Please Kill Me - Chapter 183
“—In any case, Yuri, it’s unnatural for high-grade monsters to appear near the capital. Can we really leave everything to Offenbach like this?”
“The confirmation that there are no more high-grade monsters has already been completed. That’s why I entrusted it to them.”
When high-grade monsters appear, certain permissions from the imperial family are required. Killing them was no issue, but preparations had to be made in case they needed to be captured.
Of course, there was no way to stop Offenbach from capturing high-grade monsters in the contaminated forest without the imperial family’s oversight, but this was the capital.
If they captured a high-grade monster and released it somewhere, there would surely be significant casualties, so management was necessary.
Yuri, as if he understood Leonid’s concerns, provided him with the results of his investigation into the hunting grounds.
“It’s an unnatural appearance from the start, isn’t it? After looking into it, it turns out to be because of the sealing stones.”
“Ha… I had a feeling it would be something like that.”
“It seems there’s a slight crack in the sealing stone. We were a bit delayed in confirming it since it’s in the underground prison… but we discovered and repaired it right away, so there shouldn’t be any issues for the time being.”
To anyone else, this conversation would have been incomprehensible.
But Yekaterina was someone who frequently ventured into the contaminated forest and was more knowledgeable about monsters than anyone else in the central two families.
As a result, she could instinctively connect the term ‘sealing stone’ with the core of a monster.
‘The core of a monster.’
So the sealing stone was in the underground prison.
At the time, it had seemed like insignificant information, but given the current situation, that memory had become a sharp weapon in Yekaterina’s hands.
Just a slight crack in the sealing stone was enough for high-grade monsters to emerge, and for mid-grade monsters to begin swarming the forest—what would happen if the sealing stone were to break even slightly?
The answer was simple.
‘It would become chaos.’
The hunting grounds would become an area that could no longer be recklessly entered, and counting the non-mutated animals would become quicker than counting the high-grade monsters.
However, most of the military forces in the capital had no experience fighting high-grade monsters.
After all, Rostislav and Offenbach had taken care of the contaminated forest on the borders, and they had received military support from those two families every time monsters appeared in the capital, so this was to be expected.
So would it even matter if they tried to muster forces?
Everyone would die, and public sentiment would plummet.
This would inevitably lead to a decline in imperial authority.
But there was no need to calculate that far.
The moment monsters began to swarm the hunting grounds, a sense of crisis would rise to the Emperor’s neck. At that point, it would be clear who the Emperor would think of first when the situation had deteriorated to such an extent.
‘If that happens, the Emperor won’t be able to kill Leonid.’
Only Leonid would be capable of facing high-grade monsters and surviving.
Then, at that moment, the foolish people who had been blinded by the current peace and dared to think of beheading Rostislav would imprint in their minds the fact that Leonid must never die.
‘Then Leonid will be able to escape safely.’
It was a perfectly crafted plan, one that would have made Leonid clutch his neck and collapse if he had heard it.
If Leonid had heard about Yekaterina’s plan, the two would have likely repeated their pointless arguments once again.
Topics like ‘Why shouldn’t other people suffer because Leonid is dead?’ or ‘Why shouldn’t the Emperor be killed just because Leonid is dead?’ would have surfaced.
After a series of such meaningless discussions that would have left Leonid exhausted, Yekaterina would have wrapped it up by saying, ‘I don’t understand, but I won’t do it since you don’t want me to.’
Leonid might have spent some time feeling troubled, but at least….no one would have died.
The problem was that such a conversation never took place in reality.
Right now, Leonid was not by Yekaterina’s side, and not a single person had caught wind of this plan!
The only silver lining was that Yekaterina had no intention of executing this plan right away.
Leonid was still safely in prison, and thanks to that, the Rostislav mansion was quite lively, even with its master imprisoned.
Most believed without doubt that Leonid would be safely released by tomorrow.
“I should prepare some venison stew for the Master’s return. It’s the best for restoring strength.”
“The dust here hasn’t been cleaned properly! If the Master returns like this, we won’t escape punishment!”
Everyone was anxiously maintaining the mansion as if nothing had happened, hoping for Leonid’s quick return.
However, part of their minds likely harbored the intent to quell the anxiety that their worries might become reality.
Of course, Yekaterina’s return had also played a significant role.
The mansion buzzed with activity, as if nothing was amiss, and Yekaterina spent a few days riding the wave of the Rostislav servants’ enthusiasm.
Each morning, she helped with Josip’s gardening, and around sunrise, she would chat with Olga while weaving.
When the needle’s eye began to blur, she would snack on freshly baked pastries or bread prepared by Igor during tea time, and under the pretext to help digestion, she would sometimes spar with Olga.
