Chapter 872 – Day 99 – Royal Mistress
“If I’m being honest, I can’t believe it.”
In the princess’s carriage heading to the Duchy of Altema, Hedone groaned and finally opened her mouth.
“I think I know what Hedone is talking about.”
“Arisa, please be quiet.”
“She can’t believe that there are women who say they don’t like Princess Heojeop and Elaine.”
Hedone spoke with a very serious face.
“Push…!”
Arisa couldn’t hold back her laughter and shook her shoulders, and Leda, with her sharp eyes, couldn’t hold back her laughter either, so she turned her head to the side.
“What on earth! What are you thinking about me and Elaine on a regular basis?”
“She’s just having a hard time accepting the fact that there’s a woman who rejects you both.”
Hedone was very serious.
“What on earth are you talking about, this Crown Princess?”
Elaine lightly lets out a laugh and shrugs her shoulders.
“There are women I don’t like, too. Yes. I don’t like women who are so ugly that I can’t stand them or who are so fat that I would roll over if I kicked them.”
“Well, I have the same taste as Elaine in that respect.”
As the two talked like that, Arisa couldn’t hold it in and started giggling.
“Mahabsoshak, haha!”
“Why are you smiling like that!”
“Oh my god, heh, heh, heh… There’s no way that’s what Hedone meant when he asked.”
Arisa lightly wiped away her tears with her index finger.
“Royal Mistress. He Donne, I’m not sure what she looks like, but I’m sure she’ll come to mind right away when she hears that nickname.”
Hedone nodded her head.
“Hedone is asking why Venus and Elaine hate the Royal Mistress, who is obviously a beautiful woman. She can’t help but hate both of them when they are beautiful women.”
“What on earth is this nonsense…”
Elaine frowned in displeasure and pursed her lips to say something.
But I couldn’t resist her, so I shut her up.
“Hmm… I can’t say that Hedone’s thoughts are wrong.”
The princess also eventually acknowledged that if she was a beautiful woman, she would always be ‘possible’.
“Do you now understand what I meant by my question?”
“I know.”
Seeing her princess nod her head, Elaine let out a sigh.
“To be honest, the Royal Mistress is a woman so beautiful that she can rival Agrippa.”
“Don’t deny the fact that she is a woman with a body just like mine.”
“That’s right. She’s amazingly beautiful and has a fascinating body that makes me envious.”
“… She says you two hate women like that?”
Hedone couldn’t believe it.
“Well, I think you want to get drunk even if it means raping me?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Even if the Royal Mistress were to send you a whole trainload of it, she would never accept it.”
“Ugh… I will definitely decline, too. She’s a girl I don’t want to be associated with for the rest of my life!”
When the two clearly refused, Hedone looked even more incomprehensible.
“A woman like that exists in this world…”
“Come on, let’s stop talking about how much we hate and get things sorted out, right?”
Arisa giggled for a long time, so her throat was dry. She took a sip of the coffee that Ceres gave her in a timely manner and smiled.
“They both seem to hate talking about it. Shall I explain?”
The princess and Elaine nodded calmly.
“Well, it’s not that I can’t explain at all, but if I say it with my own mouth, it seems like it will be filled with selfishness rather than objective information.”
“In the current situation, I think that selfishness might actually help Hedone’s decision.”
Arisa took another sip of her coffee.
“The Royal Mistress is a woman who lives in the Dukedom of Altema owned by Emperor Jupiter.”
“I know that.”
“And, as is true of being called a Royal Mistress, she is also called the ‘Emperor’s Second Wife’. If there is a small problem here…”
Arisa shrugged her shoulders.
“In reality, the only person His Majesty the Emperor has married is the Empress.”
“… The emperor of an empire where the sun never sets has no problem marrying multiple people, right?”
“That’s right. So it’s actually wrong to call her a ‘second wife.’ In the end, many of the women in the throne room never get married, and are just playthings to play cute in hopes of being loved by the emperor.”
“Does this mean they were never married as equals?”
Arisa nodded her head.
“The problem is that Emperor Jupiter does not refuse to have more concubines.”
“You’re not rejecting it?”
“Yes, she never refuses. On the contrary, she uses them. And the woman who manages the increased number of concubines is the Royal Mistress, the seductress who rules the Dukedom of Altema, where we are now in a hurry.”
Even after hearing the story up to that point, Hedone had a strange expression on her face.
“That… Actually, it’s not particularly strange.”
“Is that so? In fact, I heard that there were emperors in the past who kept concubines in the imperial palace because it is dangerous to keep having more wives. The reason we don’t know is~”
Arisa looked at Elaine and the princess for no reason.
“Because they are not married, so there is no need to write them down in the family tree.”
“Just like Venus said, a concubine is a concubine after all. Even if she gives birth to a child, she will never be called princess or prince. Maybe she won’t know if she gets married later.”
After hearing what the two said, Hedone became even more curious.
“Then why does she hate the person called En Royal Mistress?”
“It’s actually a pretty simple reason. She is that woman. She believes that once Empress Agrippa is gone, she will become the next empress.”
“… Is that a problem?”
Hedone thought for a while and then said.
“Of course that in itself is not a problem.”
“Then?”
“The problem is next. The Royal Mistress thinks that when the Empress disappears just as the sun sets and the moon rises, she will become the Empress. She is convinced that Emperor Jupiter loves her.”
Arisa waved her finger.
“She can do anything for the emperor, who is an omnipotent being. She loves him so much that it can’t even be expressed with the word love.”
“I understand up to that point.”
“Is that so? But here’s the terrible thing: Emperor Jupiter is omnipotent. In other words, there is nothing her wife can do to help her.”
Hedoné thinks for a moment and then nods her head.
“But surprisingly. As Venus knows well, Emperor Jupiter eats her concubines, right?”
“… Oh, I heard the story too.”
“Yes. The woman who prepares that meal is the Royal Mistress. Do you understand? Gather beautiful women from all over the empire where the sun never sets and make them your concubines. How wonderful it is to serve a great person, saying all kinds of sweet and nice things. Let me know if it’s a problem.”
Arisa slowly raises her hands up and speaks.
“And we will make it so that the Emperor’s love will never be doubted. We will even use all magical means to make her a concubine that the Emperor can devour at any time.”
“… You’re doing something like that?”
“Yes. She is doing it not because of any twisted feelings, but purely because she loves Emperor Jupiter.”
Hedone wrinkled her eyebrows.
“Even though you know that the emperor preys on women called concubines?”
“Yes, they do this by selecting women who are particularly beautiful and have more magical power.”
“Because I love the emperor…?”
As Arisa smiled and nodded her head, Hedone gagged very briefly.
“I understand why Princess Heojeop and Elaine hate you. No… I can never love a woman like that.”
Hedone bites her lips tightly.
“I’m happy to say that I’m doing things that humans shouldn’t do because I love them… It’s to the point where I honestly don’t even want to be involved with them.”
“That’s why Aunt Elaine and I are paying no attention to anything related to the Royal Mistress.”
“That’s right. If you are unlucky enough to turn her into an enemy, she is a woman who will curse you to death.”
Hedone said her words and shook her head.
“If you truly love someone, if they do something wrong, you should scold them harshly. In order to help them do something wrong, they capture unknown women from all over the empire and prepare them to be eaten…”
Elaine looked at Hedoné with her warm face, who had an expression that she truly couldn’t understand.
“I can’t believe that Jupiter created it. That’s right. They say you can do anything for love, but that’s not true.”
“Well, I also affirm the beauty and power of love, but that’s a whole different story. That madness isn’t the only reason I don’t want to be associated with the Royal Mistress in the first place…”
After saying her words, the princess sighs and looks out her window.
“I tried so hard not to encounter the Royal Mistress…”
The princess frowned as she looked at the Duchy of Altema getting closer and closer.
“I can’t imagine how many concubines are preparing to stop us in that land.”
“There is nothing to see. The number of nobles who have no choice but to gather to protect their precious daughters must be quite large.”
“Disgustingly, the Royal Mistress knows the feelings of such parents well, so she wouldn’t intentionally send the girls out of the castle, wouldn’t she?”
Ceres nodded her head at Hedoneh’s words.
“Yes, the Duchy of Altema is currently in a very chaotic situation. The emperor’s concubines, the girls who stay in the duchy to become his concubines, the nobles who want to get those girls back and return to their territory, and the knights who inevitably came with those nobles. Even the fields…”
“It’s obvious that if they meet us, there will be a huge number of casualties.”
The princess nodded her head and sighed.
“Even this situation is probably what the Royal Mistress wants, so I don’t want to meet this woman even more.”
A seductress who uses magic that should not be used on numerous young ladies in order to feed them to the emperor.
A royal mistress who is confident that the emperor will naturally love her.
The princess truly did not want to meet that being.
