Upon hearing the reminder from another merchant, the one who had mentioned "that terrifying chief governor" immediately became embarrassed. He tapped his head sheepishly and said, "Sorry, sorry, I know, I just misspoke."

This kind of thing does happen quite often.

"Where do you think Ira Elkaras has gone?"

With the first traveling merchant setting the stage for gossip, everyone began to speculate—

"A duchy? No... impossible, otherwise the duchy wouldn't have passed a law related to monsters."

"Yes, after all, that former chief governor hated monsters and could only fall asleep when he heard their screams every day."

“I think it might be because His Highness Casiopeia and Mr. Elcaras are old acquaintances of our Silvermoon Tree Court.”

"I think we're still inside the empire."

"..."

Although everyone was making irresponsible guesses, the claim that "Ira hid back inside the empire" was highly improbable, so everyone was watching the merchant closely.

However, the other party looked confident and spoke of information that no one knew, saying, "Actually, there is a saying within the Empire that the break between Princess Isabella and Chief Administrator Elkaras was a hoax."

"Actually, it was just a setup to lull the Duchy and the Demon Kingdom into a false sense of security, and also to expose the other anti-royal factions within the country. During the reckoning, this allowed the royal power to reach a new peak."

"..."

“That makes sense. After all, it’s hard to imagine that Elkaras would betray us.”

"That's true, the whole world may have been deceived."

“That makes sense, because given the relationship between Ira Elkaras and Princess Isabella, it’s hard to imagine them turning against each other.”

...

Everyone seemed to start discussing it... drifting further and further away from the truth.