The Emperor's Personal Warning

Mikhail lay sprawled lazily across the sofa. Beyond ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the window, the world was at peace. Warm sunlight traced geometric patterns across the spotless floor of his office. Just days ago, his head had been overflowing with delightful schemes and entertaining ideas. Now, however, something rested on the table before him that threatened to smash all that tranquility to pieces.

A letter. Or, more accurately, a personal imperial missive. The one Boris had carried in on a silver tray, his face pale as death. It wasn’t ordinary paper but thick, stiff, highest-grade parchment. Red wax sealed it firmly, stamped at the center with the unmistakable image of a double-headed eagle—the Empire’s crest and the Emperor’s personal seal.

It hadn’t arrived with any official envoy or formal fanfare, just a standard high-speed courier delivery, so it wasn’t an official decree. Somehow that made it worse. This was unmistakably a private warning.

Which was exactly why Mikhail, who had zero desire to read it, had spent the last thirty minutes locked in a staring contest with the double-headed eagle on the wax seal.

“...Guess I have to check it eventually.”

Stalling wasn’t going to change anything. He tapped the seal lightly with a fingertip. It felt hard and cold. With a letter opener, Mikhail carefully pried the wax away, then scanned the unfolded parchment.

Bullshit. Mikhail snorted inwardly.

After all the flowery detours, the message had finally reached the main point. He tossed the parchment onto the table without ceremony. In plain terms, it boiled down to: You’re making too much noise lately, so knock it off. If you don’t listen, I’m cutting your allowance.

He muttered under his breath.

“Yep… I’m fucked.”

Being exiled from the capital had been like being forced to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sit on a ‘thinking chair.’ The fact that he’d still managed to cause trouble even from that chair apparently meant the Emperor’s patience had finally run dry.

Honestly, even Mikhail hadn’t expected things to blow up this much. The gacha system had simply worked too well. He never could have imagined that people in a world without the Haber-Bosch process—people forced to rely on phosphate rock and lightning magic for fertilizer—would buy perfectly good liquor just for the label, then dump the bottles and contents at cheap taverns or donate them to poorhouses.

Thanks to that, drunkards across the entire empire were apparently throwing an unexpected festival. Some people were even collecting the labels and reselling them at a premium.

He couldn’t even laugh. At least they’re more conscientious than the idiots who throw away the bread just to collect Pokémon stickers.

Still, this was too much.

Mikhail sank deeper into the sofa and rubbed his face with both hands. Having his imperial stipend seized didn’t matter financially. The money he earned as ‘Mikhail’ was already absurd. The royal allowance was pocket change by comparison. The real issue was the symbolism.

Unlike the capital exile order—the thinking chair—this was the Emperor officially branding him a problem child. The hyenas in the capital wouldn’t stay quiet. Especially not Anastasia. That crazy bitch would definitely use this as an excuse to sink her fangs into his businesses.

I’ll do what I can for my poor younger brother. She’d spout that kind of nonsense while legally sticking straws into his enterprises.

That alone would be a headache, but the real problem came after that. If he caused more trouble even after the stipend was cut?

In this ultra-patriarchal world where men openly said you had to beat your wife properly to enjoy good soup, a son was nothing more than his father’s property. The Emperor would be no different. If anything, he would be worse.

There were even legendary court precedents in this world that ruled a husband had the rightful authority to beat his wife just hard enough not to break bones—for the sake of domestic peace. In a world like that, a son who wouldn’t listen…

Scenes from history books flashed through Mikhail’s mind. The son of Ivan the Terrible, whose head was smashed by his father’s staff. The crown prince who starved to death in a rice chest and later became a god of rice chests, changing both his species and profession.

That could be his future.

Suddenly he missed the 21st century.

“Haah.”

A deep sigh escaped him.

“...I should’ve listened to that old fossil.”

Mikhail recalled the letter Grand Duke Alexandr had sent him not long ago. At the time he’d dismissed it as the ramblings of a senile old man and stuffed it in a drawer. Looking back now, it had clearly contained genuine concern.

Regretting it now won’t change anything.

The water had already been spilled. For now, he had to shut down the gacha event immediately. The justification was easy enough. Since the grand prize—the Eternal Special Membership Card—had already been drawn, he could claim the event’s purpose had been fulfilled.

The problem was…

His gaze drifted to the heavy wooden box sitting in one corner of the office. Inside were the ninety-one remaining membership cards.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with those…”

Brooding alone wouldn’t solve anything. Mikhail rang the bell on his desk.

As always, Boris answered the summons.

“Call Chairwoman Valeriano and Administrator Jugashvili.”

“Right now.”

Boris bowed silently and withdrew.

Before long the office door opened cautiously and two women entered one after the other. Laura and Josepina. The usual sharp tension crackled between them. Mikhail wondered if he should make them hold hands and say “We’re friends, we love each other” like a kindergarten teacher.

“Sit.”

Still lounging diagonally on the sofa, he jerked his chin toward the chairs across from him. Laura sat with elegant grace. Josepina took the seat beside her, spine straight as a doll’s.

Without a word, Mikhail slid the Emperor’s personal letter across the table. The parchment made a soft scraping sound that seemed unusually loud. Both women’s eyes locked onto it instantly.

“!”

“!”

Laura reacted first. Her golden eyes widened in shock. The cat tail hidden behind her back had probably shot straight up inside her dress. Josepina merely narrowed her eyes a fraction, but her pupils were trembling visibly.

“Th-this is…” Laura barely managed to speak, voice shaking. “His Majesty himself…”

“Yeah.” Mikhail answered indifferently. “The content isn’t anything special. Maintain your dignity, stop causing trouble, quit the gacha right now, and if you don’t listen I’ll cut your allowance. That about sums it up.”

Despite his light tone, the air in the office sank like a lead weight.

“This is serious, Your Highness,” Josepina said in a voice cold as ice. Her gaze remained fixed on the letter. “This is… an ultimatum.”

“I know. That’s why I called you. So what do we do now?”

He leaned back deeper into the sofa and looked at the two women in turn.

“We can stop the gacha immediately. The justification is solid. But what about the remaining membership cards?”

Mikhail nodded toward the wooden box. “We need to distribute those somehow before the casino is finished. Only then will the people who own them have a reason to take our side to protect their own assets.”

Josepina spoke up. “Holding another auction at this point would be premature. The moment they sell for less than last time, the cards’ value will plummet.”

“The same goes for accepting applications and screening candidates like ordinary salon or club memberships,” Laura continued. “Not many nobles will bother undergoing screening for membership in a tourism special zone that hasn’t even properly materialized yet.”

“Which leaves us with some kind of luck-based method like gacha,” Mikhail concluded. “But to rely on luck, we need as many participants as possible. The lottery is blocked and the gacha has turned into this mess.”

He folded his arms and stared at them steadily.

“So. Use those brilliant brains of yours. My mind and body are currently too weak to think properly.”

A heavy silence settled over the office. Laura rested her chin on her hand, lost in thought. Josepina closed her eyes and didn’t move a muscle.

After some time, Laura broke the silence. Her eyes opened slowly, gleaming like a cat that had spotted prey.

“It’s not that there’s no way.”

Her voice was low and calm, but the confidence in it was unmistakable.

“The casino at the last banquet was nothing more than a tasting session. It was a demo to draw interest and spread rumors. What we need now is a proper event.”

“Go on.”

“We hold a tournament.” A faint smile curved Laura’s lips. “A Texas Hold’em tournament.”

Mikhail’s eyes flashed with interest. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Not bad.

Thanks to the rulebooks he’d given away as bonuses during the previous auction, Texas Hold’em and other games he’d introduced had become wildly popular in the capital’s salons, clubs, and even back-alley gambling dens. Other games had apparently died out because they weren’t as fun. That was excellent news. Every one of those places was a potential casino customer.

But still…

“So you want to hold a gambling tournament? You think His Majesty the Emperor will like that? This whole mess started because of something that looked like gambling.”

Mikhail asked with deliberate sarcasm.

“This is not gambling,” Laura answered with a sly smile that somehow resembled his own. “We simply have to package it correctly. Card games themselves are not legally or administratively problematic. His Majesty has no grounds to stop nobles from enjoying wholesome leisure activities.”

“Package it, huh.”

“Exactly.” Laura’s voice gained strength. “As a game of skill rather than luck. A gentlemen’s contest. A mind sport no different from a chess tournament.”

Josepina, who had been listening quietly, finally spoke.

“An excellent idea, Chairwoman Valeriano.” She gave Laura the tiniest nod, then turned to Mikhail. “If we define this as a ‘sports competition’ as the Chairwoman suggests, it will actually benefit the Empire.”

“Benefit?”

“Yes. It would bring at least some underground gambling into the light. Moreover, the Empire is already pouring enormous subsidies into chess tournaments.”

Josepina’s blue eyes glittered coldly.

“We can request funding for this Texas Hold’em tournament under the same pretext. It means we can legally expand our business using the national budget. The promotional effect will naturally follow.”

Mikhail found himself nodding before he realized it. They really were the original novel’s villainesses. He’d simply told them to solve the problem, yet they were already redesigning the entire board—and doing it while squeezing money out of the Empire itself. No matter how much he had shown them so far, this was truly a case of the student surpassing the master.

Along with a sense of pride in his well-raised pupils, a long-forgotten memory surfaced in his mind.

The 21st century. A very modest dream he’d had before becoming Mikhail. To play in a world-class poker tournament one day.

Of course, it had remained just a dream. He’d had neither money nor time, so he’d simply played games at home.

But here… it’s possible, isn’t it?

A smile spread across Mikhail’s face.

He had always despised gambling—an idiotic act of staking everything on luck. But this kind of game, especially Texas Hold’em, was different. The thrill of deception, reading opponents, and psychological warfare was incredibly fun. Just thinking about it filled him with excitement. It felt like fresh energy flowing into a body that had grown bored and restless.

“Hmm.”

Mikhail stroked his chin as if pondering. “Should I enter myself?”

At his quiet murmur, both women’s gazes snapped toward him. A look of dismay crossed Laura’s face. A faint question flickered across Josepina’s. They clearly wanted to ask what nonsense he was spouting, but neither dared.

Mikhail added, as if making an excuse, “Well, the organizer should participate personally to liven up the atmosphere, right? It’ll be good for promotion too.”

He grinned and rose from the sofa.

“All right. Let’s start preparing immediately. I need to write a letter of reflection for His Imperial Majesty.”