I Plotted The World Destruction With The Male Lead - Chapter 38

Before they could even search the greenhouse, he had transformed again and escaped.

Eleanor was able to guess his identity thanks to one of the maids.

“If it’s a silver-haired royal with an ability, aside from Grand Duke Javez… it must be Marquis Rendier!”

‘Marquis Rendier?’

It was a name she had never heard in the original story.

She suspected he was one of the royals who had been killed early on by Carlyle.

“I don’t know much about him either… but I’ve heard he has some kind of transformation ability.”

A transformation ability—just like what she had witnessed earlier.

The maid added one final detail—Marquis Rendier had a section of gray hair in his bangs.

Apparently, it was a side effect from overusing his power as a child.

“Is it really okay to use his ability so recklessly without a Guide?”

“Well, the temple does produce potions that substitute for Guiding. Maybe he uses those?”

Eleanor wasn’t convinced.

If he had been sneaking around the palace in animal form regularly, then it was possible he had approached Luria as well—perhaps as a bird or a butterfly.

Guides emitted a distinctive wavelength, even in their normal state.

Of course, she could have been overthinking it.

Maybe the Empress had noticed but chose to ignore it.

‘She might have pretended not to know because she felt sorry for him.’

All royals were obsessed with possessing their own Guide—if the Emperor had found out, Rendier’s life could have been at risk.

Van hadn’t always required the Empress’s Guiding, and aside from her, there had been almost no other Guides left in the empire.

So it was possible she had secretly provided him with Guiding.

If that was the case, then Marquis Rendier might have approached Eleanor for the same reason.

Though considering the way he had suddenly revealed his naked body… maybe he was just insane.

Eleanor didn’t like his actions, but his ability seemed useful.

She decided to bring it up with Van carefully—before he could get too angry—and started considering how they might use Rendier to their advantage.

*

‘…What went wrong?’

Gai was slightly shaken.

There had been very few women who disliked seeing him bare.

As he dressed, he recalled a childhood memory—how Luria, before she became Empress, had been furious upon seeing his transformed human form.

Looking back, she had likely mistaken him for an abused child.

‘Well, I’m not a kid anymore.’

The noble ladies and young women he had been with before had all been a different type from this new Guide.

They had always found Gai adorable and indulged him.

They had willingly embraced him, giving him everything he wanted.

Gai Rendier.

The marquis sighed deeply as his attendants helped him into his clothes.

He hadn’t sought her out with any grand expectations.

He had already heard that she was a C-rank Guide.

Half of his visit had been fueled by jealousy toward Van, and the other half by sheer curiosity.

‘She was beautiful.’

If only he had found her first.

If he had hidden her from Carlyle and Van—kept her existence a secret—he might have been happy.

‘But there’s no way I could fight monsters like them.’

His plan was simple.

He would wait for a moment when Van was absent, leaving Eleanor lonely.

As long as he could receive her Guiding, he didn’t care if he ended up as nothing more than a substitute for her fiancé.

But unfortunately, Eleanor seemed to be the same type as the Empress.

‘If not even a lover is possible… am I going to have to play the pet again? Not the worst option, but still…’

He had no idea what kind of animals Eleanor liked.

But Luria had adored cats.

That was why the palace had several of them.

Unfortunately, her favorite was a rather aloof creature that rarely came to her side.

So Gai had taken to transforming into that cat whenever he wanted to stay close to her.

Whether or not Luria had known it was him, she had always let a little bit of her Guiding flow toward him.

Whenever Van or the Emperor was absent, he had done this since childhood—so much so that even he wasn’t sure if the Empress had knowingly provided him with Guiding or if it had simply happened naturally.

“Lately, though, it seems like someone’s caught on. Every time I show up, the maids chase me away…”

His attendants quickly buttoned his shirt and straightened his coat as he exhaled heavily.

Dismissing them with a wave of his hand, Gai took a step forward.

“I’m so lonely.”

Considering he was the most notorious royal playboy in the capital, anyone overhearing him would have scoffed.

Gai strode past the parlor and out into the entrance hall.

A servant followed closely behind, glancing at his expression.

“Are you heading out immediately, my lord?”

“Well, if I weren’t, I wouldn’t have bothered getting dressed. Where’s the carriage?”

Despite having just returned from an outing in his animal form, he was already making plans to leave again.

But the servant was long accustomed to his master’s erratic movements.

“It is prepared and waiting, my lord.”

Gai nodded as if he had expected that response and casually extended his hand to the side.

His attendant, well-accustomed to the gesture, immediately placed a cane in his grasp.

The servant guarding the front door swiftly opened it and bowed.

“I won’t be coming back tonight.”

Tonight as well, but the attendant refrained from correcting him and simply offered a polite farewell.

“Have a safe journey, my lord.”

*

Van was tracking down evidence of the Mage Corps.

Mages were not something that could be easily cultivated in just a few years.

Six years ago, he hadn’t even suspected Carlyle.

It wasn’t until three or four years later that he began to suspect Carlyle’s true intentions and the possible existence of a secret Mage Corps.

‘Even if I had uncovered it back then, I might not have been able to prevent Their Majesties’ deaths…’

But now, things were different.

Moreover, since Van now knew exactly who had been collaborating with Carlyle, he no longer needed to limit his search to the western nobility alone.

In the end, the Tower of Mages had also sided with Carlyle—but they only openly declared their stance toward the end of the war between Van and Carlyle.

This meant they had not been working with Carlyle from the very beginning.

Furthermore, the Tower of Mages had been subjected to suspicion and criticism due to the various incidents Carlyle had orchestrated.

As a result, they had sent investigators multiple times to assist the imperial investigation.

However, Carlyle had spies planted within the tower, and the murder of those investigators gradually widened the rift between the tower and the imperial family.

That was why Van had already sent a letter to the Tower of Mages.

While forming a secret Mage Corps might not directly involve the tower, stealing research and knowledge from them was a different matter entirely.

Carlyle’s spies had done precisely that.

They had even leaked confidential experiments that the Tower had conducted in secret, making it impossible for the tower to protest without incriminating itself.

Experiments involving monsters and humans were forbidden not only by various nations but also by the Tower of Mages itself.

However, the human desire to tame and control monsters was not something that could be easily extinguished.

At the time, some mages within the tower had secretly purchased slaves and condemned criminals from small nations and conducted inhumane experiments on them.

‘The Tower’s policies change easily, depending on who its master is.’

The current Master of the Tower opposed human experimentation.

But in just a few years, a new master would take over—and he would turn a blind eye to such secret experiments.

As long as the test subjects were criminals who had committed heinous crimes, he would permit it.

While he ultimately chose not to align himself with Carlyle, he was still not someone Van could fully trust.

But if he knew ‘now’ that there was a spy hiding in the Magic Tower and that the Magic Tower’s knowledge was leaking out, things would be different.

Van had already planned to request the tower’s cooperation regarding the monster that had attacked Eleanor and himself.

The problem was that he did not know exactly who Carlyle’s spies within the tower were.

It was similar, yet different, from the situation in the imperial palace.

Van knew the identities of some of the spies hiding within the palace, but he only knew that there were spies in the tower—not who they were.

Though he did remember the list of people who had been assassinated by those spies.

Thus, Van deduced that the victims were either those who had opposed Carlyle or those who had once collaborated with him but were later discarded.

Either way, there were ways to use this information against Carlyle.

Van planned to meet with the Master of the Tower and present him with a list of those who were fated to be assassinated.

By warning him that these individuals—whether allies or enemies of Carlyle—would soon be killed, Van could plant the necessary doubts.

Additionally, he had taken the opportunity to warn him about the next Master of the Tower and the experiments that would take place under his leadership.

The current Master of the Tower, who had been conversing with Van through a red-feathered robin, fell silent upon hearing the name of the man who would eventually kill him and seize control of the tower.

– Falsely accusing an innocent man… Can you take responsibility for those words?

“I am not trying to involve myself in politics. That man will betray you within a few months, and I have no problem making deals with the next Master of the Tower instead.”

The red robin, which had been about to lash out in anger at the mention of “a few months,” suddenly fell silent.

Van continued, his voice cold and steady.

“I am telling you this only because you are someone who values human life. That man—he believes that the choices made for humans and the choices made for mages are fundamentally different.”

There was a flicker of recognition in the robin’s eyes.

It seemed the Tower Master had connected this statement to something he already knew.

“You may give me the information I requested after you have confirmed all of this for yourself.”

“…Understood.”

The Tower Master ended the communication after stating that he would send someone in a few days to collect the monster sample.

The red robin, which had been perched on the window of Van’s office, took flight and disappeared into the distance.

Van turned his gaze back to the table.

A map of the empire lay spread out before him, three locations clearly marked.

He had already sent people to investigate areas where the Mage Corps was likely being trained.

He had not needed the Tower Master’s help to identify those sites.

The only reason he had shared information about the Tower’s future leader was to disrupt any involvement from the Tower itself and to prevent its knowledge from leaking into Carlyle’s hands.

“The Tower will be in turmoil for a while.”

Even if he slaughtered a large number of mages, they would be too preoccupied to interfere.

For now, that was enough.