IMT 04

Chapter 04

Gasp! I actually get to see Eunsoo alive and in person!

Emotion crashed over me like waves.

To be honest, I liked Eunsoo even more than Mikhail, the male lead.

Eunsoo—the talented heroine who was loved by Mikhail and every other major male character, a woman who excelled at everything.

She had started from the most difficult circumstances imaginable and still climbed to the highest position. She was someone I genuinely admired.

The game’s story was simple.

One day, Emperor Mikhail fell in love with a mysterious woman named Eunsoo, who suddenly appeared in a fountain.

One of my favorite scenes was when Mikhail, out on a walk, discovered Eunsoo floating in the fountain.

It was the very definition of a fated encounter.

It was a little disappointing that I hadn’t been able to witness that scene with my own eyes, but now that I had finally seen Eunsoo herself, I was satisfied.

Eunsoo was a beautiful woman with large eyes, a delicate little nose, and small lips.

To the people of this world, her appearance might have seemed unusual.

But to me, whose soul was still thoroughly Korean, she was simply beautiful.

Ah, those women must be Eunsoo’s maids.

There were six of them.

A rather small number for an Empress, but judging by their expressions, they didn’t seem to harbor any ill feelings toward Eunsoo.

I had worried that, having only recently returned, Eunsoo might be having a difficult time adjusting.

But her maids were taking excellent care of her.

Perhaps because I was so happy to see Eunsoo, the nausea that had made me feel like throwing up a moment ago quickly subsided.

I felt well enough to speak, so I happily greeted her.

“Greetings to Your Majesty the Empress.”

As I lifted my skirt and bowed, Eunsoo looked down at me with a fierce expression.

Her maids, whose faces were equally cold, now looked puzzled.

Why are they looking at me like that?

Curious, I raised my head.

Eunsoo walked toward me.

“You and I are not on terms where greetings are necessary.”

There was something slightly awkward about her accent and pronunciation.

The Creras language she spoke sounded like a foreigner struggling to speak Korean.

Maybe she still isn’t fluent in Creras…

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than she spoke again.

“I won’t waste any more words. Get out of my palace immediately. I will not tolerate disobedience.”

The moment she finished speaking, one of the maids threw something onto the floor.

It was an ordinary brown travel bag, the kind commonly seen in marketplaces.

The bag hadn’t been properly fastened, and small belongings spilled across the floor.

I stared at them with wide eyes.

Plain dresses without decorations.

A small cup.

A pen nib.

A coin pouch.

A comb.

A palm-sized case containing a few inexpensive hair ties.

Indoor slippers.

Every single one of them belonged to me.

A surge of irritation flashed through me.

“Those pieces of trash were dirtying the room my maids will be using, so I had them thrown out.”

Her face was twisted with hostility.

I knew.

I knew exactly how she saw me.

From her perspective, I was nothing more than an obstacle standing in the way of her love with Mikhail.

Naturally, she wanted me gone.

And naturally, the true Empress should be the one occupying the Empress’s Palace.

But did she really have to go this far?

This was nothing more than someone with power using it to crush someone who had none.

“Was it really necessary to do this?”

I asked with widened eyes.

Eunsoo frowned in obvious displeasure.

“Are you questioning what I said?”

Her tone was even more authoritarian than Mikhail’s.

Is this really Eunsoo?

The lovable heroine I knew from the game wasn’t like this.

She had been jealous of Evelyn and had feared that Evelyn might steal Mikhail away from her, but she had never taken those feelings out on Evelyn.

Instead, she had bottled everything up inside.

Players had constantly complained about the story, asking why every dialogue choice was so frustrating, joking that the developers were determined to force-feed them a million sweet potatoes.

I knew reality couldn’t perfectly match what I’d seen on a screen.

But could it really be this different?

Eunsoo glared at me viciously.

And she still hadn’t told me to stand.

Maintaining the same posture for so long sent sharp aches through my waist, legs, and back.

I couldn’t understand why she was acting this way.

Had something bad happened?

After all, not everyone would have welcomed her return after three years.

Perhaps she had experienced things far more detailed, painful, and difficult than anything I had seen in the game.

I couldn’t know.

Her reaction left me disappointed and saddened.

Even so, I decided to understand and let it go.

Then Eunsoo shouted coldly,

“Take your filthy belongings and get out of my palace!”

Her behavior upset me.

But I was leaving the palace anyway.

There was no reason to create unnecessary conflict.

What’s the point of arguing?

Let’s just leave.

After looking down at my belongings scattered across the floor, I slowly straightened up.

Just as I stepped forward to pick them up, someone blocked my path.

One of Eunsoo’s maids.

The others quickly surrounded me.

“So you dared stand up without Her Majesty’s permission?”

I turned my head toward Eunsoo.

She was still staring at me coldly.

“It was Her Majesty herself who told me to clean up my belongings.”

“No excuses. I already know exactly what you think of me.”

The icy sharpness in her voice stirred my own resentment.

Just from her actions today, it was obvious what kind of person she believed me to be.

Eunsoo had never become a former Empress.

And publicly, I was still Empress as well.

In other words, to everyone else, Eunsoo and I were rivals fighting over the position of Empress.

But I had no desire to become her enemy.

Nor did I have any intention of competing for the throne beside Mikhail.

People who didn’t know my true thoughts would naturally assume I intended to oppose Eunsoo.

But they were wrong.

“There seems to be some misunderstanding. I’ll be leaving the Imperial Palace soon. I have no intention of doing anything that would harm Your Majesty.”

I smiled as harmlessly as I could.

But Eunsoo’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“Sweet words like those won’t fool me. From now on, you won’t be free to strut around this Imperial Palace.”

The utter hostility she displayed caught me completely off guard.

Had Eunsoo really been driven into such a corner?

From the nobles’ perspective, I might have been a foreigner, but I was also a quiet Empress who handled her duties well.

Compared to me, Eunsoo probably looked like an Empress constantly dragging people into one incident after another.

If I had never existed, there would have been no one to compare her against.

Maybe she wouldn’t have suffered under all that pressure.

Sigh…

I had been trying to leave the palace as quickly as possible to prevent exactly this sort of situation.

But thanks to Mikhail…

As I bit my lip in growing frustration, something suddenly surged upward from deep inside my stomach.

“Cough!”

Splatter.

Before I could even cover my mouth, dark red blood spilled out.

The mana backlash I had thought was over had returned.

If coughing up blood inside the Emperor’s Palace was the worst possible scenario…

Doing it in front of the Empress’s Palace was only slightly better.

Either way, it was terrible.

I hurriedly covered my mouth with my hand and looked at Eunsoo.

Her eyes were stretched wide open.

The maids had frozen like statues, unable to move.

Silence fell over the courtyard.

The only sound was the wind passing quietly by.

Eunsoo must have been shocked.

Anyone would be if they suddenly saw another person coughing up blood.

Especially someone she had just been pressuring and humiliating moments earlier.

Eunsoo was kind by nature.

There was a good chance she already regretted what she’d done and was worried about me.

Catching the blood that continued pouring from my mouth with my hand, I looked at her apologetically.

I’m sorry.

This isn’t something I can control.

Even if it’s hard to watch… please understand.

I couldn’t speak, so I smiled instead, hoping to reassure her that I was alright.

It had the opposite effect.

Eunsoo’s face turned so pale it was almost blue.

She abruptly spun around and ran away as though fleeing for her life.

The maids hurried after her.

It was impossible to imagine elegant noble ladies and an Empress running like that.

They must have been truly terrified.

Watching them disappear, I gave a bitter smile.

Blood continued pouring onto the front of my dress, across my abdomen, and over my skirt.

What’s happening…?

The question had barely formed in my mind when the world suddenly spun.

My body tilted.

A sharp pain struck my shoulder and the side of my head.

The Emperor’s office.

“What did you say?!”

Mikhail shot to his feet with a shout.

The one who had startled him was Ronwell Bryce, a member of his personal Shadow Knights.

His long silver hair swayed gently as he answered.

“We found Lady Lin collapsed after coughing up blood. The Imperial Physician has already examined her, but she has yet to regain consciousness.”

“How did this happen?! What happened to her?!”

Mikhail roared.

But Ronwell remained silent, unable to answer immediately.

“Ron! Why aren’t you saying anything? What happened?”

Ronwell had been watching everything unfold from a distance.

He knew exactly what had happened.

He knew Evelyn had encountered the Empress.

He knew she had been subjected to humiliating words.

But he couldn’t simply report those events exactly as they had occurred.

Pressing his lips tightly together and clenching his folded hands, Ronwell hesitated.

Then Mikhail asked quietly,

“…Don’t tell me… Eunsoo was responsible?”