Chapter 7 – Did You Go Back, Too?
An ominous thought struck. Kaien couldn’t hide his displeasure and looked at the disguised Emperor in front of him.
“Why are you here…?”
“Is there a place I can’t abide?”
To Kaien’s great embarrassment, Gloria responded with a smile. Seeing that arrogant smile, so unlike the tender flowery-like smile he knew, brought Kaien to his senses.
Having recovered his usual cold demeanor, he rebuked Gloria for her masquerade.
“What are you thinking? I can’t believe you’re wandering without an escort at this late hour when you’re not even good at disguising yourself!”
Gloria did not respond to Kaien’s angry words. He was the one who started to look dangerous for some reason, while Gloria just smiled when she met a comrade and made no excuses against the reprimand.
At the same time, Kaien began to recall the proposal he had heard earlier that day.
‘Crazy.’
The Emperor who gave him the command to marry seemed out of her mind, but in this situation, he seemed even more crazy remembering it.
However, Kaien was more shocked by Gloria’s next statement.
“No nagging, please! More than that, Duke. I heard a very interesting story today.”
“What are you talking about? Please speak informally, Your Majesty.”
“Since it’s just the two of us, I plan to do whatever’s comfortable. And rather than directing my manner of speaking, I want you to answer my question!
“…”
Kaien kept his mouth shut as Gloria approached him recklessly, waving her hands.
‘That stiff face used to intimidate me before, but now… I’m not scared of you at all.’ Gloria smiled at Kaien’s sharp gaze as if looking right through him.
Then she put a hand on his cheek and, remembering the previous tragedy, spoke with a gentle countenance.
“I heard you cried while holding Diana?”
“Did you come all the way here to ask a useless question?”
The handsome man’s face puckered at the strange question. Gloria grabbed Kaien’s wrist as if to pull him and said, looking up at him with a gleaming gaze.
“Thank you for being alive.”
“…”
“…That’s what you said?”
“I didn’t know you would take so much interest in matters between us siblings.”
Kaien stared at her with a bloodthirsty glare and growled low. He wanted to wave his arms wide to shake her off, but it was obvious what would happen to the fragile Gloria if he did. She noticed both that he couldn’t shake her off in his fear of her falling and that her own fierce momentum was the only activity, and so she drew even closer to him.
Kaien flinched when her soft body touched his arm through the thin cloth, but Gloria pursed her mouth as if telling a secret.
“Has there been a recent time when the Duke was in danger? I don’t remember at all.”
“Your Majesty may not know.”
Ignoring the touch on his arm, Kaien replied sternly. His ferocious gaze told her to leave the mansion immediately. But Gloria’s real business was just getting started.
Squinting at Kaien, she asked again.
“Should I guess?”
“Please stop joking…”
“The Duke of Ludenberg and all those charged with treason were executed for the poisoning of Emperor Gloria Blake.”
“…!”
“Right?”
Kaien’s eyes bulged hearing a statement that should never have come from Erant’s Emperor’s mouth.
Who would speak of their own poisoning?
But the way Gloria looked at him…
“How do you… shit!”
He made the mistake of answering before thinking.
‘Damn it.’
He cursed at himself, startled by the Emperor’s sudden change of attitude, she who had only flowers in her head so far, and this Gloria who accurately described the ‘future’ that no one knew but him.
‘You’re the same as me.’
Gloria’s face brightened as Kaien swept his black hair roughly.
‘That anger and resentment. The feeling of betrayal by an old friend will make things easier.’
Satisfied with his reaction, Gloria said with a big smile.
“The Duke experienced regression? So did I.”
“…ha?”
Hey, you too? Me too!
Kaien’s cold poker face completely collapsed at Gloria’s excitement and joy.
Regression. A word with a dictionary meaning of turning around or returning to the same place.
The two people who had returned from death to their old days faced each other wordlessly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about right now.”
Kaien broke the silence first. His amethyst eyes showed his disbelief in her claim. At his frigid attitude, she clenched the doorknob.
‘Still, I’m not avoiding it.’
Gloria bit her dry lips feeling hard-pressed to withstand Kaien’s force. She wanted to escape from this suffocating place, but her thirst for vengeance held her. She responded, looking straight at Kaien and ignoring his attitude.
“I know you don’t like me.”
“I’m glad you know. Then go away.”
“But I want to say now is not the time.”
“I’ll prepare a carriage soon, so I hope you have a safe trip.”
“Duke Ludenberg!”
Gloria shouted her frustration, sighing loudly at Kaien’s behavior, ignoring her to the end. However, his attitude did not change despite the Emperor’s appearance. Rather, his amethyst eyes began to flash with anger.
“Duke!”
Kaien roughly pulled her out the door. She knew that he had a dirty temper, but Gloria was shocked by his tossing the Emperor away so violently. And although he saw Gloria’s shocked expression, he didn’t care. Kaien glared at Gloria’s now glassy dark blue eyes and hissed ominously.
“If you had come to your senses earlier, neither my vassals nor Diana would have died. If you hadn’t been so incompetent and stupid, Diana would have lived a normal married life. If it weren’t for you. If we hadn’t met you in the first place…”
“…”
Suddenly, Kaien grabbed Gloria. His usually indifferent face twisted with anger. Every night, he would remember that day. Kaien looked down in pain at speechless Gloria.
Diana, wearing rags and not a pretty silk dress, fell on the floor like a petal after being hit with a knife.
Kaien couldn’t contain his rising rage any longer. After the disgrace he had suffered, he wanted to bring Gloria down. However, in a corner of his heart, the Gloria who smiled shyly and called him ‘Kaien’ remained.
“Duke Ludenberg.”
Witnessing Kaien’s agony, Gloria called him quietly. Her eyes were filled with tears and her voice trembled.
Kaien’s sister was brutally killed by a trusted old friend, and even his entire household was destroyed. She couldn’t say anything.
‘I can’t even tell him that my dad, the late Emperor, died at Erun’s hands.’
Although not on particularly good terms with him, the late Emperor had loved Kaien, and Kaien had served him well. Lacking the confidence to shock him again, Gloria chose to remain silent.
She knew. If she told him about her father’s death, Kaien would stop resisting her and would cooperate easily with her plans and she would be able to get rid of that evil right away, however…
‘I can’t be sure. Even if we are going to work together from now on, marriage is just around the corner.’
Gloria bit the inside of her lip hard to control her tears. She had to put her father’s death behind. ‘Are you really human?’ On top of that…
‘I can’t imagine what would happen if he found out about father’s death.’
He was a man who had lost everything. She could hardly say to such a man, ‘The person you followed was also killed by Erun.’
“…”
In her silence, Kaien pushed Gloria away and spoke in a polite yet wintry voice.
“I won’t let my sister die again. Whether Erun eats this country or you die of poison, it’s none of my business.”
“Are you going to immigrate?”
“If I can save Diana, I would do anything, including immigration. Even abandoning the Duchy.”
Kaien had no intention of remaining loyal to the incompetent Emperor Gloria. Even if they were loyal anyway, the powerless Emperor would be poisoned again by Erun, and the Duchy of Ludenberg would fall again.
“…”
Gloria kept her mouth shut. She knew Kaien, and she didn’t anticipate he would take her hand that easily. As he said, she did nothing while the Duchy of Ludenberg was swept away.
‘He is just holding on to his and Diana’s lives. But it’s the same for me too…!’
Gloria swallowed the painful emotions and glared at Kaien. As the Emperor, she couldn’t escape from this country, but this time she vowed to protect Diana somehow.
But, unlike Kaien, Gloria aimed to eliminate Marquis Erun Lebossi.
‘Without him, no one will die.’
Gloria said, looking straight into Kaien’s amethyst eyes.
“If you help me, I’ll make everything the Duke wants come true.”
Whether it’s immigration or whatever. As Gloria spoke, the corners of Kaien’s mouth twisted upward in obvious mockery.
“You?”
‘You. A doll-like Emperor swayed by Erun.’ That was what Kaien meant, but Gloria didn’t budge. Rather, she spoke to him desperately, like the blue-eyed dead crawling up from the floor.
“That’s right. A poisoned idiot who couldn’t do anything to save Diana from such destiny. I foolishly trusted Erun and lost everything ineptly like so much stupid trash!”
“…”
“One time is enough for such an experience.”
Gloria’s eyes were fierce blue flames that seemed to burn everything.