Emperor’s Alternate - Chapter 94

At the end of the forest path stood a small cottage.

The knight’s grip was merciless, devoid of any care. When we arrived, he shoved me down onto a creaky wooden chair and began tying me up with rope, winding it around me with brute force.

“If you mean to humiliate me, then just kill me.”

“They say you’re some distant relative of the Empress Dowager. But how should I know whether you’re just a whxre who crawled her way in from some gutter? If I took you for myself and killed you, I could just report that you died caught up in the revolution. No one would question it.”

The knight spat the words like he was chewing glass.

“So don’t you dare insult me. What would someone like you know of a knight’s code of chivalry, of the honor we uphold? His Majesty said you might try to escape, so I’m keeping you bound. That’s all.”

“……”

He looked at me like he wanted nothing more than to kill me, but then turned away and locked the door of the cabin.

After stabbing his thigh with the dagger, he clearly had no intention of indulging me — whether I was thirsty, or needed the toilet, or anything else. He simply stood guard outside the cabin door until the blazing sun gave way to a rising moon.

All the while, I just breathed — in and out, again and agai n— an endless rhythm of useless inhalation and exhalation.

But perhaps that was for the best. What good would it do to see another corpse? I couldn’t raise the dead. Even if someone handed me a book, how could I read at a time like this? Could I obsess over work as I used to, when the empire itself had fallen? Would shedding tears or writhing in grief change anything at all?

I could do nothing. No one disturbed me, so in a way, that brought a strange peace. The tears, at least, slowly began to wash the blood from my face.

‘Why am I still alive?’

Everyone else was dead, so why was it that I alone continued to breathe?

I had never planned to confess this to anyone, but the truth was that I often found myself caught in self-destructive impulses.

Sometimes, my inner voice would take on an almost disturbingly clear form, pressing me with the same question, worded with chilling precision: “Why don’t you just kill yourself?”

Burying myself in endless work and study, never allowing a single moment’s rest — that was part of my defense mechanism.

If I asked that voice in return, “Why should I?” — it would falter, blur into a vague mumble and retreat. But the question always came back. Ten, twenty times a day. As if it had been assigned that one, singular task: to keep asking, relentlessly—

“Why don’t you just kill yourself?”

It felt like my unconscious mind hated me, like it couldn’t forgive me for surviving the downfall of my family alone. Or maybe it simply couldn’t stand the way I was living now.

Was it begging me to change? Complaining? Grieving? Raging? I don’t know.

Maybe all of it.

Maybe none of it.

The voice inside never answers. It only asks, and asks, and asks again. Even now, with no tasks left to fulfill and my entire body bound in rope, my thoughts converged on a single point.

‘Enough is enough.’

It was half an impulse.

‘Life is too hard.’

Perhaps, in the moment right before death, I would regret my decision.

‘Let it go.’

No, without a doubt, I would regret it.

But with the death of my only family, Lucian, all meaning in life had slipped away.

“What do you think is the meaning of life?”

That’s what Lecan had asked me during the proxy exam, when we reunited as adults. I gave a polished answer that sounded convincing but deep down, three real reasons came to mind.

To save my younger brother.

To place the Sixth Prince on the throne.

To restore the honor of my house.

He always claimed to have keen insight — turns out Lecan was right. His remark that I resembled a well-crafted puppet wasn’t wrong. Did I ever truly possess a sense of self?

The reasons I once named for living had all turned to ash.

The House of Grand Duke Rotea would forever be branded traitorous, as long as the new empire thrived following the Emperor’s execution. Whether it was true didn’t matter — it was the most convenient and sensational narrative to feed the masses.

The Sixth Prince I worked to make emperor was dead, and perhaps the courtesan I once saw as a reflection of my mother had also died miserably before my very eyes. Luciann, the very foundation of my life, had vanished in vain. I had never once set a goal for myself, so I crumbled that easily.

‘I have failed.’

Revenge, restoration, protection… all of it.

Lecan had known the full extent of my will and still chose treason.

If he had chosen to become the new emperor, then fine — congratulations to him. The perfect hero’s tale had reached its happy ending, so it was only right that the rival who had tried to kill him vanish quietly now.

Suddenly, I found myself gasping for air. It had been a long time since I’d dared summon any strength, and now even letting out a groan of pain was too much. My mouth felt shredded. Just as the dizziness took hold, the cabin door flew open with a bang.

“…Leyesha?”

It was a familiar voice. I lifted my head to see Lecan standing before me. Unlike me, he was clean and fragrant.

“…Why is there blood in your mouth?”

A bitter flood rose in my throat. I spat blood and simply looked at him.

Lecan’s face turned grim as he registered what was happening, then his shouting filled the air. A medic! Is there no medic? Anyone with medical training, hurry!

His voice was distant, fading. Everyone I had ever cared for had already slipped away. What would it change if I died now? I must’ve bitten down on my tongue a while ago, yet the fact that I was still breathing only filled me with resentment. My shoulders drooped faintly and someone seized them, hard.

Voices kept calling my name, again and again, endlessly.

But it didn’t matter.

I wanted to fall asleep like this forever.