The Emperor's Mad Laughter
Princess Kiciphran and her two escort knights entered the emperor's quarters.
The emperor's sleeping chamber lay beyond.
The three of them dropped their act.
"My wrist hurts. Hiding the terminal like that was a pain."
Yushido pulled out the terminal he'd crumpled into his sleeve.
Travelers couldn't remove their terminals, so they had no choice but to conceal them inside their clothes.
"I feel bad for Kiciphran."
Iris pinched the hem of her dress with her fingertips.
The princess's formal attire was modest yet elegantly antique.
"We dressed you in her clothes, so don't worry about it."
"Is that really all right?"
"Of course it is. Her mouth is gagged and her arms and legs are tied up tight with rope, after all."
Yushido chuckled as he spoke.
They had bound Princess Kiciphran and hidden her in a corner of the garden.
If the imperial family discovered them, it would mean immediate execution.
"As long as we don't get caught, it's fine. Lucky she never saw our faces."
Yushido put his angel mask back on.
Kang Yoonsoo silently donned his mask as well and started walking.
When they reached the bedroom, they saw the sleeping emperor.
He possessed the kind of imposing frame that suited the most powerful man in the empire.
"The emperor's asleep. How are we supposed to feed him the poison?"
When Yushido whispered, Kang Yoonsoo shook his head.
"That's not the emperor."
"What?"
"It's a double."
Yushido stared at the middle-aged man with graying hair.
His breathing was steady, but something about his appearance felt strangely off.
There were no shadows on the sleeping emperor.
"This is an illusion, isn't it?"
"Touch it and the security magic will activate."
Yushido chewed hard on his middle finger, clearly annoyed at being fooled.
"Keeping a double in his own quarters? What kind of emperor does that?"
"Because we're not the only assassins targeting the emperor's life."
Yushido looked puzzled.
"Then where's the real emperor?"
"Here."
Kang Yoonsoo pointed at an ornate wardrobe.
The other two tilted their heads in confusion.
He walked over himself and flung the doors open.
It was packed with luxurious evening coats and formal robes.
"He's got a lot of clothes. Don't tell me there's another hidden space behind this wardrobe or something?"
"There is."
"Damn, how cliché. What is this, The Chronicles of Narnia?"
Yushido sounded thoroughly disgusted.
Kang Yoonsoo found a small groove among the pile of clothes.
It was a keyhole.
"I'll pick the lock!"
Yushido rolled up his sleeves and stepped forward.
But Kang Yoonsoo shook his head.
"To open this closet, you need a drop of imperial blood."
"What? Then we can't open it."
Kang Yoonsoo jerked his chin toward Iris.
Yushido clapped his hands together.
"So that's the trick."
Yushido bit down on the red gem embedded in his forearm.
His hair turned pure white and his fangs grew sharp.
He suddenly grabbed Iris's wrist and sank his teeth into it.
"Mm, tasty?"
Iris stared at him with wide, startled eyes.
"Yushido can freely change his race."
"That's my class trait. I can implant special gems in my body to copy racial characteristics. Ah, the blood of a beautiful woman is just too delicious."
"But how long are you going to drink my blood?"
"Hmmm, until my erection goes down?"
"What is that?"
"You don't even know? Well, it's..."
Crunch!
Yushido barely avoided the crisis of having both his fangs shattered.
Iris covered her reddened cheek with her palm.
"...Oh dear. This is truly, truly embarrassing. My face is burning up. I can't even lift my head."
"Heh, just from that?"
"That's enough."
Kang Yoonsoo intervened.
She held out the back of her hand, where blood was flowing.
"Kang Yoonsoo, what should I do now?"
"Put your blood-stained finger into the hole."
Iris smeared blood on her index finger and inserted it into the keyhole.
Even though the size didn't match, the faint sound of gears turning echoed.
The large wardrobe opened, revealing a new space beyond.
"It smells of old books."
It was a study.
Between narrow pathways lay books and parchments of every kind.
Yushido picked up an old tome rolling on the floor.
You have obtained a clue regarding the previous generation Logmaster's Hall.
Collecting the 77 map fragments scattered across the continent will allow you to begin the trial left behind by the Logmaster.
Your crime index has exceeded 500. You have qualified for additional rewards.
"The stuff here isn't ordinary books. They're all packed with valuable information. There's no better place for manipulating the continent's political situation. Great! Let's burn this place down!"
The other two ignored Yushido's insane suggestion.
Kang Yoonsoo walked deeper into the study.
Beyond the dark space, faint lamplight could be seen.
A tired voice reached them.
"The meeting hasn't even started yet. Can't you let me rest even a little?"
As they went further in, the lamplight grew stronger.
A middle-aged man was handling paperwork at a desk.
He looked identical to the emperor who had been lying in bed.
But the deep shadows under his eyes and his sunken cheeks made him look far more haggard.
The middle-aged man glanced at Iris, then continued writing as he spoke.
"Kiciphran, didn't I tell you not to make your father tired? As I said, I cannot grant what you want. And why have you brought a masked subject with you? How ridiculous."
"You're the emperor?"
Yushido asked curiously.
The middle-aged man frowned.
"What kind of tone is that? Show proper respect."
"Ranford Leorcan."
Kang Yoonsoo spoke in a low voice.
"I am not your subject."
He showed his terminal.
The emperor of the empire flinched and stopped moving his hand.
"Someone from another world has come all the way here. For what reason?"
"To kill you."
Helkin and Renox thoroughly searched the area around the broken window.
The two knights had found unfamiliar footprints and followed them, but the trail ended at a dead-end wall.
They flung open every nearby door, but found no trace of the intruder.
"We checked the imperial storage and vaults as well, but there were no traces. It doesn't seem like their goal was to steal valuables or information."
"Damn it, did these bastards dig a tunnel or something? This is ridiculous."
Unfortunately, the two knights were severely lacking in detective skills.
At this rate, they would clearly miss the intruders who had entered the imperial palace right under their noses.
"Sir Helkin."
Helkin turned his head.
A man with glossy hair stood beside him. He must have approached without them noticing.
"Lumiere, what are you doing here?"
Helkin asked irritably.
In this urgent situation, he had no time to chat with this gloomy alchemist.
"I was on my way to my laboratory. But you seem quite busy. Are you looking for the ones who broke into the palace?"
"That's right."
"Actually, I saw them."
"Is that true?"
Lumiere nodded and said,
"Follow me. It was a sight that was hard to believe even with my own eyes."
Lumiere led the two knights away.
It was the same dead-end wall where the footprints had stopped.
Lumiere kicked the wall twice with his foot and knocked on it five times with the back of his hand.
A secret passage opened.
"They went in through here."
"You just watched it happen?"
"What good would come from a lowly researcher like me getting involved with intruders?"
Helkin glared at Lumiere before speaking to Renox.
"Let's hurry. We can still catch up if we go now."
"Understood."
Lumiere watched the two knights disappear into the secret passage.
He muttered quietly.
"I hope things go well. Truly."
Yushido was so excited his vision was spinning.
To declare to the face of the continent's most powerful man that he would kill him!
Kang Yoonsoo was far crazier than Yushido had thought.
Emperor Ranford Leorcan of the empire bit his lip.
"...Is my daughter your hostage?"
"This woman is not your daughter. She's a doppelganger."
The emperor let out a sigh.
He scratched his temple with his quill pen.
"What is your reason for wanting to kill me? From the looks of it, you seem unrelated to the imperial succession."
"When you turn sixty, you go mad. You'll interfere with my plans. So I want you to die now."
"Cause of death?"
"Poisoning."
Kang Yoonsoo took out a glass bottle containing purple petals.
The emperor smiled bitterly.
"What terrible taste. Of all things, the madness flower."
Then Kang Yoonsoo said something unexpected.
"If you don't want to, don't eat it."
"What?"
"Exactly what I said. If you don't want to die, you don't have to eat it. The choice is yours."
Yushido's eyes widened.
"What the hell are you saying? If you're going to kill him, you should force it down his throat. Don't tell me you're going soft now?"
But Kang Yoonsoo simply stared at the emperor in silence.
The emperor looked back and forth between the petals in the glass bottle and Kang Yoonsoo, then sighed.
"What do you think the life of an emperor is like? A life where you can sit on the throne above everyone else from the very beginning."
Yushido spoke mockingly.
"Well, no matter how much you complain, I've never seen a golden spoon who wasn't full."
"Is it because you're a traveler? I have trouble fully understanding you, but my complaints must indeed sound like the whining of the privileged."
Emperor Ranford wiped his face with both hands.
His voice was soaked in the resentment he had accumulated as emperor.
"I once had the determination to lead the empire brilliantly. Do you know how much mental strength it took to overcome the slander, distortion, and flattery of those vicious nobles and protect the throne? But the result was disastrous. All my efforts came to nothing, and now I'm exhausted."
The emperor's voice began to tremble.
His pupils shook as if afraid of some invisible person.
"The one who rules the imperial palace now is not me. All the power in the palace belongs to someone else. At some point, I became nothing but his puppet. It's too late to turn back now."
The emperor carefully opened the glass bottle.
He picked out a purple petal.
"A person's death needs a trigger. Perhaps I've been waiting for such a trigger for a long time. Yes, I don't know. Whether I should thank you or hate you."
The emperor put the petal in his mouth.
His body convulsed for a moment, then the emperor began laughing madly.
The emperor laughed.
He kept laughing.
And laughed some more.
Was he laughing because of the flower?
Or did he truly want to laugh?
It was impossible to tell.
The emperor, who laughed until the very end, collapsed on the spot.
"What the hell just happened?"
Yushido couldn't believe the scene before his eyes.
The most powerful man on the continent had chosen suicide.
"What is this? Why would an emperor commit suicide? Shouldn't he at least resist? Does it make sense for him to just die so weakly?"
"From the beginning, the emperor had severe suicidal urges."
Kang Yoonsoo, who had regressed hundreds of times, already knew.
Lately, Emperor Ranford had felt an overwhelming sense of burden and frustration toward himself.
That pent-up stress had accumulated until he went mad in his later years.
Kang Yoonsoo had simply given the emperor's accumulated resentment a slight push.
"Is he really dead?"
Yushido checked the emperor's pulse in disbelief.
The emperor was truly dead.
Yushido looked at Kang Yoonsoo with a fed-up expression.
"So... you induced the emperor to kill himself with his own hands?"
"I gave him the chance to commit suicide."
"And the emperor was seduced by your suggestion?"
"Yeah."
For the first time, Yushido shouted in utter disbelief.
"I've never seen an assassination like this in my life. Where in the world is there a guy who kills people in such an outrageous way!"
"Right here."
Kang Yoonsoo calmly turned away.
He had killed the emperor as originally planned.
All that remained was to find the alchemist who created Iris.
He walked out of the study.
It was then.
A fierce blade flew toward Kang Yoonsoo.
Slash!
The tip of the sword grazed his hair, sending strands flying through the air.
If he hadn't immediately stepped back, his body would have been cut in two.
Kang Yoonsoo reached for his sword hilt.
'What is this?'
What emerged from beyond the darkness was an old knight.
Upon seeing the fallen emperor, veins bulged on Helkin's forehead.
"You bastard! Have you lost your mind!"
Helkin widened his eyes and thrust his sword.
Kang Yoonsoo reflexively drew his blade.
The two men's swords clashed.
Clang!