Chapter 214
Chapter 214
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: The First Consort's Circumstances (3)
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“Sometimes, even a poison that's good for the body has its place.”
Rozanna sat across from me at the round table.
A jacket with fox-fur epaulettes draped over her shoulders.
“Lea inherited my blood, so she has exceptional talent for sorcery.”
“But she's already a mage.”
As I crossed my arms alone and shot back, the Empire's First Imperial Consort covered her lips with her fist.
She smiled gracefully, looking at me like a child.
“There's no rule saying a mage can't use sorcery, is there? Leon is a grand mage and an excellent swordsman at the same time.”
Come to think of it, the mana flowing through Leon's body had been impressive.
And he even carried a sword at his waist...
'A truly remarkable bloodline.'
“That child has been ignoring her talent for sorcery because she hates me. Such a waste...”
Rozanna stroked her red lips with long fingers, as if she wanted to absorb that power herself.
Her fingertips had already turned red.
“So I just set up the curse to awaken that power. I thought once she awakened it, she'd return to my arms.”
“Why would she return to someone she hates just because she gains new power?”
I replied to her words with indifferent eyes.
“Better to awaken it early than let it manifest later and cause confusion.”
The Empire's First Imperial Consort lifted the corner of her mouth in a grin, and the beauty mark below her lips smiled too.
“It's like pulling wisdom teeth early—easier that way, right?”
“But because of that ritual, Lady Lea suffered from illness.”
Rozanna gave me a sly smile at my concern for the princess.
Like a classmate who spotted a secret romance at school.
“Oh my... already looking after her like that. Well, you're both at that hot-blooded age.”
The Empire's First Consort rested her soft jawline on the back of her hand.
“It was probably just a light cold at worst? And even that would resolve once the three-week ritual ended.”
“Even so, you should have told the person involved. Nothing to brag about.”
When I countered firmly, Rozanna turned away like a schoolgirl scolded.
Her plump skin rested on the round table.
As the consort took a deep breath, the mole on her breast played coy too.
“Never thought I'd live to get scolded by a boy so much younger than me.”
Rozanna licked her lips and looked at me again.
She tilted her head lightly.
“Anyway, I'm no wicked witch who would kill my own daughter. This is a procedure my mother performed too—we're a lineage of sorcerers for generations.”
“Fine. Then why did you try to poison His Majesty the Emperor?”
I brought out the main dish I'd been dying to ask about.
This much was confirmed from the letters between Irina and the prime minister.
“Killing Leonhardt...”
“Don't deny it. I know you secretly dosed His Majesty's meals with slow poison.”
Rozanna paused in thought, lifting her chest from the table.
Then she crossed her arms alone to support it.
“You mean the slow poison that was eroding his Grand Aura.”
“Yes.”
Thinking she was stalling, I leaned in and pressed her.
The consort's response was...
“That was actually a sedative.”
Rozanna gently grasped my necktie.
She shook it lightly, like handling a leash.
“You wouldn't know, but in his youth, Leonhardt would explode into insane rage once his eyes rolled back.”
The Empire's First Imperial Consort answered with serious eyes.
“So I administered the poison to calm him down. As you can see, the emperor now is quite docile, isn't he?”
‘Docile...?’
I suddenly recalled Leonhardt trying to kill me over a single lunchbox, hurling lightning.
Of course, he knew I could dodge it fully...
“You're still too green to understand, but great power is delicate enough to be swayed by a moment's emotion.”
She rubbed my chin softly, like taming a young fox.
Unpleasant, I quickly pulled my face away.
“If I hadn't used the poison, he would have become a tyrant.”
“What exactly did you see to go that far?”
Dosing the emperor with poison on purpose.
I slowly shook my head, unable to comprehend her words.
“Curious? I'll show you.”
Rozanna leaned in toward me, as if offering the answer.
“The truth.”
As the consort drew close, she smelled like pomegranates, just like Lea.
If Lea was the fresh bloom of a flower...
Rozanna was the fully ripened, sweet flesh.
“Truth...? What do you mean?”
I swallowed hard and asked.
The consort softly intertwined her fingers with mine.
In that moment.
I glimpsed one of the First Consort's memories.
The nightmare she cherished and could never forget for the rest of her life.
「――――――」
The moment the space of memory unfolded.
I wrinkled my brow at the fishy stench of blood assaulting my nose.
“Leonhardt... please...!!”
I raised my head toward the familiar voice.
There stood Rozanna in a white dress stained with blood.
“Why are you doing this? Robin is only twelve now!! What revenge could a child this young possibly take?!”
Twenty years ago, her voice was much more youthful.
Her face too—I almost mistook her for Lea at first glance.
“Please spare him, Your Majesty...”
A boy murmured in a trembling voice, nestled in her ample bosom.
His face showed shock at the corpses of his family sprawled on the heavenly palace floor.
「Rozanna. Step back.」
In contrast, the emperor in the memory looked much younger.
Long before the slow poison affected him, his Grand Aura was overwhelmingly powerful.
Even more radiant than what I possessed now.
「No choice. To reduce the variables, everything related to Epina must be eliminated...」
The emperor's blue eyes lacked focus.
As if drowned in the madness of slaughter.
「This is for all of us.」
His white uniform was soaked in so much red blood it had turned yellowish.
The Conqueror King strode toward Rozanna in that state.
“Leonhardt... please...!”
He showed no change in expression even after killing countless Epina royals.
As if he'd killed them hundreds of times already—so familiar.
“Eek...!”
Leonhardt roughly shoved his wife aside.
He seized the boy by the scruff of the neck.
“If you kill Robin, I'll curse you forever...! So please, stop...”
The consort's tear-blurred face.
She wailed loudly, thrown to the floor.
Her voice shook the stained glass of the imperial palace.
―――――.
But the emotionless emperor did not stop.
He drew his treasure sword, stained black with blood, toward the young boy.
「Even this hellish final variable ends here...」
The emperor looked down at Rozanna's younger brother like a parasite.
Then he swung the sword decisively.
――――!!
“Robin...!!”
The consort's lips parted at the sight of her brother cleaved in two before her eyes.
The boy's clear blood droplets scattered, staining the white tiles.
Thud.
The Empire's First Consort crawled frantically to her brother's corpse.
She trembled all over at the sight of him split in half.
“How could you... how could you do this to a child so young...? Were you always like this...?”
Tears streamed down the consort's cheeks.
But Leonhardt showed no reaction to her heartbroken pleas.
「No need to kill anymore.」
He simply...
removed all possibilities and sank to the floor in relief.
「Rozanna.」
I focused on the emperor's unfocused eyes.
They looked aged and weary, like those of a sage who had lived decades.
「So relax now.」
‘Eliminate all possibilities.’
Did that mean he'd already tried countless methods, and killing all Epina royals was the answer?
The path to save the empire and Rozanna.
‘Then... could the emperor have regressed multiple times to change the future...?’
I felt the same incongruity from the emperor that I had sensed in myself.
But Rozanna, knowing nothing of Grand Masters' regression, gazed at him with eyes unable to comprehend.
“Relax...?”
Her blue eyes filled with rage and hatred.
“You're a mad murderer... You took everything from me, and now tell me to relax...”
The consort's lips quivered.
She screamed madly at her husband.
“I should have killed you in bed back then... I really should have...”
The memory ended with Rozanna's sorrowful voice.
Thanks to that, I escaped the recollection from twenty years ago.
「―――――」
“Well? See it clearly?”
The consort asked calmly, still interlocking fingers with me.
As if she were quite accustomed to this memory herself.
“Yes. I saw it.”
“Feels strange. You're the first I've shown this to.”
Rozanna, who hadn't even shown it to her own children.
She asked if I could understand her now.
“Could you love him? A man who spouts nonsense and harms your young brother.”
“...”
I nodded as if accepting the shocking memory.
Then pondered quietly alone.
“First, could you let go of this hand link?”
“Oh. Slipped my mind.”
Our sticky fingers parted.
After organizing my thoughts, I spoke to her.
“Have you ever shared memories like this with His Majesty?”
“No. I developed this sorcery five years ago. It was weaker back then.”
The consort placed her hand on her left breast.
She exuded a bewitching aura and smiled with mature, dangerous allure.
“Sorcery grows strongest when fueled by hatred, after all.”
I nodded silently.
Then, with meaningful eyes, I asked Rozanna.
“Then why not use this technique on His Majesty and share his memories?”
“You want me to trust him again?”
Rozanna looked at me displeased, still distrusting the emperor even after showing me her nightmare.
She seemed quite annoyed at my reaction after baring her vulnerability.
But I didn't back down.
“You saw my memories and realized there were extenuating circumstances, didn't you?”
I placed my hand on my left chest, just like her.
Confidently, I said.
“His Majesty might have had circumstances too.”
“...”
She, who had already confirmed the Grand Aura's regression ability through me.
She clamped her mouth shut for now.
“As a fellow Grand Aura bearer, I guarantee it.”
I rose from the round table.
And vowed inwardly.
“When you share memories...”
The tears the emperor had shown me in the Lustium arena's state guest room.
I decided to believe those meaningful words—that saving Rozanna was the only remaining possibility.
“There was a valid reason why His Majesty had no choice.”
I politely extended my hand to the Empire's First Imperial Consort.
Rozanna stared blankly at my rough palm.
“...”
The consort pondered my meaningful demeanor.
Her half-closed blue eyes, lost in thought, were as beautiful as Lea's when troubled.
“Lord Veil.”
Soon, her jewel-like blue pupils looked up at me.
She smiled with a chilling yet seductive eye crinkle.
“Don't stand guarantee lightly.”
The consort lightly scratched my palm with her long fingers.
“What if the emperor truly went mad with slaughter and killed my brother? What then?”
As if leaving her mark on my body.
“What will you let me do to you—?”
Her sweetly perilous words drew an involuntary chuckle from me.
I responded in a nonchalant tone.
“I didn't guarantee. I merely ‘asserted’ it.”
Instead, I grabbed her fingers.
And shook formally.
“Slippery as ever—sly fox.”
Rozanna lifted her chin haughtily, unimpressed.
She made an indifferent face.
“Either way, you promised. To talk with His Majesty together.”
“But memory sharing is quite exhausting sorcery. I'm worn out from using it on you—can't do it again with him.”
I gave the coy, girlish consort a chilling smile.
“Keep dodging, and I'll reveal everything you did to me in the waiting room.”
“Hmph. That threat again? Fine, go ahead and tell.”
Already adapted to me, Rozanna crossed her arms alone.
With an empress-like haughty gaze, she declared.
“A discarded fortieth consort, burning with lust, tries to seduce a young man.”
She proclaimed it confidently, like a newspaper headline.
“Let it be reported that way.”
‘Like mother, like daughter—utterly shameless...’
I gave a sullen look to the woman who resembled Lea so much.
Then, recalling how I'd tamed that haughty lioness, I approached her.
“...?”
The consort tilted her head at my shadow enveloping her body.
In that instant.
“Eep?!”
She gasped in surprise at being lifted from her chair in my arms.
“If you're that tired, I'll carry you to the heavenly palace myself.”
“W-what is this?!”
The consort startled at her own princess-like cry.
Her pale face flushed red as she urgently shouted at me.
“F-fine! I'll go myself, so put me down!”
Clinging to me, she flailed.
As her dizzying dress shoulder slipped open, she hurriedly covered it and yelled.
“I'll go with my own feet—put me down, I said...!”
“As you command.”
I set her down with a brazen face.
As expected of this empire's royals—they only listen when shown action directly.
“Haa...”
The Empire's First Imperial Consort seemed quite flustered, having a man press against her after so long.
She busily hid the sweat beading from her collarbone down her ample curves.
“Are all Grand Masters like this...?”