Arknights: Prime Minister of Kjerag — Chapter 60

Chapter 60: May Your Soul Rot in Your Body

Caster Duchy, Grand Ducal Mansion.

Grand Duke Caster always projected the image of a perfectly refined noblewoman. She spent her days leisurely puffing on a slender pipe, her expression forever locked in a state of placid contentment. She never wore a terrifying scowl, and she rarely resorted to crude violence to force unwilling subjects into compliance.

But this serene facade did not mean she was harmless. In truth, as one of Victoria’s most formidable Grand Dukes, Caster had single-handedly orchestrated the political and military encirclement of Grand Duke Wellington, the man known as the imperial death knell. She commanded the absolute loyalty of no less than three vassals who themselves held the title of Grand Duke, and her true influence was widely recognized across the empire as second only to Wellington himself.

It was precisely because her methods were so astonishingly effective that when high society whispered of this Grand Duke, their first thought was never of her status as the King’s sister, nor the ancient glory of her bloodline. They thought only of her.

She maintained a sprawling pack of hounds known as the Gray Hats. These elite intelligence operatives infiltrated every corner of Victoria, hunting down valuable secrets and tracking prey on her behalf. Through them, she became the only Grand Duke who rarely showed her face in public yet managed to hold the vast majority of Victoria’s intelligence network firmly in her manicured hands.

Information flowing from the Duchy of Windermere was, naturally, no exception to her grasp.

“Your Grace.”

The moment the Gray Hat pushed open the heavy oak doors of her study, Grand Duke Caster already felt a faint premonition. She slowly exhaled a plume of fragrant smoke. Through the swirling gray mist, her sharp, pale green eyes fixed on the operative with absolute calm.

“Speak.”

“The mission in the Duchy of Windermere has failed.”

She offered a gentle, almost imperceptible nod. “Not entirely unexpected. Where is our operative?”

“She sacrificed herself.” The Gray Hat’s tone carried a heavy weight.

Caster’s expression remained entirely devoid of emotion. She merely asked her routine follow-up question. “How was she discovered?”

The cultivation of a deep-cover spy was an agonizingly long and expensive process, which meant the lessons extracted from a failure were the most valuable assets left behind. Whenever an infiltration mission collapsed and an operative was killed, Grand Duke Caster would order the Gray Hats to immediately conduct a complete post-mortem. They were expected the lessons learned, identify structural vulnerabilities, grasp industry pain points, cultivate blue-ocean espionage sectors, iterate upon the latest infiltration paradigms, and monopolize technological updates to ensure their intelligence network remained lightyears ahead of the competition.

But this time, the Gray Hat fell silent. He stood there for a long moment before shaking his head with a look of deep weariness.

“She didn’t actually find out who our spy was.”

“She simply marched her troops into the General Staff, forced everyone in the building to point fingers at each other, and then executed every single person who looked even remotely suspicious. The official charge wasn’t espionage. It was anti-corruption.”

The Gray Hat shifted awkwardly on his feet.

“You know how it is, Your Grace. To smooth things over and build connections, our spies always grease a few palms. So the moment the brutal interrogations began, she was immediately pointed out by her associates and executed on the spot.”

Grand Duke Caster furrowed her elegant brow. Her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to offer a scathing critique, but the sheer absurdity of the situation left her momentarily bereft of words. After a long, heavy silence, she finally managed to squeeze out a single question.

“That is an actual strategy?”

She couldn’t find the spy, so she just slaughtered everyone who had ever accepted a bribe? The Grand Duke of Windermere was taking things to an absurd extreme.

Although, to be entirely fair, very few of the officials serving under any Grand Duke were truly clean. Butchering them wholesale wasn’t an impossible problem; it simply meant selecting a fresh batch of bureaucrats and training them from scratch. Given Anfilia Windermere’s iron-blooded, militaristic style of governance, she was certainly capable of pulling off such a brutal restructuring.

But to Caster’s refined sensibilities, this approach was entirely unchivalrous.

“Did the executed nobles not mount a resistance?” she asked, her tone laced with genuine curiosity.

The Gray Hat answered truthfully. “According to the encrypted messages from our remaining nails buried in the Duchy of Windermere, the military operation was incredibly sudden. Grand Duke Windermere was clearly prepared for the fallout.”

“The moment the General Staff was cleansed of life, she dispatched troops to execute several of the main noble bloodlines. Then, before the ink on the death warrants could even dry, she arranged for the collateral branch families to inherit the main lines’ estates and titles. The new heirs were entirely satisfied with their sudden windfall of loot. And those who weren’t satisfied were no longer in a position to object.”

After all, dead men cannot voice their grievances.

Grand Duke Caster glanced at the dryly humorous Gray Hat and gave a slow, difficult nod.

If Anfilia was willing to go to such extreme lengths, it meant the Grand Duke of Windermere was not acting on a whim. This barbaric method of rooting out spies was practically impossible to counter through traditional tradecraft, and undeniably effective.

“How utterly barbaric.”

Having delivered her final verdict on the matter, Grand Duke Caster took another long draw from her pipe. She did not possess the mechanical iron lungs of a Tin Man, so she let the smoke roll slowly past her lips, replenishing the dissipating haze in the room and obscuring her features once more.

“Aside from the purge, Grand Duke Windermere also sent a messenger,” the Gray Hat continued.

Caster’s slender finger tapped rhythmically against the stem of her pipe. “Read it.”

The Gray Hat pulled a sealed letter from his coat. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, cleared his throat twice to steady his nerves, and began to read aloud in a quiet, measured voice.

“To Grand Duke Caster, who ought to be sewn alive into the belly of a camel:”

“Control your pathetic subordinates, put away your tiresome little schemes, and stay home obediently. If you do not, I will personally use my daughter’s ice axe to carve a massive hole into your empty skull! Signed, Anfilia Windermere, Duchess of Windermere of Lienkarden.”

The Gray Hat snapped the letter shut, keeping his eyes firmly glued to the floorboards. He did not dare look up at his employer.

A suffocating silence settled over the study, lingering in the air just like the pipe smoke. The room, which was easily ten times the size of the Kjerag Prime Minister’s office, felt entirely devoid of oxygen. After an agonizingly long wait, the quiet was broken by another heavy sigh from Caster.

“How utterly barbaric.”

Assuming his Grand Duke was simply dismissing the vulgar letter with her usual aristocratic grace, the Gray Hat finally dared to lift his head. Instead of a placid noblewoman, he saw Caster standing rigidly by the tall window, her back turned to him.

The veins on the back of her hand bulged against her pale skin as she gripped the wooden windowsill with enough force to splinter it. When she spoke, her voice drifted over the room with a chilling, dangerous slowness.

“Write her a reply on my behalf.”

“Condemn her appallingly impolite wording. Express my most sincere and warmest regards to her. And gently remind her that she is required to attend the Duke’s secret summit at the end of the year.”

She ground her teeth together, emphasizing her final command with lethal precision. “Be polite. Do you understand me?”

“Understood perfectly, Your Grace.”

The Gray Hat nodded sharply, turned on his heel, and exited the study without a second of delay. He had no desire to remain in that room for another breath; the sheer killing intent radiating from the Grand Duke made the spacious office feel like the inside of a roaring furnace.

Returning to the safety of his own quarters, he pulled out a crisp sheet of official stationery. He picked up his fountain pen, pondered the Grand Duke’s instructions for a brief moment, and began to write.

“To the Duchess of Windermere of Lienkarden:”

“May your soul not rot within your body, for your recent words and actions have already revealed an uncontrollable, sickening stench of blood.”

“Your deeply impolite phrasing compels me to firmly believe that the Duchy of Windermere is already a fallen state, having entirely abandoned the nobility, grace, and self-awareness expected of a true aristocrat.”

“I cannot agree with a single one of your baseless accusations, nor do I accept any of your crude suggestions. However, I still find it necessary to remind you that your presence is strictly required at the Duke’s secret summit to be held at the end of this year.”

“If you remain unconvinced by my words, how about we settle this with a spar when you arrive?”

After signing off with the official seal of the Caster Duchy, the Gray Hat leaned back in his chair and read through the contents. He nodded to himself in deep satisfaction.

The wording was incredibly elegant. The prose was refined, the political stance was crystal clear, and the emotional expression was perfectly precise. Not only did it flawlessly execute the exact task assigned by the Grand Duke, but it also fully conveyed a warm sense of anticipation for the upcoming secret summit.

Yes, this was excellent work. It was practically a textbook diplomatic response!

With a masterpiece like this under his belt, wouldn’t his future promotion be guaranteed? He was practically riding a rocket straight to the top of the intelligence directorate.

It was time to send this brilliant draft to the Grand Duke for her final seal of approval.