Chapter 51
#51화 Servant Cedric (Cedric) (17) - Great-Uncle
‘It's not frightening if Claudia runs amok by herself, but if she bands together with the neighboring lords who are her allies and speaks out with them, it could become a bit troublesome. Should I quietly rein them in under the Second Prince's name?’
‘I should prepare against assassination too. The fact that she thwarted the assassination attempts on the Second and Third Princes means she must have a highly skilled swordsman serving as her bodyguard. There's still a chance she might make an all-or-nothing attempt on my neck, so I need to protect myself thoroughly.’
‘I should also make sure Redbell clearly understands the benefits it will gain from Claudia's marriage. If I can create an atmosphere where everyone around her is unanimously anticipating the marriage, then even if Claudia clumsily tries something like a public-opinion campaign, she'll only be swept away by the wave.’
Armin Redbell's political machinations were truly meticulous.
Despite Claudia's forces being at a relative disadvantage, he did not let his guard down and systematically blocked every means and method she could use.
Instead of committing his forces piecemeal like his younger siblings, his move to aim for a complete lockout from the outset seemed to show why he had so quickly secured his position as Redbell's heir.
However, Armin's misfortune lay in the fact that he had judged his opponent within the bounds of common sense.
“Armin Redbell!! How dare you stab me in the back!?”
Thus, when the Second Prince, his face flushed bright red, stormed into his territory, Armin could do nothing but panic, unable to grasp what was happening.
“Please calm down, Your Highness. Stab you in the back? How could I possibly do such a disgraceful thing to you? First, let us calmly talk—”
“Calm down? Calmly? Do you think I can calm down right now!? Do you even know what that bastard Bartholomew said to me!?”
Grand Duke Bartholomew.
Upon hearing the name of the king's younger brother and a major power vying for the next throne of the Virka Kingdom, Armin's face stiffened slightly.
He instinctively realized that the Second Prince's fury was not something that could be brushed off as a simple misunderstanding or a minor incident.
And that intuition became reality with the words that followed from the Second Prince's mouth.
“That bastard told me, ‘Your Highness, I understand that you may be feeling pressed for time in many ways, but even so, to think you would try to do business by selling off a child of your own family. I cannot help but question your character as a member of the royal family.’ Now the entire royal court is full of rumors that I tried to sell my own family's child to build up my power!! That woman Claudia has been going around with Bartholomew, testifying that this whole affair was my scheme!! Are you still going to deny it and claim you know nothing!?”
“That's absurd….”
Armin staggered involuntarily.
The back of his head went numb as if it had been struck with a hammer.
‘He knew House Redbell had backed the Second Prince, yet he sided with the king's brother? Is he insane?’
Marquis Redbell and House Sarnos were each supporting the Second Prince and the king's brother, and were pouring considerable effort into securing victory.
The winner would gain even more as the biggest contributor to the throne struggle, while the loser would have that much more taken away.
If the king's brother won, he certainly would not leave House Redbell alone after it had supported the Second Prince and obstructed him.
Given how formidable House Redbell's standing was, driving it straight to extinction would be impossible, but if the royal family and House Sarnos—two of the kingdom's three great powers—joined forces to press the marquisate, the damage would be beyond imagining.
And in that situation, she clung to the enemy and stabbed Redbell in the back? Just because she didn't want to get married?
‘T-this stupid girl...!! There are limits to how childish you can be!!’
No matter how thorough and careful Armin was—or rather, precisely because he was that kind of person—he had never even imagined that Claudia would try something like this.
Yes, she could avert the crisis for the moment.
But what would happen next?
If the Second Prince won, he naturally would not leave Claudia alone, and if the king's brother won, Claudia's usefulness would drop to zero just the same.
Rule Redbell with Claudia as a puppet? Would the retainers readily accept a traitor to the family?
Judging by Armin's common sense and knowledge, Claudia's move this time was equivalent to burning down the house itself because she hated the bugs that had infested it.
It might somehow be tolerable in summer, but once winter came she would freeze to death immediately—a self-destructive act.
The problem was that Armin was about to be swept up in that self-destructive act as well.
“Please do not misunderstand, Your Highness! This was Claudia's unilateral decision! It was absolutely not some scheme cooked up by our house!”
“You're telling me that in the mighty House Redbell, a mere young lady could run off from the estate to contact the king's brother and nobody knew? And you expect me to believe that? Surely you aren't going to claim that you simply left the person you were planning to use for a political marriage sitting around unguarded, without properly watching her!”
“That is….”
Armin clenched his teeth.
He had certainly ordered his subordinates to watch Claudia, but not a single one of them had reported that such a situation had arisen—or rather, that Claudia had shown any sign of moving.
It was proof of how even the most thorough plan, no matter how carefully laid from above, was useless if the people on the ground did not carry it out.
Of course, his subordinates also had an excuse.
It wasn't their fault that the servant Claudia had hired happened to be an able person who could even use illusion magic, was it?
“And even if all of this was that woman's unilateral action, it's still a problem!! In the end, isn't it the same as Redbell stabbing me in the back!!”
A world where guilt by association was taken for granted.
Whether Claudia had acted on her own or not, as long as it was true that she was of Redbell blood, Armin Redbell could not escape responsibility.
He had become the leader of a truly vile group project bound together under the name of bloodline.
No, the actual project leader was too big a shot for anyone to touch, while the relatively easy target Armin was the vice-leader being chewed out in his place—which, in a sense, made it even more miserable.
While diligently soothing the rampaging Second Prince, Armin vented his frustration inwardly.
‘Claudia, I will make you pay for this humiliation…!!’
***
“Hahaha! The way that little brat's face kept turning red and pale was the best entertainment I've seen in recent memory!”
An older man with striking platinum-blond hair streaked with white burst into laughter.
A man who was the king's younger brother and Claudia's great-uncle.
Claudia smiled at Grand Duke Bartholomew.
“I'm glad if I could be of help to Your Highness.”
“No need for stiff titles like ‘Your Highness.’ Just call me Great-Uncle.”
“Then I'll call you Great-Uncle, I suppose.”
“Heh, normally you'd demur, saying you couldn't possibly, but you snatch it right up?”
“I'm rather straightforward.”
“Hahaha! Good, good! I'm really glad you don't seem to resemble that sly old fox, Marquis Redbell!”
Claudia's words and manner were extremely unrestrained.
Even so, she didn't casually speak in plain terms to a royal and her own great-uncle, so she at least kept to a minimum of honorifics—but only that much.
Yet the king's younger brother seemed to like that, repeatedly showing signs of cheer.
“When my elder brother decided to give his niece—in other words, your mother—to that bastard marquis, I was secretly very unhappy. I wondered whether it was really right to hand this little girl over as a second wife to a man who was barely younger than me. And since he was physically frail, I disliked it even more.”
“From the side that's on the receiving end, political marriage talk is quite a nuisance.”
“Rest assured. I won't let you go through the same thing as your mother. I'm not like that shameless bastard who would sell off his own niece however he pleased.”
Claudia did not take the king's younger brother's grand promise at face value.
Though the king's younger brother acted like a broad-minded grandfather who missed his niece and treated her kindly, he was a politician who did not hesitate to scheme and wage political warfare in order to seize this country's throne.
Just look at how he was dragging Claudia around to testify about this matter in order to make a decisive attack on the Second Prince right away.
For now Claudia was acting close to the king's younger brother because she was useful to him, but whether he would maintain the same attitude once he decided her value had dropped remained to be seen.
‘Well, it doesn't matter. I'm using him too, after all.’
Armin might be cursing her for doing something foolish, but Claudia thought differently.
Even if she switched over to the king's younger brother's side and supported him, neither Redbell nor the Second Prince's faction would crumble so easily.
That was because Marquis Redbell had already secured a great deal of benefit.
The struggle would drag on indecisively for a while, and it would surely be a long time before Claudia's usefulness as a tool vanished.
And if she had nothing but time, she was confident she could become more than just someone whose usefulness was under consideration—she could become a major power capable of settling the throne struggle itself.
The upgraded Vision Cedric had given her was absurdly powerful.
Even if she abandoned Redbell entirely, with just a bit of time she could build up another force on that same level.
Of course, that didn't mean she needed to throw away what she already had.
“Great-Uncle, you haven't forgotten, have you? The mastermind behind this incident was nothing more than the eldest son, Armin, overstepping his authority in collusion with the Second Prince. It wasn't the will of House Redbell itself.”
“Hmm. Since we've got such a good opportunity, wouldn't it be better to hit them all at once? Especially since House Sarnos is making a big fuss that we should seize this chance.”
“Which hurts more: a single stab with the tip of a sword, or a sideways blow with the flat of the blade? The more places you try to strike, the more your strength is spread thin.”
“Hahaha, you really do have a talent for dressing up ‘cut out the troublesome eldest son and leave the other parts for yourself’ in pretty words! Indeed, if the attack is aimed not at ‘Redbell’ but at ‘Armin Redbell’ personally, the retainers will be relatively less likely to object.”
“If that gives Great-Uncle new supporters, wouldn't that be good for Grandfather too? If your only supporters are House Sarnos, then even if you ascend the throne, you'll have to respect their opinions. But if your supporters are split between me and House Sarnos, you can make them compete with each other however you like.”
“Hmm.”
At Claudia's words, the Grand Duke's eyebrows twitched.
A smile still lingered on his lips, but the emotions behind it were quite different from before.
“I should take back what I said earlier. Even if your looks resemble my niece, your inner nature is definitely carrying that marquis's blood.”
“…Could you take that back?”
Claudia's face quickly soured.
At that blatantly human reaction, the Grand Duke burst into laughter once again.
In a corner of the room where the two were talking.
While standing by like a shadow along with the other servants, Cedric's face showed satisfaction.
Cedric had indeed laid out the general course of action, but it was Claudia's ability that filled in the finer details and improvised on the spot.
The immature young noble lady who had once been treated as a wild brat by the servants of the manor she lived in had, before anyone knew it, grown enough to discuss the future with a candidate for the throne.
It had been when only one week remained until Cedric's contract ended.