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Within the streets of the Affnaria Duchy at night a shady group of people wandered, covered in black robes while carrying a bag with certain illegal products, drugs.
Since the death of the Duke Allan that the entire Duchy had begun to fall apart, and without a proper leader, people began to become restless, business started to fall one after the other, and the entire place became filled with delinquents, becoming a nest for illegal activities of all types.
Although Duke Allan had done something unforgivable to Maria and was killed by her for it, he had been a good Duke, he protected his duchy and was working hard to make it flourish. In the past this place used to be even worse, but he ended driving off a lot of the bandits and thieves living here, while allying another factions to keep the place in order, he had to nasty his hands and create connections with the worst of the worst, even including Vampires themselves, all so his Duchy could keep itself afloat and thrive.
However, he protected the people and kept them happy, he made business flourish for the most part, and although his Duchy had become a place where illegal items were produced by a dark organization led by Vampires, the rest of the place had become a decent town and it would continue to become better as he continued selling the products and gaining a part of the earnings, all while also making connections with many other merchants and duchies.
He had not been in fault of the entire problem that happened to Maria’s life, and he had simply been given orders to capture and execute her when she had arrived at his duchy, he barely knew anything about her but decided to use her as a way for people to harbor their hate into and kill her off. This was a strategy that was always used by rulers and religious people, making someone the blame of every sin or evil in the world and make the people harbor their hate to them, often it was the leader of a group of people which they intensively hated, making the population target their hate and the blame of everything to this group of people instead than the own government that was behind everything at the end.
Allan managed to put Maria in fault for things that had been happening, saying that she had cursed the entire duchy because she was called a witch by the Kingdom that wanted her dead now that they had taken away the treasure of her family, and decided to kill her off in front of everybody so they would be pleased. The happiness of his people was important so they would have the energy to keep striving and living in the poor conditions that commoners -his major source of income- lived through.
But when he got killed off by the ghost of the very woman he framed and guillotined, the duchy was left barebones and everybody panicked, a lot of the population started moving out, even other nobles decided to move to a better duchy, leaving the duchy with only poor commoners and barely any business to maintain the economy… And in a whim, while Julia learned about the death of the uncle she hated, who was the one that bullied her mother the most when she was younger, she ended being given the title of duchess.
This was obviously a set up as well, the family of nobles were all wicked, killing one another through schemes and false accusations was commonplace, and that didn’t changed in the vast royal family, whose children of the King were plenty. Each child had a duchy for themselves, and most of them had a descendant, except the Duke Allan who was a lonely man and never found a woman capable of loving him, and it wasn’t as if he had not gotten arranged marriages, but he ignored these concubines and decided to live by himself, he always believed that a woman would only steal his money.
Julia was given the title of Duchess before even reaching 18 years of age because she was the most competent amongst the “favorite” grandchildren of the King. Because her mother was the daughter of the King and had a good relationship with him, her daughter was obviously favored. However, the King usually gives an order and leaves the rest to do everything else, he doesn’t even plan things, leaving all the details to others, making Julia’s uncles and the children of her uncles to scheme against her, putting her into the poorest and most terrible duchy there was, Affnaria, all while scheming to fill her duchy with all sorts of illegal activities and even those with connections with the vampires didn’t waited to tell them to go storm the place and use it however they pleased. Their ultimate goal was to stress her out,make her live hell, and then kill her off after a few years when the King could have forgotten about her.
Without such a talented girl in the royal family anymore, the other grandchildren of the king had greater opportunities to become dukes themselves, or even princes and princesses, which then would have the chance to ascend to a King whenever this old man were to kick the bucket…
“Please… I need it… The black pills… D-Do you got some more?! Whenever I take them, I feel so strong, I feel like I am somebody…!”
A man on his twenties, completely ruined and wearing tattered clothes approached one of the figures wearing black robes, carrying on his hand a few copper coins and a silver coin, and giving them to the black robbed man that extended the palm of his hand.
“Here, make sure to go crazy… Kukuku…” The black robbed man gave a pitch-black pill to the young man on the streets, who quickly devoured the pill and swallowed it.
“Ahh… S-Sweet release… Hahahaha! AAAAHAHAHA!”
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