“Besides His Majesty and Your Highness, are there any others who know Sue’s true identity?”
“Of course. The ministers, the Margraves, and a few other influential figures know about Sue. The two young ladies who are close friends with Sue also know who she truly is.”
Oh…
Come to think of it, it seemed like almost everyone who knew about Sue was someone we had already met. Emilia-sama is her blood sister, after all. And since we were here at the royal castle, I supposed it was only natural that Sue would be friends with Fina, the daughter of one of the Margrave families. On the other hand, Casey-san and Telma-san had apparently kept Sue’s identity a secret all this time.
The three of them really were bound by a deep friendship.
“And there was also an important reason why Sue traveled around the territories of each of the Margraves.”
“You mean those destinations Sue mentioned before?”
“Mmm. Exactly.”
When Sue had told me about it back in the Southern Margrave’s territory, I had wondered why she needed to visit each of the Margrave territories in the first place.
“The reason Sue had to travel from one Margrave territory to another was because of an antiquated law.”
“A law?”
“Mmm. It is required for someone of royal blood who was born an illegitimate child to be formally recognized as a member of the royal family.”
Hmm?
I didn’t quite understand. Why would someone of royal blood who was born an illegitimate child have to travel around all the margrave territories just to be recognized as royalty?
“Long ago, there was a king who was rather fond of making babies. As a result, he ended up with too many illegitimate children.”
“You had another truly outrageous king back then, didn’t you…”
“Mmm. He was nothing short of a disgrace to the kingdom. But if we simply recognized all those illegitimate children as royalty, it would create problems with the line of succession and such. So a law was established stating that they could only be recognized as members of the royal family after receiving approval from the margraves of each region. Naturally, the margraves weren’t about to approve them so easily, and simply traveling from one margrave territory to another was a tremendous undertaking.”
So, in other words, Sue had traveled to each of the Margrave territories so that she could be properly recognized within noble society. No wonder it had been such an arduous journey.
“It is an antiquated law, so I suggested that we abolish it. But that bald-headed old tanuki, the Minister of the Interior, stubbornly opposed me. In the end, I had no choice but to send Sue off to the Southern Margrave’s territory.”
“Could it be that the reason Sue’s companion was replaced by the third son of a count’s family in the Southern Margrave’s territory was…”
“Yes. That was all because of that bald-headed old tanuki. He was afraid of losing influence, so he went out of his way to interfere with both Sue and us at every opportunity!”
Originally, Sue’s baron family had been under the influence of the aristocratic faction. But if Sue were officially recognized as a member of the royal family, then the faction close to her would naturally become a faction with close ties to the royal family.
From the aristocratic faction’s perspective, I could certainly understand why they would want to prevent that at all costs.
“By the way, what happened to that Minister of the Interior? Sue has now safely completed her journey through all the margrave territories, hasn’t she?”
“That man was found to have connections with the Human Supremacy Church and that criminal organization, so he has been dismissed from his position as minister and placed under house arrest. We already have all the evidence we need, so tomorrow we’ll be conducting a forced search of his residence. Fufufu… We’ll search every last corner of that place without leaving even a speck of dust behind.”
Yeah… the Queen’s smile had turned downright terrifying.
Shiro and the others were looking at her and trembling violently.
I suppose the Minister of the Interior had brought this upon himself, but he really did need to receive the punishment he deserved.
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeneijiworks.com
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