The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL]-Chapter 949: A Double-Edged Tooth

The disgruntled and thoroughly angered group was just about to begin discussing how many additional sweeps they should conduct across the Expo Hall, determined to search the area repeatedly until they were absolutely certain nothing else had been planted.

However, the conversation never got the chance to continue.

The adults in charge of the observation area suddenly encountered a very different kind of problem.

A door lock engaged with a decisive click, and several of the monitoring screens automatically concealed their contents behind neutral displays. At the same time, hurried footsteps echoed through the corridor outside.

"Mother! Father!"

The anxious voice of a little princess rang out just as the door opened, causing every adult in the room to jolt.

"Yes, dear? What’s wrong?" the Empress asked quickly as Princess Nina skidded to a stop in front of her, her brows furrowed deeply in distress.

Now, who wouldn’t be alarmed by that expression?

Several of them immediately turned toward the girl, concern flashing across their faces as they tried to determine whether something had gone terribly wrong.

To be fair, they weren’t entirely mistaken.

The young princess did have a serious problem.

One that clearly required urgent attention and resolution.

"Mother!" Nina declared dramatically, clutching her chest. "We have a big problem!"

"What is it, Nina?" the Empress asked, crouching slightly to meet her daughter’s gaze.

Encouraged to explain, the young princess blurted out her concern without hesitation.

"How will the tooth fairy find Marin here?!"

Silence descended upon the room.

"...."

"...."

"...Sorry, what?" Emperor Xavian finally asked, genuinely unsure he had heard correctly.

"The tooth fairy!" Nina repeated urgently, looking utterly distressed. "Marin lost a tooth, didn’t she? Now she’s sleeping at my treehouse. But then I realized that, unlike the palace, the tooth fairy won’t be able to put a gem under her pillow because the fairies won’t be able to get here!"

Her wide eyes looked up at the adults with pure anguish.

"What do we do?!"

The furious tension that had filled the room moments earlier slowly unraveled as the adults exchanged glances with one another.

Then they looked back at the young girl.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Finally, Countess Jenna cleared her throat.

"...Yes," she said solemnly.

"That is indeed an important concern."

__

Actually, that was a legitimate issue that stemmed from an even bigger concern, like explaining all of this to the child so that she wouldn’t wake up thinking she was about to die.

So yes, they truly needed to come up with a way to soften the blow for the innocent little girl.

It was just that perhaps placing a gem the size of a fist under Marin’s pillow while she slept wouldn’t be the best approach.

"Nina, maybe we could go for other things? What about a few trinkets?" the Empress suggested gently. She had no real qualms about giving precious stones, but she was somewhat concerned about the morality of doing such a thing.

"Huh? But if it’s not gems then won’t it be wrong...?" Nina asked, clearly troubled.

"Well, I’m not really sure about that, my child," Gisella admitted patiently. "But would you like something like that under your pillow? Wouldn’t it be better to have something nicer?"

It took a good minute as the Empire’s matriarch watched her daughter think long and hard about the dilemma. The little princess frowned deeply, her brows scrunching together as she considered the implications with great seriousness.

Eventually, Nina nodded.

Yes, it would probably be better to give Marin something else.

Empress Gisella let out a quiet sigh of relief.

Then again, perhaps she should have simply allowed her daughter to use a giant gem rather than the far more interesting things she had just promised she would prepare.

Because how exactly had the young princess gone from gems... to digging tools?

"..."

Thankfully, that was a problem for later, preferably when the Elven princess finally woke from her peaceful sleep.

For now, the better question was how it was even possible for the same princess to be fast asleep inside the Dungeon Space while videos of her happily prancing around DG’s Expo booth were currently circulating everywhere.

The short answer?

Her older brother.

As in, it was all thanks to one very caring brother who had quietly switched places with her and had since been running around in a much smaller body while wearing a very frilly dress.

Yes.

They had actually gone with that plan after countless rounds of brainstorming and revisions.

See, the whole thing began when Marquise Julienne successfully helped D-29 gain access to the ship.

At first, the most straightforward plan had been to simply take the princess away.

In fact, Ollie had campaigned strongly for that option because he couldn’t stand the idea of leaving her there any longer than necessary. As someone who had personal experience being trapped on a ship with criminals, the blonde was especially furious about the entire situation.

But they quickly realized that approach wouldn’t work.

Not after the little system found something... unusual.

While it wouldn’t have been the first time D-29 encountered someone who used their teeth as either a weapon or an emergency exit strategy, it was the first time in quite a while that the inquisitive system couldn’t identify the composition of such a device through scanning.

That alone was alarming.

What made it even worse was the simple fact that Marin shouldn’t have possessed something like that in the first place.

Such things were usually implanted only after someone reached the age where they could make the decision for themselves.

And no matter how they looked at it, Marin was nowhere near old enough.

As if that wasn’t already enough of a red flag, Eren’s people had also been monitoring the princess’s location with almost mechanical regularity, checking on her whereabouts like clockwork.

The little girl simply kept saying hello, but to everyone with even one working eye, what they were doing couldn’t have been more obvious.

That was when the group realized the truth.

Whatever had been embedded in Marin’s tooth was a double-edged sword.

On one hand, Eren was clearly planning to use her as part of something nefarious.

But on the other hand, she would likely remain physically safe at least until she reached the capital.

Then what?

Now that was where the real complications began.

For one, simply nabbing her wouldn’t nip the entire thing in the bud. Once they realized that Eren already had people operating within the capital, the Imperial leadership decided that rooting out every last one was necessary, so they needed more leads.

But really, even without that complication, rescuing Marin prematurely would have been risky. Discovering her sudden disappearance might trigger whatever mechanism had been implanted inside her tooth.

Moreover, only the most naive person would believe that the Elven prince wasn’t planning to target the Expo itself.

Unfortunately, the remaining days of the event were packed with enormous crowds. Multiple guilds had activities scheduled, and DG alone had prepared an entire slew of events.

Did it help that foreign delegations were finally being granted access to DG’s booth as part of the official tours?

Nope.

It definitely didn’t.

For the people responsible for security, the entire situation had become a nightmare of epic proportions because even the smallest failure could easily be interpreted as a political incident or, worse, as a justification for war.

It was a terribly sticky situation.

One that Luca, in particular, felt deeply saddened by because it was robbing people of the joy they should have been experiencing at the Expo.

Haaay.