Meredith quickly turned her head back, and the emperor looked at her with a blank face.
Meredith was so nervous at the moment that she couldn’t move.
She felt like she was caught in a spell that rendered her unable to move.
Soon, he spoke in a low voice.
“Not there.”
“……“
“Over there.”
The place the emperor pointed to was inside the bedroom.
Meredith was blank for a moment and soon opened her mouth as she had forgotten.
“Oh, you said you’d use a secret passage.”
“Yes, wait here for a while and then go out the secret passage.”
Meredith nodded her head.
Then she sat down at a table nearby.
The emperor sat again in front of a desk full of documents, probably brought in before she came.
Meredith stared at the figure and opened her mouth.
“You seem to have a lot of work to do.”
“A lot.”
“Shall I just go alone?”
“No.”
“It’s fine, as long as I don’t get caught anyway.”
“As I said before, you have to explain when you get caught.”
The emperor continued, still looking at the papers.
“If the explanation makes sense, I’ll let you go alone.”
“……”
There was no such thing as a good explanation.
Meredith eventually gave up and shut up.
So there was a brief silence between the two.
“Life at the palace.”
The voice was heard again when Meredith was mindlessly looking around the emperor’s bedroom.
“Is it worth it?”
……I thought I misheard you for a second.
Meredith stared blankly at the emperor.
I’m sure the last time I saw you, you were only staring at the documents.
For some time, his eyes were on her.
Meredith was taken aback after hearing the unexpected question.
But soon he opened his mouth casually.
“……It’s only been three days, so I don’t know.”
“The impressions of the first three days will continue to go forward.”
“If that’s the case, it’s still worth it.”
There haven’t been any major incidents or accidents yet.
And to be honest, I liked it the way it was.
“As you said, I’d like it to continue. Quietly. Without problems.”
Without anything happening.
“…I just hope so.”
Meredith noticed that the momentary silence in the beginning meant ‘it can’t be like that’.
That’s because three days ago, there was an assassin in the emperor’s bedroom.
‘That’s even on the first night of the wedding.’
Even if there is another attack three days from now, there is nothing strange at all.
Meredith somehow became depressed.
“Will it stop?”
And just in time, the emperor told me we would be leaving.
Meredith smiled and nodded her head.
“Where should I go?”
“This way.”
The emperor’s footsteps led to a very large bookcase.
Meredith looked at the bookcase with a puzzled look on her face.
“Is this a secret passage?”
“It’s not yet exposed to Empress Dowager Blair.”
The emperor muttered as if he liked the fact very much.
“Because I made a new one after my father’s* death.”
(t/n: the word used here was ‘부황’, it means Emperor’s father.)
He seemed quite pleased with that fact, too.
It was not long before he pulled the first book out of the first row in the bookshelf.
The second book in the second row, the third book in the third row…
It was around the time that he pulled out the seventh book in the seventh row.
Uung –
The bookshelf began to shake with a vibrating sound.
Meredith took a step back in surprise.
It was not long before a door was revealed as the bookshelf moved sideways.
Meredith looked at the passageway that had been created in an instant with her eyes wide open.
“This is…”
“I had a hard time making it.”
The emperor looked back at Meredith with a face that seemed somewhat proud.
“Shall we go?”
* * *
The end of the passageway led to the central library.
Originally, it was a place where people didn’t pass by easily.
Walking along the quiet road, Meredith was strangely relieved.
“Will I be able to read all the books if I stay up all night?”
The emperor laughed low at Meredith’s question.
Meredith looked at the emperor with a face that asked why he laughed.
“Maybe it’s possible if you’re a genius.”
He meant it was impossible.
“No way. You don’t know how many books there are.”
“Are there so many?”
“Today won’t be enough.”
The emperor straightened his fingers as if he wanted to calculate.
“Even if you stay up all night, three days? a week?”
“There’s a big difference between three days and a week.”
“I don’t know. I’m not the one who would be reading the book, but you.”
“Are you not going to help me at all?”
“I’m sorry, but I’m a perfect ordinary person who has nothing to do with magic. It won’t help at all.”
The words sounded strangely cheeky.
Meredith shut her mouth.
‘I was going to do it alone anyway.’
If you spoke nicely, would it hurt you?
The two arrived at the library, complaining inside.
“The front door should be locked.”
“So you have to go to the back door.”
The emperor turned towards the back door of the library as if there were no problems at all.
Compared to the main gate, the lock was smaller and in a less conspicuous position.
He opened the lock with the key he had without difficulty and went inside.
And when I closed the door, only a small lamp dimmed the perfect darkness.
“Watch out for the stairs.”
Meredith followed the emperor up the stairs carefully.
Perhaps because it was so dark inside, the lamp was not fully functioning.
The emperor climbed up to the fourth floor.
Meredith was surprised to learn for the first time that there was something on the fourth floor.
“I thought it was only up to the third floor.”
“As you can see, the fourth floor is locked like this.”
It was also locked with a very large lock.
And the emperor took a key out of his arms and turned it without hesitation, as if the lock was no problem either.
The lock was released quickly.
Squeak – The door opened with a grotesque sound.
“Wow…”
As soon as Meredith walked inside, she realized what the emperor had said was never a lie.
A bookshelf full of books unfolded endlessly.
There seemed to be prohibited books on the entire fourth floor.
Meredith murmured in a voice mixed with admiration and astonishment.
“That’s a lot.”
“Because this contains the Empire’s millennium history.”
“I didn’t know there were so many banned books.”
There were countless books with titles that aroused all kinds of interest.
It was time for Meredith to reach for one of them with a curious look on her face.
“Oh…”
The emperor gently grabbed Meredith by the wrist and dissuaded her.
He was smiling.
But the smile didn’t come from pure joy, it had some warning.
“Do not touch any books.”
“I’m the Empress, but I can’t?”
“Even the Empress is not given the right to read the prohibited books.”
Meredith was forced to shut up by the words.
There may be many advantages attached to the status of emperor, but Meredith thought that information monopoly was the best of them.
A lot of this classified information is worth a lot of money.
Meredith walked behind him, envious of the emperor.
“Now, this is the bookshelf where the forbidden books on magic are gathered.”
The scale was enormous.
Meredith frowned as if she had a headache just by looking at it.
‘…When did you go through all this?’
The joy of being able to know some of the information here was only for a moment.
I was at a loss at the thought of finding and reading through all of this.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to read it all in a day.”
“I told you, it’s too much.”
“Are you sure you won’t help me? It’s not like I’m the one being cured.”
“You should have thought about this when you made the deal.”
“You’re cold-hearted.”
I guess it’s too much to expect help. Meredith quickly gave up and brought a chair built behind the pillar.
But by the time the chair had been brought, the emperor had already laid down all the books that had been placed out of Meredith’s reach.