Episode 81

The Bricesys Imperial Family had changed.

Back when Princess Yvonne was still around, Hildebrandt had the qualities of both a tyrant and a wise ruler, but now, he had lost the latter.

Emperor Hildebrandt had truly become a tyrant, and his subjects feared him.

He wielded his abilities so recklessly that over a hundred people had gone mad while serving him. Many of them had died, too.

The problem was that those who perished made sure to take their own lives, so as not to tarnish the emperor’s name.

The emperor’s power was a mental ability of the highest order: hypnosis. And Hildebrandt possessed that power with the highest grade of magical energy. It was no wonder that the ability he wielded turned out to be the supreme power of the mind.

 

“Come here, Yvonne.”

At his words, Princess Yvonne, dressed in the knight’s uniform, approached him. Since Yvonne’s disappearance, Hildebrandt had been living off sedatives, with the side effect of heavy drinking.

His surroundings were already littered with the remnants of empty bottles he had cast aside.

“Come closer.”

At Hildebrandt’s gesture, the woman called Princess Yvonne took a few more steps toward him. The uniform she wore was specially made for those with replication abilities, adjusting its size according to any changes in appearance brought on by magic.

“Closer.”

The one called Yvonne was actually Francis Jevenel.

He had sent the 1st division of his personal knights to Apentina’s prince and returned to Hildebrandt.

“Yvonne.”

Hildebrandt tugged the arm of the fake Yvonne, making her sit on the floor. With a sigh, she leaned her head on his thigh, just as the real Yvonne used to do.

“Yvonne.”

“….”

“Why haven’t our Yvonne’s ears changed?”

Hildebrandt’s mood soured when he saw that Yvonne’s ears, which he had pierced himself, were untouched. On his own right ear, he still wore the set of five earrings he had matched with Yvonne.

But the ears of the Yvonne he looked down upon were pristine, devoid of the earrings he had personally put on her.

Francis had replicated Yvonne before her ears had been pierced. After the piercing, Francis had left on a tour with the emperor.

But when the emperor returned from the tour, the princess supposedly residing safely in the palace turned out to be an imposter, and the real princess was nowhere to be found.

It was only natural that Hildebrandt went mad. The princess who used to send him letters saying she awaited his return had been a fake all along. And to think that Ebony, Yvonne’s trusted maid, had been the one to incite it.

“Yvonne.”

Even so, Francis believed that Emperor Hildebrandt could still come back to his senses. Francis had a vague understanding of why Ebony hadn’t been executed.

Though she was a co-conspirator who aided the princess’s escape, she remained unpunished.

Perhaps it was because Francis had a feeling that the emperor’s drunken confession might have been true.

“Evony Le Meredin is Yvonne’s real mother.”

When the emperor had spoken those words, he hadn’t seemed in his right mind, but the possibility was more than enough to consider.

“Yvonne, this is truly infuriating.”

“…”

Francis couldn’t help but feel pity as the emperor stared at him with those maddened eyes. Even Francis, who had only briefly served as a guard, felt a strange sense of longing for the missing Princess Yvonne after returning from the tour.

If he felt this way, how much more painful must it be for the emperor, who cherished her as if she were his own daughter?

Or was it even right to call her his daughter? Wasn’t it closer to a lover’s affection?

Francis struggled to maintain his composure in this sigh-inducing situation. All he could hope for was that his own side effects wouldn’t manifest right now.

“Your Majesty.”

“I told you to keep your mouth shut.”

“…”

Since his voice wasn’t Yvonne’s, Francis Jevenel had no intention of provoking Hildebrandt’s wrath.

However, there were two leads regarding Princess Yvonne from the Kingdom of Apentina. One had been provided by Erkin, who was now imprisoned in the underground dungeons.

The other came directly from the Prince of Apentina.

But all the previous clues had been lies. Every time they thought they had found Princess Yvonne, she turned out to be a fake. And remembering how the emperor, disappointed each time, would use his power against those around him…

Francis believed it was best not to reveal anything until he was absolutely certain this time.

“Ugh…”

“Is it because my mark isn’t on her ear that our Yvonne ran away?”

Hildebrandt yanked Francis by the hair, forcing him to meet his gaze, a cynical smile curling on his lips. He then gripped Francis’s neck with one hand, now bearing Yvonne’s appearance.

“Now, tell me. What should you say to ease my anger, hm? Yvonne.”

“…”

Francis knew better than to respond in moments like this. As the real Princess Yvonne used to, he closed his eyes in resignation, enduring the emperor’s touch.

What the emperor desired was a submissive, affectionate princess.

Francis felt a pang of sorrow at the emperor’s descent into madness and the realization that all he could do for him was so pitifully limited.

At the same time, a wave of guilt washed over him as he thought of all the times he hadn’t cared about the suffering Princess Yvonne must have endured. Now, he regretted not stepping in when he had the chance.

Although he had been called in to calm Hildebrandt, he hadn’t realized just how difficult it had been for her until he experienced it himself.

Francis opened his eyes, feeling the sharp pain in his ear.

“Our Yvonne… I suppose I’ll have to mark you again, won’t I?”

“…”

Francis slowly nodded, his ear already pierced, blood gushing out.

In a way, he thought it was better this way. Seeing blood always had a calming effect on Hildebrandt.

Unlike Yurian Leonhardt, who became frenzied at the sight of blood, Hildebrandt viewed it with a detached coldness.

“If you lose it again, I’ll cut your ear off.”

Francis nodded again. His ear, now punctured repeatedly, was a bloodied mess. Thankfully, as a martial artist, these wounds were of little consequence to him.

If the emperor could be satisfied with such physical marks, it wasn’t a terrible trade-off.

The palace had many healers, and as the captain of the imperial knights, he even had a high-ranking healer under his command. It was a small mercy that Hildebrandt’s anger could be appeased with physical pain.

“Yvonne.”

“…”

“Tell me you love me again, and I’ll forgive you.”

Francis knew that even now, Hildebrandt was doing this on purpose. No matter how drunk or unhinged he was, he couldn’t truly believe that Francis was the real Yvonne. Surely, he knew that much.

Yet, knowing this, he still couldn’t bring himself to do anything worse.

If he truly wanted to vent his anger, he could easily break limbs or restrain him as a way to lash out. But all he did was pierce the ear again.

Or perhaps… could it be that the emperor had forgotten Francis was a fake?

Francis found the emperor pitiful either way. He understood why Hildebrandt was both a tyrant and yet still had the potential for a just ruler. He was the kind of person who, while wishing for Yvonne’s death, constantly checked to see if her attention was still on him.

It was Hildebrandt himself who distanced Yvonne from the throne, thinking that perhaps she might look back at him if she stayed away.

Francis, more than anyone, understood him.

He knew about the emperor’s nightmares, how he would wake up in the middle of the night to hypnotize himself. He understood how he feared his own weakness whenever he encountered the subject of that hypnosis.

If only his self-hypnosis had grown stronger, as it used to, making him believe he hated Princess Yvonne—perhaps things would have been easier.

But the emperor’s power over others remained cataclysmically strong, while his self-hypnosis, no matter how intense, always unraveled in the end.

Perhaps Hildebrandt was on the verge of a second awakening. But if an unhinged emperor were to awaken again, could the Bricesys Empire survive intact?

“Yvonne. Look at me. Yvonne.”

“…”

“You should be looking at me.”

As Francis was lost in thought, Hildebrandt’s voice snapped him back to attention. The emperor wiped the blood dripping from Francis’s ear with his fingers.

He stared at the sticky blood on his hand and then grimaced.

“The smell of blood… it’s so different.”

“…”

“Our Yvonne’s blood never smelled like this.”

Francis regretted not being able to perfectly replicate Yvonne’s voice back when he had been close to her. If he had managed a flawless imitation, perhaps the emperor wouldn’t have gone so mad.

“You, there.”

“Y-Yes, Your Majesty…!”

Hildebrandt pointed to a trembling maid. It seemed she would be the next to suffer today.

“Our Yvonne seems bored. Take off your shoes and walk over there.”

“What? B-But…”

“Refuse, and you’ll face another punishment.”

“Ah…”

The shards of bottles the emperor had thrown lay scattered across the floor. The maid was expected to walk over them barefoot. But if she refused, she would likely lose her mind to the emperor’s power and end up taking her own life.

“Sniff…”

The maid, holding back her tears, began to remove her shoes and approached the glass shards.

“Your Majesty.”

“I told you not to speak.”

“I believe we’ve found Princess Yvonne. So please, stop this.”

Francis blurted out those words impulsively, noticing that the maid’s eyes bore a resemblance to those of Princess Yvonne.
Tl/N: i was gonna remove the ‘our Yvonne’ and make it my but my felt cringe asf