Summoner Online: I Became the Tutorial Boss with a 999+ Villainess-Chapter 116: To make a deal.

"I will be honest with you, Prince Aldren. The Nexus Empire has been watching the situation in the Jaun Land very closely. The emergence of a dungeon lord capable of destroying a Duke’s forces in a single engagement is not something we ignore. Our scouts were deployed to the region within days of the incident."

"I know. Your scouts were spotted near the northern border of the Jaun Land shortly after the sovereignty agreement was signed. My father’s intelligence network detected them."

Varen’s expression did not change, but something shifted behind his eyes. A flicker of interest.

"You are well-informed."

"I am the First Prince. I have access to military reports whether my father wants me to read them or not."

Varen uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

"Then let me ask you a direct question, Prince Aldren. What exactly are you offering?"

Aldren had been waiting for this.

He walked to his desk, pulled open the bottom drawer, and retrieved a second parchment. This one bore no royal seal. It was written in his own hand, and it contained information that, if discovered, would be considered high treason.

He placed it on the desk between them.

"The Nameless Dungeon has at least five floors that we know of. The witch who came to our court mentioned that the Shadow of Victims possesses intelligence networks that rival any kingdom’s. His subordinates include creatures above Level 300. He is building a city at a pace that should not be physically possible, and he has already begun establishing trade routes with human merchants through a border town called Rambosa."

Aldren tapped the parchment.

"I have compiled every piece of intelligence the kingdom has gathered on the Nameless Dungeon since the fall of Duke Eloit. Troop estimates, construction timelines, trade route patterns, known subordinate identities, and the full text of the sovereignty agreement, including the protection clause."

Varen stared at the document. His expression was unreadable, but his fingers had stopped their idle tapping. That alone told Aldren everything he needed to know.

He was interested.

"In exchange," Aldren continued, "I want two things."

He held up a finger.

"First, when the Nexus Empire moves against the Jaun Land, and I know you will, I want Traona left out of it. No invasion of our territory. No collateral damage to our cities. The Empire takes the dungeon, and Traona remains untouched."

He raised a second finger.

"Second, I want a seat at the table. When the dust settles and the Shadow of Victims is dealt with, I want the Empire to support my claim to the throne of Traona. My father is old and his judgment is failing. The kingdom needs a ruler who understands that monsters are enemies, not allies."

The room fell silent.

Varen picked up the parchment and scanned it with the speed of someone who had read a thousand intelligence briefings. His eyes moved line by line, absorbing every detail.

When he finished, he set it down gently and looked up at the prince.

"You understand what you are doing, yes? If this document is traced back to you, it will not be the Empire that punishes you. It will be your own father."

"My father will never know. The only people aware of this meeting are you, me, and the intermediaries I used to arrange it. And those intermediaries know that if they speak a word of this to anyone, they will disappear."

Varen studied the prince for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile crept across his face. It was not the polished diplomatic smile from before. This one was sharper. Colder.

"The Empire will need time to verify the intelligence you have provided. If it checks out, I believe we can come to an arrangement."

He stood, retrieving his cloak from the chair.

"I will be in contact through the same channels you used to reach us. Do not attempt to contact us directly. The fewer traces, the better."

Aldren nodded.

Varen paused at the door, his hand on the handle.

"One more thing, Prince Aldren."

"What?"

"The Nexus Empire does not make deals with people it cannot trust. If at any point we suspect you are playing both sides, or feeding us false information, the consequences will not be limited to politics."

The words were delivered with the same smooth tone as everything else Varen had said. But underneath them was something harder. Something that reminded Aldren that the man standing before him represented the most powerful military force on the continent.

"I understand," Aldren said.

Varen opened the door, stepped into the corridor, and was gone.

The room was silent again.

Aldren stood there for several seconds, staring at the closed door. His heart was beating harder than he wanted to admit.

He walked back to the window and looked out at the sleeping city below.

Somewhere out there, beyond the mountains and the forests and the wasteland that separated civilization from the Jaun Land, a monster was building a kingdom. And his father, the man who was supposed to protect Traona from threats like that, had chosen to shake its hand instead.

Aldren clenched his fist.

He would not make the same mistake.

...

Three floors below, in the east wing of the palace, the princess sat at her writing desk with a cup of tea that had long since gone cold.

She had not been sleeping either.

The sovereignty agreement had been weighing on her mind, but not for the same reasons it haunted her brother.

She had supported the decision.

She still believed it was the right one. The Shadow of Victims was too powerful to fight, and the Nexus Empire was too dangerous to face alone.

Her father’s choice to secure an alliance, however unconventional, was the pragmatic move.

But something else had been nagging at her. Something she could not quite place.

It had started three days ago, when she noticed one of the palace servants leaving through a side entrance after midnight. The servant was one of Aldren’s personal attendants, a quiet man who had served the prince for years.

There was nothing inherently suspicious about a servant moving through the palace at night. People had duties.

But the route he had taken was not one that led to the servant quarters.

It led to the outer wall.

She had not followed him. She had no proof of anything, and accusing her brother’s attendant of suspicious behavior without evidence would only cause unnecessary friction, especially now, when the court was already divided over the sovereignty agreement.

But she had watched.

Over the next two days, she noticed other things. Small things. The kind of details that most people would overlook but that she had trained herself to catch.

A messenger arriving at the palace gates with no official dispatch seal. Aldren receiving a folded note during dinner and pocketing it without reading it at the table.

A merchant she did not recognize being escorted through the east wing by a guard who was not on the scheduled rotation.

None of it was conclusive. None of it was proof.

But taken together, it formed a pattern she did not like.

She picked up her tea, realized it was cold, and set it down again.

Her brother was angry. She understood that. He had been humiliated in the Hall of Crowns, frozen in place by a witch’s aura while their father agreed to terms that Aldren considered a surrender.

His pride was wounded, and pride was a dangerous thing when it festered.

But anger and wounded pride were one thing.

What she was sensing felt like something else entirely. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

She stood from her desk and walked to the window.

Her chamber overlooked the eastern courtyard, and from this angle, she could see the corridor that connected the main palace to the guest wing.

There was nothing unusual outside.

And yet, she could not shake the feeling that something had just happened. Something quiet. Something that moved through the palace like a shadow and left no trace behind.

She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly.

Tomorrow, she would speak with the captain of the Royal Guard. Not about Aldren specifically. She would not make accusations she could not support. But she would ask for the visitor logs from the past week, and she would review them herself.

If her brother was simply grieving his wounded pride, she would find nothing, and that would be the end of it.

But if he was doing something else, something that could endanger the fragile peace their father had worked so hard to build, she needed to know before it was too late.

The princess turned from the window and sat back down at her desk.

She picked up a quill and began writing. Not a letter. Not a report.

A list.

Every small detail she had noticed over the past three days, written in her own private cipher that no one else in the palace could read.

It was not much. Not yet.

But it was a start.