“Your Majesty, Your Majesty!!”
Cain knocked on the door of the emperor’s bedroom without hesitation. However, there was no sound or sign from inside.
‘Is it the same today…’
Cain thought as he stared at the silent door.
The empress has run away.
On a day when the rain was pouring down, the Empress’s Palace was attacked by a demon. Fortunately, it seemed that the Empress was safe, and in the process, the knight captain Royden suffered a great deal of damage.
Fortunately, his life was not in danger, but he was still unable to get up. They said the aftereffects would probably be severe…
Not only the knight captain Royden, but the most serious problem was the emperor.
I don’t know what happened with the empress, but on that day when the rain was pouring down, he locked himself back in the palace.
Whether it was a sense of betrayal for locking himself up again, or anger, the empress hid herself somewhere.
‘She couldn’t have gone out on her own…’
The Empress’s Palace, tightly wrapped in powerful magic, was a perfect prison.
It was absolutely impossible for the empress to break through that magic on her own.
There was no one who could help her, even if someone had helped her.
She was disowned by her family…Knight Captain Royden was in a coma… She seemed to be quite close to the Crown Prince of the Shalbon Kingdom, but he had returned to his home country.
In a situation that could not be guessed at all, Cain stared at the door.
‘Besides…’
When will this tightly closed door open?
The emperor, who learned that the empress had run away, has been in seclusion for several days.
At first, I expected the emperor to run around and go to catch the empress right away.
However, his reaction was completely different.
Cain still vividly remembered Zion’s reaction.
‘Those eyes lost in despair.’
It was the first time he had seen the emperor like that.
That cruel and cold-blooded emperor showed such a reaction.
The surprising thing was that it didn’t end there.
The emperor had been holed up in his bedroom for several days since then.
He hadn’t eaten anything during that time, and Cain wasn’t even sure if he was alive.
He had tried to enter several times, but a powerful magic had been cast to prevent him from entering, and the tightly closed door never opened.
Kane sighed.
‘There’s no contact about the bounty…’
Thinking that finding the empress quickly was the only answer, he had discussed with the prime minister and spread bounty posters with a high reward for finding the empress everywhere.
Especially in the tower, a bounty order was issued. But where on earth she had hidden, there was still no news.
‘The outside won’t last long either…’
People who saw the bounty were making a fuss about what was going on, and they were blaming Emperor Zion for the empress running away.
Especially, due to the demons, public sentiment was confused and criticism was getting more intense.
On top of that, the nobles opposing Zion were inciting people. The prime minister was doing his best to stop it, but it wouldn’t last long.
‘It’s all over… When I go back to my hometown, what will I eat and live on…’
Cain looked at the door that wouldn’t open today and turned his back.
Then,
Creak-
The door opened.
Cain looked at the door with a surprised expression.
“Your Majesty…!”
Yes. Zion was standing there.
The emperor he had been waiting for so long had shown himself.
“Are you okay?! Aren’t you hungry?!”
The emotions he had been worried about burst out like a flood. But Zion was different from usual.
“Your Majesty…?”
His happy heart momentarily paused, Cain noticed that Zion’s condition was strange.
He looked the same as usual on the outside. He hadn’t eaten for several days, but he didn’t look thin or weak.
However, he was definitely different from usual.
The heavy atmosphere around him, the darkened eyes, the expressionless face.
He looked like a person without a soul.
As Cain looked at Zion with a bewildered face, fortunately, his mouth slowly opened as if to prove he wasn’t a doll.
“What happened to the Empress.”
“That is…”
It was hard for Cain to deliver the bad news that he hadn’t found her yet. But the emperor in front of him seemed to be all about the empress.
He had to tell him the current situation.
“We’ve posted a bounty with a high reward, and even issued a bounty order in the tower. But…”
“…”
“We haven’t found her yet…”
Cain’s body was trembling as he finished speaking.
This pressure.
Because of the energy flowing from Zion, Cain found it hard to breathe.
This was the first time.
No matter how sensitive and angry he was, he had never emitted this much energy.
He gritted his teeth.
It was a chilling sound just to hear. His anger seemed to surpass imagination.
When his energy was getting thicker and he felt like he was really going to die, Zion opened his mouth.
“…If you can’t find her, you have to make her come back on her own.”
Zion’s eyes, which he looked at, were dyed black.
“Send a public document to the entire empire.”
A cold voice like a winter chill echoed low.
“Until the Empress appears, I will publicly execute one person at a time.”
Cain couldn’t say anything, even though he knew it was wrong. He just thought to himself.
The emperor has completely gone mad.
****
In the deep night when darkness fell.
People secretly gathered at the mansion of Duke Hellen.
The people gathered were whispering as if they were criminals, but their faces were full of joy.
Among them, a man chuckled and said,
“Such a day has come for us.”
“Indeed.”
Another man, with his arms crossed and a bitter smile on his lips, said,
“He shouldn’t have messed with us.”
“Right. All thanks to Duke Hellen.”
A man flattered towards Duke Hellen. However, Duke Hellen’s expression didn’t seem entirely happy.
Noticing this, another man asked,
“Why is that, you should be the happiest.”
“Indeed.”
Worry was visible in Duke Hellen’s eyes.
“Is it because of your daughter?”
“You idiot! Why bring that up here!”
“Right! He doesn’t even know where his runaway daughter is, how could the Duke be in a good mood!”
Two people bickered and fought. Then, Duke Hellen awkwardly smiled and sorted out the situation.
“Right. Now is not the time to worry about trivial things on this happy day.”
Starting with Duke Hellen’s words, everyone vented their resentment towards Zion.
“Just thinking about how we had to watch the tyrant emperor’s mood… I don’t know how much we were ripped off in the Eastern Territory support project.”
“I also said one wrong thing, and all the drugs I traded behind were confiscated.”
A man who was listening to the story laughed bitterly.
“Now the day of retribution has come.”
“I don’t know how fortunate it is that the empress has run away.”
“The mad emperor has sent a public document all over the empire, right?”
“Yes, thanks to that, the voice to drive out the mad emperor right away has grown. If we fan the flames a little here, we can drive out the emperor.”
Just thinking about it made a man shiver.
“That being said, Count Montreal is missing from this important place.”
“Right? He hasn’t been seen lately.”
“You guys must not have heard the story.”
“What do you mean?”
At the words of a man who seemed to know something, everyone pricked up their ears.
“Count Montreal attacked the emperor and was imprisoned.”
“What?!”
Everyone looked at the man who spoke with astonished eyes. Especially, Duke Hellen came close and urged the story.
“Please tell me more. He’s not the type to have the guts to do that.”
“People don’t know. I don’t know the details either.”
A man who heard the story spoke with a face that seemed to be delighted.
“It’s a good thing. Count Montreal also hated the emperor, and I knew it from the time he pretended to be neutral to survive on his own.”
“Right, it’s a good thing.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. However, only Duke Hellen seemed to be lost in thought.
“From tomorrow morning, the execution ceremony will proceed, right?”
“Yes, I should go and watch. Who will be the poor person.”
“Let’s all see there. And listen to the voices criticizing the emperor.”
The laughter of the people gathered at Duke Hellen’s house was full of joy.
****
In the quiet dawn after the noise in Duke Hellen’s Mansion,
Duke Hellen kept biting his shortened nails like a mentally ill person.
Duke Hellen did not sleep alone.
No, he couldn’t sleep.
‘Why am I so anxious.’
Tomorrow would be the day he had been waiting for, the day the emperor would fall.
If an innocent person is randomly selected and executed, even Emperor Zion with his powerful imperial power will have a hard time blocking the arrows of criticism.
But the problem is what comes to mind as soon as he closes his eyes.
The imagination of the snake-like emperor escaping from the crisis and strangling his neck.
‘What more should I do.’
Duke Hellen’s hand was trembling habitually.
He had already done too many things.
At first, he just thought of driving out the hated empress and seating his daughter, Bianca, in the empress’s seat.
If he fanned the flames a little, he thought he could quickly drive out the empress, so he started with small things like sending a fake invitation.
But it didn’t go as he wanted, and in the end, he hired a high-priced assassin.
‘Stupid guys.’
He definitely told them to eliminate the empress, but they arbitrarily attacked the emperor and were annihilated.
But it was a relief. If even one of them had survived and been caught by the emperor, it would have been quickly revealed that he was the mastermind.
‘I should have cleanly killed the empress that day.’
He kept biting his hard nails until blood eventually flowed out.
In the end, the empress did not die that day, and he pulled out Plan B. He hired a black magician at a high price and asked him to plant a heartworm in the empress.
But after that, for some reason, the empress hid herself somewhere.
But it didn’t matter. Soon the heartworm would erode the heart.
Everything was perfect.
No one knew what he had done. The assassins he had hired were all killed by Emperor Zion, and just in case, he also killed the black magician who had made the heartworm.
In fact, if the empress ran away, he intended to seat his daughter, Bianca, in the empress’s seat, but there was no need for that.
The emperor, who had gone mad because the empress had run away, was ruining himself.
Unexpected luck had fallen.
But if there was one thing that bothered him,
‘Where on earth did Bianca go…!’
One day she disappeared, it was about her daughter’s whereabouts.
He was worried about Bianca’s life and death, but he was more worried about what Bianca knew.
Bianca probably knew about the things he had done.
He remembered his daughter, who had never raised her voice at him, screaming in tears.
[Please, father!! Don’t disgrace our family anymore!!]
He didn’t know how she knew, or how much she knew.
But so far, he hadn’t been very anxious. Although she lacked competitiveness and ambition, Bianca was a smart girl.
‘This is all for the Hellen family…’
If she understood the reason, Bianca would surely understand him.
But why does he keep feeling anxious?
Suddenly, the conversation he had earlier came to mind.
[You guys must not have heard the story.]
[Count Montreal attacked the emperor and was imprisoned.]
Surely, this was related to this incident.
He had a hunch.
Thinking so, he couldn’t stay still. The Duke hurriedly dressed and took the magic potion he had prepared for emergencies.
‘I need to meet Duke Montreal.’
