Chapter 238
Chapter 238
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Translator: crow
Chapter Title: Wisdom of the Imperial Family (3)
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In the past, long before Leonhardt destroyed the Kingdom of Epina.
He and Rozanna had been on such good terms that they exchanged flowers as gifts.
However, that didn't mean he could easily take the next step.
Was it because Rozanna lacked appeal as a woman?
Was there something wrong with the Emperor's body?
Neither was the case.
The reason was far more complicated and difficult than one might think.
There was an age gap of more than twenty years.
Her waist and wrists looked so fragile that they might snap if he gripped them wrong while gazing down at her.
On top of that, the Emperor's situation—having never held a woman due to endless wars—played a major role.
「Rozanna? She's still just a child. Someone I need to protect.」
Leonhardt had viewed her not as a partner, but as a precious being to safeguard.
That was why he flinched even when simply holding hands with his Empress Consort.
The first to embrace his bare body was Rozanna herself.
The Emperor kept treating her like a little girl.
To give him a piece of her mind, she visited his office one day.
“Leon, working overtime again today?”
「Hoo... Yes, it should be done soon, though...」
Leonhardt sat alone at his desk, handling state affairs.
Rozanna approached him with her hands clasped behind her back.
“Staring at all that dense text all the time must be exhausting.”
「It is... Sometimes I miss green meadows and beautiful flora and fauna.」
Dark shadows of fatigue pooled under his eyes, yet his presence remained imposing.
Indeed, the aura of a Grand Master.
Rozanna's lips curved into a smile at the sight of this man whose intensity made the fine hairs on her face prickle.
“Flora and fauna, huh? Like what animals, for example?”
「Hmm... Let's see...」
Even in his exhaustion, the Emperor gave his young wife's words serious thought.
This was before his repeated regressions, when his heart was still pure and upright.
He lightly tapped the golden lion emblem pinned to his uniform.
「Perhaps because my symbol is the lion, I find myself longing for felines. They must be terribly cute.」
A glimpse of his human side.
In response, Rozanna slyly narrowed her eyes into crescents.
“Oh my, a cat just happened to wander into my chambers.”
With her hands still behind her back, she flashed the most innocent smile.
Then, lightly gripping her husband's shoulder, she whispered.
“Would you like to come see it this evening?”
「Haha... Is that so? How remarkable. A cat slipping into this fortress of a palace.」
The Emperor nodded, picturing the adorable cat and his wife tending to it.
The mere thought chased away the tedium of the dry documents before him, filling him with happiness.
“Then, see you later. Leon.”
And so, after wrapping up his overtime work around ten o'clock, Leonhardt finally made his way to the Empress Consort's chambers.
But when he opened the door, her bedroom was pitch black, every light extinguished.
「Rozanna? Are you asleep...?」
Only slivers of moonlight filtered through the thin curtains.
「My apologies. I was too late...」
Scratching the back of his head, the Emperor approached her bed.
When he gently lifted the blanket that bulged in the shape of a human form...
「Hm...?」
To his surprise, there was nothing inside but a pillow.
Deliberately arranged to mimic a person's outline, as if to deceive someone.
「Now that I think about it, there's no sign of the cat either...」
The Emperor cocked his head and looked up.
The moment he turned toward the terrace, where moonlight poured in...
「...!!」
His bleary, overtime-weary eyes flashed at the shadow cast on the curtain.
The silhouette of a woman in silk nightclothes.
But when she slipped off the thick garment...
A mature, lascivious figure emerged—one impossible to believe belonged to a woman of barely twenty.
“...”
With every step, her beautifully flared hips swayed with fluid grace.
From thighs large and soft enough to withstand even the massive Emperor.
To breasts so full they could cradle every worry of the man burdened with the empire's cares.
「Ro, Rozanna...?」
The Emperor gulped at the sight of this unbelievably wanton woman.
He who had never faltered before any foe in his life.
His lips parted as the silhouette drew steadily closer.
「Wh-where's the cat...?」
As if in answer to Leonhardt's question, Rozanna reached the bed where he sat.
She mounted his thigh with feline grace and whispered.
“Nyaa.”
「――――――」
“That night, your big brother was conceived.”
Soon after that first time, Rozanna had an audience with the Crown Prince.
Perched on the edge of the bed, she smiled brightly at her daughter.
“Even the most steadfast man is drawn by instinct to a woman's touch.”
She elegantly crossed her voluptuous thighs.
The flesh strained lewdly against the confines of her black lace stockings.
“You wouldn't understand yet, since you have no experience with men.”
The Empress Consort gazed fondly at her daughter standing before her in her school uniform.
The outfit only made her seem even younger.
But.
At her mother's condescending gaze, Leah...
“Pfft.”
Her crimson lips curled upward of their own accord.
She followed with a mature, knowing smile.
It was the spitting image of Rozanna's—lewd and utterly feminine.
“Mother, it sounds like you needed quite the epic tale just to consummate your marriage.”
No matter the school uniform, it couldn't hide Leah's lascivious curves.
An hourglass silhouette gleaming in the moonlight.
“I don't need anything like that.”
Leah, owner of those curves, parted her soft lips.
A tongue slick with hot saliva came into view.
“If I were in your place, I'd have slipped under Father's desk to tend to his fatigue.”
Leah lightly touched a finger to her lips.
Then, wearing a lewd smile as if mocking her mother, she revealed the saliva-drenched nobility of her mouth.
“One go at that, and it's solved.”
The Empress Consort couldn't help but chuckle at her daughter's brazen provocation.
Truly, no pushover—who's daughter was she?
But.
That didn't mean Leah had won.
“So, did you bear fruit with that boy?”
In truth, no results had been seen yet.
“From what I saw, it looked like Irina or that other girl took Veil's first time.”
At Rozanna's sharp jab, Leah clamped her lips shut.
“Well, no matter. The first time can be stolen.”
The Empress Consort rose from the bed.
Hands behind her back, she gazed at the moonlight and said.
“What matters is who bears the fruit of love first, don't you think?”
The fruit of love.
If she bore it, not even their doting father the Emperor could stand in their way.
“Satisfying yourself with mere foreplay isn't befitting my daughter.”
“It wasn't about satisfaction.”
Leah shot back at her mother's words without hesitation.
Her blue eyes flashed like those of a fully ripened female lion.
“It just means crumbling Veil isn't difficult for me.”
Leah pulled a hypnotic orb from her bag.
She showed it to the Empress Consort.
“So there's no need for you to worry about my love life, Mother.”
Rozanna peered intently at the crystal orb her daughter proffered.
Taking it from her, she asked.
“What is this?”
“They call it a hypnosis orb. It can render the target powerless for a short while.”
The appearance of an item tied to sorcery sparked the Empress Consort's signature intellectual curiosity.
She slowly turned the evidently potent orb, examining it.
“So, why bring it to me?”
“I want to know if its power can stand up to Veil's Grand Aura.”
The Empress Consort glanced back and forth between the rare, powerful mystic stone and Leah.
As if trying to divine her intentions.
“Hmm—.”
Leah had always relied solely on her own strength.
Yet here she was with this underhanded tool, even asking for a direct test of its power.
Perhaps moved by her daughter's efforts in romance, the Empress Consort grinned.
She answered as if in reward.
“Well, this should be more than enough.”
Rozanna handed the crystal orb back to Leah without protest.
In a leisurely tone, she added.
“But take care. It'll only last about a minute at most. You'd best clinch the victory within that time.”
“That'll be plenty.”
Leah nodded coolly with steely eyes.
She slipped the received orb back into her bag.
“I got what I came for.”
With business concluded, the princess turned to leave.
Rozanna gazed warmly at her daughter—so like herself in her cold, calculating ways.
But.
Just as she herself had once loved the Emperor with pure heart in the past...
“Thank you.”
Leah, turning away, awkwardly voiced her honest feelings to Rozanna.
“Mom.”
Not “Mother,” but “Mom.”
At that one word of intimacy she never thought she'd hear, Rozanna's narrow eyes widened round.
“Oh my.”
The Empress Consort stared at her daughter's receding figure as she left the chambers.
In the exquisite moonlight, her voluptuous hips and curves swayed beautifully.
Rozanna couldn't help but reveal a genuine smile at her splendidly reared daughter.
“This makes me feel needlessly guilty, Leah.”
The First Imperial Consort of the Empire murmured her quiet apology to her daughter alone.
In truth, her response upon seeing the orb had been a lie.
“Think a mere crystal orb would work on a boy my curses couldn't touch?”
True to her past as the shadowy mastermind, Rozanna chuckled softly.
Gazing at the brilliant golden locks fading into the distance, she murmured to herself.
“Your greatest weapon is you yourself, my daughter.”
The woman who had once embraced the Emperor drew the curtain with those enigmatic words lingering.
She figured the mess born of her lie would be far more entertaining than hypnotizing Veil.
「――――――.」
The next day.
A rundown office in Norton.
“Aah...”
The desk and table, usually bare, were now littered with a chaotic pile of documents.
“Annoying, annoying, annoying...!!”
Sprawled on the sofa, I clutched the state papers and grumbled fiercely.
“Why on earth are the tasks piling up like this!!”
I cried out in injustice soon after.
“I'm helping, you know. Just bear with it a little longer.”
Miya-senpai sat at the desk in her secretary uniform, in my stead on the sofa.
Wearing glasses, she sorted through the documents alongside me.
“That's exactly the problem! Even with the best worker like you pitching in, it's still this bad...!! This is an employment scam...!!”
Miya chuckled at my wail laced with flattery.
She cleared her throat and spoke softly to me.
“I'll treat you to dinner once we're done, so hang in there.”
“Dinner?”
I bolted upright at the promise of a free meal.
Senpai smirked at me like an adorable underclassman.
“Yeah, I found a nice place.”
Her next words were a tiny mutter.
“Near my house...”
“Ooh, perfect. Thanks—now I've got my energy back!”
I rose from the plush sofa.
I stretched my stiff back with vulpine flexibility.
“Hmm... But first, I need to speed through this work...”
Miya was muttering to herself and scribbling away diligently when...
She accidentally knocked her pen to the floor.
“Ah.”
Squatting down in her form-fitting skirt.
Her black stockings stretched taut and lewdly over her ample thighs.
“Eh...?”
But soon, she forgot even the tight squeeze.
The moment she peered underneath.
White stains splattered across the underside of the desk caught her eye.
“...”
Miya stared vacantly at the marks, her eyes widening like a startled cat.
With a jolt, she muttered.
“No way this is... se...men...”
Something snagged on her shoe heel; she bent down to look.
“Wait, isn't this a spare button from my secretary uniform...?”
It was a shirt button she'd never worn, lying on the floor.
And lewd, fishy traces smeared beneath the desk.
“No way—someone did this under here...?!”
Overcome with dread, Miya sprang to her feet.
She clacked her ill-fitting shoes toward the pantry.
“Something wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She brushed off my casual question curtly.
The instant she entered the pantry.
“Wh-what the hell!!”
Her lips gaped at the tattered secretary uniform hanging on the rack.
Even her beauty mark seemed to widen in shock.
The shirt had been laundered, but every button was torn clean off.
The skirt, tailored perfectly to her generous hips, was ripped to shreds.
If Miya tried wearing it now, it'd hang like a shapeless dress.
The sheer physical prowess of the culprit stirred a strange sense of inferiority.
“Who did this?”
Senpai scanned the shelves, determined to catch whoever ruined the outfit she'd so carefully chosen.
She soon identified the perpetrator.
A note someone had left atop the shelf.
The culprit's handwriting was scrawled there.
「Sorry, Lady Miya. Borrowed it for a bit-.」
A golden lion brooch—the emblem of the imperial family—lay atop the note.
This jewel-encrusted accessory was worth nearly two carriages.
But Miya felt no awe at its value.
She burned only with rage at the busty princess's physique and the violation in her own domain.
'Miyaaaa...!! You won't get away with this!!'