What Happens When The Second Male Lead Powers Up [EN]: Chapter 470

#470

Grandfather and the Blizzard of the North Sea (2)

Grandfather said he came all the way here because he wanted to see the faces of his beloved daughter and grandchildren.

Everyone was surprised that it was really just that. Except for me.

I dare say, I can sincerely understand him.

“The state of the Divine Kingdom is a mess.”

“Did you see it on your way here?”

“Yes… Seeing the people here pained my heart. Even in the midst of that, the efforts of the Princess Consort seemed admirable. It seemed like the flood recovery would be finished before the first snow falls.”

“……”

“Nevertheless, the national fortune is declining. Haven’t you felt it too?”

“……”

Emperor Frederik was sparing with his words.

Gain, the Crown Prince, and I occasionally glanced at the adults and focused on our meal.

Clatter, clatter. The sound of cutlery and soft voices echoed through the banquet hall.

The long table was laden with all sorts of magical beast meat and ingredients that had arrived today.

It was thanks to the influence of the late Prince Consort Stanislas, who had single-handedly led a house-sized cargo wagon all the way here.

To be precise, it was the result of the evening meal time in the military camp being moved forward by an hour due to his strong insistence.

The commanders, who were enjoying a banquet for the first time in a long time, made the venue very crowded.

I heard that General Orel tried to attach escorts no matter what, but Grandfather adamantly refused.

Instead, the elder fearlessly traversed roads that weren’t even on the map.

He even hid the wagon in the forest when necessary and infiltrated the villages of the Divine Kingdom.

He said that he had been here once a long time ago, before diplomatic relations were severed.

“On the way, I saw that the black market of the Divine Kingdom had largely collapsed. I never knew that the place I had only heard rumors about was so deep and vast.”

“Yes. We were also very surprised. The Crown Prince and his friends contributed greatly! It must have been a huge blow to the political and business circles of the Divine Kingdom.”

“There are still two or three survivors coming up every day. We are providing relief to all of them, but it is difficult to actively engage in rescue activities. The ground has weakened to the point where it is very dangerous.”

Francois quenched his thirst with water instead of wine, and Duke Cecil Blancard added to the answer.

I chewed on the magical beast steak, from which the juices were bursting, and listened to the adults’ stories.

The giant elder was sitting at the highest seat at the table, not because he wanted to, but because ordinary chairs didn’t fit his body.

It was the first time I had seen His Majesty sitting in a place other than the head seat.

-Clatter

“I ate well.”

Around that time, Gain put down her fork.

She definitely said it quietly, but Grandfather reacted like a ghost!

“Princess, why are you only eating so little?”

Wow. Even though Gain’s nickname among the children is ‘Pink Princess,’ the nuance became enormous when the Prince Consort called her princess directly!

Even Isabel was surprised, but the person in question was surprisingly calm.

Surprisingly, even the Emperor and the Crown Prince were like that.

Could it be that everyone has finally become accustomed to the phrase ‘Cristel plus Princess’?

The Crown Princess is also ‘princess’ in English, so it’s a good thing in the long run.

“Your Highness, I ate about two servings…”

“Will that fill you up? I’m worried you might go hungry in the night.”

“……”

Gain couldn’t bring herself to argue with the elder and just opened and closed her mouth.

I subtly pushed the fruit plate towards her to help. Whisper, whisper.

“Fruits are water, so they don’t fill you up.”

“……Who said that?”

“My brother.”

“……”

She pursed her lips into a straight line, nodded her head, and began to bite into an apple.

I was happily admiring the protagonist who eats well when I accidentally met Grandfather’s eyes.

I smiled awkwardly and put the vegetable gratin in my mouth.

Even though it didn’t contain a single piece of meat, it was so delicious thanks to the golden-brown Yeriho-produced cheese and breadcrumbs.

I was even happier that the soldiers were eating the same food.

Hot, hot. I was busily rolling my tongue in my mouth when the elder said something in passing.

“Princess Consort eats better than she looks. How lovely.”

“Cough!”

Please save me!

“Try this too. I heard that our grandson and the princess are only looking for your ether, so wouldn’t that naturally deplete your energy? You need to nourish yourself from time to time.”

“Cough, cough.”

Oh my god, I’ve become ‘Princess Consort’! It’s just one letter away from Gain!

“Hehehe. Princess Consort and Princess. Grandson and Princess. Hehehe…”

Right across from me, Elizabeth was crying with a splash. The rhyme was amazing.

Under the table, the lesser pandas were giggling and enjoying themselves.

I couldn’t say anything and politely received the pheasant leg that the elder gave me with both hands and placed it on my plate.

I’m turning thirty the day after tomorrow, but being called ‘Princess Consort’ makes me want to bang my head against the wall, but anyway, the meat is delicious…

“By the way, the wind blowing from the North Sea is unusual.”

Grandfather said, placing a pheasant wing on his grandson’s plate.

Since sitting at the table, he had been tearing off and giving more food to his family than he was eating himself.

He was just like my grandmother, and my heart fluttered every time I saw him.

“…Is that so? There was a reason why the admiral was insisting on coming up.”

“Yes. It seemed likely that pirates would ride the tailwind and cross into the Empire’s territorial waters. They’re not the kind of guys who would give up looting just because there’s a war going on.”

‘Tsk.’ The elder clicked his tongue once in the same tone as His Majesty and filled John’s plate with a large pheasant wing and steaming raclette [a Swiss cheese dish traditionally melted over a fire and scraped onto plates].

He didn’t care at all whether he was surprised or not.

It had been a long time since I had seen the Grand Preceptor’s face caught off guard, so I laughed.

“Please take good care of our puppies, Grand Preceptor. They probably have a long way to go before they can act like people.”

“…I will do my best, Your Highness.”

“I’m sorry that I can only offer pheasant and magical beasts. When spring comes, I’ll be sure to catch a big one for you.”

“Thank you very much.”

Hahaha.

“…But that wasn’t all.”

Huh? Suddenly changing the direction of the conversation was just like my grandmother.

Gain and I crunched on pickles and listened attentively.

“The north wind had a thick smell of blood on it.”

…Huh? Suddenly, the atmosphere at the table froze over.

The elder continued, peeling the ginkgo nuts to feed the soldiers.

“You know very well that such a thing does not happen in the northern part of the Empire in winter. Most of the beasts go into hibernation, and only magical beasts with relatively weak poison roam around. It’s a season when even pirates are busy moving to sunny spots, so infighting is out of the question.”

“Of course. This time, something is happening on the ‘Crescent Moon’s Head’ side, damn it.”

Marchioness Caroline poured wine into her mouth and cursed.

Click. The Emperor put down his fork and looked at his father.

The blood-red eyes flashed sharply for a moment.

“…A massacre?”

The voice was very scary and heavy.

Our slowly moving mouths eventually stopped.

A massacre?

“I’m not sure. Now that the air is starting to freeze, I don’t know if it’s the blood of beasts or the blood of humans, now that I’m getting old.”

“……”

“Do you have any idea?”

The elder looked around at everyone and asked.

I swallowed the food and exchanged glances with my friends.

Soon, the Crown Prince opened his mouth.

“…I’m not sure, but there is one thing.”

*

The next day.

-Whoosh…!

-Clatter, clatter!

Outside the window, the full-fledged winter wind began to blow.

Occasionally, an invisible hand would knock wildly on the window and pass by.

David put a lot of firewood in our living room fireplace.

Most of it was byproducts from broken furniture and fixtures.

“…Do you really think there’s a Wilhelmina’s human experimentation lab in the north too?”

‘Was it a secret room? That’s what I’m talking about.’ Gain, who was sitting on the sofa and flicking her chopsticks, suddenly muttered.

At those words, the friends who were taking care of their own business became quiet as if cold water had been poured on them.

I don’t want to think so, but when I put together the conversations of the ‘Saints’ I heard in the black market, it was a very plausible question.

They were still looking for corpses for experimentation.

‘Oh, come on. Poverty in the midst of plenty. I thought there would be more corpses because of the war, but not at all.’

‘The situation is serious, Alica. The Statia secret room has collapsed, and even the Salt Marsh has been destroyed, so our superiors are very worried.’

‘Didn’t other regions have ‘secret rooms’ too?’

And the person who was the owner of the spice shop clearly pointed that out.

Could it be that Prince Stanislas sensed the smell of blood there?

“Lady Elizabeth.”

I was playing with Ropi with the pheasant’s tail that she had given me as a gift when I suddenly looked for the Vice Commander.

She, who was reviewing military affairs documents with the Crown Prince, raised her eyes.

Ropi, who was in a bad mood, jumped into my sleeve and began to swing her cotton paws.

-Weooong

“You said that Alica was also on the list of black market survivors, right? The owner of that spice shop.”

“Yes. She is currently imprisoned in the dungeon under the Lord’s Castle.”

“Did she and the other ‘Twilight Saints’ know anything at all? About Duke Sneider or her plans.”

“Hmm. We are interrogating them one by one, and it is taking time because there are many seriously ill patients… According to what I have been reported, Alica, for now, does not know much as she says. She is well-versed in the internal affairs of the black market, but she is quite ignorant of the news on the ground.”

“That would have been advantageous for her survival.”

The Crown Prince added in a calm voice. I nodded silently.

There is a saying that knowledge is power, but that would not have applied to a merchant who handled even corpses in a terrifying place like the black market.

The less she knew about her ‘clients,’ the safer she would have been.

“What about the Saints? I’m sure those humans know something from listening to their conversations.”

Gain asked, tickling Tete’s whiskers with her chopsticks.

Lady Elizabeth sighed deeply. The Vice Commander shrugged her shoulders, putting down her quill.

“That’s… They’re a headache. I heard that they mix truth and lies in their statements.”

“Yes? Can that be done? If you mobilize the oracles of the priests…”

Eva tilted her head. The Vice Commander put down her quill and shrugged her shoulders.

“Even if we put aside the fact that they are mostly low-ranking employees and know little, they are in a state where false information and real information are mixed up from the beginning. It seems that they used that kind of method because it is difficult to completely brainwash each one. Just in case, I listened to their testimonies and dug all over Yeriho… But… Nothing came out. We failed several times.”

“Oh my god, then…”

“Yes. We have no choice but to test each testimony or ignore them all. The latter is a safer choice because there may be a trap.”

Then, Ganael, who was sewing, quietly groaned.

The former could be an operation that would even endure the sacrifices of the Imperial Army, and the latter was bitter no matter what.

It was a shame that we couldn’t properly utilize Duke Sneider’s henchmen, who we had managed to catch.

Judging by the fact that they are carrying out such experiments without fear, they seem to have a considerable number of followers throughout the country, but it is not common for them to fall into our hands intact…

“Huh?”

Wait, no. No.

The fact that there are ‘too many’ of them could be a weakness!

“Your Highness, Lady Elizabeth.”

I jumped up from my seat and approached the desks of the two.

Gain, who sensed something unusual, joined in.

The Crown Prince looked up at me and narrowed his eyes.

“You have ‘that look’ again.”

“Real. And it’s ‘that ether’.”

“Then, what if we only ask them about the north?”

“Only the north?”

Lady Elizabeth blinked her eyes. I cleared my throat.

Before I knew it, all eyes in the living room were on me.

I may be thinking too simply, but it helps to give my opinion even a little bit.

It’s always been like that. It’s better to do something than nothing!

“There must be countless minions of Sneider hidden in the Divine Kingdom. Maybe they could build a decent country just by gathering them.”

“So that’s why he’s coveting the seat of God.”

The Crown Prince took the words. I pointed my finger in the air as if I had been waiting.

“That’s exactly it. There are too many of them to manage each one carefully, so as you said, they mixed real and fake information and injected it randomly. Then, is that all ‘random’?”

“……”

“……Oh?”

“What if there is a ‘rule’ in that injection? For example, what if they opened a dense dictionary or a novel and picked out a few words or sentences to use? Frankly, that would have been faster and easier for the superiors. Once they set it, once they made a key, they could use it over and over again.”

“Heol…!”

Gain looked at me with her mouth wide open.

No, I’m not great at all. This is a method that often appears in investigative dramas!

“Indeed. I haven’t thought about it that way.”

Just in time, Bakari, who was reading a book on the sofa, slipped off his glasses.

He showed <100 Magicians Who Illuminated the Empire> as an example and immediately turned the page.

“According to Princess Consort’s words, after hearing the question, ‘Where else is Sneider’s secret room?’… They might say something like, ‘It was hidden at the bottom of the well in the west of the city.’ That’s a sentence that appears in this book. It’s a plausible trick.”

“That’s exactly it!”

I smiled brightly and looked around at everyone. However, there were loopholes in this reasoning as well.

“Of course, there can’t be only one person in charge of the Saints’ brainwashing. And if they all referred to different materials, there would naturally be differences in their answers. But…”

“Good Lord.”

Finally, Lady Elizabeth exclaimed. A faint smile hung on her lips.

“There is, Princess Consort. There were definitely people who spouted similar nonsense to the same question. I remember reading it in the report! I thought these guys were mentally ill because they were injured…”

“Yes, then the hypothesis is roughly correct!”

Endorphins soared to the top of my head.

I snatched the quill from the Crown Prince’s left hand and scribbled on the scrap paper. Swish, swish, sweesh!

‘Key words.’

So, keyword!

“If we find the key words injected into the lower-ranking employees, we can find the rules within them, and maybe even see the loopholes. We’ve already tried doing what they said and failed, so it’s even more advantageous. Just knowing what the ‘fake’ key words are and organizing them will be a harvest. Next time, we’ll be able to interrogate more efficiently.”

“Hahaha…”

“And Prince Stanislas said that the wind blowing from the North Sea was suspicious. ‘North Sea’, ‘North’, ‘North’. What would be the reaction if we threw those words out as a priority? Isn’t it better than doing nothing?”

“That’s very clever.”

Huh! We were startled and turned towards the door.

And without anyone saying anything first, we bowed our heads in unison. Grandfather!

“…Orelly praised you so much that his mouth was worn out. There was a reason for it.”

“T, thank you.”

My neck turned red, and I barely managed to make a sound.

Then, the elder, who was stuck in the doorway, laughed loudly.

“The three children look good like a landscape painting. When are you planning to hold the wedding?”

…Huh? Huh?