I will not die a Villainess's death

"It has been a year. A whole year with Elysia missing. When are you going to take action? At least allow me to solve your mess if you are incapable of it. You cannot keep me locked up in here forever."

The servants passing by the Crown Prince's room flinched at his toxic tone. But they had long gotten used to his rants and easily ignored him.

No one tried to go inside Adam's room even when they heard the sound of crashing. Everyone knew that he was in one of his violent tantrums again and the person who would go in next would become a victim of that temper.

Their only hope was to get Lady Eve to sedate Crown Prince Adam but even she had been acting weird since the day Elysia Dirac disappeared.

After finally being crowned as the Saintess, Lady Eve was hardly ever seen outside of the temple, and even when she did, she was always accompanied by a lot of guards.

The rumor said that the temple was hiding Lady Eve because she had been cursed by someone. And it did make sense for Lady Eve to be the object of everyone's envy.

*Crash*

Another vase broke at the Crown Prince's hand and it was only thanks to the special enhancements made around his room that no one fainted from his aura.

"Should we get the king here? I'm afraid that the crown prince would hurt himself at this rate." One of the maids whispered as she frowned at the neglect.

"Are you an idiot? Crown Prince Adam hates the current king. You would be asking for death if you did that. We should call for the queen instead."

The other maid who had worked for the Royal Family much longer answered. She sympathized with the Crown Prince since he had lost his friend but even she thought that his behavior was too extreme.

Not only was he causing everyone trouble but also ignored Lady Eve's circumstances and her current condition. What if Lady Eve ended up hurt because of this neglect?

"I know that Lady Elysia was his friend but isn't this behavior too extreme? It's not like Lady Elysia is dead or something. She's just missing and…"

The maid who had opened her mouth just now only managed to get out alive thanks to her fast reflexes. The painting that had been hanging behind her suddenly fell and broke into pieces.

The noise of the glass breaking attracted everyone's attention. It happened quite often as well in the hallways, things getting damaged for no reason and then falling off.

"Geeze, that scared me. This palace is no less dangerous than a warzone. We have a crazy prince here and things falling off on their own. Who knows, we might get a ghost in there next."

The maid said it jokingly and even chuckled at her own words. It even caused the others around her to laugh which made the maid feel better about herself.

However, unknown to that maid, someone unknown had managed to slip inside this palace. That black-clad figure easily averted his presence from everyone else's eyes as they made their way inside the Crown Prince's room.

At the same time, the clock finally struck 4:30 which meant that there needed to be a change of guards and staff around the palace.

"Let's hurry up and get out of this gloomy place. We should head to the temple today to pray for better times. Recently, there has been a tense atmosphere in here and it feels like there will be a war taking place soon."

Even the maids knew that the empire was in a dire state ever since Lord Dirac had left it.

Not only had the monster attacks increased, but the political structure had also gotten unstable.

But the biggest hit had been to the empire's medical section. The enchanted forest was an important place that supplied a lot of material and familiars to the nobility. But Lord Dirac's refusal to cooperate had caused that place to be closed off as well.

"It's just one thing after another. We are facing constant monster threats and fear of war while the Akatsuki kingdom is finally announcing its next king. Their internal struggle for the throne finally came to an end last week."

"Who knows what will happen in the future? But I do know that we all will need to find new jobs if we do not hurry up right now. We still need to report for the shift change."

The maids ran ahead all of a sudden and their panic was visible on their faces.

All this bad news hitting the empire one after the other caused the royal military to become stricter and impose harsher limits. More and more people were being laid off from work due to the smallest of things.

"But now that I think about it, isn't it all our current emperor's fault for refusing to help find Lady Elysia Dirac? She might be a monster but she is still a nobility and raised by the temple. This situation could have been avoided had his royal majesty bowed down to pressure."

"Shhhh, don't say that or you will get killed. Things might change in the future but that does not mean that you can say all this in open. I told you to keep your head low if you want to live."

With a final warning, the maids left the hallway as another batch came to replace them. But the Crown Prince was silent this time.

__________________________

"So, what news did Lord Dirac send for me? Did he successfully manage to find Elysia? Do you think she'll be back before her 17th birthday?"

Adam asked as soon as the shadowed figure bowed down to him. The purple cloak hid a faceless mass of black energy that could not speak or see.

All it could do was write its thoughts down and convey the message it was meant to. He handed Adam an expected but disappointing letter as a reply to his worries.

'Nothing had been found yet but we might be getting close to the answer soon. We finally managed to track down that damn magician who is said to be able to cross dimensions.'

"Tsk, still nothing. How long is it going to take to get Elysia back? If only I was not stuck in here like this. I guess Eve is stuck inside as well right now?"

Adam did not need any confirmation for his words. Both he and Eve had messed up when they had met up a little while ago.

It had been their plan to sneak into the temple's sacred text area to find more information but they had been betrayed by a guard Adam had trusted to keep his secret. And ever since then they had been separated and locked up.

Adam had threatened and demanded to be let out a lot of times but no one had listened to his words. And due to the ancient magic being cast on his door he could not escape.

Even when he was let out of there, he needed to wear a special sealing bracelet that sapped him of his strength.

"Does Lucas have a plan about how to proceed? You said that the plan was to replace the current emperor and have me sit on the throne. But it won't be easy, right?"

Despite Adam's father being an idiot most of the time, he was a mighty warrior and was difficult to overcome most of the time.

Even Adam had a hard time beating him in a fight because of the dragon's blessing. But that did not mean that there was no way to defeat him in combat.

The shadow handed Adam another note which caused him to chuckle. Even reading that note felt ridiculous.

'Are you going to be alright with fighting your father? You can sit back out of this uprising if you want to and we won't mind it. He is your father after all.'

"Who does Lucas Dirac think I am? A dragon can mostly bond with one parent at the time of birth and even then, to have a connection with them beyond a certain age is rare. As for me? I never had any in the first place with that man. If it had been mother instead, then it would have been a different case."

Adam had made a decision so he quickly handed the hastily written note back to the shadow aid in front of him.

The shadow aid gleaned at the note to confirm that it was indeed alright. That empty face could not read a single word that was written but he still nodded and left the room.

He handed the note directly to Lucas Dirac who could only chuckle at the message he received.

'I will take the throne and I will bring Elysia back at any cost. If you think of excluding me from this plan then don't blame me for destroying everything. I am only sitting in here patently because we both have the same goal.'

"It's nice to have someone like that on our side. Now then, let's start the first part of our plan and that is to get Saintess Eve on our side."