Extra's Harem: Invincibility Starts with Marriage and lots of Children

Inside the palace belonging to Princess Aleriana Vandreat, the usual appearance of a royal residence is like a contrast to what one expects.

The servants, maids, and even gardeners were all in scarce numbers.

With hardly two or four knights visible patrolling or standing guard at the main gate, it creates an air of neglect.

Even among them, their salaries were considered the lowest among other palaces.

Most of the staff were simply here out of loyalty, while the guards at the main gate were sent by other palaces to spy on the princess secretly.

Judging each individual based on their real intentions, they were assigned specific tasks.

The most loyal ones remained closer to the palace, while the more suspicious characters were relegated to duties far away, such as guard duties or cleaning horse stables.

The entire setup illustrates the cunning of Princess Aleriana.

Despite the low salaries afforded to the few traitors or spies from other palaces, she ensured they worked to the point of exhaustion.

The guards at the main metal gates, however, were left in a disheveled state.

Their clothes were tattered, stinky, and marked with dirt.

"Haah... Damn it, that horse pooped on my head," one guard exclaimed in frustration.

He recounted how, just moments ago, while cleaning the stables, a horse had relieved itself right on him.

His irritation was evident in his clenched jaws and visible rage directed at the princess, who showed no mercy.

From all this, it was clear that the princess was well aware of their roles as spies.

However, despite their reports to their higher-ups about being worked to the bone, the intelligence agency only offered them grim choices: work there or face death outside.

"We don’t even enter the palace!" he said, venting his frustration.

He looked towards his comrade, only to find him gazing at the sky with an exhausted expression as if he were being tortured by his hopelessness.

"What happened to you?" he asked, puzzled by his comrade’s desolation.

The guard, though clearly part of the queen’s intel faction, had forged a mutual understanding with him.

"Queen said, protect Master Kyle at all costs," the dirt-covered man mumbled, his eyes hollow and vacant, staring at the sky as if expecting his own death.

"So?" The first guard raised an eyebrow, trying to make sense of this.

It wasn’t something that warranted deep thought, really.

After all, he could just claim the young master had died, even after trying hard to protect him.

Everyone from intelligence guilds knew that Master Kyle was destined for sacrifice so that the princess could secure control of the Northern Territory.

It wasn’t an exaggeration to say even the king would most likely be aware of this as well.

The missions had been divided into two phases: to either kill the ducal prince before the wedding or to protect him afterward.

Given their current positioning in the mansion, they could certainly not carry out the assassination within the palace walls.

Most probably, their only task was to protect him after the wedding.

"Princess told me to bring a goanna’s egg," the guard’s final words revealed the suicidal mission assigned to him by the princess.

"!?!"

"...Shit," the first guard muttered, realizing the gravity of the situation.

The princess was undoubtedly aware of the queen’s orders and had handed a death sentence to this unfortunate soul.

Even though goannas were generally easy to handle for a cultivator in the late third layer like him, the real issue lay in their marking.

Once marked, he would become a lifetime enemy of that race due to the scent or pheromone they secreted.

With only 70,000 goannas existing in the Azure Flame Kingdom, it became apparent that any cultivator unfortunate enough to be marked would only meet with death in the wild.

"Hm? Is that an Arcutus family carriage?" the guard suddenly exclaimed, his attention drawn to a vehicle approaching rapidly on the horizon.

He observed the carriage with keen eyes, recognizing the insignia upon it.

Given his strength being early third layer, he had no trouble making out its details.

"It seems, Master Kyle has arrived. Go inform the inner guards to tell the maids about it."

"No, you go, Follow wish of a dead man, comrade"

"Ah, shit man, fine!"

----

"What did you say?"

While seated at the dining table, her delicate hand held a slice of bread, dipping it into a milk bowl before taking a bite.

The first impression of a princess seemed to be revealed here, given the bread and milk—food of commoners, not something which the aristocrats could even digest.

"The dew on my rose petals—"

Olea, who had already informed everything that had happened between her and young master Kyle, had shared how he kept looking at her on his journey to the capital city.

He complimented her beauty for continuous hours, and she relayed every detail back to the princess without a hint of any feelings attached to those moments.

But as she tried to start in the middle to inform the princess exactly of his poetry, she was met with interruption.

"Cough, not that, but about that Mialthra woman," Princess Aleriana coughed, throwing the bread crumb she had just put between her lips aside.

Her sapphire eyes widened for a moment, then relaxed as they instantly turned towards Olea.

She had definitely heard whatever Olea meant to speak, and from this information, she formulated three things in general:

First, either the ducal prince had really fallen for Olea.

Second, he was trying to make her jealous.

Or third, he just wanted to create a disalignment between her and Olea.

After all, expecting an illegitimate prince who survived alone until now to simply fall for someone’s beauty and possess such a weak heart was out of the question.

This realization led her to the conclusion that he merely wished to achieve one of the last two objectives.

Among those two, after Olea informed her that the Ducal Prince was aware of her desire to see him dead, it only signified that he was not that naive.

He knew precisely what she wanted and was evidently trying to create an issue between them.

So, Aleriana was not interested in his wordplay but more so about this woman called Mialthara, about whom Kyle had mentioned to Olea.

After all, how could she simply hand over a gift meant for her to Olea?

"Yes, I confirmed again by going back there," Olea informed, regarding her investigation into the remnants of the demonic aura.

"The woman noticed me, making me leave for here."

Olea had gone back to check on the old woman after receiving the suggestion of adding her to the Ghost Sect.

She found that indeed she was the genuine Mialthara from those stories, leading her to arrive directly to the princess.

Considering even more than wanting the upper hand, what she desired was to receive a valuable offer from the princess.

"Where is that woman exactly, though?"

The princess asked, using a napkin to clean her mouth, her eyes narrowed and sharp as she observed Olea.

Their gazes met, as if both were reaching a common deal.

"What will I get in exchange?"

Olea closed her eyes, hands folded, propping her back against the chair.

She turned straight, not looking towards the princess, as she had only revealed the identity of the woman and not her exact location.

She aimed to leverage it in her favor, to see if the princess could offer something equally valuable as that woman or if she should simply, following the words of Kyle Arcutus, take Mialthara into the Ghost Sect.

"I will just ask my husband then."