Chapter 32
Chapter 32
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Audience with the Empress
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‘……No, it’s not completely identical. It’s just similar enough that you’d mistake them for sisters or mother and daughter at a glance.’
At first, I thought she looked exactly like Aurora with her face shoved in, but there were clear differences.
The woman who had just stepped out of the pillar of light had sharper eyes, longer hair, a colder demeanor, greater height, and a more superior figure.
Yeah, she looked exactly like Aurora all grown up.
‘Well, since they’re relatives anyway…… it’s not that big a deal if they resemble each other.’
In truth, considering both appearances came from the NPC appearance retouching mod, it was far more likely they’d taken the Empress' model, tweaked it to be slightly immature, and used it for Aurora.
They didn’t resemble each other because they were relatives; they were made to resemble each other because they were relatives. They sounded similar at a glance, but they were fundamentally different.
“The Sun of the Empire.”
“The Sun of the Empire.”
I wisely mimicked Aurora’s words and actions. In the game, the protagonist would automatically assume the proper posture when starting a conversation, or it would proceed even if you did nothing, but things wouldn’t work that way here.
“Raise your heads.”
‘Her voice is similar too.’
Even her voice resembled Aurora’s, though this one felt far more mature.
I lifted my head. It wasn’t until I looked straight at her—not stealing glances from the corner of my eye—that I could fully take in her appearance.
Jet-black hair, dark as pitch, cascaded down her back to just below her hips. It felt like darkness that could swallow even shadows.
Her bangs were neatly parted down the middle, revealing the forehead above her left eye. Her golden eyes, more golden than gold itself, held no emotion whatsoever.
Her all-black uniform was embroidered with the Empress' crest, and its deep neckline boldly exposed the ample swell of her bosom. A glimpse of black lingerie peeked out between the uniform and her bare skin.
The underwear was black as well.
The uniform’s collar and fabric were stiff and unyielding, but the thighs wrapped in black garter belts and exposed by the skirt clinging tightly to her hips looked impossibly soft and plush.
The skirt was outrageously short. It hugged her thighs and hips, outlining her curves perfectly, and even the slightest shift in angle seemed like it would reveal the underwear beneath.
No, perhaps she was already flashing that black lingerie, and it was just the angle keeping me from noticing.
Her emotionless golden eyes turned toward Aurora. Aurora’s identical golden eyes turned toward the Empress in turn.
“You must not have been well, tormented by what was once my brother, Aurora.”
“That’s right. You knew well, Aunt Kaikilia.”
“You once aspired to claim his seat. It seems you’ve succeeded.”
“It wasn’t by my own power. If I’d been alone, I surely would have been subjugated by it instead. From start to finish, it was all one person’s doing. I merely opened my mouth and accepted what fell.”
I heard a conversation that made me doubt my ears for a moment, but I decided to let it slide. No matter the content, it was relatives exchanging greetings—hard for an outsider to butt in.
Even so, their first exchange being about how she hadn’t been well due to suffering under the lord? And the Empress had known and left her to it?
“I received your letter. That wretched thing tried to summon a demon, so you killed it?”
“I couldn’t kill it. To slay a demon requires spells or weapons imbued with divinity, and we had neither.”
“A creature doomed to die soon anyway—whether it lives or dies now makes no difference. Is the full account in the letter accurate?”
“Yes. There are no discrepancies.”
“Hmm, no discrepancies, you say…….”
Kaikilia crossed her arms under her chest, emphasizing her bust as she tapped her forearm with her fingers, lost in thought.
Whether due to the mod’s influence or not, every time she crossed her arms, she did it in a way that thrust out her chest. Even Lize with her massive, head-sized breasts, and Erika whose were far smaller.
Suddenly, her head turned toward me.
The moment those emotionless golden eyes fixed on me, chills raced up my spine. Cold sweat beaded across my skin, leaving my entire body icy.
‘Whoa, this is no joke.’
Even in the game, NPCs testified that facing the Empress made you feel stripped bare, your innermost secrets pierced through.
I’d brushed it off since players couldn’t experience it, but now, confronting her in reality, I felt in my bones that it was no exaggeration or lie.
It really felt like she could see straight through to my soul. An indescribable chill and foreboding crawled up my spine, prickling through my whole body.
“You’re the new knight.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“They say you helped Aurora ascend to the lordship.”
“No matter how much I thrashed about at her side, she couldn’t have succeeded without her own exceptional abilities, could she?”
Kaikilia fell silent again and stared straight through me. Cold sweat beaded on my back. At this rate, I wasn’t sure I could properly react to whatever event came next.
“They also say you discovered the demon-possessed book.”
“Yes. That’s correct.”
“The letter states that you captured an armored horse and the armored knight riding it, and the demon-possessed book appeared. Is that true as well?”
“As Your Majesty describes, that is also factual.”
It wasn’t entirely wrong.
We’d beaten the headless armored knight, obtained the seal-release key it dropped, unlocked the dungeon seal, entered the dungeon, and acquired the book. The letter had just omitted some intermediate steps.
“You took the book to what was once my brother to discuss a solution.”
“Yes.”
“But it couldn’t overcome its greed, tampered with it to summon the demon on its own, and caused this mess.”
“That’s right.”
This pointless back-and-forth continued, stirring a vague unease.
There was no dialogue in the game grilling the player step-by-step over the letter’s contents. It skipped straight to the basement, as if even conversation was a waste of time.
Kaikilia advanced toward me one slow step at a time, closing the distance. With each step, the pressure squeezing my heart intensified.
Even though her feet sank softly into the turf, it felt like I could hear heavy thuds.
The distance, shrinking in time with her measured strides, finally stopped when only three or four steps separated us.
“How long have you been with the knights?”
“About two weeks.”
“Two weeks, two weeks…….”
Kaikilia tapped her forearm again, deep in thought. Then she fixed me with an even more mechanical, icy gaze.
“Then, even after all that time, you failed to discern that what was once my brother was no better than trash?”
‘Shit.’
Seeing Kaikilia echo exactly what Iris had pointed out, I cursed inwardly. This was a situation I’d never encountered in the game.
You’d head straight to the basement, deal with the demon, get a brief rundown of events, trigger a light event with the protagonist, recover the lord’s corpse, and return to the palace.
If I hadn’t anticipated and prepared for this out of paranoia, panic would surely have shown on my face. And what followed would have been obvious.
I glanced at Aurora. She looked visibly flustered too.
‘Aurora’s fine. She’s behind me anyway, so her expression’s hidden. The problem is me. If I show any panic or agitation, it’s over.’
The game was already afoot, no turning back. I had to push through to the end, sink or swim.
“I did not discern it.”
“You did not?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would leap from my chest.
“Yes. The knight commandersㅡ”
“‘It.’”
“Pardon?”
“Refer to it as ‘it.’ By imperial law, it is no longer human. Why call a non-human by a title reserved for humans?”
Come to think of it, I recalled Kaikilia consistently calling the lord “what was once my brother.” I hurriedly bowed my head and corrected myself.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. That was a slip. I had long known the knight commanders cursed it as an utter wretch, but precisely because of that, I believed we needed to consult it. Given its nature, if we tried to handle the demon matter internally within the knights without a word…… I feared it would seize on that as an excuse to find fault with us.”
“Hmm, so you thought it might find some pretext…….”
Kaikilia trailed off ambiguously. Then she took another step forward. The distance between us was now less than the length of an arm.
From the opposite side, I saw Aurora fidgeting anxiously, stamping her feet. She hadn’t expected Kaikilia to probe this deeply.
Neither had I. Though I didn’t show it, cold sweat was pouring down my back inside.
Aurora thought it would gloss over because she’d met Kaikilia before, and I thought the same thanks to my game knowledge.
Both confidences had some basis, but now it was clear they were wrong.
“Is this the kind of pretext you mean?”
‘……!’
The moment I saw the glow forming in Kaikilia’s hand, I raised my bloodstained sword. There wasn’t even time to draw it from the sheath. By the time I tried, it would be too late.
Here, the key was to react as fast as possible, no matter what. I positioned the sheathed sword by my neck. An instant later, a fierce impact struck.
—Claaaang!!!!!!
“Aunt?!”
“Hoh?”
Aurora’s voice rang out in near-shock, followed by Kaikilia’s small sound of admiration, as if she hadn’t imagined I’d react.
My body was flung straight backward.
I drove my sword into the ground to brace myself, but still skidded back a good long way. It was only after retreating nearly twenty paces from my original spot that I finally halted.
I shook out my numb hand and relaxed my stance. A long gouge scarred the garden soil where I’d stabbed the sword to slow myself, and the surrounding grass was uprooted and scattered.
‘Whew, almost didn’t react in time there.’
I let out a quiet sigh of relief inside. Caught off guard by Kaikilia acting so differently from my expectations, I’d nearly failed to respond properly and died.
If blocking with the sword had been even a fraction slower, or if I’d tried to draw it first instead of blocking sheathed, my head would’ve been severed clean off. It was a razor-close call.
“Those feats you’re said to have accomplished aren’t mere bluster, it seems.”
Her voice carried a hint of satisfaction. I raised my head to meet Kaikilia’s gaze.
She looked at me with the corner of her mouth slightly raised. In her right hand gleamed a holy sword radiating light as bright and sacred as the sun in the sky.