Chapter 206

The sky was blue and the day was sunny.

The garden’s lawn was wide, and the flowerbeds were bursting with colorful blooms.

“Hehehe.”

“It really looks nice.”

“It looks just like you.”

As the laughter of the ladies drifted in the distance, I instinctively turned towards them.

“Oh.”

My eye level was much lower than usual, and only then did I realize that I was dreaming.

“Brother, you weren’t listening to what I said, were you?”

At that moment, Jeilliris tugged at my hand and spoke with a slightly sulky voice.

“Huh?”

Jeilliris hadn’t yet become a Sword Master, so traces of youth remained in her face.

Her bright platinum hair wasn’t elegantly curled as it was now, but rather cut short, and her yellow eyes held curiosity about the world rather than the languor of an absolute powerhouse.

“Oh, no.”

I reflexively denied it, and she asked again in a doubting tone.

“Then tell me what I just said.”

To be honest, I hadn’t heard her.

However, I knew what she had said at that moment.

It was an event that had happened more than 40 years ago, but it had not faded from my memory at all.

“What’s with that expression? You think I’ll let you off just because you look pathetic!”

“I heard you clearly, didn’t I? You said you’d definitely become a strong Mage someday and change this world for the better, and want to be loved by people. …And you said you’d help me.”

A moment of bewilderment crossed the young Jeilliris’s face.

“You really listened well. …I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize.”

“Ah, anyway, you should learn swordsmanship quickly too. How long are you going to keep getting hit? You promised me you’d get stronger.”

“Okay, right. I promised. I’m the one who should be sorry.”

I nodded with a smile.

And with an even more excited voice, I said, “Today, the roses at the Crimson Crescent Palace are in full bloom. Let’s go.”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

Jeilliris took the lead and started to walk.

I momentarily stiffened my face, then followed her.

I knew it was a dream, but to be honest, I didn’t really want to wake up.

After all, time in the dream world doesn’t pass any quicker than in reality.

Except for that damned bird that cries every dawn, no one could interrupt the happiness in the dream world.

And the morning bird around the palace had been chased away by Rudi’s warning shots.

No one could interrupt the time I spent enjoying the rose garden with Jeilliris.

Right, no one should have been able to.

“Brother.”

Jeilliris, who had run out smiling, stopped walking.

Those who would normally never come this way approached from a distance.

“Again, again!”

“Are they still not giving up?”

The ladies who stood up, fanning themselves, hid their children behind their wide dresses.

Jeilliris gripped my hand tightly.

I also held her hand firmly.

The court officials in suits with glasses and the Mages from the Magic Guild in robes and cone hats looked at us with awkward expressions.

Their shadows loomed over us.

The once brilliantly shining sun was obscured.

“Duke Jeilliris, Duke Valencius.”

And as always, they pronounced their cruel verdict.

“Only one of you may come.”

I immediately tried to wake up.

This wasn’t a dream; it was a nightmare.

However, like all nightmares, it clung to me, not letting go.

No way.

I didn’t want to see what was about to happen.

An overwhelming sense of helplessness and self-loathing engulfed me.

Even though I thought I should step forward, my feet wouldn’t move.

The selfish instincts of the child I had been 40 years ago echoed in my mind.

Jeilliris’s hand, which held mine tightly, felt like a hand that was pulling me, rather than one that was holding me.

Jeilliris looked at me.

I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze.

“It’s okay, brother. I’ll protect you.”

I heard her footsteps as she took a step forward.

“Come save me one day.”

Her golden eyes were filled not with the arrogant languor of an emperor but with the anxiety that anyone her age might feel.

I tried to strengthen my grip, but I couldn’t.

It was because I had released her hand first at that time.

The feelings I had for her back then began to surface.

That was the relief of not being dragged away.

I wanted to burst my own head open.

My vision slowly turned black.

* * *

What immediately followed was excruciating pain.

The aftermath of terrible self-loathing shook my head, and I couldn’t even let out a scream.

My eyelids were too heavy to open.

Then I heard Jeilliris’s voice.

Unlike in the dream, it was a haughty and languorous voice.

“…So you’ve returned all tattered again. I see, that’s how it was. Thinking back, you’ve never spared your body or soul for me.”

Yet the content was so soft that it was hard to believe it came from the empire’s tyrant, Jeilliris.

“Seeing you in such a pitiful state makes me feel strange. I was born with my mother’s death and completed with my father’s death, and I butchered my half-siblings like beasts. To me, relatives were nothing more than something I had to pay attention to for the governance of the mundane world, so why are you different?”

Even her languorous voice began to tremble little by little.

“Since we came from the same womb, such emotions couldn’t possibly have been formed, so it must be that you, with your extreme devotion, changed me. How childish I still am, to change so quickly in such a short time.”

A small but cold hand touched my throat.

“Yes. You are making me childish. You are making me weak.”

Feeling the sensation of the joint rings from my index to ring fingers, I could tell it was definitely Jeilliris’s hand.

For a moment, her grip tightened.

My throat was choked, but I didn’t resist.

The guilt and self-loathing from the dream still stirred my emotions, and the pain coursing through my body made it hard to lift a single eyelid.

For a moment, Jeilliris released her hand from my throat.

Something warm fell on my cheek.

I fleetingly thought of what that could be, but after 40 years of seeing her, I couldn’t form a single image in my mind.

It seemed more credible that she had awakened to cannibalism and was drooling over me.

Just as I was realizing that I was unconsciously fleeing from guilt and self-loathing through such preposterous thoughts and was about to plunge deeper into self-loathing, something warm flowed into my mouth.

The hand wearing the joint ring lifted my nape to help the liquid go down smoothly, and another warm force enveloped my entire body.

Crack, crack, fading.

Blood magic?

With the sensation of my bones clicking into place and my muscles tightening, the pain that had made it impossible to even open my eyelids gradually subsided.

“Ah. And remember this.”

The dark that arrived this time was a sweet darkness.

“If you disclose what I said today, I will command you to take your own life. I can always tell if you are awake or not.”

I tried to think about what that meant, but the sweet darkness enveloped me in an instant, and I fell.

* * *

“Your Majesty. What on earth do you mean? Uh, uh?”

I looked around, trying to confirm where I was.

The geometric red mosaic and the golden-adorned ceiling caught my eye.

Fortunately, it seemed I hadn’t become the sacrifice to calm the angry masses after Lady Trentia was defeated that day.

To be honest, I even wondered if all of this was the last vision I had before burning at the stake.

I subtly turned my head and saw a room with luxurious golden curtains and no decorations.

It was the emperor’s office.

“Have you awakened?”

A voice came from above my head.

I slowly pushed aside the silk blanket and sat up.

“…”

Instead of rags, I was wearing stiff pants made of black cloth, and there wasn’t a single scar on my chiseled torso, and all the scales had fallen off my hands.

A white shirt was hanging at the head of the bed, so I picked it up and put it on, brushing my hair back out of habit.

“Stop dawdling and come here quickly. It’s already late at night, so there’s no need to be seen in just a shirt by the other nobles.”

Out the window, deep darkness had already descended.

The moon and stars twinkled in the sky.

I put on the slippers next to the bed and headed toward Jeilliris’s desk in her office.

She was wearing the same extravagant dress as usual, adorned with joint rings, and looked at me with a languorous and haughty gaze in her golden eyes.

“…”

It really was late at night; I didn’t feel a single sign of life around.

For some reason, I felt like I was still dreaming.

She spoke in a strangely reproachful tone.

“You nearly died.”

I immediately bowed my head.

“I apologize.”

“To prevent an explosion, I squeezed my control to the limit, used the power of the Eternal Man for a few days, and there was a significant burden in restoring your transformed body. Moreover, there were several arrows embedded in your body, causing continuous bleeding.”

“I sincerely apologize. May I ask just one question?”

“I grant it.”

“What happened to Lady Trentia?”

Jeilliris made a face that seemed to express both ‘Of course, you should ask that’ and ‘You were almost dead, and that’s what you’re curious about?’

“The Black Iron Knights arrived in time. She wasn’t injured at all, and the Church doesn’t want to oppose my wishes in this situation, so there won’t be any excommunications.”

I let out a deep sigh of relief.

Jeilliris smiled leisurely and gestured, and I sat opposite her.

“…”

“…”

A moment of silence passed, and Jeilliris broke it.

“You seem to have nothing to say, so I will speak first.”

“Please do.”

“I am simply grateful.”

I felt as if something heavy was resting on my heart.

In the office where a gentle darkness had fallen, in the moment when the bright moon had emerged from behind the clouds outside, my emperor looked at me with eyes of golden brilliance that seemed unreal and smiled with a grin that did not seem of this world.

“You have brought me everything I desired. Making Duke Marcus a court noble, I wonder how you thought of that?”

“Ah.”

“…But I couldn’t protect you. Healing you when you returned all tattered was all I could do. I obtained the power to do everything imaginable, yet to truly obtain what I desire, I must do nothing. How cruel fate is.”

“Please don’t say that. I am—”

“Yes, I know. It’s not that I’m burdened by your willing loyalty but that it is the emperor’s duty to make use of and reward it.”

Jeilliris nodded her head.

“Thus, I was left with no choice but to make a very shallow, trivial plan.”

She pointed to the armor standing off to one side.

“Ah.”

It was full plate armor with a black background and golden yellow patterns.

None of its beauty and strength were lacking from the helmet to the breastplate and the greaves.

The design itself was the same as both Jeilliris’s and Lady Trentia’s, as it had been optimized through repeated trial and error by many craftsmen, now the imperial knight uniform.

However, the fact that it was armor created solely for me was something that touched a deep chord.

Once, I had been restricted from learning swordsmanship, but now I was granted the empire’s finest weaponry.

“Since you are also a Mage, I haven’t engraved any offensive spells or magic circuits. However, I personally checked and reinforced the parts for defense and enhancement, so make sure to wear it when you head into battle.”

Upon reflection, what I had suffered this time wouldn’t have been influenced by the armor’s existence.

From the very beginning, I had been dragged in half unconscious by the Great Lord, so even if I had that armor, it would have been stripped away.

But as Jeilliris had said, she had given it to me knowing all that.

In this situation, it would be proper to bow my head.

“Thank you, Your Majesty. I will wear this armor and fight for you.”

“Very well. I will have the armor sent to the palace tomorrow.”

She handed me a bundle of papers that had been set down on one side of the desk.

When I gave her a questioning look, she rolled her eyes as if to say, “What are you looking at?”

“That armor is only being delivered now, as promised last time. Are you trying to make me an ungrateful emperor? I have a duty and a right to repay the blood you will spill.”

“No, it’s not that. What is this?”

“It is the right to the territory of Marcus.”