Chapter 4
Elonia swallowed a silent scream.
“Wow… Even if he’s our emperor, how can a person change so much like this? How could he kill a noble young lady?”
“They say that young lady insulted the late empress.”
“Ah, then… I guess there was good reason for that.”
“Still, it’s true that he’s changed. I heard in the recent war, he swept away the defeated soldiers without leaving a single one?”
Ah, Artius.
The wise ruler that Ravanta would never see again.
Yet back when he crossed swords with Cheron, he wouldn’t point his blade at non-combatants and showed mercy to those who surrendered. How did he become like this?
‘Artius has completely turned to trash…’
Elonia quickly lost hope and cut ties.
Swift abandonment is an essential attitude for a future-oriented person.
It reduces the time spent wailing and collapsing while clinging to what’s already over.
Elonia felt the need to revise her plan.
Artius was no longer the Artius she knew.
As always, she thought this wasn’t a life she spared so he could live like that.
‘If only I could punch him in the head right now.’
In the Cheron days, the number of times she hit Artius exceeded the number of times she was hit by him, but it was impossible now.
How could she even lay a hand on him with this baby’s body?
Several more days passed after that.
The number of women who snuck into the emperor’s bedchamber and got beheaded reached three, and one family was even exterminated for lese-majesty.
As a result, no one dared to sneak into the emperor’s bedchamber anymore.
‘It’s ruined.’
Elonia despaired.
Is this how her first plan fails?
‘No. Don’t lose hope, Cheron.’
Right. It’s understandable to feel unpleasant if an unwanted woman sneaks in.
Moreover, a woman carrying the dirty nobles’ errands, and someone who curses the late wife he still can’t forget.
‘…But is that enough reason to kill a person? Just what kind of insult did she say?’
She briefly doubted Artius’s morality, but in terms of the number of people killed, Elonia’s past self overwhelmingly surpassed Artius, so she quickly discarded her hypocrisy.
In the first place, the matters of Artius’s bed were none of Elonia’s business.
‘I don’t even want to know. Yuck.’
Elonia searched for other methods as the days went by, but it was all in vain.
According to the gossip the maids occasionally brought, it seemed Artius really planned to live alone until he died.
‘But he cherished his child so much before it was born. If the child says she misses her mother, wouldn’t he listen a little…?’
Since the only role Artius expected from Elonia was that of a successor, should she throw a tantrum saying she won’t be emperor without a mother?
No, Elonia’s pride wouldn’t allow that.
‘I’ll have to go about it gently… What to do.’
In a way, Elonia was in a similar situation to Artius’s lonely childhood.
If she made good use of this point, wouldn’t he feel sympathy?
‘No, wait. But that bastard won’t even acknowledge my existence unless the report is about whether I’m alive or dead, right?’
In the end, this plan was quickly blocked too.
He needs to at least see her face for her to act pitiful or do anything.
‘Hah… It’s one obstacle after another.’
Still, it’s not completely impossible.
Right now she can’t walk, so she’s trapped in the cradle, but once she starts toddling, it might get a bit easier.
‘Should I recklessly seek out Artius and try to get close to him?’
Surely he wouldn’t behead her for recklessly seeking him out when she’s the only heir.
‘…Or would he? A man who didn’t even hug his daughter the first time he saw her, would he suddenly feel sympathy?’
In the past, there would have been no need to risk her life against Artius, but the situation is different now.
Cheron, the object of terror across the continent, had become the fragile baby princess Elonia.
Thanks to the title of being the only heir to the throne, the safety of her life seemed guaranteed, but you never know what the future holds.
Anyway, even if she safely sought out Artius, what came after that was the real challenge.
‘…I don’t know how to approach a father.’
The only conversations she had with her father in her past life were one-sided deployment orders and reports of victory.
Elonia thought of the young Heilan siblings.
The children who, unlike her, were full of cuteness and lovability and received much love from the king.
‘…I don’t think I can imitate them…’
The more she thought of those cute and lovable ones, the more a sense of self-deprecation washed over her.
Elonia, whose mental age was now approaching twenty, writhed and suffered, then suddenly yawned.
“Ugh. Huaaahm.”
“Hehe. Are you sleepy, Princess?”
“Uwung.”
Darn this body.
A baby gets tired too easily from just using its head a little.
Sarah, who was rocking the cradle beside her, smiled warmly and took out a storybook.
“Sarah will read you a book so you can sleep soundly, Princess.”
‘Ugh.’
The cover looked unpleasant for some reason, and that unpleasant impression was spot on.
Sarah read a fairy tale featuring Artius as the protagonist in a lovely voice.
A fairy tale with a protagonist modeled after Artius inevitably included Princess Cheron as well.
“The princess who reigned over the scary villains now began to turn her eyes to the empire. …But the brave emperor splendidly vanquished the villain.”
‘As expected…’
She didn’t expect it to be written favorably.
But there was one point that felt a bit unfair.
‘Reigned? As if, I was a dog.’
If Cheron had really reigned in Heilan, she wouldn’t have died leaving behind such a will there.
Well, whatever the circumstances, it was true that she was the villain.
In a way, maybe she should be grateful that after taking so many lives, she was vaguely sanitized as a villain for a children’s fairy tale.
Still, it left a bitter taste in her mouth.
‘…No. I don’t regret anything.’
She doesn’t regret living the way she did.
Elonia also wanted to live.
She had things she wanted to protect.
To live, to protect, she was drenched in blood.
Everyone lives like that.
Everyone grits their teeth thinking they’ll pay back equally, no, more than equally if they get hit once, and kills other people without a second thought for their own greed.
Having her thoughts reach that point, Elonia realized something.
‘…Am I also of Vermon’s bloodline after all, to think in this way.’
In her past life, she had considerably deviated from the category of self-defense.
What she committed as Cheron was not self-defense but massacre.
Elonia suddenly grew curious.
‘…Does Sarah also think it’s good that Cheron died?’
The first one Elonia grew attached to after becoming Elonia was none other than Sarah.
The first wet nurse she ever had.
Sarah, who showed her a mother’s embrace that not even her mother in her past life had.
If even Sarah, who looks at her with those eyes full of love as if Elonia is the most precious child in the world, hates Cheron…
‘I really don’t want that.’
She has no intention of revealing that she was Cheron, but she must keep it hidden from Sarah until the end.
Before she knew it, the fairy tale was nearing its end.
“And so the emperor who defeated the villain returned home and lived happily ever after with his family.”
It was a fairy tale she disliked from beginning to end.
Nevertheless, Elonia finally fell asleep in a half-asleep state after reluctantly listening to the end of the fairy tale.
* * *
How much time had passed since then?
Elonia woke up in the middle of the night.
As always, Sarah was sitting near the cradle, guarding Elonia’s side.
But for some reason, her figure looked anxious today, so Elonia called out to her with half-open eyes.
“Saha.”
“Ah…! Pr-Princess. You’re awake?”
Sarah quickly got up and patted Elonia’s belly.
But Elonia couldn’t fall back asleep.
It seemed noisy outside.
Elonia pointed her finger outside and whined.
“Sa-ah.”
“I’m sorry, Princess. It’s a bit chaotic outside right now.”
“Uwung?”
Why?
The princess palace is located in the safest and deepest part of the imperial palace.
It was a space cut off from the so-called outside world.
Moreover, no one would dare to make a commotion inside the princess palace.
Normally, Sarah would have already put a stop to it, but for some reason, she was just fidgeting here.
“I’ll sing you a lullaby. Now, our good princess. Shall we go back to sleep?”
Sarah’s blue eyes wavered with anxiety.
Elonia nodded slightly, though not convinced.
Sarah carefully covered Elonia with the blanket again and began to sing a lullaby while rocking the cradle.
“It’s time for the stars to visit. The stars are friends of babies. They wave to you, longing for you. Come quickly, come quickly.”
Sarah’s voice was always so beautiful to hear.
Concentrating on that voice, the commotion outside seemed to become insignificant.
Elonia was about to fall asleep again at that moment.
The door opened roughly.
“Miss Fortrun! Forgive my rudeness. A Heilan soldier has infiltrated the princess palace!”
It was a knight in armor who opened the door and entered.
Elonia doubted her own ears.
‘What? Where did a Heilan soldier enter?’
Elonia couldn’t follow the situation.
On the other hand, Sarah reacted as if the worst-case scenario she had anticipated had finally occurred.
“Ah, in the end…!”
“Now, Miss Fortrun. Please take the princess and follow me this way!”
“Understood.”
Sarah quickly wrapped Elonia in a cloth and followed the knight out of the room.
Even while running through the empty corridor, Elonia still couldn’t understand the current situation.
Sarah asked hurriedly while running as the knight guided her.
“What’s the situation now?”
“As it’s Heilan’s desperate struggle, they seem to have no regard for anything. They’re not holding back on any means or methods, having snuck in disguised as an envoy.”
“What about His Majesty?”
“Unfortunately, he left the main palace briefly. We tried to contact him through the crystal ball, but he’s not receiving it. He seems to be in the empress palace. We sent the fastest cavalry, so he’ll hear the news soon.”
Elonia was shocked.
She thought it couldn’t be, but.
‘It seems Heilan couldn’t let go of their greed and invaded Ravanta again.’
Even going so far as to disguise themselves as an envoy.
From the few lines of conversation they exchanged, Elonia roughly grasped the situation.
Still, she couldn’t understand.
It was no exaggeration to say that 50% of the Heilan kingdom’s military power originated from her past self, Cheron Heilan.
In fact, Heilan started the war solely believing in Cheron.
That’s why, just by the death of Cheron, who wasn’t even the king but merely a princess, Heilan, the main culprit of the continental war, tucked its tail.
Originally, after Cheron’s death, the king of Heilan should have been absorbed into the Ravanta Empire, but it ended with a treaty pledging allegiance as a vassal state.
Cheron was dead, and Artius wouldn’t wage war anymore, so she thought everything was over, but today this situation finally erupted.
‘Just what is Heilan thinking?’
Heilan had always been excessively greedy.
But to think that more than half a year after losing over half their military power along with Cheron and being defeated.
They would dare to backstab Ravanta, who was like the loser of the continent – no one, not even Elonia, had imagined it.
No matter how much they were her past kin, Elonia sincerely wondered if King Vermon wore his brain as a decoration.
‘They infuriate me the same way even after I died.’
Without even knowing what sacrifice she made to stop the war, they dare to do this again.
They were fellows who weren’t of any help even after she died.
As the piercing sensation tugging at the back of her neck made Elonia almost whimper without realizing it, Sarah pleaded in a fluster.
“Princess, our good princess. The bad villains might harm you. You have to hold back your crying for a while, can you do that?”
Her face was so desperate that Elonia quietly nodded.
Sarah held Elonia tightly in her arms and ran through the corridor.
How long did they run?
The knight stopped and moved a decorative item on the wall, pressing a specific spot.
Then a hidden secret passage appeared.
“Now, Miss Fortrun. Quickly hide here—”
But the knight couldn’t finish his sentence.
An arrow had flown in and pierced his neck.
RIP