I’ll Become the Female Lead in this Trashy Webnovel

41. I want to be loved (2)

So-hee, who gathered her shawl close around her shoulder due to a sudden breeze, frowned and drove those lascivious thoughts away.

On her left, however, she felt a strange gaze that she hadn’t noticed so far.

Behind the thick wooden pillars, something unidentifiable, whether it was a person or a large animal, seemed to pass by.

“Mary, don’t you think there’s something over there?”

Joshua’s maid halted her outspoken monologues and whispered, “Where?”

She looked at where So-hee was looking.

“Was I wrong?”

“Yes, I don’t think there’s anything there.”

So-hee’s eyes narrowed at the spot as she heard the birds chirping in the silence.

She was sure someone was looking their way.

“Let’s get out of here.”

Feeling anxious, So-hee chose to return to the opposite direction and escape the forest path.

She thought it was Bianca’s right hand, who might have been watching Ariad from a long time ago, or Joshua’s knight since she had walked quite far from the palace.

It was more comfortable to think of the latter so Sohee decided to reassure herself by assuming it was one of Joshua’s knights.

After passing through the beautiful garden and reaching the palace, her anxiety manifested into a form in front of her.

“Some nut case.” Sohee cursed.

There was a large, thick piece of paper on Ariad’s bed.

It was a painting created by an excellent artist comparable to famous masterpieces in her world.

But the problem is——

“Oh, Lady Ariad! What the hell is this?”

Mary’s face, who belatedly discovered it, was stained with astonishment.

The main character of the painting was Ariad Pearson.

The artist’s passion to capture the perfect beauty of his muse on this paper stood out.

His delicate drawing of her naked body was extraordinary but alarming.

It turned out that the gaze she just felt earlier wasn’t Bianca’s right hand or Joshua’s escort at all.

“Is there a stalker around Ariad?”

It was a plausible guess.

Since Ariad had slept around with multiple men, the strange ones were bound to get twisted.

As she stared at the woman in the painting, with her legs spread out as if on the verge of orgasm, So-hee swept her arms to get rid of the goosebumps.

How was this painting able to get into her room?

Spooked, So-hee glanced around and approached the open window with her arms folded across her chest.

* * *

There were two main characters who stood out in the conference room.

The eyes of nearly twenty people gathered there repeatedly glanced at Joshua, at the center, and Deon seated a little away from him.

A crazy bastard who had been investigated and thought to be executed was released.

Marquis Fortiers’ testimony,  that Deon tried to rebel after hitting the crown prince and got imprisoned at the tower for assault, quickly spread among the nobles.

And what was almost certain about the rumor was that… as soon as the mad lad was released, he rushed towards the crown prince with a knife.

The accusations didn’t stop at that because they also led to embezzlement.

Deon’s image was large under the newspaper headline’s bold letters, “WHO IS  THE THIEF WHO STOLE THE ROYAL FAMILY’S MONEY?”

The truth had been revealed after an investigation that it wasn’t Deon who did it, but someone who worked for him.

Unfortunately, people weren’t curious about the details.

They just look at the image plastered on the headlines and blame him for the crime.

The people in the conference room were also looking at the figure in the newspaper.

As they glanced at the man, leaning back and shaking his legs as if he was sitting on a throne, he didn’t seem to be aware of the graveness of the issue.

Everyone who saw him had similar thoughts and considered him to be out of his mind as well.

By the time  the audience was slowly suffocating from the subtle tension, Joshua handed over the newspaper to someone silently and called out,  “Deon Filtmore.”

Everyone’s pupils trembled, sensing that something big was about to happen.

Unlike the uncertainty in the atmosphere, Joshua sounded calm. “You will be exiled to Ordin in a week.”

As soon as the unilateral decision was announced, Deon’s gray eyes sharpened. “By what right do you have to do this?”

“This isn’t exercising my rights. I’m just telling you what you should do to compensate, Duke Filtmore.”

Joshua sounded business-like.

Without looking at Deon, the crown prince was now focusing on other things as if he had already dismissed him.

Deon burst into a big laugh, finding the entire thing stupid.

He was so exhausted that he didn’t even try to hide his displeasure.

“Just say that you wanted to get rid of me straight up. Would it hurt you, to be honest?” Deon said fiercely as if he was about to explode at any moment.

The shoulders of those around him shrank in fear.

Deon’s reaction was natural.

Ordin was part of Filtmore estate, but the area was now closed to the public.

As one of the areas bordering the Dunmark Empire, the emperor gave up management and ordered it to be closed to prevent plagues.

The men, who were tasked to go there were all dead, whether by plague or invasion, and the position was always vacant.

“I think it’s a pretty good punishment for a criminal,” Joshua replied nonchalantly while turning the pen stand.

Deon slammed the desk and got up.

“You set me up!”

When people’s startled eyes turned to him, Deon spat out a big breath and tried to control his anger.

At this rate, he would become a madman who kept disrespecting the crown prince in everyone’s eyes, and the crown prince sitting in front of him would seem like a generous great man, who kept the person who wanted to kill him, alive.

“Crazy bastard.” Deon cursed.

Feeling overwhelmed by multiple pairs of eyes on him, he roughly sat down.

“If it’s a problem that can’t be solved by sending the people of Filtmore, shouldn’t you go there and solve it as the future head of the royal family, Your Highness?”

He was going to come up with a good excuse to keep Joshua away from Ariad.

When Joshua faced Deon, he looked like he was ready to murder him right then and there.