[Vol. 8] Chapter 286: Daughter of Truth
But no matter what, there could only be one emperor.
Noelle was not as clever as others, and she didn’t really understand her lady’s exact thoughts. Even so, she knew one thing, the more power the man in front of her gained, the less chance Princess Carinvega would have to take control in the future, and the more danger she would be in. So, Noelle had always been on guard against Prince Xiluo.
“Sorry, Your Highness Xiluo,” Noelle said, “I am only a servant. I don’t know exactly where the Princess is, so I can’t say when she will return. If you are in a hurry, you can go back first. I will tell her you came to visit when I see her.”
“......”
Hearing the catgirl’s calm but firm answer, Xiluo frowned slightly without showing it too much. As an Imperial prince who had hidden his true ability for more than ten years, he could see through her small trick at a glance.
Clearly, this little girl was hiding something from him. His sister might not truly be absent from the palace, maybe she just didn’t want to meet him right now.
Sigh… what a bother…
Carinvega was gentle by nature, and she liked the Holy Empire’s idea of “everyone is equal.” Even though she was a princess, she did not look down on commoners or even slaves. The girl in front of him was one of the best examples of that. This was quite different from how Xiluo dealt with people.
It was true that in the past, Xiluo disliked his sister, not just because of their different beliefs, but also because, among all the princes and princesses, Carinvega Frederic was the only one who could truly threaten him. In his heart, his opinion of her abilities was even higher than of the current Emperor himself.
But what happened in Sainz gave Xiluo his first chance to speak openly with his sister. At that time, he suddenly realized something, his strongest “imaginary enemy” had never seen him as an enemy at all. Even though Carinvega’s intelligence was almost unnatural, she had no desire for power.
All their so-called open and hidden rivalry up until now had simply been his own misunderstanding.
To put it more plainly, if your enemy’s strength is similar to yours, or only one or two times greater, a brave person might still gather the courage to fight to the death.
But if one day you suddenly find that their level is hundreds of times higher than yours, so high you can’t even imagine the difference, then the will to fight can vanish, replaced by hopelessness.
That was basically how Xiluo now felt about the [Empire’s Two-Colored Lotus].
Carinvega had no ambition. If she had truly wanted the throne, she could have easily killed him back in Sainz, when he was trapped with no hope of survival. Instead, she had saved him, not holding past grudges against him. From that moment, Xiluo let go of the idea of fighting her and began to truly see her as family.
Xiluo was ambitious and competitive, but he was not a man without limits or gratitude. In the current royal family, the next emperor could only be either him or her.
If Carinvega didn’t want the throne, he would take it.
If she did want it, he would gladly give it to her without resistance.
If he had still held any resentment, there was no way he would come to discuss such secret and important military matters with her on his own.
But clearly, the servants around her didn’t understand her good intentions.
“Alright then, in that case, I will leave first. If my sister comes back, hmm?”
Just as the prince was about to stand up and go, he seemed to suddenly notice something. His eyes turned sharply toward the hallway outside the room, and his eyebrows rose slightly.
“Noelle, has the palace had any visitors recently?”
“?”
The catgirl blinked in surprise. She followed Xiluo’s gaze toward the hallway, but there was nothing there. It was completely empty, without a single shadow. She tilted her head in confusion.
“The Princess’s palace has been closed for almost half a month. She hasn’t met any visitors in a long time. Why does Your Highness say that?”
“Oh… maybe I just saw wrong. I thought I saw… two figures that looked a bit familiar just now.”
After saying this, he shook his head, pushed down a strange feeling in his heart, and didn’t think too much about it. Then he turned and left.
……………………………………………
Inside the inner hall of the Princess’s palace, the “Princess” whom a certain catgirl servant said had gone out was, in fact, sitting alone in her bedroom, deep in thought over a thick ancient book on her desk.
She held a pen and made calculations, her strange mismatched eyes, one gold, one silver, sometimes showing sudden flashes of understanding, then falling into even deeper thought, as if trying to solve a very difficult scholarly problem.
“So that’s how it is… I understand now! But wait, that can’t be right. If it’s like this, then…”
“Well, well, Your Highness is working so hard you’ve forgotten to eat and sleep~”
“Wah!”
A voice suddenly came from nearby, cutting off Carinvega’s muttering and thoughts. Startled, the girl with mismatched eyes turned her head, and saw a certain priestess standing in the heavily guarded room as if she had been there all along.
The woman casually removed her half-transparent mask and smiled warmly at her.
“Haha… well, it’s a rare chance to figure out the secrets about myself, after all. But Miss Violet, why are you back so soon? Did you run into trouble?”
“Yes, I did run into a little problem, so I thought I’d try to get some information. After all, here in the City of the Lion, I don’t know anyone else except you, Princess. Don’t find me annoying, alright~?”
Carinvega shook her head helplessly.
“Oh, please. ‘Don’t know anyone’? You’ve already got the Sword Saint himself by your side, that mysterious man who appears and disappears without a trace. In the whole Austre Empire, whose connections could be stronger than his? …So, what’s the matter?”
Violet didn’t waste time. She nodded and told the Princess what she had seen earlier on the street.
“Captured merfolk from the East Coast?”
The Princess frowned slightly, as if remembering something, and nodded.
“My royal brother has actually talked to me about this a few times. It’s one of the problems that’s been giving him the most headaches recently. He wanted me to give him a solution, but I don’t know anything about fighting wars, so I always just gave vague answers… Anyway, Miss Violet, do you know what’s going on along the Austre Empire’s eastern coast right now?”
“Mm, I’ve heard a little from people on the street, but not much. I think they said there’s some mysterious power that has gathered a lot of sea tribes together, forming an alliance to cause trouble for you?”
Carinvega nodded and didn’t hide anything. “That power that united the sea tribes is actually the merfolk race.”
“To be exact, the key is a mysterious mermaid girl from the Mingjiao tribe. She is called the [Daughter of Truth] by the Sea Tribe Alliance. They say she can calculate all things under heaven and know the secrets of the sun, moon, and the world itself. It was under her leadership that the once scattered eastern sea tribes could unite, and even choose this perfect time to attack the Austre Empire, leaving us unable to respond.”
“[Daughter of Truth]?”