Chapter 7
Elonia, the imperial princess who wouldn’t shed a single tear even if someone died right before her eyes, suddenly fainted as soon as Artius touched her.
Artius was accustomed to seeing someone’s corpse.
Naturally, there was no way he couldn’t recognize a fading life.
‘No.’
Before he could even ask himself what, he heard Elonia’s rough breathing.
Only then could Artius regain his composure.
When he came to his senses, Sarah arrogantly stepped back from him as if to protect Elonia, hiding the baby in her arms.
“Your Majesty, what happened to Her Highness…!”
“…You’re overstepping your bounds, Lady Fortrun. I did nothing.”
“But Her Highness…!”
Artius frowned.
At this moment, there was something more important left than getting angry at this naive nanny’s attitude.
“Send the princess back to her room and hurry to call the palace physician. There are no more intruders in the Imperial Princess Palace.”
“But Your Majesty!”
Thwack!
In an instant, a knight’s head flew off.
Sarah hurriedly covered her mouth at the blood splatters on her face and the head rolling at her feet.
“…Uh, ugh.”
“It’s because of your negligence that a rat dared to enter the Imperial Princess Palace. The only heir to this empire nearly died because you failed to fulfill your duties, and you thought to live?”
“Your, Your Majesty! Please, have mercy…!”
Artius spoke to the knights ruthlessly.
The surviving knight hurriedly begged for forgiveness, but to no avail.
“The palace has no need for trash. But I won’t kill you right away. Take that corpse and follow me to the main palace. That’s where you’ll die.”
“Yes, yes… Your, Your… Your Majesty.”
The knight, with a pale complexion and stuttering, carried the corpses of his comrade and the Heilan soldier on his back.
Artius turned his gaze to Elonia, who was breathing with difficulty in Sarah’s arms, her complexion pale.
“……”
He felt strange.
His mind was in turmoil as if all sorts of paints were messily mixed together.
Without even knowing what he was thinking, Artius moved his steps to the main palace.
* * *
In the largest hall of the imperial palace, Artius prepared to greet his guest by piling up a mountain of Heilan soldiers’ corpses.
Soon after, Prince Felix was forcibly escorted and made to kneel next to the mountain of corpses.
“Urk…! What is the meaning of this-”
“Do you acknowledge your crime, Prince Felix Heilan?”
Artius asked arrogantly as he sat on the throne.
Felix had no idea that the Heilan army had already been subdued.
He looked flabbergasted and hurriedly denied his guilt.
“It’s, it’s a misunderstanding, Your Majesty! All of it, these men ignored my will and arbitrarily-!”
“Then that means you knew but didn’t dare inform me.”
“That’s!”
Artius set fire to the corpses of the Heilan soldiers as if he would hear no more.
As the pile of corpses began to burn fiercely before his eyes, only then did Prince Felix bow his head to the ground.
“Your Majesty! I have committed a capital offense. Please show mercy just this once…!”
“Guards, lock Prince Felix in the underground dungeon.”
“Your Majesty, Your Majesty!”
Prince Felix was led away empty-handed by the knights.
His screams didn’t reach Artius’s ears at all.
‘…Should I completely wipe out Heilan this time?’
Heilan was currently a vassal state of Ravanta.
Unlike 10 years ago when it was a small kingdom, Heilan now boasted a territory as vast as the Ravanta Empire.
However, no matter how large the land, it was the result of greedily swallowing up nearby small kingdoms indiscriminately.
In other words, a ragtag bunch that couldn’t even unite among themselves.
If swallowed recklessly, it seemed like they would bring trouble, and he had left them as a vassal state and tolerated them out of consideration for Cheron’s face. But this time, they had crossed the line.
It was annoying that they had the audacity to deceive him by pretending to be an envoy and launching a surprise attack on Ravanta when he had squeezed out patience he didn’t even have.
Artius commanded the chief of staff and the captain of the imperial knights standing beside him.
“Send messengers along with mages to the king of Heilan. Summon him to Ravanta right now. Do not allow the accompaniment of troops or vassals. Tell him to come alone as we will escort him.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“As soon as he arrives, lock him up in a different cell from where Felix Heilan is.”
“As you command.”
Next, he dismissed all the useless knights of the Imperial Princess Palace who did nothing until the princess nearly died, and dispatched a few trustworthy knights from the main palace to the Imperial Princess Palace, so the matter was tentatively settled.
But he still couldn’t sleep yet.
His head throbbed, but there was still work left to do.
Instead of immediately returning to his bedchamber, Artius headed to his office.
In the still dim office with the lights off, he slid down to the floor before even sitting at his desk.
Artius buried his face in his large hands.
His pupils trembled finely.
‘Cheron Heilan might be alive.’
Artius recalled the corpse with the pierced head.
That trace of magic.
He couldn’t forget it.
It was undoubtedly Cheron Heilan’s.
Just then, Artius’s longest-serving chief of staff, Aaron Archer, returned.
He flinched at the sight of Artius sprawled on the floor but soon calmly stated his business.
“Your Majesty, you left this in the empress’s palace.”
What Aaron handed over was the dagger, Cheron Heilan’s legacy that Artius had left behind in the empress’s palace earlier.
Artius stared at the sword with a face as if cold water had been dumped on him.
Aaron forcibly placed the dagger in his hand and went outside.
“Then I shall take my leave.”
Click.
Artius was alone again.
Amusingly, as soon as he saw the dagger, his head cooled down.
“…Right, there’s no way she’s alive.”
This dagger was not only Cheron’s legacy but also Artius’s trophy.
Artius recalled when he brought this trophy.
He thrust his sword into the heart of his enemy and evil friend, and after her breath stopped, he beheaded her.
“Right. Her breath definitely stopped. In the first place, you wished for death yourself, so there’s no way you’re alive.”
Moreover, if Cheron had really been there, she wouldn’t have left Artius alone.
Cheron would have immediately realized that Artius was breaking her last will.
And she would have dared to curse at the emperor of an enemy nation in a manner unbefitting of a princess.
‘You damn bastard,’ she would’ve said.
He still vividly remembered the curse he heard ad nauseam while fighting.
Artius got up from his seat and took out alcohol again.
After emptying about a bottle, he could sort out his thoughts a bit.
His head was clearer than before.
Artius traced his memories again to solve the mystery at the Imperial Princess Palace.
‘But putting other things aside, that trace was definitely Princess Cheron’s.’
He could be certain as he knew Cheron’s magic the best.
Artius recalled the things that were there in detail.
The knight of Ravanta who died with an arrow in his neck, the dead soldier with a pierced head, the trembling Sardiana Fortrun, and the princess quietly hidden in her arms.
‘Come to think of it, the princess fainted. Why?’
Artius himself had panicked at the time, so his body moved before his thoughts.
‘…Right, probably. I think I tried to check her mana.’
Why did he try to check that child’s mana?
He didn’t know.
He didn’t properly check in the end anyway.
All he remembered was the disgusted look that child gave him as soon as he touched her.
He could understand the princess despising him.
‘To that child, I was the enemy.’
But while she could kill a person and play dumb without batting an eye, he couldn’t understand why she feared his touch.
And before he could find an answer to that, Elonia fainted.
‘…Wait, what did I just say?’
Kill a person and play dumb…?
As his thoughts reached that point, Artius was startled and sprang up from his seat.
Right, it all made sense now.
He was flustered to see Cheron’s trace.
And without realizing it, he turned his head to Elonia, but the moment their eyes met, he could tell.
‘That child was the culprit.’
But this trace was undoubtedly Cheron’s.
At that time, even though his mind was complicated, his body was drawn by instinct and approached the owner of that mana.
His hand moved on its own to check Elonia’s mana, but Elonia fainted.
It became clear.
‘She overexerted her body by using magic with that young body and fainted.’
Now it all added up.
Artius belatedly grasped the situation and summoned the palace physician.
“How is the princess’s condition?”
“Her condition is serious. Moreover, although there are no external injuries, she cannot open her eyes-”
Bang!
The physician couldn’t finish his words.
Because Artius slammed his fist on the desk.
His panther-like fierce purple eyes distorted and contained fear.
“The princess used magic. That’s why she overexerted her body.”
“Pardon? But, but how could such a thing… Her Highness hasn’t even turned one year old yet.”
The physician thought this mad emperor had lost his mind and was talking nonsense, but Artius was in his right mind, a rare occurrence.
“That’s not what’s important.”
Artius glared coldly at the physician and said,
“Save her.”
“…As you command.”
The physician retreated, breaking out in a cold sweat.
Now that the cause was identified, Elonia would soon regain consciousness.
Both the issue of who killed the archer and the matter of Elonia’s life and death were resolved.
But Artius still couldn’t escape his doubts.
When Elonia fainted, he wondered if that child had died.
And at that moment, Artius was afraid.
‘…Why now of all times.’
Those around him said he should cherish his only remaining daughter.
But his body and mind wouldn’t cooperate.
But when he thought he needed to check if Elonia was alive or dead, his fingertips trembled as if he had urgently returned to the palace after attacking the Dellan Kingdom.
Artius could immediately answer what that emotion was, but he didn’t want to.
It felt like past memories were constantly dragging him into a swamp.
In fact, he knew.
He understood a hundred times over that he should embrace at least that child who barely survived.
But even if he wanted to love that child, the moment he saw that child, he couldn’t.
Because she resembled too much the person he loved and could never see again.
Artius raised his head and met eyes with a woman.
Lush mint-colored hair, green eyes like sprouts.
The woman in the portrait who resembled Elonia to the point of being mistaken for the grown princess if not for the eye color was Empress Philemia.
“Philia.”
Artius quietly called the name of the woman he loved.
Even though Philemia in the portrait had a smiling expression, she looked sad.
It seemed as if she was reproaching him for neglecting the child she left behind.
“Philia, why did you lie?”
Even though she said she would wait with the child, so come back victorious.
Even though she said she would definitely do so.
Even though she said the three of them would live happily and peacefully together.
Artius had a family to build in the future, and Cheron wanted to escape from Heilan.
So for 5 years, despite being enemies, he could cut off Cheron’s neck, whom he considered a friend, without guilt.
So with the life Cheron spared, he gave her death.
But when he returned victorious as such an ungrateful beast, what greeted him was Philemia’s cold corpse and a single crying bloody lump.
Artius still had nightmares about what happened that day.
His head began to throb.
‘Damn it…’
That night, Artius was plagued by nightmares again.
However, the nightmare changed a bit from before.
This time, it was a nightmare where Philemia, Cheron, and Elonia all died together on that day.
* * *
‘Gasp!’
Elonia finally opened her eyes and breathed roughly.
‘Where am I? Heilan? Or Ravanta?’
Perhaps because her past trauma was revived before she lost consciousness, or because of the nightmare she just had, her heart was beating like crazy.
“Ah, Your Highness…!”
Fortunately, as soon as she looked around, she could tell that this was inside the Imperial Princess Palace of Ravanta.
Feeling relieved as soon as she saw Sarah’s face, Elonia reached out to her.
‘Sarah.’
Sarah also stretched out both arms.
Sarah held Elonia’s small hand in both hands and brought it to her forehead as if praying.
Sarah sobbed, her shoulders trembling slightly.
“Ah, God! Thank you…! I’m so glad you woke up safely, Your Highness…!”
“Sawa.”
“Yes, Your Highness. It’s Sarah. You don’t know how long this past week has been for me, how worried I was…!”
‘I slept for a whole week.’
At her prime, she could move again in a day even if she suffered internal injuries.
There was no need to groan about internal injuries except when fighting Artius.
‘I can’t believe it, this baby’s body…’
In fact, Elonia knew it too.
It was a miracle to be alive after suffering internal injuries with a body that had just been born.
Relieved to be alive anyway, Elonia patted Sarah’s cheek with her small hand.
‘Sarah, look how haggard your face has become.’
Honestly, it was a bit touching to see her worry like this even though they weren’t related by blood.
Sarah wiped her tears and hurried out.
“Ah, this is no time for this. I’ll bring the palace physician right away, Your Highness. Please wait a moment.”
‘What? Palace physician?’
The touching feeling vanished in an instant.
Come to think of it, she had fainted after suffering internal injuries.
And Artius had discovered the traces of the magic she used.