Chapter 9

“Sigh.”

After closing the door, he laid still on the bed.

It had been a pretty long day.

“I even got married, is this even natural?”

Lakshan put his hand in his pocket and touched the finely folded paper. He took it out and held it under the light from the lamp and looked.

Marriage Certificate

Lakshan lowered his gaze. He saw Elrose Espencia Basilin next to his name.

“Elrose.”

He muttered the name a few times. It was the name of the first person he met today, but it somehow already became familiar to him.

‘I didn’t expect this to happen.’

When the guards threw him into the back alley, he knew that he needed a little more time. At first, he thought he’d overpower the guards, but if he did, they would find out that his disturbance was deliberately orchestrated.

It was necessary to keep the forces in the gambling house as un-noticeable as possible. He had to find a way to make them think that this disturbance was nothing, and it was caused by just one person. So, Lakshan had to figure out another way to keep the guards out a little longer.

It was Elrose who got caught up in his plan. She was an unlucky woman to be in such a place at that time.

Lakshan recalled the moment when Elrose’s hood was taken off. She really looked like a mess. There was dirt in her hair and face. At first glance, it would be a perfect misunderstanding to assume that she was a beggar going around the capital. However, even though she looked like that, he could not easily take his eyes off of her.

‘Sparkling.’

Despite the dirt in her hair, it was still shiny. Having blonde hair isn’t rare, but he had never seen such a shiny color. It would probably be even shinier if she had it washed and brushed.

Lakshan shook his head as he thought that it would be very soft to touch.

‘I’m crazy.’

It was the first time in his life that he wanted to touch someone else’s hair.

Lakshan shook his head again to shake off his miscellaneous thoughts and recalled his colleagues heading home first. What would they say when they find out that he got married and then divorced in the capital?

“I’ll have to go now.”

His business in the capital ended a long time ago, but Lakshan continued to stay there.

‘You keep trying to hold onto it.’

He sighed when he recalled his brother. It seemed that he was trying to keep Lakshan here somehow. He told him many times that he couldn’t do it without him, and he needed his help. Even though there were other people who were more skilled to do these types of things, his brother still wanted him to take care of it.

‘Not only that.’

“Do you intend to get married?”

As soon as Lakshan heard that, he knew. His brother would probably introduce him to a woman of a very fine family and try to get him married, to keep him here.

‘I’m going to have to run away.’

In fact, he thought he’d leave the capitol at night when he finished with his work today.

‘But I can’t leave until Monday.’

Lakshan recalled Elrose, who asked to meet in front of the government office on Monday. It was more difficult to stay until then instead of just not divorce.

Since he was a northern man, this paper-based marriage did not mean much to him. A marriage that can be recognized by a piece of paper. It wasn’t even funny. Which is why it was easy to accept Elrose’s offer. This kind of marriage didn’t affect him at all.

Lakshan turned his head and looked at the space next to him. It was quite a large bed, that was why there was plenty of space for him to lie down. If today’s marriage was real, she’d be lying down next to him by now.

Since it was the first night.

“…What am I thinking?”

After a moment of daze, he became dumbfounded.

Anyways, after Monday, they would not meet again.

But why was he thinking in vain?

Lakshan got up and headed towards the bathroom. It seems like he needed to take a cold shower now.

~*~

Elrose looked around her mother’s room.

The room where her mother had lived lost its formal appearance because Camila had already completely renovated it. The only thing she remembered was the garden that could be seen out of the window.

Everything was unfamiliar even though she came back home. Besides, she couldn’t sleep easily because so much had happened. Well, she did get married, but it was just on paper though.

Elrose smirked as she recalled what had happened during the day.

She couldn’t believe she was married, and she couldn’t believe she would get divorced right away.

“Alone again.”

Elrose murmured unknowingly and her eyes opened wide.

‘Alone?’

She was alone from the beginning. Ever since she was abandoned in the cabin. But Elrose couldn’t believe that she was lonely because she was apart from someone she had only been with for a few hours.

It was clear that the air in the unfamiliar capital made her think of that strange idea.

Elrose sat by the window while looking out at the garden and fiddled with her necklace. The most precious thing left to her. As a child, her mother would hang this necklace on Elrose and told her to hold it at night and pray when she was in trouble.

“It’s not like you’re going through a rough patch…”

It was then, at the moment, Elrose touched the necklace while thinking about what to do in the future.

“Huh?”

She could see something strange through her eyes.

t/n: uh for some reason the pov just switched here and I even double checked the raws and it was like this ¯_( ❛ ᴗ ❛ )_/¯

Lakshan sat on the sofa and looked up. The gorgeous ceiling caught his eyes. It was the imperial palace he had visited often over the past few months, but it was still strange and uncomfortable to him.

“He’s taking a long time.”

Lakshan grumbled and shook his head in spite of Jae for calling him in during the morning. He couldn’t help it. He’s probably one of the busiest people in this palace.

‘Because he’s the emperor.’

He understood, but it didn’t mean that the boredom was gone. He thought he’d come after walking in the garden outside, but he stopped thinking about it soon.

‘There’s nothing good about me standing out to other people.’

Recalling his ambiguous position, Lakshan walked around the room. Then, he looked up and saw a portrait of the former emperor hanging on the wall.

It was the portrait of Eucresia, the 27th Emperor and the former emperor.

After looking at it for a long time, Lakshan turned towards the mirror near the fireplace. He alternated looking between the mirror and the picture while muttering.

“Do we look alike?”

Eucresia.

The former emperor was Lakshan’s mother.

But, Lakshan was not a prince.

He was born from her (Eucresia) and a man who she met while he lived in exile after she had dealt with the rebels. It was a secret only a few people in the world knew that the man who Eucresia had met was Kharkan, the mercenary king.

When Lakshan was born, Eucresia returned to the palace, so he had never seen his mother. When Lakshan asked what his mother looked like, Kharkan drew a picture and explained it. His face looked so happy when explaining what she was like. But, it was not until Lakshan was old enough to understand the weight of his secret when Kharkan told him who his mother was.

“Your mother is Her Majesty, the Emperor.”

Lakshan was not surprised by his words, for he guessed. On the day of the news about Eucresia’s death, his father bought white flowers in memory of the dead, and he didn’t come home for a few days.

It wasn’t difficult to guess the truth about his mother by looking at his father. Kharkan once handed a necklace to Lakshan.

“If you need help from the Imperial family, bring this with you… okay?”

Lakshan fiddled with the necklace inside his robe and looked at himself reflected in the mirror again.

‘Some would say I look exactly like my father.’

In his view, he and his dad looked really alike.

‘Thanks to you, I was able to pretend to be like my father.’

After his father’s death, Lakshan inherited the name of the mercenary king, Kharkan. It wasn’t that hard to fool people. His father covered his face with bandages that stood out a lot. In addition, Lakshan has almost the same physique and voice as Kharkan.

‘I didn’t mean to pretend to be my father from the beginning.’

The day that Kharkan died, he was evacuating all the villagers from the battlefield. Surrounded by an overwhelming number of enemies, people moved calmly without any panic. That was possible because they believed that the legendary mercenary king was protecting them.

However, Kharkan was severely injured in the attack while trying to protect the children. Kharkan, who didn’t expect to die so soon, told Lakshan.

“Son, you are the mercenary king from now on.”

His joke then became the will. Because Lakshan understood why his father said that, he put a bandage around his face just like his father. Then, he led the mercenaries while pretending to be his father to evacuate the villagers into safety.

Kharkan’s death was left in the hearts of Lakshan and his colleagues. Since then, the situation on the continent had become rapidly unstable, and people had asked for Kharkan. Because of that, Lakshan missed several chances to announce his father’s death.

In the meantime, the name Kharkan became even more legendary, and Lakshan eventually gave up the idea of telling the truth.

‘I’ll disappear quietly without anyone knowing.’

Lakshan recalled the reclaimed land in the north. There was a village where his father and colleagues lived when they were kids.

He would go back there and put down the tough name, Kharkan, and live as Lakshan with his colleagues.