To My Gentle Dictator – Chapter 005

“Yuri, look over here.”

Turning away from Sasha, Lyudmila smiled sweetly and walked toward Ulrich.

Sasha could only watch the picturesque scene unfold in a daze.

“I just happened to run into Sasha. It’s been a long time for you too, hasn’t it?”

Ulrich, who had just handed his car keys to the driver, approached with a slight furrow in his brow.

His platinum-blond hair gleamed under the golden afternoon sun.

“What did I tell you last time?”

Sasha blinked her hazy eyes.

Three years ago… what had he said to her?

She couldn’t quite remember, but it was clear that Ulrich was displeased. The last ember of hope she had been holding onto flickered and died.

“I… I’m sorry, I was just passing by…”

She fumbled for an excuse, her voice weak and unsteady—

Then, without warning, a large hand slipped under her arm.

The sudden warmth against her frozen skin made the nape of her neck prickle.

Ulrich pulled Sasha to her feet, his perfectly shaped lips curving into a mild, scolding smile.

“You haven’t changed at all, Shura.”

“…”

“I think I told you before that sitting around like this isn’t good for you.”

Ah… that’s right.

Sasha stared up at him in a daze, her mind sluggishly pulling at old memories.

Yes, that day—she had arrived early and was waiting in the square.

The image of the fountain where she had sat that summer evening, waiting for Ulrich, flickered before her eyes. The lively square, the bustling atmosphere—

Then, suddenly, everything started spinning.

“Why are you sweating so much?”

Ulrich tilted his head and pressed a hand to Sasha’s forehead, his fingers brushing against the cold sweat trickling down her temple.

Maybe it was the contrast between his warmth and her frozen body.

Or maybe she had simply reached her limit.

Like a paper doll soaked in water, Sasha collapsed limply into Ulrich’s arms.

A sharp ringing sound filled her ears, drowning out all other noise.

And then, darkness.

Ulrich caught her as she crumpled, effortlessly lifting her into his arms.

She was as small and frail as a child, yet burning up like a fevered ember.

“My God…!”

Lyudmila gasped, her eyes wide, hands covering her mouth.

“Oh no, she must be seriously ill! Wait here—I’ll call my knight to take her to the hospital—”

“She’ll be fine.”

Ulrich gently interrupted Lyudmila’s words and began walking away with the unconscious Sasha in his arms.

“Sorry, Mila. We’ll have tea another time.”

“But, Yuri…”

A rare look of unease flickered across Lyudmila’s face as she hesitated.

“I’m worried about Sasha too, but shouldn’t we leave this to someone else? We don’t even know what illness she has—what if it’s contagious?”

“Is that so?”

Ulrich let out a short chuckle, tilting his head toward the approaching NSS agents.

“All the more reason for me to take care of her myself. After all, I am the Director of National Security.”

“But still…”

Lyudmila opened her mouth to argue further, but Ulrich had already turned his back on her.

* * *

The NSS did have a women’s clinic, but it mainly dealt with female political prisoners. Leaving Sasha in such a place could easily lead to an incident, which would be troublesome.

For that reason, Ulrich did not take her to a hospital or even the Party officials’ residential quarters where he lived.

Instead, he brought her to his townhouse on the outskirts of Santeburg.

After arriving, he called in a longtime personal physician to tend to Sasha before returning to NSS headquarters.

There, he was greeted by two guards wearing grim expressions.

Both men, looking visibly nervous, bowed their heads.

“We apologize, Comrade Director. We should have arranged for her to wait inside, but… the former Director always made her wait outside, so we assumed—”

“I see.”

Ulrich plucked the cigarette tucked into the guard’s front pocket and placed it between his lips. Then, in a gentle tone, he said:

“Be more careful next time.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

The guards, who had been bracing for a severe reprimand, visibly relaxed. The new Director really was different.

As Ulrich passed them and walked toward his office, he swallowed a bitter smirk.

Three years away, and nothing had changed.

The so-called revolution had made no difference. The same closed doors. The same secretive filth. They were still playing the same miserable games.

“Comrade Director, the documents you requested.”

“Thank you.”

Seating himself on the leather couch of his spacious office, Ulrich flipped through the files his aide had handed over.

Aleksandra ‘Sasha’ Pavlovna Fedotova. Age: 21.

Thick red lines were drawn through Fedotova, marking her as an erased name. Beside it, a small black-and-white photograph was attached.

The girl in the picture, and the woman now lying unconscious in his residence, bore almost no resemblance to the young imperial princess who had once come to meet him three years ago.

The world still remembered her—the doll-like princess with those haunting, mystical eyes.

But that girl was long gone.

All that remained was a woman who looked as worn and lifeless as an old crone.

And yet, against all odds—she had survived.

Ulrich set the file down and lit his cigarette.

As he inhaled deeply and exhaled, the smoke swirled in shades of ashen gray and violet, dissolving like mist in the air.

It reminded him of her eyes.

Staring at the drifting smoke, Ulrich found himself remembering that evening three years ago.

The summer night that had decided everyone’s fate.

At the time, the Velus Empire was reeling from the aftermath of the world war and various internal conflicts, teetering on the edge of collapse. The parliament and military had fractured into opposing factions, and an explosion was imminent.

And yet, on that very day, dressed in a fresh, mint-green dress, the imperial princess who had come to meet him had been completely oblivious to it all.

A foolish, naive girl.

‘You know, Ulrich, I’ve been thinking about something…’

How ridiculous she had seemed, prattling on with those gleaming lilac eyes.

And yet, how fascinating.

Up until that point, Princess Aleksandra had been no different from anyone else in Ulrich’s eyes.

Just another ant crawling along the dirt.

To Ulrich, all people were like ants.

They interpreted him in their own ways—some revered him, some feared him—but he had never once felt anything more than detached amusement as he watched them scurry about.

That applied not just to people, but to everything else as well.

The things most humans were naturally drawn to—

Love, wealth, ideology, the so-called great movements that swept the world—

To him, they were nothing more than crumbs disrupting the neat lines of an anthill.

The only thing that had ever intrigued Ulrich was chaos.

And yet, no war, no disaster had ever managed to fill the emptiness inside him.

But on that fateful summer day, the foolish imperial princess—the one he had assumed was just another insignificant ant—somehow managed to capture his interest.

It wasn’t because of her words about the imperial conspiracy, the ones that had provided justification for the coup.

In truth, even Ulrich himself couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was that had drawn him in.

And that, too, was fascinating.

What he did know was this: everything that had led her to that moment, everything that made up her, had felt far more chaotic than the crumbling empire of Velus.

For the first time in his life, he had felt something powerful.

Interest.

And following that interest came curiosity.

If she was truly someone of value, then how had he overlooked her until that day?

Was he really drawn to her? Or was it merely the surrounding circumstances that piqued his curiosity? And how long would this interest last?

To find out, he had torn apart everything around her.

And when it was over, the same emptiness settled back into place.

Perhaps I should have let her die back then.

Even when his fascination faded, he had chosen to keep Sasha alive.

Because he wasn’t quite ready to sever the possibility completely.

That intense feeling he had tasted for the first time in his life—

Perhaps, one day, he could experience it again.

And so, with that lingering anticipation, Ulrich had volunteered for the suppression campaigns in the anti-Velus border regions.

TL/N: That’s it guys! Gonna release 5 more chapters on 15th Feb so stay tuned if you don’t read the paid ones

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