The Villainess That Was Once A VRMMO player - CH 70.2

After downing it in one gulp and returning the empty glass, Camille leaned back and let out a sigh.

“That [Beloved Child]… she made it sound like Carol was already dead. …oops.”

Camille realised there was another person in the same situation after spitting it out like a complaint, so he bowed his head to his friend from his abroad days, despite the fact that their relationships were that of a master and servant, and Nicholas nodded in response as if it were normal for him to do so.

Nicholas was in love with Carol’s personal attendant, Maia, and they were to be married as soon as Carol graduated from the academy and moved to Camille’s mansion.

However, Carol went missing during the destruction of the royal castle, and Maia also disappeared from the Royal Capital and has been missing ever since.

“Of course Maia will be fine if she is with that young lady.”

“Yes… But she’s a lovely woman of a good age, so she may have been courted by men in some other land.”

“Hey…you…”

Camille’s casual remark brought Nicholas to their student days.

Camille had confirmed Carol’s safety but had not confirmed that she had safely escaped the Royal Capital, and even though he knew that Carol was a skilled adventurer known as the Rose Witch, he was worried about her.

After a short pause for some light banter, Camille reduced the subject to a hushed whisper.

“Nicholas, did you get in touch with Solvet?”

“I’ve used some noble contacts from our student days, and I know that Solvet is also wary of Caenista’s situation. We can bring the conversation to them, they say, but depending on the content, it’s still difficult right now.“

“…I see.”

Solvet was the neighboring country where Camille studied and where his mother, the late third queen, lived.

Camille had approached King Solvet, who was also his uncle, through a noble friend from his student days, to see if he could help intervene in the Kingdom of Caenista.

He had simply wanted Solvet to protect him, Carol, and those related to them, but he did not receive a good response because of the tension that could arise between the two countries if the King of Caenista did not allow a royal that could usurp the throne to live in another country.

And King Solvet would not cooperate with Camille simply because he was a blood relative; he would probably even consider using Camille to usurp the throne if the Caenista Kingdom was in disarray and their national power was reduced.

“Nobles are troublesome…”

Camille and his colleagues are not the only ones who have noticed the current situation in the Kingdom of Caenista and have begun to act.

The Prime Minister, the Marquis de Cadeau, the Duke of Prata, and others were seeking ways to take advantage of the turmoil to make more money, and at the same time, they were taking some of their assets out of the country.

The most aggressive among them was a silver-haired girl who was still a student.

“Oh-ho-ho-ho! Ugly maggots, kneel at my feet!”

The true villainess, Flare Mercury Prata, was taking advantage of this chaos to crush all the troublesome noble families.

First, she would select “decent” noble families on the frontier and in the countryside who were starving due to the turmoil, and offer them assistance.

They were mainly aristocrats who disliked the idea of too much power and wealth being concentrated in the center. Among them, there were few decent nobles who thought about the people, but the less decent nobles could also not betray Flare even though they knew how ruthless she was, and Flare rationally increased the number of nobles who were on her side.

The nobles that Flare considered obstructive were not those that were hostile to her.

They were [Royalist] nobles who supported and coveted the king’s rights. Flare instigated the peasants who had lost their livelihood to raid their lands and have their crumbling fiefdoms controlled by the nobles who had aided them from behind the scenes.

At the same time, Flare did what she could to draw in the Third Order, which was currently in a poor state while defending the country’s perimeter.

The leader of the First Order was killed in the battle at the Demon Forest, and was replaced by Abel, the son of Bert, who had been the previous First Order Commander. Abel was given that position as First Order Commander despite his young age.