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Chapter – 40
The man who was supposedly my father had driven me out of the mercenary office and even orchestrated my kidnapping through that forty-four-year-old butter-faced man. Surely the emperor hadn’t been behind all of that… right? Even if he wasn’t the mastermind, had he deliberately turned a blind eye…?
No. That can’t be it. Absolutely not.
“Then, are you going?”
“For now… let’s talk later. I want to wash up. I want to rinse the blood out of my hair.”
One of the knights standing beside the emperor handed me my travel bag. It was the very thing I hadn’t even realized I’d left behind on the street in the chaos earlier.
“Very well. I’ll wait.”
“How could you make His Majesty the Emperor wait?”
But the emperor showed no intention of moving at all. On the contrary, he confidently took a seat in one corner of the mercenary office.
Instinctively realizing that telling him again to go back would be pointless, I went upstairs to wash up quickly. And when I returned to the room I’d been using, I nearly screamed.
Red streaks of sticky blood clung stubbornly here and there to my silver hair, as if I’d put in crimson highlights. At a glance, it looked like my skull had been split open.
“So this is how I was walking around.”
I’d always believed that a lawyer must look neat and presentable—that it was a basic professional requirement. But this was downright miserable. On top of that, Count Avalon—my father—had grabbed me by the hair, leaving it sticking out and puffed up in all directions.
“So that’s why the emperor kept smoothing my hair. I must’ve looked absolutely awful.”
All I could do was laugh.
“Hah… I should go back down quickly.”
Every thought I had ended up circling back to the emperor. To force those thoughts away, I hurriedly wiped off the blood and thoroughly soaked my overly conspicuous hair with water.
What if he’d left while I was washing? Holding onto that small hope, I went down to the first floor.
I hadn’t had time to properly style my hair, but at least I looked more human now. As I descended the stairs, I glanced around. But as always, the things I hoped for rarely came true.
“You’re back.”
It was a pleasant voice. If we hadn’t met under circumstances like these, I might have been completely taken in by that low, slightly resonant tone. But ours was a relationship where being swept away was absolutely not an option, so I awkwardly shook out my hair and approached him.
“I thought you’d left.”
“You sound like you were hoping I would.”
“Well, something like that. Considering my situation, it might be better to go with Your Majesty—but I have no intention of taking on your commission.”
“Why are you so adamantly against it?”
“Because the benefit I’d gain from doing it is minimal.”
“Minimal? Why do you think so?”
“Because it would mean making an enemy of Her Majesty the Empress… That’s something I absolutely can’t afford.”
I spoke almost in a whisper, afraid someone might overhear, carefully expressing my thoughts. But instead of understanding, the emperor looked genuinely puzzled.
“It would be forming a bond with me. Every woman in the world wants to stay by my side. So why do you dislike it so much? You seemed to enjoy divorcing people well enough.”
“It’s what comes after that’s the problem.”
“Saying I’d make you empress was meant to protect you. You’d incur the former empress’s hatred. Still, if you don’t want that, fine. I won’t tell you to become empress. But you’ll push for the divorce.”
He’d stepped back, in his own way—but his determination to entrust me with the task remained firm.
“If you’re worried about your life afterward, I’ll protect you as my aide rather than as empress. And if even that’s unacceptable, I can send you to a distant country.”
If a divorce lawyer ended up divorcing the emperor and becoming empress, anyone would see the intent clearly. But if I didn’t become empress and merely stayed by his side…
“Would that be… better, at least? Ah… why am I even thinking about this?”
If I truly hated owing the emperor, I could use the fees I’d earned so far to kill my father—
My head shook on its own. If I’d lived as Raviel from the beginning, that might have been easier. But I’d lived in another world—one where, no matter how powerful someone was, they couldn’t casually harm others.
Maybe that was why. Killing someone, or commissioning a killing, just didn’t feel real to me.
“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted something from someone this desperately.”
“Then why me, of all people?”
“From the moment you touched Duke Azbek, this was the inevitable flow of things. So, Raviel.”
He stood and held out his hand to me.
“Let’s go.”
“……”
Was this really right? But with that man called my father looming behind me, mouth open and drooling, I had no other path.
If the emperor would protect me even without me becoming empress…
Wouldn’t that be okay?
I placed my hand atop the emperor’s.
“So you’ve finally agreed.”
“Please keep your promise—to protect me.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you at any moment, at any time. All you have to do is divorce me and keep provoking the former empress until she collapses in fury.”
Worry still lurked in my heart, but I’d already stepped onto another path.
Once again, we left the mercenary office. I considered saying goodbye to Khan, but he’d already disappeared along with the guildmaster.
In the end, I followed the emperor outside. The world was still dark. And out of that darkness, a man charged at me like an enraged wild boar.
“Ugh!”
But thanks to the emperor beside me, the human wild boar was sent rolling across the ground without a chance to resist.
“Doesn’t look like you’ve come to your senses yet, Director. I thought I’d given you the best possible option.”
“Ugh… ugh… Because of that woman… I lost everything I built in an instant! How can I possibly stay quiet?!”
He pulled me close to him protectively, while looking down at the former director with clear disdain.
“How is that Raviel’s fault? It’s your fault for being obsessed with money.”
“Why is it my fault?!”
“You really think I wouldn’t know you were pocketing bribes behind the boss’s back? Skimming thirty to forty percent off commissions? The boss might be too easygoing to notice, but I’m not.”
“That’s—!”
His voice boomed, clearly struck where it hurt.
“And seeing how you still haven’t learned your lesson, mercy would be wasted on you. I don’t want Raviel exposed to even the slightest danger.”
He smiled enchantingly, like a devil tempting souls, eyes curving beautifully. In the end, the former director was dragged away by those waiting near the carriage.
“W-wait…! I’ve committed a crime worthy of death…! I must have lost my mind for a moment! So please, please forgive me! P-please?!”
No matter how loudly he screamed, it was useless.
“Give trash a chance, and it’s still trash.”
“What… will happen to him?” I asked quietly.
“Well, that depends on my mood. I showed mercy once, and he behaved like that…”
“You’re not… killing him, are you?”
“Killing people isn’t particularly repulsive. So you don’t need to look so shocked.”
No matter how different the values of this era were from mine, murder still didn’t sit right with me. In the end, it meant forcibly ending someone’s life.
It wasn’t because I was kind that I found murder unsettling.
“I support the death penalty for heinous criminals, after all.”
It was just… he had charged at me, threatened me—but was that really enough to justify ending his life?
“Do you dislike killing?”
“A little.”
“Alright. Then I won’t kill him. But I’ll make him suffer enough to wish he were dead. That way, he’ll never approach my lawyer again. How should I torment him? Maybe put him in a round enclosure with a lion—watching him run around would be fun. Or perhaps a transparent tank with small holes, filled with venomous snakes.”
He looked genuinely amused as he boarded the carriage first.
“But my lawyer doesn’t seem to like such things, so I’ll enjoy them in secret. If you happen to share that taste, let me know.”
The emperor held out his hand to me. I smiled awkwardly and climbed into the carriage after him.
