Please Kill Me - Chapter 99

Instead of forming alliances, Rostislav earned the goodwill of everyone.

In this sense, Leonid was quite unusual. Among the previous heads of Rostislav, none had directly engaged in the battle for the throne, the Arlan War. While his friendship with Yuri made this involvement seem natural, the true motivations behind his actions were not so simple.

“The reason I help Yuri is straightforward. If I don’t, he’ll end up losing his life. He entered the fight for the throne with that resolve. So, it’s not like I’m doing something where I stand to lose.”

Leonid chuckled as he said that. His short laugh sounded bitter.

“Yuri isn’t interested in the throne. I’ve known him my whole life; don’t you think I’d know that by now? Before I went off to war, his dream was to be a supportive husband, living as a son-in-law in a noble family.”

The Arlan War wasn’t an inevitable conflict just because there were multiple princes. If a prince wasn’t interested in the throne and got along well with his siblings who would become Emperor, he could marry suitably and live as a duke.

Yuri was convinced this would be his future. Had he grown up in the palace like other princes, learning statecraft, things might have been different.

But after his mother lost her sanity, he left the palace and was raised by his maternal grandfather at Oleg.

“There were three children at Oleg: me, Yuri, and Elena, Oleg’s adopted daughter.”

The head of the Oleg family, having lost both daughters and left without an heir, adopted a girl around the same age as his grandsons to raise them together.

Initially, they were awkward, barely making eye contact, but as they grew up, they became each other’s family and closest friends. Their bond deepened further when Yuri and Elena fell in love and got engaged.

“At that time, Yuri was determined to spend his life at Oleg. I believed that idyllic scene would continue when I left for the battlefield. But when I returned, everything had changed.”

By the time Leonid returned, Yuri and Leonid’s surrogate parents, the Oleg patriarch, had passed away from old age. Yuri, now an adult, had moved to the palace but struggled to adapt to its harsh environment, resulting in insomnia.

That alone would have been bearable. Losing their grandfather was heartbreaking but expected given his age. Yuri’s return to the palace was also inevitable. The real issue was far more dire.

“When I came back, I found that Elena, who had been healthy, was on the brink of death due to prolonged exposure to poison. The culprits were obvious.”

The Empress and her son, Ruslan Pavel.

At the mention of those names, Yekaterina instinctively reviewed her knowledge of poison recipes and the ones she had concocted over the years.

But recalling a specific poison was impossible; it had been several years, and she had made dozens of different poisons. However, she could speculate. If the poison caused death through prolonged exposure, it narrowed down the possibilities.

“Was it arsenic poisoning?”

“The symptoms suggested multiple toxins, but arsenic was the most prominent. You know your poisons well.”

“…….”

“…Yuri experienced the same method used against my aunt. They didn’t target him directly, only those around him.”

All the misfortunes that befell Larisa after becoming the Queen were no coincidence. They were the machinations of a power-hungry Empress to keep Larisa helpless. Everything except the fire at the Rostislav manor.

Elena’s death, however, was a clear case of murder. The poisoning was the result of a meticulous plan.

His grandfather, who had been like a father to him, had passed away.

His mother, who had always turned away from him, had long since lost her mind due to the Empress’s schemes.

His fiance, who he deeply loved and treated like a real family, was dying from the same schemes.

His only remaining family and friend was off at war.

Left alone, Yuri wept bitterly, finally understanding Larisa.

He grasped why she had never been able to look at him, why she had gone mad, leaving her child behind. The same malevolent force that had driven Larisa mad now aimed to strangle Yuri as well.

“Yuri said he had an epiphany as Elena’s headstone was being erected. He realized he couldn’t live like this. That’s when the madman decided to vie for the throne. His feelings were obvious.”

Leonid’s words were tinged with a bitter laugh.

Having nothing left, Yuri decided to make one last desperate attempt, even if it meant dying. ‘I can’t live like this’ can have two meanings: I must try something, or I must end my life.

If he could hang Ruslan’s head on the city walls, it would bring him joy. But even if his own head ended up on those walls, at least he wouldn’t die passively.

It was a truly brutish dichotomy.