Interlude 4: Marquess Prynan
Marquess Prynan had succeeded his father as the head of his household during the reign of the king two generations prior. Immediately after taking over from his grandfather, the marquess’s father had left this world at a young age.
At the time, other nobles had whispered that the Prynan family, despite the fact that they had held the position of Lord of Finance for many generations, was finally facing its downfall, but the young marquess rose to the occasion. If his servants snapped at him, he punished them excessively in order to make an example out of them. When one of the other branches of the family started causing trouble for him, he fabricated evidence of them committing fraud to shut them up. When several noble families that had served the Prynans started to attempt to undermine his position, he manipulated them into having a falling out, weakening them considerably. When another marquess tried to take advantage of his youth, plotting to turn Marquess Prynan into his puppet, Prynan led the other marquess’s younger brother astray, causing a terrible disturbance in their family.
Marquess Prynan continually used underhanded methods to get his way, taking advantage of the evil, and sometimes the good, in people’s hearts. He performed skillful political maneuvers and desperately defended not only the Prynan family’s nobility, but also the role of being the safekeeper of the kingdom. However successful he was, though, he found it endlessly painful. The marquess couldn’t bear seeing people fall for the tricks that a mere novice like him was able to devise, and he found it taxing to expose the hideous thoughts hidden within them as they faced destruction.
Though his heart was drowning, the young Marquess Prynan focused on his work and only his work. By the time things had settled down and his power was secure...he realized that he was starting to have fun. Political battles were an incredible rush, and he loved watching arrogant aristocrats dancing around in the palm of his hand.
The king reigning at the time often looked out for him out of genuine worry, but all the marquess could think was “How can I drag him down?” He knew that he would never actually do it, but just making plans in his head made him feel excited.
And so, Marquess Prynan had gone past a point of no return, completely transforming himself. Unlike his father, he had led a long life, and that had brought him to his current ascendance. After becoming the head of his household before the age of twenty, he was now one of the oldest aristocrats in the kingdom, and he had been politically active for the longest time by an overwhelming margin.
Even the king himself was considerate toward the marquess. It was partially because he was from a famous family that held a core position in the kingdom, but the king had also found that he had trouble asserting himself toward someone older than his own parents. Despite that, the Prynan family continued to be loyal to the royal family. The king and the marquess had settled into a relationship in which His Majesty was able to tell the marquess to tone down his machinations in jest.
Marquess Prynan’s latest project was diligently working to deliver an additional blow to the extremely weakened radicals. He’d first set his sights on Count Archiam.
Though the Archiams held an empty position, it was precious to them, and there were plenty of aristocrats who would be happy to have it. The transfer of this position wouldn’t really affect the populace, but the marquess decided to rob the count of his title for his own entertainment.
Count Archiam was quite different from his predecessors, and Marquess Prynan was excited to see how he would react, but to his surprise, the count had been able to catch quite the big fish as an aid to him.
Yumiella Dolkness was a countess who ruled a small county in the eastern part of the kingdom. Her potential didn’t lie in her land or her family, but rather in herself. Yumiella had reached level 99, and the marquess found her to be an incredibly boring person. She had no interest in politics, evidently wanting nothing but to do as she pleased in her county—she was incompatible with him. He knew that her decision to stay out of central matters was a smart one, but the marquess wasn’t interested in someone with no involvement in politics.
The marquess had kept his eye on her for a period of time, as she’d become the head of her household while attending the Royal Academy, just as he’d done, but everything she did was a bore. She was similar to the margrave, who never showed his face in the Royal Capital. That very margrave’s secondborn son was Yumiella’s fiancé. The marquess had made many a bitter remark in his mind about how they were a perfect, boring match.
The moment he’d realized that he could drag Yumiella into central politics was during the soiree held the night before the monthly court conference. Until that point, he’d feigned kindness in order to attempt to put her in her place and get her to give up on Count Archiam keeping his position. He’d even sent the second prince to stop her, just for good measure.
But for some reason, it seemed that attempting to manipulate the second prince into doing his bidding had hit a nerve of hers. Upon seeing the faces of the radicals arrayed behind her at the party, Marquess Prynan had decided to change his plans on the spot.
Now that the Duke of Hillrose was gone, it seemed that the royal family was stronger and more stable than ever, but the marquess thought that the true political climate was actually quite the opposite. Marquess Prynan didn’t have to go out of his way to do something as petty as revoke the position of the Lord of National Affairs from the count—no matter what he did, he knew that the radical faction would naturally disappear in the near future. What came with that future would be internal struggle within the royalist faction. Things would appear peaceful on the outside, so as to maintain the kingdom’s reputation. But as someone who knew all about wearing a kind smile and acting like an ally while taking down others, the marquess knew how dangerous such internal conflict would be. It was much more stable for those on the king’s side and those on the duke’s side to be in battle. After the Hillrose family had fallen, the marquess had been sure that the duke had been intentionally maintaining that stability between the royalists and the radicals for all this time. That would certainly explain why someone as smart as the duke would’ve tried to do something as foolish as foment an all-out rebellion.
With all that being said, Yumiella Dolkness was the perfect candidate to fill the role the duke had previously played. It should’ve been too late for her to escape the situation at the party, but Patrick Ashbatten had interfered. The marquess had believed that the margrave’s hellion of a son sought power in the central government. It was Yumiella’s fault that his long-honed senses had been dulled. The marquess couldn’t imagine that Patrick actually liked this living weapon who continuously acted in a bizarre manner—the marquess had thought that Patrick must have been plotting something for a long time.
If that was the case, then what was Patrick Ashbatten’s true objective? What was he planning to do by using Yumiella? The marquess couldn’t figure out what the margrave’s son was thinking, and because of this, he had a bad feeling about it.
However, the marquess had ended up facing something much more horrifying than the young man he’d been unable to read. In the immediate wake of the court conference, he’d ended up having a decent time despite losing. He wanted to hear Court Archiam’s reasons for his change of heart, and he’d held a little tea party of sorts in the king’s private study.
It was there that the marquess learned what it was like to be terrified of Yumiella Dolkness for the first time. Yumiella was already feared by most, but the marquess had always felt those who feared her were fools. There was no record of her ever instigating a violent incident. She was bothered by troublesome people while attending the Academy, but he had heard through trustworthy channels that she had resolved those issues without causing a fuss.
If Yumiella didn’t have her level 99 strength to back her up, she was just a normal person who, despite being somewhat intelligent, didn’t care for power. If one were to never attack her, she would never attack them, so she was therefore nothing to be feared.
But what was that...?
After Yumiella had left the king’s private room, Marquess Prynan found that he was still trembling.
“It’s unbelievable...” he breathed. “Was that really a human?”
There was one other person left in the room. The king looked at him with a pitiful gaze. “Her obsession with leveling is real. You shouldn’t touch on it—”
“No! That was...strangely logical! She was overflowing with good intentions!”
The marquess wouldn’t have been so terrified if she had been inviting him to level up with her as a threat. He was terrified because everything Yumiella had said was backed by logic. Marquess Prynan was rich in experience when it came to negotiations, and he was quite good at seeing through lies and bluffs. He was also extra sensitive when it came to sensing the nefarious intentions of others.
That was why he knew—he knew in his heart—that Yumiella was of a completely sound mind when she’d offered to take him out to a dungeon to get him to level 99. She’d offered to do so without losing her sense of reason, and with no hidden intentions other than goodwill.
People who were of sound mind weren’t generally terrifying. The marquess had seen plenty of people who were certainly unsound, but he’d never seen anyone who’d maintained their state of mind while being in the farthest place from sanity. That was what had been so terrifying—it was terrifying to be in a position where he’d found himself being forced to understand her point of view. A simple, careless statement or action could have caused who knows what to happen. It wouldn’t have been surprising if he’d done something he couldn’t take back at the end of it all.
“Her goodwill may be misplaced, but...just stay out of Lady Yumiella’s way,” the king warned him.
“I’m well aware!” the marquess snapped.
The king tilted his head in confusion, wondering what had bothered the marquess so much about Yumiella being logical. Marquess Prynan just sat there, vowing to himself that he would never get involved with Yumiella ever again.
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