Chapter 85 : Da Ga, Kou Kou Wa Lu!
Cecilia finished speaking and fell silent, watching Ryan quietly, waiting for his reply.
In her always gemstone-like clear blue eyes, there was now a clear reflection of so kind of expectation.
She was laying out a net, and inside that net was every reality of Ryan's predicant—many enemies, most of the noble circles shutting their doors to him; a family in decline, his father sinking deeper into the quagmire of the Northern Territories; a narrow future, with no powerful figure willing to truly favor the son of a fallen viscount, except her.
She was the only option, the best choice. She laid this out under the sunlight.
Ryan t her gaze, his gray-blue eyes deep, like dark currents under the ice, silently stirring. He was silent for about three breaths.
Then, he gently set the teacup down.
“Is that so?” he said.
Two words, spoken in a calm tone, but they made the confident curve of Cecilia’s lips freeze slightly.
Ryan lifted his eyes, his gaze slowly moving from the princess’s face, then to Ilis, who stood silently behind her, and finally back to Cecilia’s now slightly puzzled blue eyes.
“But,” he continued, his pace unhurried, “why do I feel that following you… won’t make my situation much better either?”
Cecilia furrowed her brows slightly.
“What do you an?”
Ryan leaned slightly forward, resting his elbows on the table, fingers interlaced. It was a posture that carried a subtle pressure.
“As far as I know,” his voice lowered slightly, ensuring only the three of them in the pavilion could hear, “Imperial law, to ensure the safety of princes and princesses and to prevent future troubles, states that after each royal reaches adulthood, they may be allocated one hundred royal knights as personal bodyguards. These knights are elite, loyal, and will obey orders.”
“But,” Ryan’s tone shifted, “the law also explicitly states that these one hundred bodyguards are only allowed to protect the princess’s personal safety. They cannot leave the capital unless authorized by His Majesty the Emperor, and they certainly cannot… carry out any external tasks unrelated to their protective duties.”
The air in the pavilion seed to grow quieter. The distant birds in the garden fell silent.
“However,” Ryan’s gaze locked onto Cecilia’s slightly tense face, “the royal knights who barged in with irrefutable evidence the other day—those who presented the smuggling accounts from the North, the border trade records from the Orc Kingdom, even the secret correspondence between the Garcia family and foreign contacts... Those pieces of evidence didn’t just appear out of thin air by sitting in the capital’s study.”
“To obtain such things, soone would need to venture deep into the North, infiltrate rchant convoys, contact the black market, and even… possibly cross the border. This is not sothing the one hundred bodyguards confined to the capital could accomplish.”
Cecilia’s face visibly lost so color.
Though her posture remained upright, maintaining royal dignity, the fingers crossed over her knees were slightly pale.
“The people you can mobilize are far more than just the hundred on the surface,” Ryan’s voice was soft like a whisper, but it struck the silence like a blunt instrunt. “You’ve already begun building your own power. Intelligence networks, hidden hands, and perhaps… even more.”
The law forbade royal children from secretly building private armies, a strict rule.
The eldest prince had passed, and the second and third princes were locked in a key struggle.
To them, this half-sister, born to a mother of low status with no foundation in the palace, was best suited as a beautifully crafted symbol of marriage, to add weight to their power.
Whoever gained her would hold the leverage to marry her off to so great noble, gaining a valuable political asset and a significant vote in their favor.
They could dote on her, allow her to spend ti at the academy, but they would never allow her to truly rise to the table—to have her own ambitions, her own subordinates, and fight for the throne against them.
If Ryan were to present his guess—no, the nearly undeniable deduction—as a gift to either the second or third prince, what would happen?
The image exploded in Cecilia’s mind almost instantaneously.
After a brief mont of shock, both brothers would undoubtedly join forces without hesitation, tearing apart the sister who dared to hide her subordinates and coveted the throne.
The forces in the court, who already looked down on her lowly birth, would swarm, and everything she had secretly built would be uprooted under the charges of violating royal laws, privately building armies, and scheming treason.
Ryan watched the fleeting panic in her eyes, knowing he had struck the most vulnerable spot. He slowly stood up, his tall figure casting a shadow in the pavilion, enveloping the seated princess.
“So,” he leaned slightly forward, his gray-blue eyes devoid of warmth, “Your Highness still thinks you’re my only option?”
“You—!”
A sharp rebuke sounded, and Ilis, who had been standing like a statue, moved.
The black-haired girl rushed forward like a streak of dark green wind, imdiately positioning herself between Cecilia and Ryan.
She was unard, but her fingers were spread, dark purple magical energy flickering uncertainly at her fingertips, locking onto Ryan with lethal precision.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Ilis’s voice was like a taut bowstring. “Step back! Don’t be rude to His Highness!”
Ryan didn’t move further. He even eased off slightly from his forward stance, rely standing still, calmly eting the cold edge in Ilis’s gaze.
“I’m not doing anything,” he said, his gaze sweeping over Ilis’s tense shoulders and settling on Cecilia’s pale face behind her. “I just want to prove one thing—You’re not my only choice, and my situation is far from as absolute as you just described.”
“You certainly know well. You understand my background, my struggles, and everything I’ve done since entering the academy,” Ryan continued slowly. “But it seems... you don’t fully understand who I am.”
He raised his hand, casually brushing off the nonexistent dust from the sleeve of his uniform.
“The path I want to walk is not the one arranged by my family, nor the one others expect of , and certainly not… the path where I am soone else’s only option, forced into a choice. It’s always been a path I choose for myself. A path that I, Ryan Velt, believe in.”
“And that’s exactly why the estrangent between and my family, and my incongruity with most people at the academy, exist. I play my role, I build my walls, I do what I believe is right, even if it seems foolish to everyone else.”
He turned back to Cecilia, his gaze open and sincere.
“Cooperating with you, Your Highness, is indeed an extrely attractive option. Resources, intelligence, a stage... I admit, I need those.”
“But—”
The pivot word was heavy in his mouth.
“If the premise of cooperation is that I must beco a knife in your hand, with no mind of my own, only able to strike in the direction you point… then, I must refuse.”
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