CH 130

Conspiracy (3)

Since tea leaves were usually brewed, they’d normally have a green hue, but the tea that was poured out by the maid seemed to have a reddish tint. In other words, the shade was rather unique in color.

“Hurry up and have some. This tea scent is rather unique and its taste is pretty good too.”

When Roelin didn’t drink the tea but just watched instead, Carolina urged her in haste. At the recommendation of her own mother, Roelin just had to lift the tea cup and take a sip of the tea.

Her brow immediately frowned by itself. The scent was so strong that it wasn’t to her taste at all.

It was definitely her mother’s taste.

“In addition, the Emperor, who was rumored to be a monster, had been handsome too. So I’m telling you, I really wondered how lucky you have been. As you know, it was actually Erita who had been proposed to by the Emperor in the first place.”

To be exact, her existence was not revealed to the outside world. Therefore, Seroif had no other choice but to propose to Erita instead.

Roelin didn’t show anything as she just held the tea cup and remained silent. Then, Carolina looked at Roelin before she straight away continued.

“So, make sure that you understand what truly happened this time. It must have been very unfair for Erita since you had taken away the man who was just about to become her own husband.”

In any case, it was not much different from Erita or even her mother to only think at their own conveniences. She had first left it to Roelin all because she was the one who never wanted to marry the ‘Monster Emperor’ at all costs.

“By the way, how are you going to spend your birthday? What did the Emperor promise to present you in advance? It’s your first birthday as Empress of the Empire, so shouldn’t you be granted with a gift that suits you?”

“……?”

At Carolina’s new topic, Roelin looked at her with a puzzled expression. Then, Carolina gasped briefly; ‘oh, my!’, before she soon continued.

“Did you forget about your own birthday? It’ll be your birthday in just two days—Erita and yours.”

“……Ah.”

A meaningless sound faintly leaked out of Roelin’s mouth.

It’s my birthday…

She realized once again that birthdays had existed for her as well. She had never celebrated her birthday, so she felt rather strange and unfamiliar.

“Come to think of it, it was quite noisy at this time of year.”

She remembered that the whole Palace used to be very noisy in preparation for Erita’s birthday. She couldn’t help but notice that the atmosphere was conveyed all the way even to the Separate Palace as well.

In addition, fireworks were held on a large scale around her birthday and a procession of all kinds of gifts would travel all around the Palace.

‘……Huh? My birthday will be in two days, but why would the atmosphere of the Palace still be so quiet?’

On Erita’s birthday, the Royal Palace would always be up and down from about a month before, no matter how short it was……

During the same time that Roelin asked herself inwardly, Carolina had opened her mouth lamentably.

“Since you have forgotten about your birthday, it seems like you never prepared anything for your birthday back in Seroif. So, where the hell did all the merchants go then……?”

“……?”

Roelin listened to Carolina and appeared bewildered as to what it had meant. Then, Carolina shook her head and stated once again.

“I already called for all the merchants because of Erita’s gift, but not a single one of them had arrived. No, they appeared to have completely disappeared somewhere.”

“The merchants disappeared?”

“Yes, not only the merchants of Rakain, but the merchants of Pazolan and Kaizen as well. I couldn’t contact Seroif since they didn’t interact very often, but it didn’t seem to be much different over there too. So, where the hell did they all go? …In addition, the merchants who contacted us said that they did not have any valuable items to deal with right now, so we haven’t been able to prepare for Erita’s gift.”

Carolina sighed while clicking her tongue. In fact, she even pressed the area near her temples with her fingers, perhaps due to the incident previously.

However, Roelin just looked at her with a calm expression before lifting the tea cup once more. It wasn’t to her taste at all, but it hadn’t been a conversation that she wished to have. Therefore, she thought that she should drink some tea instead.

When Roelin took another sip of the tea and tried to put the teacup down, Carolina seemed to glance at her with her eyes all glistened.

However, Roelin was so busy putting down her teacup that she didn’t even notice her mother’s gaze. And when she had looked up, Carolina was already ringing the bell once more to call for the maid.

“You have prepared something for this kid, right? Bring it with you.”

“Yes, Queen Mother.”

The maid soon arrived with a box as if she had already been waiting.

“Your birthday is coming up, so I prepared this for you. I wanted to do something better for you, but as I’ve just said earlier, it’s not easy to call for the merchants right now. Open it.”

“……You prepared this—for me?”

Roelin looked at the box that was placed in front of her by the maid before raising her gaze and stared at Carolina. Then, Carolina merely smiled and nodded.

“That’s right. Why is it so surprising to see that a mother had prepared a gift for her own daughter?”

It was such a shock, at least between herself and her own mother, but still, it had been a big surprise.

She already knew how terrible her mother had been as she disliked her immensely, but to have her attitude changed in this manner was utterly absurd as well.

And Lenoff……

‘What is everyone up to actually?’

He wouldn’t have called her for no apparent reason. There must have been a reason why she was called with a lie which stated that her mother had been in a critical condition.