Chapter 5
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: Know the Enemy and Know Yourself
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My eyelids felt like a thousand pounds. The moment I forced my eyes open, my vision was filled only with a dingy gray ceiling and water droplets gathered in its cracks.
A chill rising from my lower back climbed my spine, stabbing all the way to my brain like icy needles.
The sheepskin blanket Duke Karls had tossed me hadn't absorbed any of my body heat overnight. Instead, it had soaked up the prison's dampness, turning into a soggy, heavy burden.
"Ugh..."
I tried to sit up but collapsed again amid the screams exploding from every joint. The hard stone floor showed no mercy to the contours of the human body.
My hips and shoulders throbbed from being crushed, and my neck—twisted from sleeping wrong—refused to turn left. I desperately missed the emperor's bed, that cloud-like haven of latex and silk bedding.
I leaned against the wall, the chains clinking around me. My mind was numb, but there was no time to rest. To survive, I had to analyze. Batanias von Atria. The true nature of this damned emperor whose body I'd possessed.
'Know yourself and know your enemy, and you'll never lose a battle, they say. But the more I learn about myself, the more hopeless it gets.'
I scraped at the moss on the floor with my nails, sifting through his memories—now my own. Whether it was setting documents, wiki entries, or in-game text, I pored over the data that was both my memory and the emperor's.
Tyrant. That's what the world called me. But I wasn't like the monsters in history books—Nero or Yeonsangun. I didn't have hobbies like flaying people alive or drinking from skull goblets.
I was just... excessively healthy. In my lower half.
'Lustful demon. Yeah, that nails it.'
The former owner of this body was a man whose head was filled with nothing but cum. He wielded the emperor's power solely in the bedroom.
Any woman who caught his eye—rank and status be damned—he went after. Noble lady? Thanks. Commoner girl? Okay. Married woman? Even better. Like Cao Cao from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms reborn, he had an insatiable appetite for other men's rice cakes.
The problem was his sloppy aftermath. 'Eat and discard.' He followed that simple, vile creed to the letter. He didn't even keep them around until he got bored.
Exactly once. Curiosity satisfied, conquest complete—he cast them out without mercy. To the weeping, pleading women, he tossed a handful of jewels or a scrap of a shallow honorary title.
Fragments of memory flashed by. Some countess, was it? On the balcony of a ballroom, hiking up her skirt and pounding into her from behind.
While her husband sipped wine inside the hall, outside his wife was moaning in time with the emperor's ragged breaths.
The thrill of depravity and conquest he'd felt then. That's where this scum found meaning in life.
"Ha, what a piece of trash."
A hollow laugh escaped me. I never killed anyone? True, I never stabbed with a physical blade.
But with that one lower part, I'd shredded countless women's lives and their families' honors. Of course the grudges would pile up.
But...
If I'd been the one getting cucked, it wouldn't even be unfair.
And the killing blow: Duke Karls's rebellion.
A noble knight and aristocrat like him didn't choose treason out of mere justice or political ambition.
Duke Karls had a little sister he loved more than his own eyes—a sister he'd raised like a daughter after their parents died.
Lilia von Argent. The famously pure and beautiful woman called the Jewel of the South.
This mad emperor bastard had 'invited' her to the palace. Officially for a tea party, but anyone—even a passing ant—knew his real intentions.
Karls tried to refuse, but lacked grounds to defy an imperial order. In the end, Lilia entered the palace. And right before I possessed him, the bastard started making moves on her.
'He didn't get to fully touch her. Thank goodness.'
He'd reached out but Karls burst into the tea party, leaving it an attempt. But that attempt alone had touched Karls's reverse scale perfectly.
And the emperor had issued a stark warning to Argent.
A blatant threat.
The brother who'd abandoned his knightly honor and drawn his sword to protect his sister. The classic hero's tale.
And I was the perfect villain in that tale—a horny antagonist.
Political skills? Zero. No, negative.
'Just like Emperor Manryeok. The Strike Emperor.'
In five years on the throne, the number of documents I'd signed could be counted on one hand. I dumped state affairs on the prime minister and ministers while flitting between villas and annexes, buried in skirts.
The emperor's duties? Occasionally show up at banquets, down some booze, snag a woman, and vanish.
Starving peasants? Border monsters? Zero interest. So no support base whatsoever. Nobles despised me, commoners loathed me. The military backed Karls, the bureaucrats were corrupt.
"All I've got is this handsome shell and imperial blood..."
The more I sorted it out, the bleaker it got. But paradoxically, there were glimmers of hope.
First, I wasn't a brutal butcher. No one I'd killed meant no bereaved families screaming for blood revenge. Their anger was more contempt and disgust than hatred. Fake some remorse, and there might be a sliver of leniency.
Second, my incompetence. Me being dumb and lazy also meant no political schemes or purges.
From the nobles' view, a malleable idiot emperor might be preferable to a smart, righteous Karls. Provided I catered to their tastes, of course.
Thud. Thud.
Footsteps echoed from the corridor's end. Not the heavy clank of Karls's plate armor. Leather boots scraping stone. An ordinary soldier.
I straightened my chains and adjusted my posture. Even in prison, I had to maintain some imperial dignity... or at least the basics.
The soldier who stopped before the bars was a young man. He carried a wooden tray. On it sat a bowl of gray gruel steaming—not with warmth, but with a sour stench—and a single hard chunk of bread.
He shoved the tray roughly through the bars to the floor. Clatter. Some gruel sloshed out onto the stone.
"Your meal."
His voice held no emotion. Or rather, he was clearly suppressing it. He avoided looking at me, eyes fixed on the floor, backing away like I was contagious.
I chuckled softly. Word must've spread already. The pervert emperor caught jerking off in front of the queen. Deserved contempt.
"Hey."
He flinched at my call and halted. Reluctantly, he lifted his head to meet my gaze.
Just as expected in his eyes: disgust like he'd seen filth, tinged with faint curiosity.
"This is a seriously weird diet."
"Standard fare for prisoners."
He replied stiffly.
"Yeah? Seems too watery for standard. Thinner than mine?"
I tossed out the joke before I knew it.
What was that? This body's instinct?
Meanwhile, the soldier's face flushed red. Shame? Rage at the emperor's shamelessness? Unclear.
"Eat it quick. We'll collect the bowl in thirty minutes."
He spat the words like an escape and turned to flee.
"Wait."
I called him back in a low, serious tone—no playfulness this time. He paused and glanced over his shoulder.
"What's your name?"
At the quiet summons, the soldier halted. His back stiffened rigid, his boot heel catching slightly on the uneven stone.
He turned slowly, agonizingly slowly. Torchlight shadowed half his face, but the exposed half showed clear annoyance and wariness.
"I asked your name."
Gripping the bars, I hauled myself up. Chains rattled and scraped my wrists, but I ignored them.
His gaze flicked from my face to the spilled gruel, then back to my eyes. He swallowed hard. I saw his Adam's apple bob.
"Lucas."
Short reply. Dry voice, no effort at courtesy. Lucas. Common as dirt.
Ordinary as a roadside pebble. Yet in this moment, the sole arbiter of my life and death. That's how it felt.
"Lucas."
I rolled the name on my tongue.
"Take a bite."
His eyebrows twitched. He furrowed his brow in confusion.
"What did you say?"
"You know the food taster? The one who samples for poison before the emperor eats. No one's here for that. So you do it."
I nodded at the bowl. Lucas's face twisted in an instant.
Outrage blazed in his eyes. A deposed emperor, little more than a prisoner, still trying to order people around from his cell.
"You're delusional, prisoner. This isn't the palace kitchen. Eat what's given or starve—no other options."
He snapped coldly and turned again.
"Wait."
Desperately, I thrust my arm through the bars toward his sleeve. My fingertips grazed the hem. Lucas recoiled in horror, yanking away.
"What do you think you're doing?!"
"I'm not delusional, Lucas. You know it too. Me being alive right now is a miracle."
I caught my breath. Instincts honed by ninety-eight deaths screamed warnings.
That gruel. It looked like cheap, spoiled slop, but something felt off. The smell. Yes, the smell. Beneath the rancid food stench lurked a faint, bitter tang.
I remembered. In one of my dozens of deaths. Poisoned before Karls arrived. I'd drunk wine from a maid and vomited blood.
That scent—nearly odorless, but detectable to the sensitive. The emperor's body and my experience were triggering poison instincts.
"Before I even reach the judgment stand. Someone's scared I'll spout nonsense in front of Queen Helena or Duke Karls."
I stared straight into Lucas's eyes. My earnest gaze made him hesitate.
"This food you brought. Is it exactly as the kitchen served? Did you pass anyone on the way? Or did someone ask you to deliver it quick?"