The show during the audience (part 9)

The space was hurriedly cleaned out, and the body of the formerly undefeated champion duelist was carried away.

"It's okay to look now. See? Nothing bad happened~"

Medea was given fresh clothes, and he returned to Zorivia's side as if nothing ever happened to lead her back in front of the throne.

"Zorivia, where the hell did you take that demon from?! The mess he made is unacceptable!"

The first prince couldn't stand the situation and approached his fiance but didn't get too close as he was wary of the black-haired man kneeling by her side.

"I'm sorry, your highness. I abhor violence, so I was looking away. I don't know what happened.

"...~"

Zorivia flinched and looked away, explaining herself sincerely – and making Medea grin.

"You...!"

"...?"

The first prince was flabbergasted by the reaction, while Zorivia was clueless about what exactly the problem was, but the answer was amusingly clear.

Zorivia was being her usual self, but with everything that just occurred, her apologetic voice sounded loaded with sarcasm, as if she was looking down on him.

"Father, using the chance that a potion master capable of creating the truth potion, like Miss Ava, is here, I would like to request another portion o said concoction to make things easier."

"!!!"

While the first prince was having a meltdown, Charlotte spoke to the king while glancing over towards the troubled pixie-cut girl who flinched and did her best to not look back towards Noah.

Just as Medea thought, Ava was in the middle of everything, so she obviously knew that the first prince was the one who hired Theodore's gang to kidnap and finish off the second prince.

It wasn't unlikely that she was the middleman in all of that.

Hence, getting put on the spot like that was dangerous.

...unless she would only act as if she created the truth potion and instead made a fake one...

"..."

Medea's peripheral vision caught a glimpse of Ava, and he could easily guess what she was thinking.

If a fake truth potion was created, it wouldn't just destroy the first prince's plans but even Medea's ones – and that was unacceptable.

"I don't see a problem with that... but even if you want to keep your secret until the great reveal, it should be okay to tell us who you want to use the other potion on."

"...~"

Having smart and cunning people around was a blessing because it was easy for Medea to figure out how they would act – the words spoken by a king only a few seconds after Charlotte's request proved his assumption to be correct.

"..." "..."

The first prince turned away from Zorivia and started to stare intently at the person disguised as his younger siblings. Similarly, Ava was also unable to keep her eyes away from Charlotte, steeling her resolve and trying to calm down to not look obviously guilty of some sort of misconduct.

"The third consort, the person that gave birth to the -second prince-."

"..?!" "?!?!" "...?"

Charlotte's answer caused an amusing reaction; the first prince and Ava were utterly bewildered about the decision made by the person they thought of as the second prince while the king leaned back into his throne and glanced over at the third consort.

"!!!"

The wheat-blond-haired woman that the king looked at turned ghastly pale and trembled while glaring at the person impersonating her child.

"James, be a good boy and stop spouting nonsense, or your mother will get angry...!"

As the king looked away, the third consort managed to compose herself just a bit and spat through her teeth toward Charlotte while clenching her fists on the fabric of her dress.

"You are not my mother. How could someone like you be my mother, especially after I was forced to live in a lie because of you?"

"!!!"

Charlotte said, still under the influence of the truth potion, giving that much more power to her words.

Cheating the effects of the truth potions was relatively easy as long as one knew what they should do – nothing that Charlotte said was a lie.

The third consort wasn't her mother.

And because of the third consort lying about Jay's gender in order to gain the favor of being the mother of the second prince, Charlotte was now forced by Medea to lie about her identity.

This method was simple but required a lot of self-control – if she was forced to delve into details, the charade would end, and everything would be over.

The first prince and Ava used the confusion to exchange troubled glances.

None of them knew what exactly was going on, but it didn't seem like their involvement was at stake.

Ava motioned at the ingredients and tilted her head slightly, to which Noah nodded discreetly.

...should I make the real deal?

...yes...

A short exchange like that.

"Young Miss, do as my child wishes."

"Y-yes, your majesty!"

The king approved of the request speaking first to the pixie-cut girl who bowed her head so low she almost touched her knees with her forehead as she stuttered.

"Your majesty, you can't be serious! That child doesn't know what he's doing!"

Even under so much pressure, the third consort didn't break her act and didn't slip up, but she did her best to do something... only that in her situation, whatever she did that wasn't peaceful compliance had no other option than to make her seem that much more suspicious.

The king said nothing, this time not even granting the third consort a single glance which made her tremble.

"This is ridiculous; I am the mother of the second prince! I will not let myself be offended like that in front of the king's subjects!"

"Guards."

The third consort scoffed and turned around in an attempt to leave the audience hall through the side exit, but the king merely raised his head a little bit and gave a command, and the wheat-blond-haired woman was surrounded at a spearpoint.

"Your majesty?!"

The third consort gasped in disbelief but dared not to move.

In the meantime, Ava completed the truth potion and looked around restlessly, trying to figure out how she should pass it on to the second prince without being disrespectful.

"Guards, take the truth potion from the young Miss Ava and feed it to the third consort."

"!!!"

The king was paying attention to details like that and commanded -once he gave te order, there was nothing that could be done to stop it.