Chapter 178

Chapter 178

Translator: yun

“You’re asking me that quite quickly. (1) Are you curious?”

He pursued what interested him. If he found it fun, it didn’t matter what it was. And now, what he found the most fun was the woman who was acting like a young bird fluttering about in his hand. 

Under her eyes was a soft smile. He wondered what her eyes would look like when coloured with despair. This was not the first time he had this thought. He had been thinking about it for a long time now. 

“Ashley.”

His tone changed. Like what happened in that month of Habermia. 

“You weren’t talking much today so I thought something had happened to you.”

“W-what?”

“You usually could meet me in the eye and chatter incessantly.”

“… Haha. I-I must have been nervous.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Like some child, I couldn’t sleep last night.”

Castor had remembered everything. 

“I-I didn’t commit a sin!”

Her expression and movements. Her gaze, her flustered wavering gaze on her face filled with resolution as she bit her lips to hold in her tears that day. 

“You can do anything for me?”

“… Of c-course.”

That child was distinctly different from the person he was seeing before him. She now had a resigned gaze as if she had given up on everything. Which was why he could plaster a smile filled with joy. He wondered how else she could please him.

Even though he had no intentions to, Castor found the answer within the problem. It was because of his powers. Sadly, it was his powers that made everything boring and repetitive. 

That’s why he didn’t want to miss out on this ‘fun’.

He had been busy until now so he didn’t have the time to watch her by her side but now she came running to him on her own. 

“I’m happy.”

“Why’s that?”

“That’s because… I didn’t think brother would accept my invitation to be my patronus.”

“And then?”

“I told myself not to be disappointed even if you refused it. But in the end, you accepted it. How could I not feel honoured?”

Her purple eyes that revealed themselves after her thin eyelids had covered them reminded him of jewels. 

“Thanks to you, I get to dance with the most precious person in the Empire. I researched as much information as I could with my lady-in-waiting.”

She managed to execute all the movements in the dance as delicately as butterfly wings. From her thin wrist to the pale nape of her neck, his dark gaze lingered on her like spider webs.

“So, what did you find?”

“Uhm. The [Primo Salavatio] is a stage on which two people perform. One represents the first Emperor and the other the Lord of Gods.”

If he raised his gaze a little higher, he would see her fair and pale cheeks and a large white patch that did not match the rest of her skin tone. With her every blink, it would seem like a butterfly had landed on her eyes. 

“And the relationship between the two would be interpreted in different ways by each princess. For example, the last princess interpreted the relationship between the first Emperor and the Lord of the Gods to be that of ‘friends’ when she made her stage. I heard she had made quite a spectacular performance with her fiance at the time.”

Ashley continued chattering like a chirping bird. 

“Before that the relationship was interpreted as that of a lord and his vassal and the one before that was that of friends again.”

“But it can commonly be considered love.”

It was just for a moment but Ashley’s expression hardened. 

“Yes. That’s right. Love… The most commonly interpreted theme was love.”

She forced herself to smile. 

‘Ah. She looks like she wants to throw up.’

Ashley was as bright as she was back in that month of Habermia. She was able to give a wide smile and face the Crown Prince of Madness that everyone else was afraid of. To those watching, the [Primo Salvatio] can have some surprising sights and dance moves. 

Of course, no one knew what she herself was thinking.

“Wow, that’s amazing. You’re good at dancing too, brother! As expected of my brother!”

“Alright.”

He drew the girl in with a beautiful smile that made him look ecstatic. 

As they approached the next section of the piece, they got closer once again. 

Castor could ask Ashley why she chose him as her patronus. He could ask her if she had heard the rumours of her pushing out the cold Ducal Princess of Aventa to be with the Crown Prince. 

But he could find that out without asking her. Because he had the [Power of the Lords].

‘What should I do?’

It was as if madness flowed in his blood. Contrary to what the rest of the world thought of him, the bloodchilling truth was that he was far from greedy. Rather he was someone so arrogant and lazy that not only did he not have anything he wanted in particular, but he also did not have any intentions of owning anything. 

He had lived like that for quite a long time. 

Still. Something caught his eyes. He found something he wanted to obtain. 

And since it caught his eyes, how could he not have it?

“I pity the princess.”

Granius had said that he felt sorry for this girl. Granius had asked him what he was planning on doing with her and told him to let her go. Well, Castor looked down at the woman trapped in his arms before lowering his head.

“Ashley.”

Castor smiled. How really eye-catching.

The dance between the Lord of the Gods and the first Emperor ended with the two very close together. It symbolised the union of the gods and the first Emperor and their promise for the well-being of the Empire. 

“Did you know?”

“… Know… what?”

Even though it was only for a moment, she looked helpless. As soon as she fixed her expression, she plastered a smile on her face as if nothing had happened. 

This brought him pleasure. 

“You told me that you’ve been researching about the stage.”

A long time ago, when he first met the girl, his gut was telling him. There was something undeniably special about the girl. So special that she managed to catch the eye of a man so uncontrollably withered from boredom and monotony. 

From what he could remember of her, the girl had constantly amused him. It was not because of the naive and helpless expression on her pale face that reminded him of silky pear flowers. 

His powers allowed him to charm people and expose the truth. His powers had granted him so many things that he sometimes thought of it as a disaster. As he pondered about the strange feeling that kept rising within him, a thought impulsively occurred to him. 

“You must have heard that the princesses usually married their patronuses.”

She was no longer the same. 

Castor ignored the warning that penetrated his skin like a thin slice. According to his gut which he had been relying on this whole time, she would only amuse him more. 

Everything.

Would end up in his hands anyway.

***

Ashley recalled something that happened a long time ago. It was something that happened before she reincarnated. She had once gone hiking on the Sobaek mountain range (2) on an MT (3) with her department. She had been the epitome of weakness and lacked the physical strength needed to climb the mountains so the expert trail had given her a taste of hell. 

Sweat had dripped onto her eyes and she had been so dizzy that she could not tell whether what she was seeing was a dream or reality which caused her to fall off the course. She hadn’t gotten hurt but no one noticed when she had suddenly disappeared from the back of the group. Shockingly, they only realised her absence later that night. 

As she continued to suffer on a patch of grass next to the course, she could hear the chatters and laughter of her colleagues and supervisors getting further and further away. She couldn’t get over the shocking fact that she could be dying alone. 

Her colleagues were only a few steps away but it felt as if she was the only one left in the world. That sense of trepidation and distance made goosebumps sweep down her skin. 

And she was feeling the same now. 

There were obviously numerous people in the same hall. There were even the nobles who were overlooking the dance and templars who were part of the band playing music. 

‘But why?’

There was clearly more than a few people but it felt as if she was falling into a deep hole whilst staring at a small section of the large sky. 

“Ha, ha…”

“You look like you’re having it tough.”

“I’m, alright.”

She wondered how many times she had spun around at this point because her back was soaked in sweat. 

‘I’m so tired. My body is tired and my sanity… is even more battered.’

As soon as she arrived, she had been taught by a very strict dance teacher. At least she had been taught by Rebecca before this but thanks to the intense and vigorous dance moves, she couldn’t spare a breath to talk to Castor. She just smiled and answered him when he asked as she barely swallowed a breath that had already rose to her chin. The memories of the first day of training came back to her. 

“You must have heard that the princesses usually married their patronuses.”

‘… I should hold it in. We’re talking about the tyrant here.’

For as long as she was a member of the Imperial Family, marriage was not something anyone could treat as lightly as to say ‘You, go with him’. It is something the heir to the Empire in particular should not say.

Just as he mentioned, princesses usually married their patronuses or danced with the fiances they already had. But not everyone could do that and there weren’t that many people with blood that could match her pedigree. Of course there were numerous heartbreaking reasons why that was so, including how the princesses were either far from the standards of beauty in the Empire or had fatal defects but that was a separate matter for now. 

Ashley closed her eyes for a while before opening them to look at Castor. Now, half of those who had nothing to do with the dance were watching them. She felt like a tropical fish in a fishbowl with countless eyes watching her out of obsession. 

“Are you done… spectating?”

She quickly fixed her expression. 

“Ah, yes! You’re even good at dancing, brother.”

As she slowly let go of the man’s hand, she took a step back.

“How cool. How did you make yourself sparkle? It surprised me.”

She smiled brightly. As she smiled shamelessly, she stared out the window. 

“Oh my, the sun is setting. How did time pass so fast?”

Time had passed and it was nearing sunset. 

“Would you like to return?’

Unsurmountable chills travelled down her spine as goosebumps swept down her skin. She made eye contact with the gazes with different temperatures. 

“… How could I? I was just talking about how I didn’t even realise how fast time passed because I was happy to be with you, brother.”

She wondered why. But the eyes of the tyrant from the original novel were so intense that she felt the urge to run away. 

“Really? Anyway, you are right to say that quite a lot of time had passed.”

It was strange. Had it always been like that? The unfamiliar sense of dread was causing her hair to stand on its ends. 

What was this unpleasant feeling? 

“Let’s stop here.”

Castor was the one who slowly shifted his gaze away. Seemingly out of habit, he slowly swept his hair up with his left hand before the corners of his lips rose. 

“You’ve… worked hard today.”

“See you next time.”

She stared at him as he pressed his lips against hers while lowering himself like the textbook gentleman. The chilling warmth moved away from her. Staring at his elegant face until he took his lips off her, Ashley’s eyes remained trembling. 

It had felt really long but in reality only a moment had passed.

‘Strange. It’s just a greeting but I have no idea why my hands are trembling so much.’

She placed her hand over the other and pressed them together tightly before lowering her head. 

‘Is it because of Hannah…’

Whether it was her hands that were slightly trembling or her lips that felt like they were burning, it was as if her body had recalled something and was reacting first. She was nervous for some reason. 

He was the tyrant who was not picky about whose blood was spilled but at least she knew that the man she saw and the man in the original novel could remain collected and be mad at the same time. 

‘He’s not going to kill me now anyway.’

He, the Crown Prince, had no reason to kill the flower of the Empire, the princess before the Founding Festival. No matter how crazy or undeniably mad he was, unless he wanted to turn the people of his Empire into his enemies, at least she knew she was safe. That was what Ashley judged him to be. 

“Ashley, I haven’t looked forward for the next day to come in years.”

The day he would soon kill me kept bothering me but I tried hard not to think about it and raised my head. 

“Now, that’s no longer the case.”

“Ah…”

“Go ahead.”

As soon as she tried to reply, the large doors to the hall opened and a man entered. 

T/N:

Merry Christmas to those who are celebrating!! Double updates because it’s giving season!

(1): As in Castor hadn’t expected Ashley to ask him that question so early. 

(2): https://www.britannica.com/place/Sobaek-Mountains

(3): MT, or membership training, is an event commonly held in Korea with the goal of team-ponding and socialising.