I Got the Job by Faking It — A Vicious Princess Chapter 18

Having quickly smoothed my face back into composure, I straightened my spine and looked the Emperor dead in the eye. Then I dipped my head respectfully and spoke.

"Might I be permitted to say something bold, Your Majesty?"

At my unexpected request, the Emperor's eyes curved with interest.

"Speak, Princess."

"First, I offer my deepest gratitude for the mercy Your Majesty has extended even to me, a hostage from an enemy nation."

I continued in the most formal register I could manage. This was no place for my true personality to slip out and start fooling around. My counterpart was the Emperor. The mad princess rumor made a fine shield, but there were still lines one had to observe in front of the Emperor.

Perhaps because my words were so unlike a madwoman's, the puzzled gazes of the imperial family turned toward me. Paying them no mind, I opened my mouth again with the purest, most harmless expression in the world.

"However, as I listened to Your Majesty, I found there are things my narrow understanding simply cannot comprehend, and so I dare to ask."

The Emperor stroked the stem of his wine glass languidly and tilted his chin up.

"Continue."

I blinked and asked, "Does Your Majesty truly believe that peace has arrived simply by seating a single enemy princess at your table?"

"……"

In an instant, the air in the banquet hall froze solid. Clang — the tip of the First Princess's knife lightly struck the rim of her plate across the table, and the Fifth Princess drew in a sharp breath.

Oblivious or not, I carried on calmly.

"Even someone whose mind wanders as much as mine knows full well that the true peace of the Empire owes a great debt to His Highness the Archduke, who risked his life at the front lines of this war, and to the Eclipse Knights of the Archduchy."

"……"

The air in the hall grew heavier by the moment.

Oh. So this is the power of royals with dragon blood? Or is it just the Emperor's fury at my yapping mouth? No way to tell. I cowered — while pretending not to cower — and lifted my head with even greater force.

"Which is why calling me the symbol of peace is deeply shameless of me, far beyond my deserts. I believe the glorious gifts Your Majesty bestows should go not to me, but to the Archduchy, which stood on the battlefield itself for the sake of the Castillo Empire."

"……"

A silence without so much as a breath swallowed the banquet hall whole. Even Varkan, seated beside me, said nothing. It seemed I was the first person ever to spit out the North's sacrifices to the Emperor's face — sacrifices no one had dared speak of aloud.

Then it happened. A cold smirk spread across the Emperor's lips.

"A truly peculiar thing."

The Emperor leaned deep into his chair and asked in a low voice, "I have heard it said often enough that the Princess's mind is not quite whole."

It was a blatant way of asking, you're crazy, aren't you? — but I tilted my head slightly and answered evenly, "It does tend to wander, for the most part."

When I brushed it off so casually, the Emperor let out a hollow laugh and pressed on.

"Princess. The Archduchy's sword cut down more Delmar knights than any blade in this war. And yet you, the Princess of Delmar, would side with the Archduchy?"

The jab at the end was fairly sharp. Had I been the real princess, that question would have shaken me badly.

Fortunately, I was not Delmar's princess.

I smiled, folding the corners of my eyes. "Why else would the King of Delmar send me to the Castillo Empire? He didn't send me here to dig up the past — he sent me so I might become a Castillian whole and true, did he not?"

Of course, I had no idea whether the King of Delmar had actually sent me with any such thought. But it wasn't as though he could admit he'd shipped off a mad princess because he couldn't bear to part with a sane one, could he?

I offered the Emperor a tender smile.

"I assumed Your Majesty sent me, the very symbol of peace, to the Archduchy that led the charge for today's peace precisely because you weighed their contribution more accurately than anyone. Was I mistaken in that understanding?"

At my guileless echo of the question, the Emperor's brow twitched.

"So then, Your Majesty! If you truly treasure me as a symbol of peace—"

I declared boldly, with shameless confidence on my face.

"—then I would be grateful if you bestowed your gifts upon the Escarr Archduchy, where I will live out the rest of my days. Then your people will sing the praises of Your Majesty's mercy, which extends even to a princess of an enemy nation, and the dignity and honor of the imperial house will stand all the straighter for it."

When I finished, the expressions on the imperial family's faces were a sight to behold. The Empress, who had maintained her elegance until now, could not hide her displeasure, and Crown Prince Kaine and the two princesses were all staring at me with wide, startled eyes.

A short-long silence drifted past. Then, all at once, the Emperor burst out laughing at the empty air.

It was a deep laugh, loud enough to reach the vaulted ceiling of the banquet hall.

Why is he doing that, all of a sudden? Terrifying.

When I stared at him with startled eyes, the Emperor looked at me without wiping the laughter from his face.

"I was briefly surprised — the Princess is not as the rumors say — but listening to you, there is nothing wrong with what you say."

The Emperor nodded once and laughed merrily. "Very well. It shall be as the Princess says. As Emperor, I will demonstrate the breadth of the Empire's magnanimity."

At those words, my eyes flew wide open.

Wow. That actually worked.

The Emperor gestured toward the chamberlain waiting at the front of the hall.

"Hear me. Come tomorrow's dawn, send to the Escarr Archduchy ten chests of gold coins and five thousand sacks of wheat levied from the southern territories, along with three hundred crates of the finest herbs tribute to the crown and a thousand hides sent from the west."

"Yes, Your Majesty. It shall be carried out as you command."

"And to Archduke Escarr, who stood at the vanguard of the war and brought us victory—"

The Emperor looked at Varkan this time.

"—I grant the Lakrion Mountains, which border the edge of the Archduke's domain."

My eyes snapped wide open.

Whoa! Even a mountain range?!

Huh? Wait a second.

Lakrion Mountains?

I tilted my head. Lakrion Mountains…… Why does that name feel so familiar……

Nothing came to mind just then, though. I decided I'd need to go back to my chambers later and carefully retrace the original story from the beginning.

Well, good.

Even so, this was a decent haul. How unfair would it have been to go through all that dog's suffering and walk away with nothing?! Turns out it pays to work your mouth properly after all.

Barely waiting for the Emperor to finish speaking, I bowed my head so low my forehead nearly touched the table and cried out.

"Your Majesty! I know not where to contain myself before Your Majesty's mercy, as vast and deep as the ocean itself, Your Majestyyy!"

Despite my fervent show of gratitude, Varkan beside me remained perfectly silent. With my forehead still planted on the table, I folded my arm and jabbed him in the side. Poke, poke.

What are you doing?! Hurry up and say thank you!

A person, hey? Needs to learn to bend now and then, hey?!

Under my brazen glaring and pressure, the rigidly upright Varkan finally glanced at the Emperor and gave the slightest dip of his head.

"……Thank you, Your Majesty."

His voice was still bone-dry and stiff as a board, but it was more than enough.

Ah, the laughter would not stop. My cheeks ached from grinning.

Truly —

what an excessively delicious banquet it had been.

That night.

After finishing dinner as well, Varkan and Roan left the imperial palace as night deepened. Ostensibly, they were visiting the capital's grand cathedral to pray for the souls of the soldiers lost in the war.

Varkan did, in fact, stop by the cathedral and offer a brief prayer. And the moment they stepped out, the two of them vanished and put on disguises.

Draped in pitch-black cloaks, faces hidden beneath hoods, black masks pulled down to their eyes, they headed for the back alleys behind the capital's bustling commercial district.

The damp fog settling over the back alleys was worlds away from the district's glittering splendor. Roan, walking ahead, kept watch over their surroundings and murmured in a low voice.

"About Her Highness, my lord. She surprised me. I never expected her to redirect the gifts meant for the Princess to the Archduchy. They say she even spoke without hesitation of things that could have roused His Majesty's temper."

It had been a situation where things going well was the only good outcome — a hair's breadth from the princess's head going flying. Though of course, the Emperor would hardly have killed a hostage from an enemy nation so easily.

Varkan, weaving his steps from alley to alley as if slipping into hiding, opened his mouth slowly.

"She didn't hand the gifts over to the Archduchy. To put it precisely, she returned the credit."

"Is that not the same thing in the end?"

"No. Gifts serve their purpose the moment they briefly fatten the Archduchy's stores. But making the crown acknowledge our credit means the likelihood of the imperial house throttling the Archduchy over some absurd pretext has grown weaker."

At Varkan's words, Roan nodded.

"I don't know whether you did it knowing all that, but there's no denying Her Highness accomplished something remarkable. Though it was a dangerous moment — that much cannot be disputed."

"Yes. However it came about, the North is in the Princess's debt. That much we must not forget."

"Indeed, my lord. But…… did Her Highness have some assurance His Majesty would not kill her? Otherwise, how could anyone be so fearless as to—"

"Who can say."

Varkan answered idly, scanning their surroundings.

"But seeing as she walks into dangerous situations of her own accord every single time, I suspect she has some inborn attraction to danger."

Roan laughed softly at that. "Now that you mention it, that much I cannot deny."

Just then, Roan caught a faint glow leaking from deeper within the alley and came to a halt.

Deep in the dark alley, a single old green sign creaked and swayed in the wind. Etched faintly upon it was the outline of a medicinal herb leaf.

"Here we are, my lord."

Roan took hold of the shop's door handle and said quietly, "This is the place that sent word after discovering the Osnis talons being traded on the black market."

Varkan's gaze skimmed across the sign.

"We go in."

"Yes, my lord."

Creeeeak — the old hinges groaned as the door swung open.

The interior was surprisingly bright. Wooden shelves lining every wall were packed tight with bundles of dried herbs, glass bottles, and faded paper packets. The bitter scent of dried leaves, the earthy smell of roots, the pungent aroma released when neutralizing poisonous plants, and the musty dankness of old wood all brushed past the tip of the nose in quick succession.

With the lamps lit so brightly, the shop hardly seemed closed — and yet, for some reason, the shopkeeper was nowhere to be seen.

Roan peered cautiously around the interior. "There's no one here—"

Just then.

From the very back of the shop, behind a shelf heaped with mountains of herbs, a young woman's voice burst out of nowhere.

"Grandfather, this one's wrong too! This is an herb used for painkillers, and this is a poison that causes paralysis. Sure, they look so alike it's easy to mix them up, but what kind of apothecary owner mixes up these two?!"

And then came the chuckle of a well-aged old man.

"Heh heh, there you go again. My eyes have gone cloudy — must have mixed them up."

"That's nothing to laugh about! I came in for a painkiller and nearly ended up paying respects to our ancestors!"

"Ha ha ha!"

At the sound of that conversation, Varkan and Roan exchanged a look. The two of them slowly began walking toward the voices.

Once more, the young woman's voice rang out.

"Ah, here too! Ugh, honestly! This old man is going to be the death of me! Step aside, I'm going to sort everything out properly before we go! Hey! Didn't I just tell you not to touch that? I said it's toxic, didn't I? Wash your hands, wash them!"

"Ha ha ha. Yes, yes."

Varkan's brow furrowed.

That relentless forcefulness, unleashed on someone who couldn't tell an herb from a poison. For some reason, the way she scolded the elderly shopkeeper felt strangely familiar.