BTEE 49🔐

She had thought that such happy days would continue forever.

“His Majesty the Emperor urgently requests the Duke’s presence.”

Regis was on his way back to the ducal residence after meeting Cassielope when the Emperor’s aide hurriedly came looking for him.

Although his tone was remarkably calm, the dark expression on his face made it easy to guess what was happening.

The Emperor had very little time left.

Regis followed the Emperor’s aide. The man was walking so quickly that his steps almost resembled a run.

When the door to the Emperor’s bedroom opened, Regis could not completely conceal the expression on his face.

The peculiar aura emanating from someone standing on the brink of death was simply too overwhelming.

As he approached, a thin, bony hand suddenly reached out and seized his arm. The grip was so tight that it seemed more like the Emperor was clinging to him.

“Regi…s. How… how much do you love Cassielope…?”

It was an unexpected question.

Nevertheless, Regis had no hesitation in answering, for he already knew what his answer would be.

“I love her so much that I would gladly lay down my life for her…”

“Then please… please protect Lope… for me…”

“……Your Majesty?”

“I don’t have… much time left. That woman will surely try to ruin… even Cassielope…”

The Emperor’s once-blue eyes turned cold.

“What… do you mean by that?”

“You must lift the curse… that person placed. You must…!”

The focus disappeared from one of the Emperor’s eyes, making him look like a madman. Regis, who stood before him, could not move an inch.

He had instinctively realized that the person before him was no longer the Emperor.

“I have no more chances, Regis…!”

His previously faltering words suddenly became clear, as though every trace of his illness had vanished.

“If you fail, go back. You must… you absolutely must succeed. The way to return is…”

The Emperor could not finish his sentence. His remaining eye was also consumed by madness, and he began thrashing about.

As though his sole purpose was to attack, he started swinging his sword wildly at everything within reach.

In the blink of an eye, the surroundings had turned into a sea of blood.

“Your Majesty! What on earth…?!”

Regis instinctively drew his sword to deflect the incoming attacks, but he could not bring himself to strike back.

The man before him was the father of the woman he loved most in the world, the very person Cassielope respected above everyone else.

However, he could not simply leave things as they were. Three servants had already been killed by the Emperor.

One of them was his aide, who had served by his side for many years and whom the Emperor cherished so dearly that he had called him a friend.

“Your Majesty! Please come to your senses, Your Majesty!”

Despite his desperate cries, the Emperor showed no sign of stopping his attacks.

This was not the level of skill he normally possessed. His overwhelming strength was almost inhuman.

His swordsmanship had improved dramatically. Combined with Regis’s momentary hesitation, the damage continued to mount.

That was when it happened.

“……Father?”

At the sound of Cassielope’s voice, Regis’s silver hair, stained with blood, fluttered.

As the hair covering his vision was swept aside when he turned his head, he saw her standing dazedly at the end of the corridor.

“Don’t come out, Lope!”

It was a desperate shout. However, there was no way Cassielope would obediently listen.

Unable to accept the situation unfolding before her, Cassielope approached them.

“It’s dangerous! Please, please don’t come any closer, Lope…”

He could not let the man he loved turn his beloved daughter into a victim.

He could not allow her to die at her own father’s hands.

Regis gritted his teeth and parried every one of the Emperor’s attacks.

Clang! Clang!

Even amid the deafening clashes of swords, the sound of footsteps he had always imagined hearing echoed in his ears.

Just as he was about to shout again, telling her not to come closer, the Emperor suddenly changed his target and charged toward Cassielope.

It was a grave mistake.

“No! No, please, get out of the way, Lope!”

But Cassielope, already frozen by the shock, seemed unable to hear him.

Regis tightened his grip on his sword.

It was pure instinct, driven by a single determination: he had to save Cassielope.

At that very moment—

Stop—!

The Emperor’s movements came to an abrupt halt.

“Father…”

Since Regis could only see his back, he could not tell what expression the Emperor was wearing.

However, one thing was certain.

The moment he faced Cassielope, his sanity had returned, if only for an instant.

And without missing that opportunity, the Emperor plunged his sword into his own abdomen.

He must have driven it in incredibly deep, for the blade pierced straight through his body and emerged from his back.

“F-Father!”

Cassielope quickly caught her father as he collapsed. Her entire body was soon covered in the blood of the imperial citizens that had stained the Emperor’s clothes.

“Cassielope! Your Majesty!”

Clang!

The sword in Regis’s hand was violently flung to the floor.

As he lowered himself to examine the Emperor’s condition, the Emperor struggled to turn his head and look at Regis.

No voice came out, but the shape of his lips was unmistakable.

Death.

‘……Death?’

Taken on its own, it was an oddly strange word.

‘His Majesty said something earlier…’

Regis recalled the last words the Emperor had spoken before losing his sanity.

“If you fail, go back. You must… you absolutely must succeed. The way to return is…”

The way to go back.

The way to return was death.

But he no longer had the time to think about what that meant.

“Can you hear me…?”

With a face frozen like a statue, Cassielope moved only her lips.

“Father…”

“Why did you do that…?”

What Cassielope saw before her was the lifeless bodies of countless servants, lying scattered across the floor.

Clutching the Emperor’s clothes as though she wanted to tear them apart, she cried out.

“Why did you do that? Why?!”

It was unclear whether she was asking why he had stabbed himself or why he had taken the lives of so many imperial citizens.

Perhaps… it was both.

“I know you can still hear me. So please, answer me… Why on earth did you do that?!”

His eyes were closed, but he had not stopped breathing.

Although the sword had pierced his abdomen, it had narrowly missed all his vital organs. Regis had never personally experienced how painful it was to die in such a manner, but he knew all too well what it must feel like.

The Emperor’s breathing grew weaker.

His life would soon come to an end.

But before his breath finally faded, something else came to an end first.

“D-Don’t… die, Father…”

“……Lope.”

It was a desperate plea, her face horribly contorted with grief. At the end of all her anger, what remained was a simple request for him not to die.

Even when begged by the daughter he loved more than anything in the world, the Emperor never opened his eyes again.

His death was agonizingly long.

A new Emperor was born.

It was supposed to be a time when everyone praised the new sun who had claimed the imperial throne.

Yet no one welcomed her.

A bloody traitor who had murdered her own father and usurped the throne.

An unprecedented tyrant who had shed blood that never needed to be spilled.

Every one of those accusations pointed to the same person.

Cassielope Clemens, the new Emperor.

They were disgraceful titles, utterly unbecoming of someone so noble, but she neither denied nor corrected them.

It was because she did not want her father to be recorded in history as a tyrant.

“……Lope.”

“I know what you’re going to say, Regis. But… I just want to stay like this.”

“This is my father’s punishment. He left without paying for his sins, so isn’t it only right that I, his daughter, pay the price in his place?”

Cassielope curled the corners of her lips into a smile.

“And I’m confident I can do it. I’ll make this Clemens Empire a better place to live than any other country in the world.”

And she did exactly as she had promised.

At first, even those who referred to her as a ‘tyrant’ gradually began to see Cassielope differently as the Empire’s situation steadily stabilized.

Could she have been falsely accused?

What if the woman who had devoted herself to the Empire since her days as a princess, the current Emperor who had led countless wars to victory, had truly been misunderstood?

After countless efforts, the people of the Empire finally acknowledged her as a wise and benevolent ruler.

With her own hands, she had finally managed to clear her tarnished name.

……Until that incident happened.