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Elisha’s face hardened when she heard that Ascencio had gone to the 1st Empress Palace from Marie.
The bright and thoughtful Ascencio sometimes rushed into recklessness, mostly in matters related to the 2nd Empress.
Even at Leon’s birthday banquet, didn’t he invite a large number of his supporters to fill the Silver Hall in secret from Marquis Blemir?
Still, it’s better than being forced to endure it.
Above all, Ascencio was intelligent.
He only took risks he didn’t consider dangerous.
“He’s coming.”
Elisha saw Ascencio coming out of the 1st Empress Palace and approached the child.
Ascencio saw Elisha, stopped, and avoided her gaze.
He didn’t regret it, but he seemed to think it was wrong to make her worry.
When Elisha reached out her hand in hesitation, Ascencio charmingly put his hand on Elisha’s hand.
“Have you had lunch?”
“Not yet.”
“If that’s the case, how about staying together at the 2nd Empress Palace? Leon and Jillian are there too.”
Ascencio thought a little, then nodded.
Elisha grabbed Ascencio’s hand and dragged him to the palace.
“I must thank Sir Rohan. I think I have to save him no matter what he commits in the future.”
At the words that came from behind her, Elisha squeezed Ascencio’s hand one more time and held it tight.
What it meant for the child that he nearly lost this hand, was clearly conveyed to Elisha.
“Still, treason must not be forgiven. Anything that harms the emperor’s authority must be cut down in order to keep things in check.”
What?
The emperor’s authority?
Elisha continued to speak despite whether she felt Ascencio’s curiosity.
“It is the heart of the emperor. In order not to be consumed by the regrets caused by the things that had to be thrown away to become the emperor.”
“What if I have something I don’t want to throw away?”
“If you do, you will have to give up after suffering more. If you want to become an emperor, you can’t live with everything you want, can you? In particular, if it is to rise to a supreme position like an emperor, the price to be paid is inevitably high. All of the previous emperors were able to ascend to that one-of-a-kind throne in the same way.”
“What if I still don’t want to give up?”
This time Ascencio stopped walking while holding Elisha’s hand tightly.
Elisha turned and made eye contact with Ascencio, who was smaller than her.
“Be strong. So that no one can persuade the Crown Prince to pay the price. Even if other people shake it and fate tries to wield it, it might be possible as long as you don’t forget where you stand on your feet and what is truly precious.”
“I will be strong enough to do that, Your Majesty.”
“If you do, I’ll look forward to it, Your Highness.”
Expectations that excite each other are proof that people are moving forward positively.
One-sided expectations are like a knife thrown to the floor, but promises exchanged between two are precious.
Nobody will get angry or disappointed even if it’s not kept.
In the end, if one manages to do it, they will be praised and overjoyed.
Ascencio smiled with his gentle blue eyes bent.
Ascencio, one of the two people who were going back to the 2nd Empress Palace, said while contemplating what he had just heard.
“Who is it if it’s not the 1st Empress?”
Elisha’s gaze naturally turned to the place where the Imperial Palace was located.
It’s not like there’s little evidence or solid evidence.
Just that, if it was not the 1st Empress, then it must be the Emperor.
Those who wanted to touch the 2nd Empress, who had just started moving, were scattered all over Barossa and the Capital, but for good reasons, the one who could spend that much power and was capable of taking the damage…
Ascencio kept paying attention to it because he knew it.
“How much did that person throw away?”
Elisha shook her head at Ascencio’s words.
“His Majesty has not abandoned anything.”
“… Is it because His Majesty is a strong person?”
That’s true.
But it’s not because of that.
“Because he never had anything in the first place.”
Perhaps this is the truth.
“Huh? What do you mean…”
Ascencio asked in surprise.
This was Kaiden, who had made a name for himself on the continent beyond Atien since the days he was still a prince.
If he had nothing, who in the world would be able to show off their firefly-like light in front of him?
Understanding Ascencio’s skepticism, Elisha didn’t talk about someone for whom nothing in life would have been easy.
When Elisha rushed to say that the children were waiting, Ascencio did not delay any longer and hastened his steps.
Glancing around the Emperor Palace, Ascencio pretended not to know.
The Emperor’s office was located near the entrance to the Emperor Palace.
For safety measures, those who come and go to report will be prevented from entering deep inside, and it also made it easy for the emperor to move outside.
Among the previous emperors, there were cases where the location of the office was changed or newly decorated according to their taste, but it was not so for Kaiden.
He stood with his hands on the window frame, like a picture of time when everything was piled up for a long time, as if it had been there since the beginning.
The wind blowing through the open window gently ruffled the dark hair that lightly covered his eyebrows, then back to where it was.
The wind that disappeared after swiping and kissing his neatly cut short hair over and over again continued to turn around in regret.
Neither the light pouring in front of his eyes, nor the refreshing wind, nor the glorious scenery of Barossa, which begins in the full spread of the Imperial Palace, meant anything to Kaiden.
“Your Majesty.”
Kaiden turned his head at the sound behind him.
A man was standing over the large desk in front of the office window.
“Did you confirm?”
“Yes. After we removed the dead ones yesterday, we looked again and watched until a while ago, but there was no movement.”
“Hmm.”
Kaiden raised one eyebrow and tapped the window frame with his fingertips.
The raid on the 2nd Empress yesterday was the doing of Zelot, the secret knights of Kaiden who abide by Kaiden’s orders.
Kaiden wanted to know what the 2nd Empress was holding.
What the hell was that, moving the Western Tower and making the 2nd Empress a different person?
It wasn’t just out of curiosity.
In this Empire, all the flows that escape the eyes of Emperor Kaiden are dark currents.
In the basement of the world he had built, he stretches the water path and breaks the soil to overthrow that very world.
In order to find the source of the dark current, it is necessary to point out the starting point.
Some people might say that they are willing to sacrifice a lot of manpower because of the seemingly insignificant doubts that are just beginning, but that’s about it now.
The incident that caught his attention as the emperor and aroused his interest could never lead to a trivial end.
If he finds it later, he might have to pay tens or hundreds of times the price he has now.
But then, what to do?
In the end, he returned empty-handed.
“You can neither cast magic again nor do you have artifacts that allow you to use magic without mana, right?”
While muttering, Kaiden imagined Elisha’s swordsmanship in his mind.
Although she was trembling without strength, the target pointed to by the tip of the sword was clear and relentless.
If one can use that level of swordsmanship without experience, they’re a genius.
A woman who could reach both sword and magic, to a point where so many people can only wish for the rest of their lives, but only a select few can reach, gave up everything for just one child.
Since most marriages in the Imperial family are political marriages, it is made sure that the couple had a proper marital relationship for the first night in order to make the relationship last even if only for appearances.
It would have been difficult to avoid because there were even separate people watching and confirming it.
It’s not that he didn’t have any room for other options.
He was very saddened by the consequences of his judgment, which he thought was unnecessary.
It was Kaiden himself who was a living witness to the fact that the extremely rare doesn’t mean that there is no chance of it happening.
“I should’ve cared. It would have been useful.”
Of course, it was still useful to some extent.
However, it felt as if he had missed a decisive step to beat all the high-nosed aristocrats.
But Kaiden is not the type of person who regrets the past.
“What do you think, Zile? Shall we push a little more?”
Shall we take out the jewel hidden by the 2nd Empress?
Then I think we can continue the fun conversation for a long time.
Kaiden said to the man who was still standing quietly like a shadow.
“I’m sure she’ll get hurt next time. The 3rd Prince who followed Sir Rohan was fine, the 2nd Empress was really in danger this time.”
Zelot’s deputy leader, Zile, who specializes in stealth, barely tricked Rohan’s attention and watched yesterday’s situation.
They had to check the 2nd Empress’s response, so it was a necessary process.
“Danger? I gave you the poison, so of course it was intended to be dangerous.”
Would you show your truest only in the worst situation?
“But…”
“Why didn’t you ruin her face? The part of the 2nd Empress that deserves to be looked at is not her face.”
The sincerity contained in the clear blue eyes penetrates people.
There was a depth of darkness and integrity in him that did not match the age of early thirties, or, to be precise, were not suited to be in a human being.
“If you order us, we will make a new plan.”
“No need. It would be difficult right now. We shouldn’t show our hand by giving off a smell to another place. I heard that the 2nd Empress’s ability to formulate magic formulas was considerable. Let’s put it that way for now, until a new opportunity arises.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Zile bowed his head more politely.
Kaiden lightly waved his hand out, then walked over to his desk and sat down in his chair.
As soon as he took the feather pen in his hand, Zile disappeared silently, and after a while, the pre-scheduled Minister of Foreign Affairs came in and reported on the situation in the neighboring countries.
The ongoing drought is sweeping not only the Atien Empire, but the entire Paracion continent, and the Crown Prince, who is famous for the spirits of the neighboring Santiano Empire, has not attended all external events, so there must be something wrong.
The Emperor nodded his head, concentrating.
The stories he had just shared had been completely erased from his mind.
***
“Won’t that kid come?”
“He looked really, really pretty.”
“Was it a boy or a girl?”
The children whispered and circled around the skewer shop.
Then someone said.
“But I heard there was a lot of noise and a riot in this alley yesterday. Do you know about it?”
“I don’t know. My mom didn’t let me go.”
In the alley that falls into a corner from the main road, no matter what happens, the smell of blood makes people stop.
The commoners, especially in a particularly hungry and difficult time like these days, will not be able to pick up their bones if they get caught up in a trivial matter.
“I know! After the aristocrats returned to their carriage, my brother was curious and looked around the alley, but there was nothing.”
The words quickly covered the children’s curiosity.
Then one guy played a prank on the other guy, patted his back and ran away, and the other guy jumped up and chased him over and over again.
The shy girl, who was alone in the depths of her alley, was caught up in the children’s play and tossed to and fro, and she fell.
“Hik.”
She was about to cry and wanted to see where she got hurt, but it was strange.
It didn’t hurt at all, like falling on a soft spot.
The child swept the ground with her hands.
When she stepped on it, she didn’t notice it, but she quickly dug with her delicate fingertips, revealing the soft insides.
When she squeezed it a little, it crumbled into dry dust as if it had evaporated without a single drop of moisture.
“What is this?”
She tilted her head, but for a moment.
What’s the big deal? It’s not like there’s a hole in the ground.
The girl couldn’t stand being repeatedly hit by other children, so she backed away and ran home.
It seemed that a lucky day like yesterday would never come again, when she was full and happy by picking up the skewers that fell on the floor.
Translator’s note:
Okay, what the fuck is happening. I feel like there’s some important info contained in these paragraphs:
Since most marriages in the Imperial family are political marriages, it is made sure that the couple had a proper marital relationship for the first night in order to make the relationship last even if only for appearances.
It would have been difficult to avoid because there were even separate people watching and confirming it.
It’s not that he didn’t have any room for other options.
He was very saddened by the consequences of his judgment, which he thought was unnecessary.
It was Kaiden himself who was a living witness to the fact that the extremely rare doesn’t mean that there is no chance of it happening.
But I can’t be sure.
Since the paragraph before it is talking about Elisha, does it imply that… Elisha did not have a “proper marital relationship” with Kaiden on the first night? So, Leon is not the Emperor’s son? Is that why he did not name him? But then, whose child is Leon? And the author keeps emphasizing that Leon’s eyes are the same as Kaiden, but these paragraphs…?
Someone help me, this is my 4th chapter of the day and my brain cells are depleting. . . Give me your analysis!