Chapter 13

There was still a light rain striking the window.

When will this rain be over?

When Astelle arrived at the emperor’s office with a dark feeling, the knight who was guarding the door opened the door.

As soon as she entered inside, a screaming burst out.

“This is a ridiculous sham!”

Marianne, who was standing in the center of the office, shouted out loud as soon as she saw Astelle.

“She has ordered her own maid, and she is framed me! ”

Astelle, bending her knees in front of Kaizen and bowing politely to him.

Kaizen was sitting over his desk and Vellian was standing next to him.

Vellian was very excited to see if this situation was interesting.

Kaizen gave Lyndon an eye.

Lyndon reported what he had found out to him.

“There is evidence that the maid who was caught as the culprit received money from Lady Marianne. She confessed that Lady Marianne’s maid also brought the money. ”

If it turns out to there, it should be said that it is over.

At this point, Marianne couldn’t get past it.

Even if she has a way to get over the crisis, this little girl doesn’t seem to have the wisdom to get out of this situation.

While Astelle looked silently, Kaizen asked Marianne firmly.

“Are you still going to deny it?”

“Well, I… that… ugh…”

Marianne began to cry with a terrified expression.

Her delicate eyes moistened.

Marianne, with her tears up, was beautiful and lovely as a fairy.

But she had no one in this place to express the sympathy for her appearance.

When no one didn’t take care of her, the weeping Marianne glared at Astelle again, as if to kill.

Her eyes burst with anger.

“She brought a suspicious vial and medicines in a box! Who carries so many medicines? How do you know what’s in it? It could be poison!”

When it became undeniable that she had searched the box, Marianne, on the contrary, seemed to have decided to turn the responsibility on Astelle.

However, when Kaizen heard the words, he rebuked her as if he was stunned.

“So is it you who searched other people’s luggage? Since when did you become the safety officer of this castle?”

“Your Majesty, I was just worried…”

When that excuse didn’t work, Marianne effortlessly blurred her words.

She shouted again, pointing at Astelle, with the tears hanging around her eyes.

“The person who came to see Your Majesty has so many medicines. It’s suspicious in all respects! We have to check it right away.”

Astelle never came to see the emperor.

It was only three or four days ago that she was pulled out with her child to attended dinner.

Marianne really didn’t know, so she said that.

At Marianne’s words, other people’s eyes turned to Astelle.

They were expressions asking her to explain why there are so many medicines.

“Lady Marianne.”

Astelle looked at Marianne with a cool look.

“I think Lady Marianne had a younger siblings, am I right?”

“….Huh?”

Marianne made a puzzled look at an unexpected question.

“What are you talking about suddenly?”

“Aren’t the nanny hired by the mansion always stocking medicines in the chest of drawers for Lady Marianne and your younger siblings? There must have been a simple cold medicine, stomach upset medicine, various ointments to apply depending on the type of wound, and a stabilizer to feed the child when the child is very surprised.”

Of course, the nanny taking care of the child works with the medicines ready.

Because children always get sick all the time.

Day and night always needed medicines.

Marianne couldn’t answer.

When she thinks about it, it seems to be. The nanny always had a lot of medicine.

“Theor is only 5 years old now. He often catch a cold, so I need a cold medicine, antipyretic, cough medicine, headache medicine, and stomach upset medicine. If the child gets hurt, I also need a kind of ointment to apply to the wound.”

Astelle said calmly.

“Theor had a severe flu not long ago. The pharmacist said that the child’s physical strength was weakened due to the aftereffect of the flu. The nutritional supplement alone is three bottles.”

Well, it wasn’t quite a lie.

Theor was very healthy, but he sometimes suffered colds and body aches.

In the first week of her fleeing life, Theor suffered a severe cold because he couldn’t adjust to an unfamiliar environment.

Astelle made nutritional supplements for the child she had learned from Gretel and sometimes fed it to Theor.

It was because she was worried that Theor would get tired while moving from place to place.

‘Well, it’s not just that there are medicines like that.’

In the medicine box Astelle carries, there wasn’t just such a regular medicine.

Even though they looked like ordinary medicines or medicinal herbs, they were also mixed with ingredients that changed the color of the eyes.

Of course, one by one, there was nothing special.

Because the medicine to change the eye color wasn’t a poisonous medicine.

Still, she had to carry the essential ingredients and there was no choice but to have a lot of medicine bottles in the box.

But Astelle’s claim that children need all sorts of medicines sounded plausible enough.

“I think my nanny did the same. Children are often sick.”

Vellian, who only listened quietly, sided with Astelle.

“By the way…”

Astelle, who stopped talking for a moment, made a cool expression.

Marianne was amazed momentarily by her cold light green eyes.

“Lady Marianne had already looked at my medicine box, so why did you keep asking me to checked the medicine box?”

At the word Astelle threw, the inside of the office was quickly struck by silence.

Marianne stuttered with the pale face.

“Well, what are you talking about?”

Astelle watched Marianne carefully.

There was no desire to become enemies of this young lady and turn the new power of the Croychen family into an enemy.

But now it was unavoidable.

She can’t keep a person who keeps opening this and that and looking behind it like this.

In the situation of hiding secrets that should never be caught, humans who try to monitor people were the most dangerous.

“If you had opened the medicine box, you would have checked all my other luggage. You must have known enough that none of the items I brought were suspicious. Why did you keep the medicine box open? And why did you keep asking me to checked the medicine box?”

“That, that’s…”

Marianne stuttered at Astelle’s question, and she bit her lips for an excuse.

Marianne proved for herself that she had nothing suspicious of Astelle.

She didn’t seem to be able to think of it so far.

“Lady Marianne wasn’t trying to check it if there was anything suspicious in my medicine box, but weren’t you’re trying to mix the suspicious medicine into it by taking a chance?”

Astelle said calmly.

“That’s why you would have asked the maid to carefully observe which medicines I use the most and the least.”

It was a common technique.

Putting poison or a fake secret letter in the least used item among the opponent’s items.

If you put it in an item you use often, the opponent will catch it quickly, so you use the belongings or drawers that the opponent does not touch.

You put a suspicious object that might be a problem in it, and accuse the other person of it, and it’s done.

Astelle was the empress who was abandoned by the emperor after a day.

It is difficult to avoid suspicion if poison comes out of the medicine box that she brought with the emperor.

Then, no one here would side with Astelle.

It seems that this lady didn’t know how common it was.

In the imperial palace, to prevent such tricks, when keeping sensitive objects such as medicine boxes, she attach their own markers to monitor who does secretly open them.

“I, I… no! It wasn’t like that!”

Marianne, who had been completely stabbed, stuttered and screamed in white face.

She dropped the tears and tried to cling to Kaizen.

“Your, Your Majesty…! Please trust me…”

Kaizen ignored Marianne and asked Vellian, who was next to him.

“Was there a prison on the west side of this castle?”

“Yes that’s right… it’s an old place.”

Since this castle itself was managed only by a few people from the beginning unless the emperor came, there was not much to be used in places like prisons.

It will be old and dirty because it has been left for a long time.

But people can live.

Kaizen ordered coldly, seeing Marianne standing in her desperation room.

“Until disposition is decided, Lady Marianne is imprisoned in a western prison.”

“Your Majesty!”

Marianne tried to beg with a fainting face, but Lynden approached her.

“Lady, excuse me.”

Contrary to the polite apology, when he beckoned, the knights grabbed Marianne’s arms and pulled out without reason.

Marianne was panic and screaming.

As the door closed, she heard Marianne’s yelling and screaming, but it slowly moved away.

As the room became quiet, Kaizen spoke to Astelle for the first time.

“I’m sorry for letting you go through this, I apologize.”

Kaizen was very guilty, but Astelle didn’t feel special about this event.

She had a lot of these things in the past when she lived on the royal court.

There were countless nobles who were jealous of the Crown Princess.

It was nothing like the jealousy of the young ladies, but the great aristocrats who seriously fought to take Astelle into a trap and take over the place of the Crown Princess.

Compared to that, this simple jealousy was rather cute.