Chapter 332 - Agatha (30)

Agatha was a rational female villain. That was a fact.

She would have not been able to strike a deal with the Borlean royals if not for her wits. She would also have not been able to get so many aristocrats of Holon even with the king's affection had she been a foolish woman.

However, there were also times when her emotions could get into her head, no matter how intelligent she was. 

'That youth was the one behind the one week of suffering!'

She immediately figured it out the moment she read the letter. But although she was angry, she really did not have the courage to fight the other. At least not face to face. 

Yet she was also not content with letting bygones be bygones, or pretending it was not in her nature to counterattack when targeted.

So to demonstrate that at least in the palace, she was the master, after burning the piece of paper, she did not immediately erase the memories of her ladies-in-waiting. She laid her sight on the 'messenger', anger still dancing in her eyes.

The maid hypnotized to deliver the letter was first punished with them as the witnesses, and none of them protested as they were actually the ones vouching for the punishment. The maid entered without asking for permission and even delivered something inside without checking it first. 

"Of course, it was a must to give examples to those harboring funny thoughts!" Sofia replied when Agatha 'asked' for advice on how the incompetent girl should be dealt with.

A day passed and the detained female servant, starved since yesterday as an initial punishment, was woken up by rudely by two of Agatha's ladies-in-waiting. Listless at first then madly begging, the girl repeatedly said that she lost memories and that she was not a spy.

However, all her words were treated as lies and she was not released from the prisons. 

Agatha appeared. "Since you refused to tell who sent you, you shall suffer the consequences of your actions alone," she mercilessly declared.

A scream then echoed out after a few minutes of cries and pleas for mercy. A finger from one of the maid's hand was cut, and it was too late for Agatha when she remembered that she would later have to face Jiang Li for the gathering of the witches. 

…

More or less a hundred meters away from the main gate of the palace… In the former desolate manor house that had now turned into an opulent chateau…

"Hmm?" The man who was casually sitting on the table checking the stack of papers next to him suddenly turned to the direction of the palace. His hand that was holding another thin stack of doc.u.ments froze in the air. 

Margarette who was seated at a table across him noticed his sudden strange behavior.

"What's the matter?" She asked, her voice soft and tinged with curiosity. "Is something happening outside?"

It was a regular day, with no celebration or church holiday whatsoever taking place and thus she was puzzled by his sudden shift of attention towards the street outside. The two were, as usual, in her office. While she was looking through the accounts and reports, he was sometimes helping out. Although most of the time, his focus was on the stack passed to him by his informants, all about Mu Continent and some interesting happenstances from the outside world.  

So what suddenly caused her husband to suddenly become this expressionless?

There was somebody in this world, apart from her body's former main persona, who could anger him?

The woman's eyes followed his movements, awaiting his reply or next actions.

Without saying anything, the young man jumped down from his table and walked towards her direction. His next action was really a surprise to her. 

Margarette's expression froze. He fished out her straw doll from one of her locked drawers, the one with Agatha's name in it! All this time, Jiang Li was aware that she was keeping a straw doll for hexing purposes! But since when? 

It took the princess a long while to recover from the stupor. Her face then fell and a bit of shame emerged on it.

"... Do I need to explain?" she asked, aware that it would be sheer stupidity to deny anything by now. 

"No," he simply said. Margarette became even more worried. 

"Really not?"

Normally by now, he should be giving her a teasing smile. Yet he didn't, and his reply was so short. She was more bothered when her first remark did not wipe off the seriousness in his face. 

He simply set the doll in a fire. It burned for some time, but there was no damage done to it. Margarette observed as the fire subside and the man tossed it back to the drawer with another, stronger hex cast on it. 

His action really made her feel weird and surprised.

"I'll go out and check something in the palace," he said. 

"Okay..." she replied while watching him disappear from the window.

Not long after he left, she called back one of her informers in the palace and then learned that a female spy got caught and punished by the royal consort. 

That was when she realized who pissed off Jiang Li, that seemingly happy-go-lucky pacifist husband of hers. Her cheap stepmother.

….

Margarette's impression of Agatha could be simply summarized as a fairly successful mistress of her cheap and incompetent fathers. Nothing more, nothing less.

As said before, she could co-exist practically with everyone since not even a single soul outside her own humble palatial residence remembered that she existed or made trouble for her. That woman too never placed any attention on her before. The feud the royal consort had was actually only with Marian, the new 'Margarette'. So likewise, Margarette never paid attention to Agatha either.

Well, there was the event in the tower. But even then, Agatha only leveled up into someone with a name in her straw doll, which she could lose interest in any time soon. In fact, after a week and a half, she no longer touched the doll, which meant that she was done punishing the woman.

If the villainess had only been a bit more patient, she would not have needed to exchange for that healing potion from an old acquaintance. Unfortunately, she had no way of knowing and luck was not on her side. 

Anyway, for the Queen of Commerce, the royal consort was simply someone in another world with her. She looked down at her. Agatha was somebody who failed to get the queen's scepter even after ten years of mixing on the political side of the kingdom. Look, she had all the resources and the people, and most of all, the king's love, yet let her infertility to bar her way to the throne. If she was not a failure, then what?

Had it been Margarette and her ambition was to usurp the queen's position, she would have succeeded years ago. The villainess should be thankful her ambition was not as small as her. Yup, small, as in the girl's mind, those struggling for political power were not that amazing, especially since the said power was very confined in a small region, unlike merchandising and other industries that knew no borders. 

To be honest, the princess' interest in that royal consort was only piqued because of what Jiang Li said, that he was secretly from a clan who had vowed to help a descendant from Agatha's family to escape disaster once. That was all, her prior relationship with her as members of the same royal family never made her interested in Agatha.

It was her husband's faithfulness to the role that allowed her to remember Agatha existed. In his terms, he labeled as an eagerness to finish the commitment so he could go back to roaming the continent. He said Agatha was the first person he found, so he no longer looked for someone else. Until the promise was fulfilled he would have to stay in this area.

Finally, it made sense why he had to travel all the way here from the Borley Kingdom. She approved of his decision as Agatha was currently a member of a messy family which meant at any given time, she would face a disaster. 

As for what happened between them due to the palace maid? Margarette, as a good wife, had no opinion and would have no problem encouraging her husband to give more punishment. 

She thought there was nothing more about the royal consort to pay attention to.

However, hours after Jiang Li snuck into the palace to check on the situation there, something happened, which made the girl fully at odds with Agatha...