You are at the End of the Downfall

The doctors in the palace were not enough, and renowned doctors affiliated with the institution began to be called to the palace. But even now, three days after the Empress collapsed, everyone was anxious because they couldn’t find a sharp cause.

“It’s very disappointing.”

Although the tone was well packaged, the emperor was extremely annoyed, drained the blood of the palace employees, including the doctors, and made the palace tremble with anxiety.

The palace, which was already suffocating enough due to many suspicions and obsessions, became an ice rink when the empress, the emperor’s only love, collapsed.

“How come it is unknown why the person collapsed! There must be a clear reason, whether she ate something wrong or something went wrong!”

The maids who served the Empress were taken away one after another inexplicably. However, the Empress did not collapse in front of the maids, but was found alone unconscious in the deep inside of the Solei Palace where the Emperor stayed.

That place was a private area where the emperor wandered, and no one knew how the empress got there.

Thorough protection, in other words, the empress, who was under thorough surveillance, had enough corners to cause the emperor to rage just by slipping out of the emperor’s grasp for a moment.

The emperor, who had been running around with his eyes red for three days, quietly found a new person standing in the doorway.

“Hyperion?”

“May the eternal sun of the empire see you. May you enjoy longevity.”

The emperor, who had been making a fuss without eating or sleeping properly for three days, was fifty years old, so he looked tired. But he looked younger than his age, and was more robust than other young people.

“You must have been worried about your mother too.”

If he had appeared earlier, he would have scolded him for what the hell he was doing, and if he had appeared later, he would have run around saying that this young man didn’t even worry about the mother who gave birth to him. The emperor’s whims were really hard to please.

The Grand Duke of Lusenford, Peon, glanced at the curtained bed for a moment and then approached the emperor.

“Your Majesty, it’s been three days. You need to eat and rest.”

Just one glance. That gaze was full of regret, but Peon’s allowed concern for his mother was just one glance.

If it’s more than that, the emperor will rage for some excuse. It was his hobby to scold and abuse Peon whenever there was a gap.

“You heartless guy, how can you say to eat when your mother has collapsed like that!”

“Your Majesty is the sun that rules the entire Crania Empire. All the people of the empire know your love and care for Her Majesty the Empress, but caring and taking care of her is impossible without health and strength. Many royal families are already worried.”

Peon, who tightened his leash and oppressed and tormented his hateful enemy, spoke out without blinking an eye that he was worried.

“You need to eat and close your eyes for a while.”

At his blunt words, the emperor reluctantly got up from his seat. As soon as he got up, because he hadn’t been eating anything and simply got angry, the emperor staggered and was immediately supported by Peon.

“Are you okay?”

“Ah, I’m okay, I’m okay.…you were in Altein Palace.”

The emperor’s eyes are all over the palace. No, not just the palace, but the entire empire.

All the ins and outs of everyone, including Peon, are in the palm of the emperor. The emperor enjoyed the reactions of those who knew this fact and were afraid of it.

“Yes. I was with Duke Ostein and the princess.”

It was okay to omit the words that they’re on standby because of the condition of the Empress. It might give the emperor a negative impression since it implies trying to take credit for oneself.

“Oh, yes. Kaela brought the news of the Empress.…Why did she enter the palace?”

The emperor remembered, questioned, and doubted even the very trivial parts, although he had silenced the servant who brought the news of the Empress.

“Duke Ostein forgot to take his medicine.”

So Peon had already perfectly matched his words up to this point.

“Already forgetting such a thing, what to do. That guy is also getting old.”

The emperor looked back at the bed where the empress was lying once more. His gaze was full of one-sided obsession that he alone believed to be affection. Peon hid his disgust under his expressionless face.

“Did only you come?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t the other guys look in?”

A meaningless statement but with underlying tone. The emperor, who used the excuse that the empress had only given birth to Peon, touched this woman and that woman, resulting in having quite a few illegitimate children.

But people murmured in places where they couldn’t be seen, as if the emperor ‘lacked the ability to see a healthy successor.’

Most of the children born died without passing infancy, and among the surviving illegitimate children, no one surpassed Peon.

So every time the emperor saw Peon, he raged more. Peon was evidence that the emperor’s reproductive ability was the problem, not the empress.

“Only three people in Altein Palace?”

“Yes.”

“Useless things.”

The sound spat out bluntly was poisonous and sharp.

Everyone should have been more careful because the empress was sick.

This single event could have brought about a significant change in the uncertain situation of who would become the successor. Of course, it was none of Peon’s business. He was merely the illegitimate child of the Empress, with no blood relations with the royal family.

Spending time with the Emperor was dreadful. After his regression, his senses became different, more sensitive and sharp, making it even worse.

Still, Peon, who had become free from all taboos, had developed a way to endure and bear it. He made a ruthless assessment of himself.

‘No shame, thick-skinned.’

You were born low and dirty, so strive to be polite, loyal, and grow up right. It was a phrase he had heard to the point of being sick of it.

The phrase was correct. He was a brazen and shameless person. He was happy that a woman he had starved to death with his own hands was alive, and he took comfort in it. He was even happy to exchange a few words.

Rather. Rather, what would have been different if he had acknowledged this lowly and vulgar desire when he was married to her? He was brainwashed to thoroughly avoid eye contact, and he didn’t even exchange words with her, just like a person with mysophobia.

Since the Grand Duke did not treat the Grand Duchess as a Grand Duchess, others also treated her that way, so she couldn’t even get proper food.

If he were to meet her gaze, start a conversation while looking at her blue eyes, and hear her soft voice, then eventually the brainwashing would…

“But who was driven out of the Altein Palace?”

The Emperor, who had barely started to eat properly after a few days, asked. He was asking even though he knew everything.

“If it’s Beatrice Ravalley, she’s your childhood friend and a child the Empress adored.”

Peon cherished his acquaintances very much, as there were not many people around him. He especially cherished his mother in Crain and Beatrice, who grew up close to him since childhood.

So those he cherished were good chess pieces for the Emperor. If they were taken hostage and shaken at Peon, Peon had to endure even if he wanted to rebel. The Emperor tamed Peon in this way.

And without Peon knowing, he even used Beatrice to impose a taboo on him. The Emperor, who always knew about Peon’s relationships, was watching him suspiciously.

For the Emperor, Peon must have a great attachment to Beatrice and the Empress. Only then was it easy to handle Peon.

“…Isn’t the Altein Palace a place only for the royal family?”

Of course, Peon was nominally included in the royal family. He was the son of the Empress, whom the Emperor loved so much.

“It’s against etiquette and order.”

“Don’t you disregard etiquette and order?”

So the Emperor, who used to point fingers at him as a shameless guy, didn’t let it go this time either. He did disregard it. It was an etiquette that he kept as if measured with a ruler, perfectly straight, and even to the angle, like a person with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

‘No, if you wanted to keep it, you should have kept your vow to your married wife.’

He thought that enduring by saying that his love was only for Beatrice was the greatest rebellion against the Emperor, but looking back now, it was a futile and pathetic brainwashing.

No matter how much he was bewitched, it was shameful that he himself had done so.

“If you’ve learned, you have to try.”

“Ah.”

The Emperor, who would not have listened to his words in the past, anxiously shook his head as the Empress fell into a coma. Peon, like a son, watched over the Emperor’s meals and even him lying in bed, and then quietly withdrew.

In this slum, his mother was rather free, and the Duke of Ostein survived. And Beatrice Ravalley is none of his business.

Peon’s leash was completely released.