All over the world
The next day, the Imperial Press Office made a grand announcement:
[The Official Statement Regarding the Engagement of Emperor Herhan of the Empire and Riella Blinite].
This was the first time that the imperial family had made an announcement of a happy event, after a period of bloodshed and tension following the change of government.
Newspapers carrying the news of the Emperor’s engagement were also distributed throughout the empire.
The rumor spread beyond the border.
News was relayed through official communication channels between countries, and replies arrived one after another. Congratulatory messages poured in from foreign media.
Herhan was a man who had already shaken the world multiple times and was now the sole authority capable of controlling the continent.
The person who naturally received the world’s attention was the woman who proudly took the seat next to Emperor Herhan.
Not much was known about her other than the fact that she was a commoner from a foreign country, ‘Riella Blinite’.
Was she a femme fatale? A breathtaking beauty destined to shake the world?
TL: A Femme fatale is an attractive and seductive woman, especially one who is likely to cause distress or disaster to a man who becomes involved with her.
Or perhaps the daughter of a powerful figure with immense influence behind the scenes?
All sorts of rumors were floating around, and the front pages of gossip newspapers were filled with similar headlines, all running along different lines.
[The Woman Who Captivated the Iron-Blooded Emperor!]
[The Mysterious Fiancée]
Many people around the world have imagined, anticipated, and talked about various versions of ‘Riella Blinite’.
But.
In many parts of the world, some envisioned the image of the ‘real Riella Blinite’, which had not yet been officially announced or published in any newspaper.
* * *
Kingdom of Riota.
The Royal Palace.
King Taran II, upon receiving the letter, couldn’t even rise from his seat. He simply groaned, “Ugh…” for a while.
Unable to bring himself to write a reply, he muttered like a groan, “Finally… finally…”
He eventually got up from his seat and headed to the palace where Greta was.
“Open the door.”
“Your Majesty, the princess is still asleep.…”
“That damn thing! After ruining this entire kingdom, she still has the nerve to sleep?”
Taran II shoved past the maid and barged inside.
The maid had lied—Greta wasn’t asleep.
Greta was up. She was sitting by the window in a daze, looking like a ghost, just like yesterday and the day before.
“This is crazy!”
Striding over to Greta, Taran II threw the letter at her head.
The paper smacked against her tangled hair and fluttered down to the floor.
“How long do you plan to sit there like an idiot?”
Even in the face of the king’s attacks, Greta sat as still as a stone.
The king became even more angry.
“You went to the empire as if you were going to do something great, but in the end, you were kicked out like a beggar! So, are you satisfied now that it’s all over?”
Greta picked up the paper at her feet.
She skimmed the contents quickly, her expression unchanged.
“That’s right, that mercenary from the beginning…”
“Oh, that again? Aren’t you tired of repeating the same thing every time?”
Greta smiled weakly.
“What’s the problem anyway? Let the Emperor live happily with her. Isn’t peace in the Empire supposed to mean peace for our kingdom too? There’s no issue between our countries, and the trade delegation from the imperial family will arrive in a few days. So why are you so upset?”
“You! Just because you have a mouth doesn’t mean—”
“Then should I just shut my mouth and die?”
Greta looked up at her father with cold eyes.
“Please get out.”
Greta coldly dismissed the king and looked again at the window facing east.
Greta’s eyes lost focus again as she looked at the sky so far out that her eyes once again drifted into emptiness.
* * *
The Borders of the Riota Kingdom.
Where the Imperial Trade Delegation Made a Brief Stop.
“His Majesty is really going too far. He is announcing such surprising news while we are away? What if we end up missing the wedding too?”
“Come on. A royal wedding isn’t that simple. It’ll take a lot of time to prepare. Anyway, let’s hurry and finish this expedition so we can get back.”
“Since we’re in the Riota Kingdom, I should buy a souvenir for the future Empress. Wouldn’t she be especially happy to receive something from her homeland?”
While the noisy coachmen and soldiers had all gone to rest, the luggage compartment of the carriage at the very end slowly opened.
Making sure no one was outside, the dark figure of Loriell darted out.
The moment she felt the fresh air on her face, she started to vomit painfully and struggled for breath.
“Ugh, huh, huh.”
Loriell finally came to her senses after crawling on all fours and crying.
‘Damn it! How long do I have to stay in this shithole? I’d rather die. When is the royal procession finally arriving?’
With trembling hands, Loriell picked up a discarded piece of bread nearby.
The stench made her want to vomit every time she ate, but she had no choice. If she wanted to survive, she had to chew and swallow something—anything.
Then, spotting a newspaper left behind by the soldiers on the ground, Loriell bit his already cracked lips harder.
‘Whatever. Let them get married or not…’
It wasn’t all that surprising that the Emperor and Riella’s marriage was going ahead.
It was the other way around that turned Loriell’s stomach.
The newspaper contained the anecdote that the jewel known as the ‘Queen’s Sun’, which had recently been sold at auction for hundreds of millions of won, ended up in the hands of the empire’s new empress as a wedding gift.
‘Damn it…I should’ve just thrown it into the river when I had the chance!’
There was also news that the most magnificent wedding in history would soon be held, with dignitaries from all over the world gathering.
As Loriell read the newspaper published in the Kingdom of Riota, the newspaper carried an article about Princess Greta and King Taran II being invited to the wedding, due to their closeness to the Emperor’s fiance.
‘What? Close? You’re going to that wedding? What a joke. Look at me now—do you think I’ll just let you pretend everything’s fine? Just wait. I’m almost there.’
Loriell tore the newspaper and stuffed the remaining piece of bread into her mouth roughly.
* * *
Kingdom of Riota.
A Small Mountain Village in the South.
A man clutched a crumpled newspaper as he gasped for breath, running up a hill.
He burst into a shabby, moss-covered hut, nearly collapsing from exhaustion.
“Hey! Hey, look at this! Huh? Get up now! This isn’t the time to be sleeping.”
“Why? Being awake just makes me hungrier.”
“Ah. Come on. Read this right now!”
“What is it?”
In the middle of the hut, lying haphazardly, was a man with a very messy gray beard.
He raised his heavy body with a frown.
“What? Is there some new job posted or something?”
“Not that! Look here, the main article!”
“What are you—ugh, fine…”
Squinting due to his worsening eyesight, the man skimmed the main article. The man with old eyes frowned as he read the main article, then opened his mouth wide.
“Riella….”
He was so shocked that he couldn’t even read the headlines out loud.
Several of his colleagues waited with sparkling eyes for a response, then, unable to overcome their impatience, began to urge him on.
“So? What are we gonna do?”
“What do you mean, ‘what are we gonna do?’”
The man, who had been frozen like a statue the whole time, just threw the newspaper down.
Then his colleagues, frustrated beyond belief, shouted.
“Riella will become the empress of the empire!”
“Must be someone with the same name.”
“No way! After all that chaos we caused with the Crown Prince—no, the Emperor! We heard rumors he took Riella to the Empire, but this? What the hell happened? Listen, this could be our chance! We might finally find a way to survive!”
His colleagues forcibly got the man up, who had fallen back down with a grumpy look on his face.
“Hey! Are you really going to stay still, Hank?”
* * *
Finally, inside a dark mansion in an unknown forest.
“Hahaha.”
The man reading the newspaper by the light of the fireplace laughed out loud.
He couldn’t even remember when the last time he laughed out loud was.
As he read each line, the corners of the man’s mouth went up as if he was becoming more interested.
“Your Majesty the Emperor. You are so bold. I thought you were going to try to hide it, but it seems you are using a strategy of revealing it outright.”
Herhan has often done that since he was crown prince.
At first glance, he appears to be nothing more than a greedy grump, but now and then, he reveals a flash of cunning brilliance.
‘If he was going to be greedy, he should’ve at least been stupid. And if he was going to be smart, he should’ve known how to be humble…’
However, Herhan was a greedy and intelligent crown prince.
Of course, it wasn’t a very pleasant existence.
‘When he’d been driven out once before, I should have attacked him.’
“And now, that greedy man not only returns to the imperial palace but even plans to get married.”
The man read the second and third Newspaper while sitting down.
Most of the articles were nothing more than amusing gossip, but they were entertaining enough to kill time.
“This much seems to fit.”
With slender fingers, he tore through the paper filled with articles.
After he tore up all the unreliable content and threw it into the fireplace, only a few lines remained:
[Official engagement announcement by the Emperor of the Elshweig Empire…]
[The new empress, ‘Riella Blinite’, is a commoner mercenary from the Kingdom of Riota…]
[A Love That Overcame Borders and Social Class…]
[…The Love of the Century.]
The man’s bright smile faded into cold silence, especially as he stared at the final line he’d left behind— ‘The Love of the Century’.
“Your Majesty. You weren’t the only one looking for treasure.”
The man slowly rose from his seat, speaking to no one in particular.
“And not everything in this world belongs to you.”
His gaze was fixed on one scrap of paper left on the table.
[Riella Blinite…]
“Riela Blinite. Riela Blinite….”
The man whispered her name like a spell.
His clear, sky-blue eyes glimmered briefly, as if lost in memory.
And soon, a gentle smile crept back onto his once-cold face.
“Besides….I found her before you did.”
In the end, the man left only that name intact, throwing the rest of the paper into the roaring fire.
Outside the fireplace, half-burned firewood still jutted out.
There was a blouse and vest that might have once belonged to a royal servant.
Or a record of all the deeds of an unnamed old man.
‘Well, things just got interesting…’
The man smiled faintly.
‘I suppose I should come up with an entertaining strategy to match.’
* * *
