VII
1419 Words
A couple of days ago, I snuck outside the palace walls alone. Yes, without Ed or any guards. I wanted to know my way inside the Imperial Capital, Ylvich, before I drag Edmund with me. I never snuck out before, nor had the capability to do so, and I wanted to at least experience it in this life.
As I was looking around the marketplace, I accidentally stumbled upon an alleyway and witnessed a deal between a suspicious-looking man and a cloaked individual. I saw the man give a package to the one with a cloak. I was going to just not mind it, but I saw a familiar symbol in the package.
-A snake curled on the number symbol; I’ve always seen it in the medicine Katherine used to give me and Ed when we were still under her care.
Curious at the package, I waited until the cloaked individual leave. The man was about to leave the other way but I blocked his path. I pulled my hooded cloak down to cover my face just in case.
“What do you want kid?” the man asked.
“Are you a dealer? Or you a lowly delivery man?” I asked back, but the man did not answer. “I suppose it’s a bit of both then? What did you give that person?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Just curious.”
“Then don’t be. This is none of your business kid, so get out of my way.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. If you’re selling illicit drugs, which could harm anyone in this empire, then it is my business.”
“You’re no knight kid.” he suddenly unsheathed the sword on his hip. “You should’ve looked the other way around and not ask unnecessary questions.”
“So I’m right, they are drugs.” I sighed. “I only wanted to know what kind of drugs they are.”
The man looked rather murderous and started charging at me. I immediately held a defensive stance. Once he was close, I ducked and swiped his feet with mine (reinforcing my own legs with mana). I then kneed him in the face as he was falling and then kicked his sword out of his hand. I pulled a hidden dagger on my back and pointed it at him.
“Now then, let’s start over shall we?” I said with a smile. Meanwhile, the man looked like he was going to piss himself.
***
“What are you doing sis?” Ed asked the moment he entered my room. “By the way, how did your secret trip to the capital go?”
“It was okay.”
“Hmm…”
He sat across me on the table I was occupying.
“What are those?” he asked again, pointing at the differently colored small packets I laid on the table.
“Drugs. The kind we used to traffic back on earth.”
I heard him gasp which made me look up. He had this funny look on his face. Sort of like a mixture of shock, disbelief, worry and fear.
“E! You’re twelve right now! You must not do drugs! We must never do drugs, ever!”
-Pfft! This guy really. Now that I think about it, he had always been against d**g trafficking back then.
I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and flick his forehead. “i***t. Who do you think I am? I’m not some d**g junkie, even back then!”
“Oh, right.” he said with a sigh. He seemed rather relieved. “So, what are you doing with them if you’re not going to use them? Wait, how did you even get your hands on them?”
“I found a guy selling this in some alley…”
I proceeded on telling him what happened, as well as how I got to know the symbol on the package.
“Wow, you’ve become a princess and all, but you’re still like a gangster.” Ed commented and studied the drugs. I only shrugged my shoulders in response. “By the way, do you even know what some of these do? Which one of these can hypnotize and brainwash people?”
I picked up the red and blue packet. “The red one enables the drinker to get hypnotized and do whatever somebody tells them to, while the blue one can brainwash people when drank for a long time consistently.”
“Aren’t the two the same in a sense?”
“Not entirely.” I answered. “Hypnotizing means being in some sort of state of sleep but you can still somehow use your five senses, your head just a little muddled and accepting that others can implant suggestions into your consciousness. Brainwashing on the other hand is altering or controlling one’s mind, even memories, via psychological means. It’s what’s known as coercive persuasion. Your mafia boss predecessor used to do the latter one a lot.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.” he said as he shivered. “Anyway, Katherine used to do those things to you and your twin brother in your first life?”
“Yep. The two of us were pretty good fighters you know, Edmund and I. But growing under her care, it’s like we lost everything we knew about fighting and lost all the will to go against her. It was scary.” I shrugged, as if feeling some phantom coldness. “And I’m going to make sure that will never happen.”
“Hmm…”
-What’s wrong with Ed? He’s staring at the drugs too much.
“Hey.” he called. “Want to make a bet with me?”
I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.
-Edmund saying having a bet with him is always a bad thing. But…
“What kind of bet?” I asked, although I sounded quite hesitant.
“I may not be good at scheming like you, or as evil as that noble consort, but… I bet Katherine has been using these drugs on the people around her.” he gave me a knowing look and glanced at the window. I followed his gaze and my sight landed on the emperor’s palace.
-Why is he… wait, is he serious?
“You’re telling me… the emperor, our father, is probably being doped, no, drugged, by Katherine?”
“I’m saying our imperial father is being drugged by Noble Consort Katherine.” he said sarcastically. “It’s probably the reason she remains the emperor’s favorite concubine.”
I froze on my seat. Scenarios immediately ran on my mind, after all Ed had a point. Such a thing was a possibility.
-I’ve always thought something was going on even before. The Vimi Family had some transgressions back then but the emperor paid no mind to it at all. If he’s under the influence of such drugs, then that would actually make some sense.
“But we can’t just outright tell them.” Ed said after sighing. “Katherine still has so much hold here; we can’t do much as a pair of twelve year-olds.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Hmm…”
I only stared at Edmund as he started thinking. I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh since he had a funny look on his face as he tried to think, like he usually did.
“Well, we can’t confront Katherine about it so how about some good old busting, like what the SWAT or Interpol does back on earth?”
“We don’t have evidence.” I pointed out.
“Then we get some.” he replied. “Unlike back on earth, the judicial system of this world is very lax. It won’t matter whether we got the evidence i some dark means, as long as we have evidence, then something can be investigated. If Katherine has something to do with some sort of d**g cartel here, then it will be fun cracking it down. That should be a good step on taking her down, right?”
I stared at him, surprised probably written all over my face.
“So you’re telling me that we’ll gather evidence of this d**g cartel, give it to who can do something about it, probably Gregory or Anastasia, and then we can watch them investigate and bring it down?”
“Yep.” he said, popping the ‘p’.
“It could work.”
- Writer
