper. The ink wetly soaked the paper.
The contract stating that she would donate half of the Castledine Duchy's land rent, purchase and transfer state-owned land with the queen's private funds, and continue to support the passage of laws demanded by Daria, introduction of personnel, and Daria's research and business went straight into Daria and Cyrus's hands.
Another shackle tightly strangled her neck.
"As promised, I'll save Galliston. If he's still alive, that is. Lovely Princess lissa will also be at peace for the ti being. Congratulations. Then have a pleasant audience with Pri Minister Tempton."
Daria, who smiled satisfactorily, bowed her waist pretentiously and exaggeratedly, then opened the window and threw herself out. Cyrus clicked his tongue and followed Daria.
In the audience chamber with only the Grand Duke and queen remaining, the queen blankly looked down at her own hands.
"Didn't you save Edmund? You did well. Wrong signatures can be reversed, but dead people cannot be brought back."
"...I don't think it can be reversed."
The Grand Duke silently embraced the queen's back.
"Your Majesty, it's ti for Pri Minister Tempton's audience."
At the attendant's voice, the two stood up. While the queen fixed her disheveled face, the Grand Duke left the audience chamber.
The Grand Duke, who encountered Pri Minister Tempton, unconsciously distorted his face and ignored the greeting pri minister as he passed. The pri minister looked puzzled, then received a report from the secretary standing behind him and gave quiet instructions.
"Secretary Hamrton, please track the usage flow of Castledine Duchy's land rent."
"Yes, Your Excellency."
"And..."
The door opened. The queen with her black hair down sat in her seat with the sa stiff face as always. However, she couldn't stop the trembling of her hands and held them with the opposite hand so tightly that blood couldn't flow.
Poor Harriet.
What on earth was she getting involved in...
What was certain was that Harriet II's abnormal behavior was connected to the mysterious guests who were said to be coming and going from the royal palace. Then the next place to check would be?
Galliston.
The pri minister moved his hand lightly. After confirming that his superior had sat across from the queen, the secretary quickly left the palace and headed for Fisher Street where Pinent House was located.
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