Chapter 22
“Well. I don’t know if it will happen as the Emperor is so certain.”
She couldn’t hold back her laughter. And there was no reason to hold it back, either. So Elena giggled and mocked the Emperor. A hell more terrible than death? To threaten her, who had faced a Devil four times and returned, with such trivial words. He should be ashamed of himself!
“I have no intention of dying, nor do I intend to be held by a Devil and tortured for eternity……. And screwing Your Majesty’s bloodline, well. My taste is quite elegant, you see. Unlike someone who lusts after things like hair and eyes.”
She sat on the windowsill and twisted her hair down as if to show it off. As the hair wrapped around her fingers caught the moonlight and sparkled with the color of the sunset, the Emperor’s gaze landed on the ends of it.
The sneer had vanished from the Emperor’s firmly closed mouth. However, he could not take his eyes off Elena’s hair until the very end.
“……You have no fear. And you are insolent.”
“With tens of thousands of believers existing beneath my feet to fear the master of the Empire, and with Eclard standing behind me to act humbly before human power, what can I do?”
“Do you believe they will change your destined fate? Those who revere you as a Saintess will offer you as a sacrifice to the black fog at any moment, and the God who blessed you will betray you by turning away the moment you need Him most.”
The Emperor sneered arrogantly. Then, he declared haughtily.
“No one will be able to save you.”
At the same time, a fragment of a certain emotion bloomed in a corner of the Emperor’s eyes. It was a truly faint, insignificant emotion, not even worth calling a passing trace.
But Elena could tell. She couldn’t not know.
Covering her body with clothes stolen from a starved-to-death old man, hurriedly swallowing pieces of bread crushed by carriage wheels—that emotion Elena had received tirelessly during those days.
It was pity. Thus, Elena had no choice but to ask.
“Lowell Sarbellio Bavaria.”
The reason he was certain his nephew was trapped in the Devil’s descent site. The reason he was certain Saintess Elena would mix bodies with him and that it would be painful enough that death would be preferable. If her guess was right, then perhaps that was…….
“What did the Devil of Conrad Castle promise you?”
The Emperor opened his eyes wide as if slightly surprised, then soon smiled with a chilling face.
“I was promised that he would be made to pay the price for the sins connected by blood.”
He turned his back just like that and walked toward the door.
“Then, give my regards to Lloyd’s son. Saintess.”
Simultaneously with the clattering sound of the oiled doorknob, the door opened. The heavy wooden door cast a deep shadow over the Emperor’s face. Only one eye, with laughter remaining in it, was barely visible before it vanished completely.
“Tell him that this Lowell Bavaria is always praying that his death be delayed for a long time.”
Was it…… an illusion that he looked as if he were being eaten by black fog?
* * *
As soon as the Emperor left Elena’s bedroom, he took a carriage and returned to the capital. As if he had come truly just to give a ‘final send-off,’ he had poured out a trivial curse on Elena and left.
“It seems the saying that madness runs in the Imperial Family for generations is true. Among them, surely that Emperor implies he is the craziest bastard.”
She didn’t know if it was family history, but as Bella said, it was certain the Emperor wasn’t in his right mind. Still, thanks to his crazy antics, Elena was able to learn a few important facts.
First. The Emperor loathed the Late Emperor Lloyd to the extreme. Enough that he didn’t hesitate to mock Duke Dieter Conrad, his son, by calling him ‘Lloyd’s son’ instead of his ‘nephew.’
Second. The Emperor is certain that Duke Dieter Conrad is caught in the Devil’s ‘black fog’ and is still alive. However, as far as Elena knew, there was only one way to know what was happening inside the ‘black fog.’
The Devil’s permission. Their tolerance, or a leak for their amusement.
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