Chapter 83………………………….
Archibald Bright — that Chillele Palere idiot — didn’t look it, but he was skilled at handling chemicals.
Five years ago, the poison that Mars used to frame me was his handiwork.
Up to that point, it was something even Minerva from the original story knew.
But because I’d read the original, I knew one more thing.
“In fact, the bastard can make explosives, too.”
The same thing happened in the original.
He blew up the duke’s mine, blinding Lloyd and Leona, and investigated Leona’s roots.
Because of that, Leona’s fate was…
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head hard to force myself to forget the image my imagination wanted to form.
“Is he planning to steal the ring while I’m out of my senses?”
Even if we couldn’t find him today, it wouldn’t matter much to him.
He’s the kind of person who can disappear anywhere — he’d probably pose as a hireling and search the ducal castle for a long time.
I wanted, more than anything, to lie in wait inside the ducal castle and catch him by the collar, but frustratingly I had to go to the mine — exactly according to the script Archibald had set.
This was an incident I, as a princess, couldn’t ignore.
Still, Lloyd tried to stop me.
“It’s dangerous. Please stay here.”
He seemed to have long suspected this explosion was the prince-faction’s doing.
Maybe because he’d grown up always watching for signs, he was skilled at reading unnatural currents even without as much information as I had.
I tilted my head back, let out a long breath, and said to Lloyd, “I have to go. You know that.”
My goal was the lottery.
No matter how well I hid, I wasn’t being watched by only one or two people; secrets would come out sooner or later.
If it later became known that I didn’t even bother to care how many commoners died, that would harm my reputation — and Aslan’s name would be dragged into it, too.
Everything must be done carefully and calculatedly.
“But…”
Lloyd accepted it but clearly couldn’t decide easily.
He must be uneasy leaving the children and Priscilla behind.
I gripped his shoulder firmly and said, “Priscilla Ekhart wouldn’t dare talk nonsense to the kids in a situation like this. The bomber — that is, Archibald — will come straight to the ducal castle. Do you think he’ll welcome a thief who walks into my castle with muddy boots?”
Not only will he not welcome them.
If they’re brought in, it might be lucky if they’re only captured and not killed.
Fortunately, Archibald probably doesn’t know Priscilla Ekhart is here.
Priscilla arrived quietly, and she’d been lying sick and quiet until now.
“If he had known, Gabriel would have already stopped Archibald.”
Gabriel was always careful when dealing with Priscilla, too.
Who would have thought Priscilla would already be of use?
She would snap awake from an illness if it meant catching the man who ruined her Ekhart.
We hadn’t even asked her to leave because she couldn’t be driven away yet — I felt like we’d struck gold.
Still, Lloyd wasn’t happy about me going along.
“We can’t leave the children with their mother.”
“That’s why I’ll go look around quickly and come back right away.”
The more he said that, the more time Priscilla and the children would spend together.
It felt wasteful to dawdle arguing with Lloyd.
“Your Highness!”
I was a step faster than Lloyd and ran outside.
The carriage was cumbersome.
I passed the carriage that was probably going to take the duke, lightly swung up onto a horse, and nudged its flank with my heel.
“I’ll go ahead!”
“Wow, you ride well.”
Archibald watched from a high place as the thousand-year tree forest burned when he reached the ducal castle.
News that the thousand-year tree forest was on fire had quickly spread throughout the duchy.
The black smoke rising from the forest moved faster than the rumors.
Because the forest the Eckhart dukes had long protected was a pride of the domain, the attention of the ducal castle and the village centered entirely on the thousand-year tree forest.
‘Now’s my chance.’
A moment like this — when the ducal castle’s defenses would be so distracted — might never come again.
Archibald tore his eyes away from the forest and moved quickly toward the back gate of the ducal castle.
Luckily, a group of servants was just coming out of the back gate.
Whether they were headed toward the thousand-year tree forest or not, they were all in a panic.
Archibald grabbed the servant who came out last and had closed the back gate, injected him with a drug at the nape of his neck.
“What…! Ugh…”
The servant passed out without resistance, and Archibald naturally stripped his clothes and put them on.
He also took the keys the man had.
“Well, shall we go?”
What Gabriel most wanted now was within reach.
Just imagining the praise and smile she might give him for the effort made Archibald feel he would fear nothing no matter what happened in that ducal castle.
The scene we galloped to was more devastating than I’d expected.
Because the accident happened in the middle of the workday, most of the workers were inside the mine; the fire couldn’t be put out in time and the thousand-year tree forest burned fiercely.
The thousand-year trees I’d never seen in person towered as their name implied, filling the sky — it felt like being trapped inside a furnace.
“My goodness…”
While I covered my mouth, Lloyd muttered as if he couldn’t believe it.
“The thousand-year tree forest…”
It was the pride of the Eckhart duchy — no, of the empire itself.
There is no country with a forest made up of trees that have lived more than a thousand years.
If things continued like this, the whole thousand-year tree forest might burn to ashes.
All because of people who just wanted to trouble me!
‘First we need to at least do something about the blaze…!’
I’d seen the lake while rushing on horseback, but it was too far.
With the manpower we had, even bucket-brigades would be hard; even if we hauled water somehow, pouring it effectively was the problem.
‘It’s too high…’
Because these trees had lived over a thousand years, each one in this forest was at least ten times bigger and taller than ordinary trees.
Putting out flames at the treetops looked nearly impossible.
I suddenly understood why Archibald had set this whole plan in motion.
‘Even if I go, there’s nothing I can do!’
If I failed to stop it, my reputation would be ruined — and I would just stand by helplessly watching people die?
I didn’t even need to imagine what rumors would spread.
They’d twist it into: that villain tried to kill her own brother and now tried to kill the people, too — God help us if that didn’t get distorted into something worse.
‘Please, please! There has to be some way. How did the original do it?’
I couldn’t remember.
In the original, they’d also failed to control the blaze.
The fire that burned the forest for three days was barely put out by a sudden heavy rain… wait, heavy rain?
‘Right, rain!’
If it would just rain!
I grabbed Lloyd and asked, “Duke, is there any chance it’ll rain?”
“I wish, but we had a heavy downpour not long ago; it’s unlikely to rain again for a while.”
Lloyd answered without taking his eyes off the blaze.
My hand gripping his sleeve went limp and dropped.
‘…This time, there’s nothing we can do.’
The bright red flames were consuming more than just the forest’s life.
Within me, hope had completely drained away.
Since ancient times, fires have been disasters people cannot control.
I had to accept defeat this time.
It’s okay — there will be chances to make up for mistakes.
Failing to extinguish this fire doesn’t mean Aslan and I will die immediately, right?
We know who set the fire; we can catch them later and make them pay.
That will do.
I turned my gaze to Lloyd, who had bowed his head.
This was his first enterprise.
Like me, he must feel more hollow than angry.
“Duke, this is beyond what we can handle. This time…”
Just as I spoke cautiously, Lloyd dashed off somewhere, dumped all the contents of miners’ buckets, and then ran off again.
His frantic appearance made me follow him without thinking.
He headed for where the horses were tied.
“Duke, where are you going!”
“I’m going to fetch water. To rescue the people trapped inside, we must put out the fire first.”
It was only a bucket that might barely pour once over a person and make them visible again.
“That won’t be enough!”
“Even if it’s not enough, we have to try.”
“But even if we bucketed water hundreds of times, the fire spreads faster…!”
“I know that!”
It was the first time I’d heard Lloyd shout like that.
But what froze me wasn’t just his yell.
“Each of them is one of my vassals I must take responsibility for.”
