Emperor’s Alternate - Chapter 89

“Mm-hmm, elephant. You sure eat a lot. Yes, yes. No, I wasn’t insulting you. Mm.”

The astronomical cost of feeding them was draining the treasury each month, so Benedict had come by to check. He had fully intended to scold them for how much they were eating, but upon seeing the white elephant in person, even his harsh words vanished. After all, what fault did the animal have?

The daily cost of feeding just seven of these white elephants was enough to buy a house for a commoner family.

When Ark had first brought up the idea of an “Unknown,” Benedict had scoffed, using the white elephant as an example to argue such a person couldn’t exist. But if the theory of a shadow behind the emperor was true… then the matter of gifting the white elephants likely hadn’t been the emperor’s will at all, but the will of this “Unknown.”

If the “Unknown” truly existed, then for Benedict, it posed a rather troublesome dilemma. It meant someone whose name, face, and identity were all a mystery had taken a distinct dislike to him.

“Who is the Unknown, really…”

Benedict bit into an apple and gazed at the white elephants. Draped in luxurious silks, their presence screamed, ‘Yes, I am a noble beast bestowed by the imperial household.’ Their symbolism was unmistakable.

Come to think of it, Benedict had always harbored a strange feeling regarding the rumors surrounding the emperor’s birth.

‘Back when I was a child, the firstborn son of the Grand Duchy of Rotea was a genius with the sword. The first person who ever made me feel inferior. I still remember the shock when I suddenly heard the entire house had been wiped out…. And wasn’t it my own father who was actually behind their fall?’

He recalled the moment he’d seen Winter in the underworld. Had he not witnessed it with his own eyes, he might’ve doubted it, but that encounter had made him feel almost complicit in Winter’s fate.

‘If she had known I was the son of the Chancellor, she would’ve hated me.’

Benedict remembered the names of all the noble houses his father had wronged. The Grand Duchy of Rotea topped that list — once the greatest and also the most thoroughly destroyed.

And now, to be entangled in the emperor’s scandalous lineage rumors… the Rotea’s honor, once again, was being dragged through the mud.

‘Winter, as the sole survivor, must be constantly subjected to the disgrace of her house… She must be suffering more than anyone can imagine.’

Benedict felt a gnawing sense of guilt. After all, wasn’t Winter once betrothed to Lecan? The engagement might as well have been broken now, but the grandeur and spectacle of that ceremony was something Benedict remembered clearly. After all, he’d attended it himself.

And it wasn’t just Benedict’s memory. Nearly every noble family of standing had been present at the engagement between Lecan and Winter. It had been a major event, widely talked about and deeply influential. The union of the two most powerful families in the “Neutral Faction” had made waves throughout the empire.

‘I still can’t tell Brother Lecan… I can’t reveal Winter’s survival. Nor can I tell the truth — that the annihilation of the Grand Duchy of Rotea was orchestrated by my own father.’

Lecan had firmly opposed any action, so they couldn’t move openly. But behind the scenes, Benedict’s subordinates had already gathered and fixed a date for the uprising. Even if the rumor was unfounded, the notion that the Emperor was descended from a traitor would serve as a powerful justification for revolution.

In this situation, Benedict couldn’t tell Lecan that Winter was still alive. He also felt a rational sort of affection for Winter… but above all, he was someone who always prioritized Lecan’s interests first.

He did feel sorry for Winter who had lost almost all of her family because of his father, but Benedict believed that perhaps overturning the entire empire was the better path for the sake of all the other victims.

“…I’m sorry. Please forgive me.”

The words slipped out far too lightly, but Benedict’s heart was anything but light.

It was an apology Winter would never hear. Even if it was a sin he would never be forgiven for in his lifetime, he would accept that. And still, he would carry it. Until the day he died, he would dedicate himself to wiping away the empire his father had ruined and covering it with new hope. That, he thought, might lessen the guilt that had taken root so deeply inside him.

‘Is it soon… the day?’

After a moment of silence, Benedict suddenly smiled brightly and tossed an apple to the white elephant. It wasn’t some circus beast but surely a noble creature, yet the white elephant nimbly caught the apple with its trunk and munched on it happily.