Emperor’s Alternate - Chapter 73

‘The more work there is, the more one should take a step back.’

When aiming for optimal efficiency, immersion is important, but just as necessary is rest. In truth, after being granted the title of Duke, I was somewhat drained, making it hard to jump straight back into work. It felt like I had just climbed a great mountain. Of course, there would be higher mountains waiting ahead… but perhaps the tension had finally released?

The warmth from the moment he had received the new emblem I handed him still lingered in my hand, vivid in my memory.

Perhaps because I had used up a lot of mental energy in making decisions, my brain felt stiff. I intentionally moved my body and began to walk.

It wasn’t uncommon for more creative ideas to come to me while walking. Normally, I would have avoided the sun and stayed buried in bed, but today, strangely, the sunlight didn’t bother me.

Instead of feeling drained, there was a peculiar sense of excitement, a desire to burn off this energy somehow.

Though he didn’t wander the palace often, its layout had already become second nature to me. Walking through the garden, where the scent of flowers was strong, I sought to calm my mind. But just as I was about to collect himself, someone grabbed my wrist and slammed me against a wall.

“….”

No, I’d been waiting for this to happen.

It was strange that he wasn’t surprised as well. He was oddly calm, as if he had expected this. The only thing that told me something had shifted was the rapid beating of his heart.

‘Why…?’

I didn’t know when he had started following me, but there stood Lecan, newly appointed Duke, a man who should be drowning in the attention of countless people.

Lecan had always been at the head of the most powerful political faction, but now that his only shortcoming — his lack of noble status — had been resolved, his stature could only rise further.

The tall hedges of the maze garden lacked thorns, so the pressure against my back didn’t sting.

Success draws people in without effort. Lecan had no reason to seek me out. Those desperate to pledge their loyalty to him were all the Empire’s best and brightest. And yet, he stood here before me.

“……”

No words were exchanged. I couldn’t wield mana, so I didn’t know for sure, but it seemed likely that Lecan had waited for a moment of carelessness from the secret guards trailing me. Perhaps he was cloaking himself with a mana barrier now, erasing his presence entirely.

During the day, the palace staff were busy, so at this hour, only high-ranking nobles or a handful of off-duty attendants strolled leisurely through the garden.

Lecan glanced around as if checking to see whether anyone was watching, then turned his eyes back to me. It felt strangely surreal to be looking up at him from this close, in broad daylight. Come to think of it, every time I’d met him before — at my quarters, in the cave, at the ballroom — it had always been at night.

Under the sun, for once, I was struck by how unbearably well he suited the light. One would think he’d seem more decadent, more dangerous by night. But somehow, he felt heavier, more substantial beneath the brightness of day.

Lecan’s distinct presence pressed in on me like it had weight, like it was a physical thing settling over my body and pinning me in place.

The air was thick, like a damp blanket soaked with water. It was getting hard to breathe.

Why, he asked? I didn’t know. But even without a single word, it was enough. We understood each other.

Swish.

I turned my head to the side. His other hand, the one not holding me against the wall, had reached up to my neck.

He untied the scarf that had been choking me with its stiffness. He’d been fixated on my neck since the moment he received his title. Perhaps he was bothered by the faint scar left by Teiles II’s blade that the scarf had been hiding.

Suddenly, I felt mana ripple across my skin.

It was a sensation I’d only experienced once before when Lecan had healed my wounds in the cave. Smooth like a serpent gliding over bare flesh, cool yet subtly burning, it was a strange contradiction of sensations, both soothing and searing.

‘He’s healing me again.’

Looking back, it was almost laughable.

My liege threatened to kill me, and yet my rival chose to heal me with his own mana. My liege hindered me at every step, and my enemy sought only to help.

A gentle warmth brushed just inside my ear, strange and ticklish. We were so close now that if I moved even slightly, our lips might touch. Yet Lecan, head bowed, wore that same composed expression, as if the thought had never once crossed his mind. At times, his demeanor struck me as almost unnaturally fastidious.

“…I’ve decided to place my trust in you, Duke.”

It was I who broke the silence first.

Lecan had carefully sidestepped my earlier request — that he swear not to commit treason — but he had made one thing clear: the title of traitor left a bitter taste in his mouth. Of course, I didn’t believe he’d seen through me — had guessed who I truly was.

And yet… something in me felt certain he had never forgiven the annihilation of House Rothea.

I wanted to trust him.

“Trust?”

“Thinking back… expecting to receive without offering anything first was rather presumptuous of me. I must have been overly agitated at the time. I’ll trust you now, unconditionally. I’ll believe in your loyalty, Duke.”

“…And if you’re betrayed? What then, for your trust?”

“Then I’ll blame myself for misjudging you.”

Lecan looked at me as if I’d just struck him across the face.

But truthfully, I had no other plan. If Lecan became the center of a rebellion, rallying the people’s passionate support behind him, he would no longer be just a noble.

He would become a revolutionary.

And if this was a process I’d inevitably have to endure anyway, then rather than letting the skeptical voice in my head whisper “Will this even work? What’s the point?” a hundred times over, it was better to reply: “There is a point. Let’s stabilize the people first. Let’s do the best we can.”

Focus on the process, and the results will follow. It’s a superstitious notion, perhaps — but isn’t there an old saying that if you blindly believe something will happen, sometimes it actually does?

The grounds I was clinging to were absurdly flimsy compared to my usual logic, but I had nowhere left to run.

Besides, even though Lecan acted like he would never fall for such a shallow tactic whenever I tried seduction, I kept finding myself imagining — deluding myself, perhaps — that there was a small chance he might come to love me.

It was hard not to think that way when he secretly followed me, just to treat my wounded neck, hidden from the eyes of others.

If I wasn’t merely projecting my own feelings onto him, then perhaps Lecan was, even just a little, attracted to me.

If… if that were the case…

Then I intended to use it.