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Chapter : 52
Everything Was Erased
He had already finished reading it. He read it thoroughly, then muttered as if speaking to himself.
“…Why does a person seem so misaligned?”
He couldn’t see with his own eyes where those feet landed, but he knew this much:
any path where your feet touched was never an easy one.
“I thought by now I understood you. How arrogant of me.”
No matter how closely he dissected and examined it, he still couldn’t understand you.
“It’s harder than when I sat on the throne.”
He spoke after steadying his breath.
“When I took the throne, at least I could see myself sitting there. But you—though you’re right in front of me—I can’t see you at all.”
“…You’re showing me all of your weak sides.”
Benjamin stretched out his arm.
“I like certainty. You don’t.”
“……”
“Even when we were distant before, I was sure the end would connect. Now I don’t know. The afterimage keeps drifting farther away. I try to grab it, but it slips through my fingers.”
He quickly withdrew the arm he had extended. It felt as though his fingertips brushed through the dark red hair, but it was so brief that he wasn’t sure.
“Your Majesty.”
Roskella called to him.
“Commander Poputa has sent a report from the intelligence corps. You should review it immediately.”
Inside Poputa, matters involving monsters were in full wartime mode.
“The monsters’ presence has disappeared.”
“Why?”
“It seems they’re hiding. In the middle of naval combat, they all vanished. Monsters are by nature rough and violent—creatures that would attack at the mere sense of a subjugation fleet. Yet they’ve gone into hiding. Even detonating explosives only caught small monsters; there were no further gains.”
“And inside Poputa?”
“Attacks near Poputa have also ceased. The second subjugation has been temporarily suspended, and afterward the entire subjugation system became vague. Morale among the corps is unsettled.”
When the monsters’ active season begins, they rapidly multiply. Suppressing that growth is the duty of the subjugation corps, and Poputa was the foremost frontline controlling the border zone.
‘They’ve stopped.’
They had stopped.
“Their presence cut off, hiding, disappearing. They keep slipping away.”
Something felt wrong.
Benjamin clenched the intelligence officer’s report and crushed it in his hand.
“Reorganize the subjugation system and tighten internal security.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Why are these things all hiding underground… It’s starting to irritate me.”
Benjamin loosened his cravat and tore open the buttons of his shirt. The stiff collar that had been choking his neck slackened. Perhaps because of the epaulets hanging from his coat, his shoulders felt pressed and stifled. He gripped and twisted the muscles from the nape of his neck down his arms. With the force of his grip, an epaulet tore loose, the gold thread binding it particularly bothersome.
“Leave.”
After the intelligence officer departed and the office door closed—
“All traces ended in Poputa.”
Roskella whispered as she shut the door.
“This is not good.”
Poputa was a strategic stronghold that had long suppressed monster invasions. Now something abnormal had occurred there. Monsters were hiding, and the tracks of criminals ended in Poputa.
The trails that vanished in Tutya, and those that vanished in Beverga, all led to Poputa—then stopped completely.
“What of Beverga? The lord has long been ill, and the young lord has been acting as regent for quite some time.”
“He was only seen at the Empress’s side.”
Benjamin ruffled his short hair.
“It’s a southern endemic disease—Luperitic. While investigating it, I reached Beverga, and the inside felt suspicious. The former lady of the house died young, the lord is ill, the young lord governs in his stead, and external activities have nearly ceased.”
“Yes.”
“The cause of death of the former ladies was never made known. All we could find was that their bodies stiffened before death. Coincidentally.”
“The interior was far too closed off.”
“That was largely because the lord withdrew from the front lines due to illness. Two ladies died young, but even that caused little uproar. The former emperor abandoned state affairs in that condition, after all…”
Since Beverga did not involve itself in central politics, it was difficult for outsiders to grasp its circumstances.
“Find the point where Luperitic disease and black magic intersect.”
“Pardon?”
“It must be discreet. Don’t leave it to outsiders—move directly, but without letting the outside see your movements.”
For some reason, a vividly red afterimage seemed to flicker before his eyes, only to scatter like an illusion.
“That bitch—she won’t die cleanly.”
Pyotr Tutya gnawed at his fingernails. The skin at his fingertips hung in tatters.
The blood had dried, and madness settled into pupils clouded as if mixed with dirt.
Because of her, everything had gone wrong.
In the end, it was all that child’s fault.
“Even crawling into the place where she was meant to die, just like her mother—that too was her doing.”
It was like self-hypnosis. His lost hatred was thick and muddy.
“…Ghk! Ghhhk! Hah!”
“M-my lord, what is wrong?!”
“P-please, mercy! E-even now, please—!”
They swarmed like vermin.
The servants floundered, swallowed by darkness.
“If you throw ants into water, do they look like this?”
There was no compassion in him.
Who would feel guilt watching ants die?
Begging for their lives at his feet—how filthy these creatures were.
“You’d even lick my feet.”
He thrust out the top of his foot.
“P-please spare us. Then we’ll flee far away—!”
“The damned temple’s mongrel dogs will chase you. Ah, right. Of course. That bitch wouldn’t let you go. Kill these and bury them—khk! I know! I know too! I know I’m bound by the shackles those mongrels forged!”
“M-my lord?”
“Be quiet. Quiet.”
Pyotr kept tapping at his own ears.
Jerking his neck violently, he twisted his shoulders. His overturned pupils were grotesque.
“Ah, no. Mm. This isn’t right. No. Get out. I said get out, and yet…”
In the end, the servants begged as well.
If they were to be killed, they pleaded to be allowed to die cleanly.
Long white hair flowed past his waist. Leandro stood with his back straight. His tightly drawn, wrinkled face was rigid. Though an old man thick with white hair, perhaps because the Windsors had wielded swords for generations, his presence was fierce.
“What are you doing here?”
Aster knocked on the door.
“If you stay alone in a room without its owner, it invites misunderstanding.”
Other rooms were barren, but this one was different. The pale pink wallpaper seemed to hold warmth. The wardrobe’s sharp edges had been rounded, bearing clear signs of many hands touching it.
Cushions were set along the window frame to block drafts, with light pink curtains hung over them. The carpet was white and clean, with no dust on the furniture—as if servants cleaned it constantly.
Yet there were no traces of anyone living there.
No footprints marred the carpet. It was maintained, but unused.
“I wonder if the time that child stayed here was only a fleeting moment.”
It blurred like an illusion.
“Should I have kept her by my side a little longer?”
“Whom do you mean?”
“Both of them.”
Not as an empress, but as a granddaughter.
Not as a woman of another house, but as my own daughter.
“The traces of someone staying disappear so quickly.”
“This is already a room whose owner has left.”
Aster replied, surveying the empty room.
“At least having the servants maintain it is something. Don’t trouble your heart.”
Who lives without regret? Wasn’t the current House of Windsor built upon piling those regrets one by one?
“I chose what I thought was best, yet I won’t be forgiven even in death.”
“……”
“If that child does not forgive me.”
Leandro spoke his thoughts in fragments, like a monologue.
“I don’t even know what kind of forgiveness I should seek in death.”
They severed their ties harshly.
Cruelly ending that bond, even death turning its back as they confessed it to one another.
‘I must protect my child. Protecting that child is my final duty. Please, don’t come anymore. Please, let me protect this child.’
You protected that child.
Now I will watch over her.
If that is atonement, then so be it.
“It’s difficult.”
That atonement is far too difficult.
“I’m going incognito.”
Benjamin spoke as he put on plain clothes.
“You’ll come with me.”
Charlop accepted the rough shawl and the incognito outfit. The guards whispered busily among themselves—so that was why.
“The intelligence officer’s been busy these past few days. Is it really alright to leave your post?”
“The urgent matters are finished. I can afford a short trip outside.”
When she finished preparing and draped the shawl over herself, Benjamin tied her hair up from behind with a ribbon.
“And it’s not somewhere I should go alone.”
“Why not?”
“It’d be strange for me to sleep alone at the Empress’s maternal family home.”
Only then did Charlop understand.
“We’re going to House Windsor?”
“Yes. I told them I’d stay one night.”
“…Then the palace will be empty for a day?”
“I said I’d lodge outside for a night, so yes.”
Benjamin studied her expression.
“Don’t you like it?”
“No. I just didn’t expect to stay at home.”
Her face subtly softened. It was clear she was secretly pleased. As if realizing something late, Charlop asked quietly,
“Is this also incognito?”
“Well. If one hides being a member of the imperial family and goes out unofficially, doesn’t that count as incognito too?”
Benjamin brushed it off lightly.
“We’ve been distant from family lately. Acting as though we miss each other, yet just circling nearby without speaking—I don’t know why either. But they were happy. I sent an intelligence officer ahead to House Windsor, and he said even the Ironblood Duke of Windsor showed joy and was himself taken aback.”
“I visited the estate just a few days ago.”
“Even so, you couldn’t stay long. They clearly felt disappointed.”
Benjamin extended his arm, as if telling her to take it.
“Guards, follow at a suitable distance so you’re not underfoot.”
The guards exchanged glances.
‘Is it even possible to hide one’s presence from His Majesty?’
They offered silent resistance, but it was ignored.
“It’d be better to wear a robe.”
Charlop hid her red hair beneath it. The color was too vivid, too easy to catch the eye.
They say that once you become Empress, it’s difficult to go out beyond the palace—but perhaps that depends on the era.
“Then we’ll see you again tomorrow morning.”
The chief attendant saw them off.
Soon after, the carriage arrived at the gates of House Windsor.
“They’re already outside.”
When the carriage stopped, Benjamin stepped down first. Beyond the narrow gate, the view opened.
An old man extended his arm—solid and steady. His gaze fell on the wrinkled back of that hand.
Charlop pushed back her hood. The dark crimson color rippled into view.
After a brief silence, her grandfather asked,
“Aren’t you going to take it?”
The straight gesture urged Charlop forward.
“…Were you waiting?”
“I just came out.”
The arm she took was cold.
