The coming of summer made the days longer and hotter, but Aurelia didn’t get to enjoy it.
She hoped Princess Marcia and Princess Ariadne were having a good time, though.
After dealing with the re-scheduled administrative tasks regarding the Angio court, Aurelia visited the underground tower to talk with Viscountess Venenum. She returned to her quarters with documents taken from the underground tower—due to their sensitive nature, only she and Viscountess Venenum would read them.
Very late into the night—i.e., very early in the morning—Lady Fortunae came to her door.
Aurelia put away the papers before letting Lady Fortunae in.
“What is it?” Aurelia asked.
“Your Highness, you must sleep,” Lady Fortunae said, brows drawing together in concern.
“I will.”
“Energy potions have a limit to their use,” Lady Fortunae said. “If you use them too frequently, they will damage your body…”
Aurelia remembered another headache-inducing problem: Prince Marcus. “Have you been bribed again?”
Lady Fortunae’s eyes widened like a little shocked deer. “I—Your Highness…” She lowered her head. “Yes, but this isn’t about that. I just wanted to help you.” Her voice became very tiny. “I could transfer you some magic and help you recover faster…”
Aurelia didn’t trust Lady Fortunae enough for this. “If you want to help me, then I will entrust you with some tasks.”
Lady Fortunae nodded without raising her head.
Aurelia mentally reviewed the low-priority tasks. “In the morning, come to my office again. You will review the castle’s daily expenditures and make sure they are in order. After that, you will figure out how we could set up our own Royal Healers’ Association that is better than Prince Rian’s of Sedaveria.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
“Now, go to sleep.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
After Lady Fortunae left, Aurelia rubbed her eyes. Lady Fortunae’s reminder had been timely.
She secured the underground tower’s papers and went to bed.
Each day, King Augustus became more aggravating and repulsive in her eyes. But it wasn’t the right time yet.
In the early morning, King Augustus stood in front of his glass windows, looking down upon his castle and its inhabitants walking around. Those people were growing arrogant, knowing that he couldn’t strike them with lightning.
“Your Majesty.” One of his agents knelt down on the floor.
King Augustus saw the reflection of the agent in the mirror. “Has anyone linked the underground tower with me?”
“We haven’t heard, Your Majesty,” the agent said.
King Augustus sneered. Haven’t heard. There had to be people talking about it secretly. “Kill anyone and everyone who dares spreads any rumour that the tower is my doing!”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And spread a rumour for me. The base was planted by Sedaveria to take over Angio.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Now leave.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
King Augustus was still thinking of the matter after the agent left. Sedaveria, Sedaveria! The name was becoming more annoying and accursed in his ears. The underground tower had been a secret for decades, and yet it was discovered now—Sedaveria definitely had a hand in this!
The people of Angio lived each day with the fear that they would be killed in the middle of the night. Those alive knew better than to spread rumours.
But this was a big matter. Quietly, the news spread—a site of necromancy research was discovered outside the Capital.
While no one came out and said that it was controlled by King Augustus, the implication hung heavy.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Cegfilj xcfk vfrqlaf atf ijmx bo fnlvfcmf, jr vlv batfgr.
Qtlif atf mbwwbc qfbqif rqbxf rqjgrfis jcv rlwqis jybea atf wjaafg, atf cbyifr tjv qglnjms rqfiir atja jiibkfv atfw ab jcjisrf atf lrref oegatfg.
Po la kjr j rlaf bo cfmgbwjcms gfrfjgmt, ktb kfgf atf gfrfjgmtfgr jcv ktb kfgf atf mbgqrfr?
Speculation abounded about known shadow mages and executed criminals who didn’t have a proper burial.
It was, for now, an intriguing topic of gossip.
A few days later, Aurelia felt she had a little bit more time. After she finished her guard duty, she finally had Prince Pollux come to her quarters for a meeting.
Prince Pollux’s servants accompanied him to the door of her quarters, but he entered by himself, controlling his wheelchair. Prince Pollux briefly greeted the ladies-in-waiting before following Aurelia into a separate room.
“Prince Pollux, how have you been?”
Pollux snorted. “Is this about Marcus?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, then I already know he wants to be king and that he had tried to kill Marcia.”
Aurelia frowned. “How did you know?”
Pollux rolled his eyes. “Why else would she flee the castle at such short notice?” His eyes were dark as he smiled at Aurelia. “I’m well familiar with Marcus’s ways.”
Aurelia felt a stab of guilt. She had vaguely known that Marcus didn’t play nice with Pollux, but she had never considered it her problem to deal with.
“To be honest, I don’t know why you wanted to speak with me,” Pollux continued. “I already know what I want to do and where I want to go, and I don’t need your help.”
“Will you be leaving soon?”
“No.”
Pollux had thought about this for a long time. For years, he had wanted to leave. So why didn’t he leave now? On one hand, there was still the lingering fear of the unknown. On the other hand, Pollux wasn’t a saint. He wanted to see King Augustus and Prince Marcus fall from grace with his own eyes first before he left.
Pollux looked at Aurelia. “Instead, I could offer you my help.”
“You’re my younger brother. You don’t need to get involved.”
Pollux shrugged. “If you think so. Is there anything else?”
Aurelia’s gaze was sharp and assessing, but Pollux didn’t flinch. Finally, she said, “No.”
“Then I’ll take my leave, Princess Aurelia.”
Pollux smoothly manoeuvred his chair out. He wasn’t touched by Aurelia’s concern. Instead, he was disappointed.
For some reason, he had hoped for something more. He wasn’t sure what, but this meeting wasn’t it.
Perhaps he was too old and jaded. Perhaps Aurelia’s concern came too late.
Either way, he didn’t feel welcome in this family.
The moment Aurelia got off guard duty the next day, someone from Viscountess Venenum’s team hurried up to her.
“Princess Aurelia, Viscountess Venenum has something urgent to tell you. She requests that you bring a vial of your late mother’s blood.”
The moment Aurelia heard this, she had a sinking feeling.
Viscountess Venenum was in charge of identifying the dead bodies. After Aurelia rushed to the underground tower site after receiving this message, Viscountess Venenum led her to one of the new temporary earthen ‘morgues’, chilled cold with magic. All the undead had been killed again; all dead bodies, regardless of their prior undead-or-not status were also restrained, just in case.
Viscountess Venenum led Aurelia to the very end of this morgue, where a curtain had been set up. Only the two of them stepped past.
“Your Highness, despite the deterioration, I believe you will recognise this body,” Viscountess Venenum said sombrely.
Aurelia’s sinking feeling deepened. She didn’t want what she suspected to be true.
It can’t be.
The corpse’s body was barely recognisable, with signs of decay and physical abuse. The remnant clothing was tattered and frayed.
The more she looked, the more difficult it was to deny.
Her mother.
Her mother, Lady Phaedre Dieus, had died over a decade ago. Aurelia was more than old enough to have seen her buried. Why would King Augustus desecrate her mother like this?!
Aurelia’s eyes snapped to Viscountess Venenum. “Are you sure this is the late Queen?” she asked in a low, dangerous voice.
Viscountess Venenum didn’t flinch. “No, but I have strong suspicions. That’s why I asked you to bring a vial of the late Queen’s blood.”
“Right.” Aurelia didn’t know why she had forgotten; the vial was there, tucked safely in her left pocket. She took the vial out and cast a standard lineage spell.
Aurelia closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, red lines between the vial and the corpse’s numerous patches of dark, dried blood had appeared.
Her entire body grew cold. She felt sick.
Aurelia ended the spell and put the vial away.
Thoughts buzzed in her head, but she had to pull herself together. “How about the records? I haven’t come across any mentions of my mother…”
“This body was labelled corpse number 23. I have sorted the papers mentioning it here.” Viscountess Venenum handed Aurelia a locked briefcase.
Efficient, good, Aurelia thought numbly. “Is there anything else?”
“Other matters are proceeding on track.”
Aurelia left swiftly after that, going directly to her mother’s grave, in the Lūpiters’ graveyard. It was the middle of the night She ordered some of the guards there to open up the late Queen’s coffin.
Aurelia didn’t know what she was hoping for.
The coffin was empty. They hadn’t even bothered to put a dummy corpse inside…probably because they wanted to use all the corpses they could get.
Aurelia returned to her quarters, assigned all tasks and authority temporarily to Lady Helios, and locked the door.
She hadn’t known about the underground tower.
But she should have known.
King Augustus was good at hiding.
But she should have guessed.
She had been carrying out her father’s orders for years! She had done things she wasn’t proud of! She had listened to him…
Meanwhile, he had desecrated her mother’s body and used her in necromantic experiments!
She was stained by him. She was stained by the actions she had carried out for him.
Admittedly, she had been afraid. She had been complacent because it was easier for her. She had numbed herself, on purpose. She mightn’t be the kind of hot-blooded cruel that King Augustus was, but she could be uncaring. She didn’t want to be weak.
She remembered the alienation on Pollux’s face.
King Augustus must have been secretly laughing at her. Seeing her obediently run around while knowing what he was doing to his wife, her mother.
Caring made you weak.
Aurelia then smiled wryly. And yet, two boys from Sedaveria defeated the mighty King Augustus.
Prince Rian and Earl Rosewood showed that caring didn’t automatically make a person weak.
Or rather, Aurelia suddenly realised, the reason why Prince Rian and Earl Rosewood could be so charitable and kind was because they were strong and confident and unafraid.
The resolution to deal with King Augustus and the festering wounds in Angio caused by King Augustus gave Aurelia a burst of strength. She skimmed the documentation that Viscountess Venenum had given her.
It corroborated with the other research papers Aurelia had read over the last few days.
The underground tower’s purpose had been to research necromantic curses, to try and better control dead bodies, to try and give them a bit more intelligence—but not too much. There had been allusions to trying to get a group of undead to fight together, no doubt the start of an undead army.
Such an army wouldn’t feel pain. They would fight until all their limbs were detached. It would be even ‘better’ if undead mages could cast magic.
The ‘rabid’ undead that Aurelia had seen first were created by a curse variant that made the undead seek out the living to kill. Perhaps they were thinking of ‘dropping’ the undead behind enemy lines and waiting for victory.
Aurelia’s mother had been a mage, so the testing on her corpse had been around attempting to produce undead mages.
Aurelia put the papers away and stood up, ready to return to her duties for the night.
With Aurelia’s permission, Viscountess Venenum invited family members—all from noble families—to confirm the identity of various victims.
She suspected that the majority of currently unidentifiable victims were commoners.
The nobles who came were not happy at all. For some of them, their family member had disappeared months, years ago without a trace. For others, their family member had been dead and buried—their corpse must have been dug up from their grave!
It wasn’t criminals being experimented on, as some had speculated. It was their own family members! The thought of the mutilation and humiliation that their family members went through lodged a very heavy, sour, bitter stone in people’s chests.
It was inevitable that what had happened would be leaked and spread, and the gossip suddenly went from ‘curious’ to personal. Many nobles knew at least one of the victims.
But not all noble families had been called in to identify bodies. Not all families had someone missing; not all families had a suspiciously empty grave or two. Many of these families looked down on the matter. It was obvious that you-know-who had found those other noble families to be traitorous in some way. Some of those corpses were people King Augustus had executed personally, so they were, indeed, technically criminal.
Such comments only fuelled the anger of the affected noble families.
Things came to a head during morning court, barely a week after the underground tower had been discovered.
The temperature in the morning court was warmer than usual that day; it was shaping up to be an early hot summer’s day.
King Augustus sat on his throne, scanning the faces of every single noble in the room for any flaw. Oh, they seemed to be acting normal but he bet they were discussing the matter of the underground tower behind closed doors. He also knew that the identities of the research subjects were becoming known, so his scrutiny was especially heavy on certain nobles.
He wasn’t listening to any of the reports and praise being given at morning court. Aurelia was dealing with that.
“Next, Viscount Amethystus,” Aurelia called.
Viscount Amethystus was one of the oldest nobles in the room. His fief was in the far northwest corner of Angio, with cold and windy lands. But they also had a mine of magical crystals, which gave them some leverage.
“Your Majesty.”
The tone had King Augustus’s eyes snapping to Viscount Amethystus. King Augustus glared, waiting for the proper welcome and praise.
Viscount Amethystus sneered.
King Augustus’s anger flared. “What, Viscount? Do you no longer want your lands?!”
Viscount Amethystus pulled out some papers from his coat. “I wish to submit papers to charge Your Majesty, King Augustus, of grave robbery and body snatching.”
There were aborted gasps in the hall.
From the last chapter’s questions, there was Kel, Aurelia, Cassiopeia, leaving it to the readers, making a new character, ‘surprise me’, and poly!Florence. Now I’m imagining Florence with a harem of powerful women hahaha.
Also, thank you to Sealunis and Nue for the you-know-what support >w<
I was thinking about how to keep in contact with you all with major writing news once this story ends… If you’re interested (and even if you’re not) please check out the form below!
https://forms.gle/f5BtFWZHx7pzfjVe6
ahhh new chapter, right as i was thinking about this novel!!!!!!! ♪ (^ω^\ )(*ﾉ・ω・)ﾉ♫
I’m hyped for Viscount Amethyst to put his foot down and show everyone in the court that the King is a weak little loser now, and they don’t need to cower to him anymore! Also, if King Augustus orders Aurelia to ‘deal’ with Amethyst, she’ll have to debate whether to succumb to his orders another time, or to stand up and say no! Oooh, I’m so excited!!! xD
Thank you for the chapter, BaffHaze! Another great one (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧
😆😆😆 perfect timing then!
Yeah, it’s going to be a hard decision for Aurelia and a hard decision for me 🤣🤣
GET HIS ASS!!!!!
Thanks for the chapter!
😏😏 thank you for reading!
welp… i hope he’s deeply screwed
so blood thirsty 🤭
Go Viscount!
cheering!
Uh-oh…
Thank you for the update.
😏😏😏😏 thank you for reading!
Breaking point just went ka-blooey! Can’t wait to see who makes the next move…
Thanks for the update 🤣❤️🤣❤️
even I wonder what the next move will be 😆😆😆
This sick bastard did what?? Calling this man trash is an insult to the trash community! Mf HOPE HE DESERVES SOMETHING MORE HORRIBLE THAN DEATH
Torture, then? 😆
😈😈😈
There’s these divisions of evil – Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil, and Chaotic Evil, but Augustus is Stoopid Evil.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR BEING AWESOME!!!
–At the same time, he was strong enough to make up for that shortcoming…until now!
Thank you for the chapter💚💚💚 hope someone kicks that kings ass again
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
How the freak did he think the rumor that Sedavaria was behind this would work? Once it comes out that the ones being experimented on were the corpses of Angian(?) citizens and nobles (some of which had already been in graves that I assume were in Angio), anyone with two brain cells would be to figure out that Sedavaria was obviously not behind this since it would just be a waste of resources, particularly with trying to get into a grave on a “foreign” noble’s estate multiple times.
Also, he was probably trying to make undead mages (and I’m assuming that only the nobles had magic or magic powerful enough for his liking), but what did he think was going to happen if he desacreated the dead family members of the Angian nobles, and not just one of them? Even if they didn’t care about the dead person, it is a blatant disrespect. And it wasn’t even for some “greater good” reasoning. This would be a massive scandal. And words spread. Easily.
Tl;Dr: August is an idiot, and I’m still wondering how Angio managed to survive prior to Princess Aurelia.
Also, thought back from chapter 98, but he sucks at diplomacy, he couldn’t even be bothered to find gifts actually useful to Sedavaria, considering that he gave a portrait of himself(?) and a saddle and Rian had to comment afterwards that ‘yeah, we don’t ride horses, so we have to put this on display since there’s no other use for it.’ I personally can’t imagine how diplomatic relations with other countries didn’t somehow burn.
He definitely isn’t the smartest person; Aurelia has probably been running the country in the background for almost a decade.
cough cough as I cover up any plot holes, I would say that King Augustus did used to be a bit more reasonable (well, aside from murdering his family to ascend the throne…). But power and arrogance got to his head, and he became increasingly tyrannical as no one was able to beat him.
As for the gifts–HAHA you know, I searched long and hard for examples of real diplomatic gifts in the past, and those gifts included portraits of the gifter 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
it’s a room full of shocked pikachu faces
😆😆😆😆😆😆 they’re shocked that someone dared!