Reborn as the Psycho Villainess Who Ate Her Slave Beasts' Contracts

Chapter 413: Chapter-413

A collective gasp rippled through the nobility. Harrison blinked, utterly thrown off balance. They had prepared for weeks to fight a refusal; they had entirely failed to calculate a sudden, absolute acceptance.

"However," Elara continued, her voice dropping into a register that made the Northern prince’s posture turn completely rigid, "the contract has been heavily revised to align with imperial efficiency. Section Nine has been altered. The Northern prince will yield all personal, military, and administrative jurisdiction over the iron valleys directly to my office upon the signing of the registry. Furthermore, he will reside in the separate guest quarters of the eastern wing, possessing zero authority within the domestic court, zero access to the imperial treasury, and zero marital privileges."

She looked directly at the Northern prince, her expression as vacant and ruthless as a winter sky.

"You will be a legal title utilized to secure a fifty-year non-aggression pact and a fourteen percent increase in raw iron extraction," Elara said, her words stripping the handsome royal of every ounce of his romanticized dignity before the entire court. "If these parameters are acceptable to your sovereign father, you may sign the ledger by noon. If you violate a single clause, it constitutes a breach of treaty, allowing this empire to retain your territory while voiding your presence. Decide now if your kingdom wishes to proceed."

The prince stared at her, his jaw tightening, the flush of public humiliation rising on his cheeks. He had come to court expecting to court a beautiful, powerful princess; he had instead been invited to become a highly regulated piece of state property.

Beside the throne, Ken watched the prince’s silent defeat, a faint, cold glint of absolute satisfaction flashing in his dark eyes. Their Master hadn’t dropped the portfolios. She had simply turned the entire foreign coalition into a bloodless, calculated asset list, proving once again that in her world, no one—neither lover, nor brother, nor prince—could ever alter the trajectory of her design.

The silence that gripped the grand hall was absolute, heavy with the realization that Elara had not just bypassed the nobles’ trap—she had entirely dismantled the sovereign dignity of a foreign royal house in a matter of seconds.

The Northern prince stood frozen on the marble floor. The elegant, poised posture he had practiced for weeks before the mirror now looked brittle, his jaw locked tight as the public humiliation settled over him. He was a prince of a proud, wealthy coalition, accustomed to being courted, feared, or admired. To Elara, he was a line item on an agricultural ledger. A legal mechanism to secure a fourteen percent increase in iron extraction.

Minister Harrison’s face had drained of color, turning a patchy, mottled gray. He looked frantically toward the rest of the council, but the minor nobles who had been whispering so confidently moments ago were now staring firmly at their own boots. None of them wanted to catch the Empress Regent’s eye.

High upon the central throne, Samuel let out a slow, careful breath. The rigid tension in his shoulders relaxed, a look of profound, almost reverent awe replacing the panic that had clouded his features all morning. He looked down at his sister, realizing yet again that while he held the title of Emperor, Elara was the true, unyielding architect of their reality. She didn’t need to fight the nobility; she simply rewrote the rules of their existence until they had no room left to breathe.

Elara didn’t waste a single watt of cognitive energy waiting for the prince’s emotional processing to conclude. She stood perfectly still on the Regent’s platform, her hands resting flat against the dark wood of the balustrade, her vacant, glass-bead eyes fixed on the foreign ministry’s scribe.

"The time is currently eleven twenty-four," Elara stated, her voice cutting through the suffocating quiet like a precise mechanical blade. "The foreign ministry has exactly thirty-six minutes to convey these terms to the Northern delegation’s sovereign representative via the imperial communication mirror. If the signed registry is not returned to my desk by noon, the offer is void, and I will implement a five percent tariff increase on all grain exports to the Northern border effective immediately."

The scribe jumped, nearly dropping his quill as he scrambled to gather the leather-bound folio Demerti had provided. "Y-Yes, Your Imperial Highness! Immediately!" he stammered, bowing so low his forehead nearly struck the floor before he turned and bolted out of the side exit.

The Northern prince looked at Harrison, then back at Elara. The realization that he was being given a strict, thirty-six-minute deadline to surrender his birthright or ruin his kingdom’s agricultural supply chain finally broke through his royal pride. He offered a stiff, rigid bow—devoid of his earlier grace—and turned on his heel, marching out of the hall with the remaining four princes trailing silently behind him like defeated shadows. They had seen what happened to the first candidate; none of them had any desire to volunteer for Elara’s next operational analysis.

"The court is adjourned," Elara announced flatly.

She didn’t wait for Samuel to dismiss the assembly, nor did she look at Harrison as she turned and stepped down from the dais. Her boots clicked sharply against the stone as she walked toward the rear exit of the throne room. Behind her, Ken moved instantly, his broad shoulders squaring as he took his position two paces back, his hand resting casually near the hilt of his formal sword. The cold, disciplined distance between them remained flawless, an impenetrable wall that kept the staring courtiers at bay.

As the heavy oak doors of the private royal corridor closed behind them, cutting off the sudden explosion of noise from the main hall, Demerti hurried to catch up with her pace, his arms already full of secondary documents.

"Master," Demerti said, his breath coming a bit short as he walked alongside her. "The Northern delegation will sign. Their internal grain reserves are down by twelve percent due to the winter frosts; they cannot survive a five percent tariff increase. You have effectively gained the iron valleys without a single casualty."

"It was the only logical outcome based on their current resource deficit," Elara replied, her voice remaining a perfectly level, glacial monotone. "They possessed no leverage, yet they attempted a maneuver based entirely on social expectation. It was a poorly calculated risk on their part."

She stopped outside the doors of her private chambers in the main palace wing. She turned her head slightly, her vacant gaze landing on Ken’s stoic, unmoving face.

"Instructor Ken," Elara commanded.

"Yes, Master," Ken replied, bowing instantly, his voice smooth and entirely professional.

"The foreign prince will be arriving at the eastern wing by nightfall to occupy the designated guest quarters. You will supervise his security detail. Ensure he is provided with the standard military rations and has zero access to the inner courtyard or the administrative offices. If he attempts to cross the boundary, treat it as a breach of protocol and detain him in the barracks."

A faint, dangerous glint of genuine satisfaction flickered in Ken’s dark eyes, though his expression remained a mask of military discipline. "It will be done exactly as you command, Master. He will not be a distraction."