“Amelia,” the Royal Adviser said, thinking that I was the queen. “They are quite angry. I think you should come out and calm all of them down. After all, it is somewhat your fault that a noble was killed.”

I wanted to turn around and shout at him that it wasn’t my fault that the noble had hired assassins to kill us. But I kept my calm as I turned and shook my head.

“Y-You also think that it’s my fault?” I asked, my voice trembling.

To be honest, what I was currently doing was a difficult task since I ignored how the queen acted in private. However, I imagined her to be somewhat naive and innocent while in private. Only showing this great and cold side to her when she appeared in public.

It was a gamble that I was taking, and I could only hope that I was right.

“No, I don’t think it’s your fault,” the Royal Adviser uttered as he got closer to me and started caressing my shoulders. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. Just go out there and tell them that we have already caught the strangers and are planning on killing them right away. Announce a public execution. It will calm them down.”

‘Oh, so that was your plan, huh?’ I smirked. ‘Well, it’s definitely not a bad one. It would get rid of the threats for Zero without him having to even lift a finger.’

“Are you sure that it will work?” I asked as I turned toward him, looking at him straight in the eyes.

“Yes, if you punish the criminals. Most of them will stop complaining. They want blood, I’m sure you can understand, right?”

I nodded. “But what about this dangerous man that the stranger with red hair was talking about? Any news about him?”

“I sent men to look at the Icy Lake, but there was absolutely no one there. It seems that he also lied to you on top of killing a noble Ice Elf.”

“Are you sure?” I asked with a slight frown. “I believe he was telling the truth…he seemed sincere. He didn’t even ask to go inside the Icy Lake. He only wanted us to guide him there. It wouldn’t make sense for him to go there for no reason.”

The Royal Adviser continued to shake his head, making me seem like I was the villain of this whole thing. “He was trying to trick you again. He would have probably killed at the Ice Elves guiding him and went inside the Icy Lake. You saw how cruel he was to us, right? He killed three Ice Elves without even feeling the slightest resentment.”

‘That’s because two of them were assassins, and the last one was literately the worst of the worst. A noble who you asked to kill me.’

Honestly, that Royal Adviser was truly cruel. He could lie so easily without any signs of it. He had probably done schemes like this ever since he had received this position without the queen ever figuring it out. I could understand better why she had been so shocked when she had heard that he was the one behind all of this.

“I understand. I will go and tell them just that,” I said in a cold tone, standing up and leaving the chambers of the queen.

The adviser followed right behind me. I could not see his face, but I could only guess that he was grinning, clearly happy that his plan was working just like he had planned.

However, he would be quite surprised once he reached the stage. I wouldn’t be saying anything that he had told me to. After all, I didn’t want people to go downstairs and find the real queen. My cover would be blown right away.

Within a few minutes, we reached the main hall, where there were still a lot of shouts and arguments. I could hear some elves on my side, which weren’t corrupted by greed. However, they were much inferior to those on the adviser’s side.

“Silence, the queen is coming. We’ll see what she has to say to defend herself,” one of the corrupted elves said with a smirk.

After all, they were confident that things would go just like the Royal Adviser had said since that was always the case. He could manipulate the queen as if she was only a pawn, and everyone knew that very well.

Nevertheless, I was not the real queen.

As I walked before everyone, I kept my head down, not looking up as if acting extremely sorry for what had just happened.

“As you all know, three ice elves were killed tonight in this very castle, and one of them was also a noble. They were killed by the humans I welcomed yesterday against everyone’s protests. I believed in them, and it is my mistake.”

Suddenly, right after uttering those words, I raised my head and smirked.

“However, was it really a mistake? Most of you probably don’t know, but the reason why those ice elves were killed is because two of them were hired assassins whowho were asked to kill the two humans, and that noble, if he can even be considered, was the one who had hired them. If anyone deserved death, it was them. Nevertheless, the humans will stay in the prison for a little time longer as I continue to investigate this whole situation myself.”

I smiled at everyone as all the corrupted nobles were looking in my direction with confused glances. However, they were not looking at me; they were looking toward the Royal Adviser, who was obviously panicking right now.

He got closer to me and whispered, “Amelia, what are you talking about? You need to declare a public execution for those humans. Otherwise, they will all continue to be mad at you.”

I just laughed straight in his face.

“If anything, we should thank that man for getting rid of that corrupted noble. He had no place in the Ice Castle with the rest of us, isn’t that right?” I asked everyone in the crowd.

Only those who were corrupted answered with a “Yes!” The rest of them were silent as stones, not moving a single muscle, and they were very scared of what the queen, or rather, what I was planning.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep