Chapter 5
Meanwhile in the empress palace.
Artius poured a glass full of liquor, reminiscing about the traces Philemia left behind.
Countless empty bottles already littered the floor.
But Artius couldn’t get drunk at all.
A sword master wasn’t the kind of being that could easily get drunk on this sort of alcohol in the first place.
Resenting his body that couldn’t get intoxicated even though he wanted to, Artius placed his hand on Philemia’s portrait with clouded eyes.
The memories of the days he spent with her were still vivid.
Despite her poor health, Philemia always came out to the garden whenever she had a chance.
And her back looked so precarious as if she would disappear at any moment.
“Philia.”
So whenever he anxiously called her nickname, Philemia would turn around, fluttering her lush mint-colored hair, and smile with crescent eyes.
When she gazed only at him with her fresh chartreuse eyes and called his name in return with her lovely voice, he would feel assured that at least Philemia wouldn’t leave him and soon feel relieved.
It was always like that.
It should be like that now too.
The answer that should have come didn’t come.
Artius slowly placed his hand on the portrait.
It was cold.
Even a portrait that seemed like it would come alive at any moment was ultimately not a person.
Artius hadn’t been able to accept this obvious fact for half a year already.
“Philia, I miss you.”
He missed her unbearably.
He could meet her in his dreams.
So sometimes he deliberately went to sleep.
Sometimes he couldn’t wake up from sleep for over a day.
Artius crumbled in front of the portrait.
The auditory hallucination that always lingered in his ears whenever he thought of her came without fail today as well.
“Artius. I want to have a child. Definitely this time.”
“What are you afraid of, Artius? Don’t run away.”
“Artius. We can create a good family. We can do it if it’s with this child.”
Artius responded to each hallucination.
“Philia, I’m scared. I never wanted a child. You alone were enough for me, so why do you keep…!”
“I’m afraid of losing you. I don’t want to lose you. Even if I lose you and gain a child, what use would that be?”
“No, it’s already over. How can this family… be complete without you…?”
From a distance, Artius was like a madman.
Artius powerlessly removed his hand from the portrait and clenched his fist, muttering in a hoarse voice.
“If only Heilan… hadn’t started the war, I could have been by your side…”
At the very least, he could have been by Philemia’s deathbed.
Even if he couldn’t prevent her from passing away due to childbirth, he could have stayed with her until the end and heard her last words.
Not the will of the war demon princess, but the will of his beloved wife.
However, Artius couldn’t blame Cheron.
To blame her, Cheron had already given Artius what she cherished most.
Her life, the things she wanted to protect.
She had willingly given all of those to Artius.
Artius remembered the moment he stabbed the war demon.
“For the child soon to be born, please be a good father.”
Her will still hadn’t left his mind.
In a way, it was a presumptuous will, but Artius was touched by her will differently.
What a foolish war demon she was to not know how to think of herself until the very end.
It was ridiculous to the point of finding it amusing that everyone had feared her as the war demon.
No, they weren’t the only ridiculous ones.
He himself, who couldn’t overcome his own agony and couldn’t even keep that simple one-sentence will, was the most pathetic.
“I don’t know why I’m so incompetent, Philia. I know I’m lacking too, but…”
He simultaneously lost the wife he loved most in the world and the worthy foe he felt sorry for until the end.
If possible, he wanted to die.
‘…Right, why didn’t I think of that method?’
If he died, he could escape from the pain.
He could go to Philemia’s side.
It would be betraying Cheron’s will, but it was still okay.
Artius took out an old dagger with a purple gem embedded in it from his chest.
It was the dagger Cheron hadn’t let go of even as she died.
After the war ended, Artius had taken her dagger as a trophy and keepsake.
‘Let’s consider it as taking each other’s lives with this.’
Artius unsheathed the dagger and pointed the sharp blade at his neck.
At that moment.
Bang bang bang!
Someone knocked on the door with the force to break it down.
“Your Majesty, it’s an emergency!”
Artius, whose suicide was interrupted, looked behind him.
Thinking it must have been sent by Aaron anyway, Artius tried to finish what he was doing.
“It’s an attack by Heilan soldiers! Right now, an archer has escaped to the princess palace!”
“…!”
Clang!
At those words, Artius dropped the dagger from his hand.
Who had escaped to where?
His mind couldn’t keep up with the situation.
Moreover, an attack by Heilan soldiers.
It made no sense.
As Artius was thinking there was no way they could have entered in the first place, he quickly found the answer.
‘…The envoy.’
The Heilan envoy that had just arrived today.
Although they all had the appearance of civil officials, it made sense if they were actually soldiers.
Come to think of it, that man had been smiling at him while presenting tributes.
‘Felix Heilan…!’
He had been complacent.
Artius drew the long sword decorating the wall and flung open the tightly shut door.
“Quickly guide me.”
* * *
“Ro-Roland Sir!”
Someone died before her eyes.
Sarah’s face turned pale.
The knight toppled forward with an arrow stuck in his neck.
“Ah, aah…!”
Sarah, who was seeing a person’s neck being pierced right before her eyes for the first time since birth, showed a considerably flustered reaction.
Elonia was also unable to hide her surprise.
It wasn’t because she was suddenly shocked by the corpse.
The fact that a knight of the imperial palace was suddenly shot with an arrow meant.
“Oh no.”
Sarah seemed to have discovered something and looked at the end of the corridor with a fear-filled face.
“He-Heilan soldier…!”
There stood an archer wearing a black mask.
Even though his face was covered with a mask, he shouted so joyfully that it felt like he was smiling.
“Khaha! A direct hit. They said it’s an arrow that can pierce even armor, it’s really amazing. Seeing this, Ravanta’s knights aren’t much either, huh?”
The archer gradually approached Sarah.
Sarah barely managed to take a few steps back with her unmoving legs and ended up stumbling and falling backward.
Even in the midst of that, she curled up her body and held the cloth wrapping Elonia tighter to her chest, trying to protect her.
Elonia gritted her teeth inwardly.
‘Damn it, when did they get this deep?’
The princess palace is located in the deepest part of the imperial palace.
This was the innermost area of the princess palace, where security was the strictest.
‘But how did they get here?’
It was questionable, but what was important right now wasn’t how the Heilan soldiers had entered.
‘…Is this how I die so absurdly?’
Sarah isn’t a trained warrior.
A powerless woman and a baby can’t win against even an archer who is weak in close combat.
‘Stupid bastards. You should have brought at least two or three more people.’
Just what is in their heads instead of a brain to think of coming alone?
While Elonia was cursing the knights, the archer kept getting closer.
“Oho… Could it be that inside that cloth is Ravanta’s princess?”
“St-stay away! You insolent fool! How dare you to Her Highness the Princess of the Ravanta Empire!”
“Insolent? Khuhu, no! Which side was insolent will be known by tomorrow.”
Sarah shouted in a deep voice.
The soft voice she usually let Elonia hear was nowhere to be found.
If it were the usual Sarah, she could have made the other person kneel just with the dignity in that voice, but this time it was different.
A woman who was sitting on the floor holding a child and had her legs give out after seeing a corpse wasn’t a threat to a soldier holding a weapon no matter how much she shouted.
The archer began to laugh like a madman as if it was absurd.
“Finally, finally this time has come! By tomorrow morning, Ravanta will be a defeated nation, and then our great Heilan Empire will become the true victor of the continent! We’ll accomplish what that stupidly dead Princess Cheron couldn’t!”
The archer laughed hideously, blinded by the thought of gaining merit.
Then, as if he would bestow mercy, he arrogantly raised his chin.
“Of course, I’ll spare that princess’s life. She’ll be the proof of our Heilan’s victory! When that wench grows up, she can at least become a concubine to our Emperor Vermon, who will be the master of the great empire. Rejoice.”
“A defeated nation like you dares to! Do you think Ravanta will be that easy!”
‘Sarah, please stay still!’
Sarah, angered by the insult towards Elonia, shouted, forgetting even her fear.
But she shouldn’t have done that.
It seemed Sarah’s attitude offended the archer, as his eyebrows twitched.
Heilan men universally look down on women.
But having a woman like Sarah yell at him and disparage Heilan, their pride, must have upset him considerably.
“Ha. To think you dare to raise your voice at me. I was originally planning to kill those who resist, but I was going to spare you because of your pretty face. My, my, you’re shortening your own lifeline.”
As expected, the archer didn’t hide his anger.
The archer took out a dagger from his chest.
Judging by his grim expression, it didn’t seem like he would kill her painlessly.
Elonia became desperate.
‘No!’
Sarah was in danger.
Sarah froze upon seeing the blade tip shining in the moonlight.
“Ah, aah…”
Step, step.
Sarah tried to run away with a deathly pale face, but her legs wouldn’t listen.
Sitting on the floor and crawling backward was her limit, and the archer was already right in front of her.
‘What do I do? What can I do right now?’
Elonia desperately racked her brain to survive.
But even for Elonia, who had made a name for herself as the great sword mage Cheron, all she could use now was very insignificant magic.
Even that could endanger her life if she invoked it with a baby’s body.
Nevertheless.
‘I can’t just let Sarah die like this.’
The archer had no intention of killing Elonia anyway.
She didn’t have to worry about herself, which was the only consolation in this situation.
‘Fortunately, my mana isn’t completely lacking. If I do it well, I can take him out.’
If there had been two or more enemies, it would have been difficult, but luckily it was just that one guy.
‘If I kill that bastard and immediately enter the secret room right in front of us, I just need to hold out until news of the annihilation of the Heilan army arrives!’
The actual number of Heilan soldiers who crossed the border under the guise of diplomacy isn’t large.
Moreover, Artius is a sword master.
Ravanta’s soldiers may be stupid, but they’re never weak.
Although there was chaos because it was a surprise attack in the quiet dawn, it wouldn’t take long to subdue them.
Elonia, who had directly crossed swords with Artius, could be certain of that.
“If you repent for your sins even now, I can show mercy and send you off painlessly. If the way you repent pleases me, I can even take you as a concubine.”
“You arrogant and vulgar thing…!”
Sarah was furious but also relieved by the archer’s remark that he wouldn’t kill Elonia.
Even if she died here, even if she showed an unsightly appearance to her beloved Elonia, at least Elonia would survive.
And she believed.
The emperor would somehow save the child he had exchanged his life for.
The archer asked Sarah with a disgusting smile.
“Well, do you feel like apologizing?”
“I am the head maid of the princess appointed directly by the late empress. I have no head to bow to the likes of you who dared to insult Her Highness!”
Sarah is a person with a strong sense of pride as a Ravanta noble.
If she, the princess’s head maid, bowed her head here, she wouldn’t be able to save Elonia’s honor either.
But that answer was enough to offend the archer.
“Is that so? Then, I’ll personally cut off that head of yours!”
The archer raised his sword.
Sarah curled up her body so that not a single hair of Elonia’s would be visible.
And she whispered in Elonia’s ear.
“Princess, please forgive this incompetent head maid and survive until the end. His Majesty will come to save you soon…!”
Elonia didn’t take Sarah’s last words to heart.
Because this wouldn’t become her last words anyway.
Elonia kept her eyes on the archer’s head until the end.
The magic had already been completed while Sarah bought time.
The archer swung down his sword without hiding his twisted sense of superiority from trampling on the weak and shouted.
“Die!”
‘You die!’
Splat.
The sound of flesh being pierced echoed in the quiet corridor.