Chapter 76: Playing
I sit on the sofa and Lex is next to me, holding my hand. I lean on his shoulder and doze off.
Oh, I couldn’t sleep last night after all. I got sleepy while having a snack with Lex in the afternoon.
“Mina, it’s okay if you fall asleep.”
“No…”
As Lex rubs his hand on my shoulder and taps my body with a rhythmic patting, my eyelids gradually close.
My consciousness wanders between a vague awakening and sleep, and Lex’s body temperature invites me to a deeper sleep. But I wake up suddenly with the sound of shuffling in the room.
“…it’s time for the hunt.”
Hilka’s voice. Hilka is standing in front of me with… a turned over wine case. She stands on top of it, facing the servants.
“The order is one: death to the rats who sniff around us!”
She smiles mischievously and points to the entrance with a fan.
“Go.”
The servants Applause.
“Mina-sama is cool!”
“It’s not easy to say that line.”
“Awesome.”
“This should be a play.”
My head is slightly shaking. It’s because Lex is clapping silently.
“…No, wait a moment, you guys?!”
“Ah, madam. Good morning.”
“Yes, good morning… no, what are you doing?”
Hilka tilts her head loosely.
“It’s Mina-sama play?”
“Mina-sama play?!”
Hilka bows neatly on the wooden box.
“I had to tell the master about your madam’s bravery.”
“Wait a minute…!”
When I try to stand up to stop, Lex makes me sit down by taking my waist and arm.
“I ordered it. I asked her to give me the details of what you were doing last night.”
“And if you don’t know?”
He shakes his head sideways and looks at me with brown eyes.
“I think I should know what Mina did. As her husband.”
Lex looks away and toward Hilka. And before her, who nodded at his words, Senni, who was bound with her hands behind her back and made to kneel on the ground, looked up at Hilka with hatred.
“Don’t think you can get away with it for free…!”
Stop it…
***
“Don’t think you can get away with it for free…!”
I took a chair at the entrance and listened to the information about the night raid. It’s like a base of operations.
When it was getting close to dawn, a mature man was brought before me, dragging his feet. It looks like he had his forehead cut or something, and he had a rough bandage wrapped around his head that was stained with blood. He was tied up with his hands behind his back, and he said this.
“Ara, hello there.”
He may not be the leader of the shadows of the royal family, but he was the one who was watching over me. I told my men to capture him if possible.
I’m glad to see that my men are excellent.
“Vilhelmina, you are the daughter of the Duke Periknen family and the fiancée of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, how dare you stand against us, the shadows of the royal family!”
I stand up and place my hand on my cheek.
“As a nobleman I can respect you, but as a commoner, do not know what value that holds for me.”
“You!”
I return the outrage with a high laugh.
“After all, don’t you think it’s a shame to be destroyed by the hands of the commoners? Don’t you feel ashamed to show such disgrace? No, to begin with, if you haven’t noticed that we have that much power, it’s a terrible oversight, isn’t it?”
The man’s face darkens red with anger.
“Even if you kill us, there will be other shadows, and the royal family will not forgive you.”
“Hmph, I am aware of it. If the shadow of the royal family was truly a loyal hand of the royal family, that would have been good. But that hand has become corrupt.”
“You’re a fool!”
“The prevention of the assassination of Ina Miss Madetoya, and the falsehoods that discredit my honor and glorify her. The former is beside the point, why did the latter take place when the king was absent?”
“… His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is also a noble man, and when he commands it, it is natural to obey.”
“Foolish fool!”
I hit his cheek with a fan.
“Do not let such lies pass through someone who has received Queen’s education! In order not to waste unnecessary blood in the struggle for succession, do not think that the shadow must not take the initiative!”
There is no answer. I sit in the chair.
“At the stage where you acted not for the sake of the kingdom but for the sake of the prince, your loyalty or what have you is worthless. I wonder if even Lord Elias would be hired as a puppet by the nobles?”
“Hmph, I don’t know. I won’t talk even if I was subjected to torture.”
“…By the way, I heard that in the East there is a torture called putting a starving rat into someone’s anus and letting it eat their internal organs.”
The faces of those around me turn pale.
“I wouldn’t go through the trouble of doing such a troublesome thing. Kill him.”
