Against the Gods

33. The Bramble Club

Eve's POV

Today's the day of the White Tiger Masquerade Ball meaning that it's the beginning of Helen and the princes' love story.

I can't help feeling a bit nervous about this all. After all, things have not been going according to plan and have been staying pretty loyal to the plot thus far much to my chagrin.

Firstly, here I am at the academy in the elite class, which already wasn't supposed to happen. Moreover, the princes are still courting me due to my high position practically making me a shoo-in for becoming the crown princess. Whether I want it or not, I'd be a love rival.

It's not like Eve in the original actually loved any of these fools. Just wanted the crown princess title.

However, I did get secretly engaged to Daemion, the crown prince of the Menda Empire all those years ago. 

Still, there are issues with that. One, Daemion is actually Hal, which makes the whole thing questionable because nothing with him involved ever goes my way. I wouldn't be surprised if "Daemion" just conveniently died when I need him or some other inconvenient thing. Two, nobody even knows about it, still making me the love rival to Hellen currently! Plus I can't tell anyone about it or the whole family will be executed for treason!

Lastly, Helen definitely has all the reason to kill off the Callistos based on the fact our family framed hers for treason, causing them to fall into ruin. This all happened before I got transmigrated into this stupid world so there was no preventing that. 

Anyway, I don't really have a plan to prevent Hellen and the princes from falling in love. I don't think I have the capability to out seduce the princes to get them to my side. Further, something silly like trying to prevent them from meeting today won't be effective since they are almost sure to meet at some point since they are all in the elite class. If I thwart it today it won't really have any effect. 

Therefore, the current plan for the ball is just going to have to be staying out of the way as much as possible.

However, right now I'm working on a different plan. Something that could help with my third issue, the whole Callisto family framing Hellen's family thing.

Basically, in the otome game, the Callistos hired spies from the Bramble Club, an assassins and information guild, to plant evidence in the Hale estate of treason. They also staged a failed assassination attempt on the king and when the Hale estate was searched the fake evidence pointed to the Hale family having paid those assassins to kill the king. 

All of the Callisto family's deeds were discovered later though when Fox, the best assassin of the Bramble Club and a male lead, revealed the Bramble Club records of what the Callisto family had done to Hellen's family. 

This all brings me to today when I've finally found out where the Bramble Club's records are located. The organization is spread in multiple countries and is quite large. This causes them to have to keep records of their dealings so things remain organized. 

My plan is to destroy those records of what the Callisto family has done. If I can get that solved, I'll be in much better shape toward avoiding my demise.

I step into what looks like a pretty unpopular and unkempt temple for Hal. According to my sources, the basement of this place is where the Bramble Club keeps their records. 

It's empty which either means I've got the wrong place or they're all in the basement. After searching the place, I'm not seeing any stairs that go down to a basement of any kind.

There might be some kind of trap door or hidden hatch on the ground I haven't located yet that leads to the basement.

It's too boring to go looking for that though.