MPBAGS Chapter 109

"That Rohanson b*tch killed my son?"

The Emperor's rage was fierce. Even though he was a son who had fallen from favor, he was the Emperor's only remaining son and the Crown Prince of the Empire. The crime of assassinating the Crown Prince could never be taken lightly.

Those who attended the banquet thought that Evangeline would be executed the very next day, but unexpectedly, even after several days and nights had passed, Evangeline Rohanson remained merely a suspect.

The Rohanson mansion had locked its doors. According to rumors, the Count, fearing he would be executed under the law of collective punishment, had finished preparations to abandon his daughter and flee.

What stood in the way of executing Evangeline Rohanson, who had been abandoned even by her own family, was Gabriel, the Commander of the Pharalos Knights, who had been blinded by love.

Gabriel had obtained a reprieve by staking his own life against the immediate order to execute Evangeline Rohanson. If he failed to find the real culprit to replace Evangeline, Gabriel would also meet his end on the day of Evangeline's execution.

And less than a day later, Bishop Marik also requested an audience with the Emperor.

"First the Commander of the Pharalos Knights, and now even a Bishop. My son was so quiet while alive, but in death he only brings chaos. Bishop Marik, what brings you to see me?"

The Emperor, who had been busy preparing the funeral, looked terribly weary. With the Crown Prince's death, all of the Emperor's children had died. No matter how many times he prepared a child's state funeral, he never grew accustomed to it. The Crown Prince's state funeral was temporarily postponed because he wanted to bury the perpetrator who murdered the Crown Prince together in the tomb to appease his dead son's resentment.

"It's been so long since we've met, yet Your Majesty goes straight to business without even asking after my well-being. How disappointing."

"Bishop Marik, are we really on such intimate terms that we would exchange pleasantries?"

Even as the Emperor asked with anger, Bishop Marik showed no sign of fear. Rather, she acted with brazen familiarity.

"Didn't Your Majesty and I overcome hardships together?"

The 'hardships' Bishop Marik referred to were events from over twenty years ago. An incident known to the world as the Heretic Massacre. Once, Bishop Marik had been the Emperor's greatest ally. When he had just killed his brothers and ascended to the throne, the Emperor had received Bishop Marik's help to secure legitimacy and imperial authority.

The Finance Minister, who had directly criticized the Emperor as a ruthless tyrant without mercy for killing his own blood, was revealed to have been secretly embezzling from the national treasury to support sorcerers, leading to his family's extermination. Several nobles who, like the Finance Minister, had stood in opposition to the Emperor were also revealed to be part of an evil heretical group and could not escape purging.

It was certain that Bishop Marik had provided considerable help in solidifying the Emperor's current position.

"Yes, there was certainly such a time in the past. But from the moment you tried to steal away my son, who was forsaken by God, to use as leverage against me, our relationship soured."

How great would the impact be if it became known that the child of an Emperor who had consolidated imperial power through the Heretic Massacre was cursed so that holy water had no effect on him? Bishop Marik had wanted to grasp the Emperor's weakness.

The Emperor had belatedly discovered that Bishop Marik had spirited away the youngest prince rather than killing him and sent pursuers, but the child's whereabouts could not be found.

However, those who could not receive the blessing of holy water usually died young, not living past ten years old, so the youngest prince would surely be long dead by now. The Emperor consoled himself with this thought.

"I don't have much time to spare for you, so hurry up and say what you came to say. What story do you want to tell?"

At the Emperor's urging, Bishop Marik no longer delayed and brought up the main point.

"There is 'another' person suspected of being the real culprit who murdered His Highness the Crown Prince."

"Are you saying it's not Evangeline Rohanson?"

"Of course, Lady Rohanson is also very suspicious."

With a holy knight promising to share her fate and even Bishop Marik stepping forward, it seemed there might really be another culprit.

"Your Majesty must have heard the report that a sorcery circle was drawn on the banquet hall floor. As you know, that's a sorcery circle for commanding demons. And when I entered the banquet hall, there were exactly two people whose presence I found disturbing."

One of them was undoubtedly Evangeline Rohanson. And the other person would be the one Marik thought was the culprit. The Emperor couldn't stand Bishop Marik's deliberate delay and urged for an answer.

"So who do you suspect?"

"Princess Tenebrae."

The person Bishop Marik suspected was Tenebrae, the imperial granddaughter. Upon hearing this answer, the Emperor gripped the armrest of his throne violently. He looked down at Bishop Marik with bloodshot eyes, showing just how enraged he was.

"Your Majesty, why do you think I sense a sinister aura from Princess Tenebrae?"

The voice that escaped from behind the face veil was filled with laughter. If one were to remove the cloth covering her face, they would see a face disfigured by burns smiling broadly.

"Bishop Marik, if you weren't a Bishop of the temple, if you hadn't devoted yourself to the Empire for so long... If this old man lost even a little composure, I would have ordered your head cut off and displayed at the castle gates."

"I am grateful for Your Majesty's generous magnanimity."

It was disgusting how she acted shamelessly after uttering such shocking words.

"I had forgotten that you were desperately trying to find my weaknesses. Not content with my son, are you now planning to pin the charge of heresy on my granddaughter as well?"

"I am merely telling the truth, Your Majesty."

The Emperor glared at Bishop Marik with overwhelming authority.

"Is that all you came to say? The imperial knights will find the culprit, so don't interfere and leave."

The Emperor was no longer in the mood to be played by Bishop Marik's tongue. Bishop Marik obediently rose from her seat at the dismissal. As she turned to leave, she suddenly looked back at the Emperor as if something had occurred to her.

"Come to think of it, I met Sir Gabriel after a long time on the day His Highness passed away."

"What a remarkable coincidence. I met Sir Gabriel too."

It was when Gabriel had requested an audience to ask for Evangeline's execution to be postponed.

"A thought that occurred to me then... Sir Gabriel bears quite a resemblance to His Highness the Crown Prince."

At the mention of resemblance, the Emperor vaguely examined Gabriel's appearance in his memory. Black hair and blue eyes - the coloring was indeed similar to the Crown Prince's, but weren't there many in the Empire with the same hair and eye color?

"If the youngest prince had grown up, he would have become as fine a man as Sir Gabriel."

"Bishop Marik, what are you saying now?"

"Since Your Majesty has ordered my dismissal, I shall take my leave."

Ignoring the Emperor's question, Bishop Marik left the audience chamber. The Emperor stared blankly at the closed door in the now empty room.

"That can't be..."

Bishop Marik was suggesting that the youngest prince was Gabriel. That Gabriel was my son?

That couldn't be. The ceremony of becoming a holy knight included the process of being blessed with holy water. The Emperor had been present when Gabriel was selected as Knight Commander. At that time, Gabriel had shown everyone present the scene of bleeding on the holy sword and being healed.

Could that have been a fraud to deceive the Emperor's eyes?

Certainly, there was no better place than the temple for Bishop Marik to raise the youngest prince while avoiding the Emperor's notice.

"Gabriel is my son..."

He tried to recall what the newborn youngest child, whom he hadn't even named, had looked like, but the memories were hazy. However, examining the grown Gabriel closely, similarities to the Crown Prince could be seen. If Gabriel really was a prince... The Emperor, who had been lost in thought for a long time, raised his sharply honed gaze.

The Emperor immediately called for knights he trusted. He had to confirm whether Gabriel was really a prince. Bishop Marik might have just rescued someone unaffected by holy water and insisted he was the youngest prince. Fortunately, there was still a way to distinguish a prince. If he were a prince, traces of an incomplete dragon would remain as scars on his body.

"Go and check if Sir Gabriel has any scars on his body."

"Scars?"

"Yes. Since Sir Gabriel is the Knight Commander, he must have various scars on his body. But what I'm curious about is not scars acquired while living as 'Gabriel', but something else entirely different. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yes, Your Majesty."

The knight loyally submitted to the Emperor's sudden command.

And the emperor obtained the answer he had not wanted to hear.

"Your Majesty. It is said that Lord Gabriel has a round scar remaining on his chest."

Though they had not stripped Gabriel of his clothes to confirm it directly, merely making inquiries had been sufficient.

"It seems rumors have spread among the maids."

The temple originally valued asceticism and had a custom of avoiding the exposure of bare flesh, so Gabriel had never been one to reveal his body readily. However, on the day the Crown Prince died, Gabriel, who had been doused with wine, had changed his clothes, and a maid who had attended to him then claimed to have seen the scar that remained on Gabriel. Finding it curious, she had told several of her colleagues about it.

"Did you confirm this with the maid who claims to have seen it directly?"

"Yes. Since she cannot speak, I brought back a drawing she made."

The knight unfolded a paper to show the emperor. The emperor pressed his brow firmly, trying to calm his throbbing head. Though crudely drawn, what was depicted in the picture was indeed the dragon pattern that was carved only on the bodies of the imperial family. Unless one had seen it directly, they could not have drawn it so accurately.

With this, it became certain that Gabriel was the emperor's son who had been abandoned long ago.

"Of all times, it had to be now... Moreover, now that Laudes has been murdered..."

The reason Bishop Marik had revealed Gabriel's identity at this particular moment was obvious. If it were revealed that Gabriel was the abandoned youngest prince, he would surpass Oratorio and become first in the line of succession to the throne.

Bishop Marik would attempt to establish a regency with Gabriel. But that was not what the emperor desired.

He could not even dare to imagine how much the imperial authority would fall if it became known that a child abandoned by God had been born to the imperial family, which was supposed to be perfect and flawless. The one who should succeed the emperor and ascend to the throne was Oratorio, the imperial grandson who was his spitting image.

"So who do you suspect?"

"Princess Tenebrae."

Whether it was fortunate or not, what Bishop Marik desired was not Oratorio, but Tenebrae.

If the emperor protected Tenebrae, it was clear that Bishop Marik would reveal Gabriel's existence. One was a child the emperor had tried to kill, and the other was a life the emperor had spared, though she had been called ominous. The emperor weighed the two on a scale.

Would he reveal to the world that Gabriel, who had not received consecration with holy water, was a prince, along with all the related secret stories, or would he make his granddaughter into a patricide who had murdered her own father, the Crown Prince? Both acts would ultimately gnaw at the emperor's flesh, making it exceedingly difficult to choose one.

Hoping that Bishop Marik would reconsider, the emperor wrote a letter and then called a knight to deliver it to Bishop Marik.

*[ The count's treasures are locked in the underground vault - do you intend to add an old man's necklace there as well? ]

Bishop Marik's reply arrived quickly.

*[ The divine Rahel would not desire two jewels. ]

The emperor let out a deep sigh and held his head.

Just as the emperor had originally feared, Bishop Marik was using Gabriel as leverage to blackmail the emperor. It was out of fear of being manipulated in this way that he had tried to kill the prince the moment he was born... The emperor's choice was obvious. Though he felt sorry for his granddaughter, he had to appease Bishop Marik first.

The emperor leaned his body against the backrest of the ornate throne. Was his head heavy because of the weight of the crown he wore?

Translator Note:
*Just in case someone’s not understanding the meaning behind the words. "The count's treasures" likely refers to the Imperial family’s secret - stored away in an "underground vault" meaning said secret is secured and will likely never see the light of day. "An old man's necklace" appears to be a metaphor for Gabriel - possibly referring to him as something valuable but burdensome that the bishop wants to "add" to the collection of eliminated threats. Bishop Marik's reply reinforces this interpretation. “The divine Rahel would not desire two jewels" suggests that the goddess (or Bishop Marik, speaking for divine will) doesn't want both Gabriel and Tenebrae to survive - only one "jewel" should remain.