Chapter 76 – Emperor of the Empire
The emperor’s expectant gaze did not allow Eleonor to leave the contents of the glass.
After a few clicks as the liquid rushes down her throat, the glass empties cleanly.
Eleonol drank all the emperor’s blood.
Along with the dark miasma inside it.
“…Ugh.”
Eleonol inadvertently covers her mouth with her palm.
It tasted terrible.
As the base alcohol is alcohol, the first taste itself was very good, but the fishy and heavy taste that followed was really the worst.
It’s not a matter of whether it tastes good or not, it’s a physiologically unacceptable level.
As her picky palate, she hates even putting it near her mouth.
If it wasn’t for the emperor’s face, I would have spit it out right away.
Haha! Good job! Good job!
You drank everything, and now you’ve become my favorite limb!”
For some reason, Eleonor’s vision blurs.
The emperor’s voice of joy is heard from all directions like an echo in the cave.
Something terrible and fatal leaked out of the wine spilled into her stomach, or to be precise, the emperor’s blood, and spread throughout her body.
It took less than a few seconds for the black miasma to coil around her body and sit down.
Rattle.
Sensing her dizziness, Eleonol stumbled over her body and brought her to her knees.
There is no strength in the limbs.
I can’t even lift my head.
After drinking her wine, her head is boiling hot.
It is not a simple drunkenness.
The feeling of being injected with new thoughts and ideas.
It’s a familiar feeling for some reason.
Blind and uncritical obedience to the emperor.
Ethics based on the eugenics consciousness of the chosen people.
Thoughts she ordinarily despised swelled violently from within her heart and filled Eleanor’s mind.
She tried to resist, but it was futile.
A series of ruthless and unobstructed processes cannot be stopped by a single human power.
The moment she is about to be rewritten as a human being with her pleasantly dazed senses.
Another energy that had been lurking in Eleonol’s body moved.
It’s not her own magic.
It is a purified miasma that her princess had instilled in her to hypnotize her.
Regardless of Eleonol’s will, the energy that moved was shot towards the miasma injected by the emperor.
Soon after, the two energies collided and competed in strength, squeezing each other like snakes in the spawning season.
The match was over in an instant.
The miasma purified by the princess crushes her intruders with overwhelming force, shattering them into thousands of pieces and swallowing them in her mouth.
The moment the emperor’s miasma engulfed every last bit, Eleonol’s mind suddenly became clear.
The bizarre urges and thoughts that had just flooded her heart disappeared without a trace like fog hit by a gust of wind.
She said, frantically raising her body.
“Your Majesty! I apologize for the rudeness.
I couldn’t control my drunkenness because of my inexperience.”
“It’s okay, it’s okay.
Come to think of it, you haven’t even passed ten years since you came of age.
I don’t even remember what it was like… At that age.
That immaturity rather proves that you have a lot of time left.
Experience is something that needs to be accumulated in the future.”
Far from looking displeased with the emperor, he has a very satisfied smile.
They were unaware of the bloody battle that took place inside Eleonol’s body.
It was because the moment before, he clearly felt the presence of a huge miasma spreading in her body.
It was not the emperor’s miasma, but the movement of the miasma injected by the princess, but the emperor was unable to discern that.
“…”
A cold sweat runs down Eleonor’s cheek as she bows her head and expresses her apology.
Since Eleonol himself is an ordinary person who cannot detect miasma, he did not know in detail what was going on inside his body.
But it was clear that something unusual had happened.
She was somehow trying to feed her blood, her emperor’s suspicious behavior and the bizarre phenomenon that just happened.
Eleanor is no fool.
It was only natural to wonder if the emperor was trying to do something terrible and unreasonable that is hard to give a just explanation to others.
All citizens of the Empire grow up being educated on the story of the great emperor.
It was as if she could hear a small crack in the vague envy of the emperor she had since her childhood, the image of a transcendental being close to absolute goodness.
She is the one and only Emperor on Earth and the rightful master of all Imperial subjects.
Therefore, she has neither her nickname nor her posthumous name.
An emperor is just an emperor.
It was proof that no one could deny her authority.
Even if she did nothing to feed her blood and create loyalties by force, Eleanor never doubted her loyalty towards her Emperor.
There are also many people in her empire who worship her as their god.
Why would you do that?
Why?
Eleanor knelt down on one knee and bowed her head, trembling with her anxiety.
The emperor looked down at her and smiled at what he was thinking.
“Count, stand up and stand before me.”
“…I understand, Your Majesty.”
Eleonol standing in front of the emperor.
The emperor reached out and touched her cheek.
“I don’t know how that sounds, Count, but you’re really cute.”
“Your majesty?”
“Be still.”
The emperor grinned with a mischievous yet lewd look.
She takes a step closer to her and clings to Eleanor as if she were holding her.
The emperor’s beautiful face slowly approaches.
Her dark eyes stare intently at Eleonol’s lips.
Yes.
The main palace is the emperor’s palace.
In other words, the bedroom.
It was only then that Eleonor realized what the emperor was about to do.
The moment her lips almost met the emperor’s, the princess’s face flashed in Eleonor’s mind.
Dismissed! Pop!
“What?”
“Your Majesty, are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
The light that had been lighting the dining room with the proper light went off with a sharp sound.
Blinds were drawn on the windows, so the inside of the building was instantly filled with darkness.
There was no hostility towards Eleonol.
The reluctance to the extent that chicken skin sprouted on the back of her neck only touched a corner of her subconscious.
A portion of Eleonor’s vast magical power was instinctively born for defense, causing strong currents and magnetic pulses, which caused malfunctions in the main palace’s devices exposed to it.
As the emperor said, it was possible for Eleonori, which had great potential.
“Gee. Sometimes this happens.
It’s like this every few decades.
There are very few things that last longer than a hundred years.
Thanks to that, the atmosphere has cooled.”
The emperor’s voice is heard in the darkness.
It was a voice that cooled the heat of excitement, as if the excitement had cooled from surprise.
She continued.
“Now that this has happened, let’s move on to the main topic.
I have a favor to ask of you, who have officially become my limbs.
It’s a matter of dealing with the traitor I discovered a while ago.”
Traitor!
That was a big problem.
This is a situation where someone with great power and appropriate responsibility like Eleonol must step in.
She said in her firm voice.
“I will take orders.
Please formally issue a bull, Your Majesty.
All the powers of the Empire will seek out and punish your enemies.”
“That’s troublesome, Count.
He is something that shouldn’t exist.
This must be done informally and clandestinely.”
Eleanor shut his mouth.
Unofficial, extra-legal.
She was the kind of horse she didn’t like Eleonol, but the Emperor’s orders take precedence over her will.
The emperor must have some meaning.
“Do you know who the traitor is, Your Majesty?”
“Of course… I’d like to say, Count.
I don’t know either.
All I know is that you are one of the members of the hunting party you commanded.”
“S-Are you saying you’re one of the members of the hunting team…?!”
“No, I’m not blaming the count.
Aren’t they even regular soldiers in the first place?
They’re just people who sold their lives for mere pennies, not your subordinates.
Above all, that person was destined to appear.
It’s something that humans can’t stop.”
The emperor tells a puzzling story.
Is it fate that treason will appear?
What do you mean by that?
And her words were difficult for Eleonor to accept.
Members of the hunting team are those who stand on the front lines of fighting the beast.
Whatever their motives, their actions were heroic.
Without them, who risked their lives and fought desperately to buy time, her achievements would not have been possible.
“However, Your Majesty, I am guilty of not properly guarding my subordinates.
I will surely catch and punish that traitor, so after that, please punish your conviction severely and punish yourself severely.”
“It can’t be, Count.
You are already my limb.
No matter what sins you commit, no matter what misdeeds you do, no one in the Empire will punish you unless you rebel against me.
Even if it’s you…”
Emperor’s soft voice.
The Emperor approaches Eleanor and places his hands on her shoulders as if to comfort her.
Eleonol gasps for her breath.
She gritted her teeth and bowed her head more deeply.
It was to hide the expression of disappointment and anger in the darkness.
“So stop thinking about anything else and focus on punishing the traitors.
The reason you’re not too flexible is because you’re still young.
Be flexible in your thinking.”
“…I’ll keep that in mind, Your Majesty.”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you.
You don’t have to worry too much about finding out who the traitor is.”
“What do you mean by that, Your Majesty?”
When asked by Eleonol, the emperor answers.
“In fact, I was counting Kang Jia, a spy from the Ratel Kingdom who was cleverly hiding in your unit, as her prime suspect, but a report came up saying that she had been killed some time ago.
Even the scene of burning her corpse was thoroughly checked.
But the treason is still alive, I can see it.
Since it is physically impossible for an informant to betray me, it makes sense that Kang Ji-ah was not a traitor.
The identity of the traitor has fallen into the labyrinth again.”
Physically impossible?
It’s an ominous remark again.
Eleanor shakes her head to dispel her suspicions.
That wasn’t what mattered now.
Nowhere in the emperor’s words can you feel the need not to hunt down the traitors.
Could it be that it’s not ‘that kind of thing’?
Eleonol waits for the emperor to speak with her head bowed.
I hope that her own guess is wrong.
“So I thought of a way to narrow the scope of treason.
The answer was to reward them and recruit them into the imperial kingdom.
As long as they enter the ecliptic, everything will be resolved.
Treason, too, will be my loyal servant.
But not all of the 1,000 hunters accepted my reward.”
Of course.
It is true that the regular imperial military bonuses and the zodiacal residency were sweet rewards, but not everyone accepted them.
They also have their own circumstances.
As Eleonol found out, there were a total of 123 people who refused the reward and left the hunting unit.
…The princess was one of them.
In the dark, the Emperor’s eyes sparkled and shone.
She laughs out loud in satisfaction.
“Isn’t it wonderful?
I narrowed it down from a thousand to just a hundred.
If my limbs go out, it will take a few days.”
“You mean… You’re going to kill them all?”
“To be exact, all of their families, relatives, friends, neighbors, and lovers, Count.
Treason against me, treason against the Empire.
I can’t leave even the slightest possibility.”
Why are ominous premonitions never wrong?
The emperor’s words were exactly the worst answer Eleonol had ever imagined.
The emperor’s eyes, shining in the dark, draw a friendly arc.
She has a bright smile.
I think Eleonol will gladly accept her order.
Eleanor felt nausea welling up in her throat.
“My limbs have already begun to move, Count.
I told them to prioritize this job over all their schedules and over all their work.
They are impatient to do my bidding faithfully.
It will be very terrible, cruel and merciless to wipe out the traitors.
If you still have attachments to your former subordinates…
It would be better if you dealt with it yourself.”
“…I’ll keep that in mind, Your Majesty.”
The Emperor speaks as if giving sincere advice.
Those words are obviously sincere.
He really likes Eleo play, so he thinks of her.
It was even more terrifying because she could feel it.
Eleanor spat out her mechanical answer and staggered up from her seat.
Fortunately, it was dark, so I couldn’t see her in detail.
I don’t want to be in this place even for a second.
Should I say goodbye?
No, it was the emperor himself who told me to treat him casually.
Eleanor, who is about to step down without a word, is summoned by the Emperor to stop her.
She gives Eleanor her glass bottle, which she took out from somewhere.
It is a palm-sized medicine bottle that makes a rattling sound.
“Take that. It will help.
It’s a recently completed product, but it’s a medicine that amplifies mana several times when you take it.”
“You mean… There was such a drug?”
“Huh, I thought it was impossible too, but it’s true.
But there’s something to be aware of.
Once you have taken even one pill, you must not stop taking it even for a day.
It’s a drug that’s so addictive that if the effect ends for more than 36 hours, you’ll vomit blood and die.
Do not follow the dosage and do not take a large amount at one time.
Even in that case, the poison will be poisoned and you will die soon after.”
Eleanor was at a loss for words.
It’s a good medicine, but isn’t it the same as poison with no practical use?
It is not something that can be used on people.
“Of course you can’t take it yourself.
Use it only for those who can afford to throw it away.
If it’s not enough, I’ll give you more.”
“Those who can be used and discarded…”
“I know what you want to say.
A naive count would want to say that I am the only master of all the people of the empire, right?
You still don’t quite understand the meaning of my limbs.
The power you wield is my strength, and your authority is my shadow.
Please do as you please.”
“I understand, Your Majesty.
…I will step aside from my beliefs and carry out what you have commanded.”
“Let it be.”
It was there.
Eleanor staggered out of the emperor’s palace in the dark.
Eleanor had to try to keep her composure to the end, as her Emperor followed her to her doorstep and saw her off.
After finally leaving the main palace, Eleonol raised his head and looked up at the sky.
The sky of the ecliptic is still clear.
However, to her now, she could see a figure drawing dark, energetic clouds in the clear sky.
It looks terrible, as if a huge black dome covers the entire ecliptic.
It must have been a big mental shock and seeing an illusion.
Eleanor could understand.
She said it was inevitable that her head hurt because she lived breathing this kind of air.
Childhood growing up in the ecliptic.
She has lived with nervous headaches.
Not wanting to bring her worries to her parents, she kept it as best she could, but in her entire life she had never been able to shake off her unpleasant feelings.
The fact that her hunting unit grabbed the pods and teased the princess was also a result of that stress.
When did the headache that had stabbed a corner of her head unpleasantly all her life disappear?
The starting point of a deep relationship with the princess.
In other words, the day I made a bet with the princess who brought the sweets.
The headache was gone from that day on.
Eleonol crushes her vial given by her emperor with a gentle squeeze.
She meticulously trampled the filthy object into her powder and buried it under a mound of dirt.
Having done her thing, she let out her long, long sigh.
I wanted to see the princess’s face.
