Chapter 35 - CHAPTER 33. AM I DEAD, OR ALIVE

It felt like everything had gone wrong. Like that day, all the truths he had known were disorganized, and the time to face new truths had come. Lucio intuitively realized that change was about to come, and he couldn’t guarantee how his emotions would flow along, in the whirlwind of change.

He was the Emperor that received admiration through selection, and a great politician who had calmed the conflicts between nobles that were based in a powerful empire, but he was bound to be weak to love. In the beginning, he was destined to be this way. At least so far he was. A man who had no choice but to be weak towards love.

Meanwhile, Patrizia, who had remembered exactly the way they had traveled, told Lucio in a positive voice.

“Your Majesty, this is the road we passed before. Hopefully we can arrive there in time.”

“Really? That is good… Ugh!”

Suddenly a scream was heard before he finished speaking, and Patrizia asked him in an urgent voice without even thinking about stopping the horse.

“Your Majesty? What is wrong!”

“Ugh… It is nothing…”

But soon even his response was cut off, and Patrizia finally stopped the horse and looked at his condition. Damn it all, his forehead was like a fireball. It seemed that the heat hadn’t fully gone down yet. Patrizia’s forehead soon had small wrinkles, as if she was thinking it had all been a failure.

It would be difficult to return home in time if they delayed any more there. Patrizia pledged to return as soon as possible, and then spoke to him in a firm voice.

“Your Majesty, please endure a bit longer.”

She held onto Lucio to support him from the back, and to prevent the possible danger of falling off the horse. Then she immediately started the horse onward again. There was really no time now. If he did not receive the right treatment in this short time, his safety could not be guaranteed.

At that same time, there were all sorts of fuss back at the palace.

“Where on earth is His Majesty!”

“His Majesty disappeared as well as Her Majesty. What weird situation is this?”

“Maybe they have suffered some bad events?”

The nobles were almost in a state of panic because both the Emperor and Empress had not returned even after the determined period of time. Of course, it was the two escort knights that were blamed first, including Rafaella, but it was difficult for them to blame them openly because they had both been commanded to leave them alone.

Soon an emergency meeting between the nobility was held at the temporary barracks, and after a serious debate, the nobles concluded that they would find both the Emperor and the Empress by releasing their workforce accordingly. The knights that had participated in the competition were divided into groups to search by a specific area.

At this ideal conclusion the nobles laughed with satisfaction, and the Duke of Vashi became their leader, and decided to gather all the knights and give them orders.

When everything had been decided about what was going to happen, someone came into the barracks. Naturally, the appearance of a stranger attracted the eyes of all the nobles toward the door. After confirming the identity of the stranger, the Duke of Vashi frowned slightly, and put the name of the intruder in his mouth.

“Baroness Phelps?”

“Sir Duke of Vashi. Are the words true?”

Rosemond’s quivering lips asked the Duke of Vashi the bottom of the truth. However, the Duke of Vashi just asked a question back to her with a cold look.

“How did you get in here, Lady Phelps?”

“That’s not what’s important now. Is it true that His Majesty has disappeared?”

“Unfortunately, it is.”

When the Duke of Vashi responded with a helpless expression, Rosemond staggered without her knowledge. Damn it, this shouldn’t be this way. The only victim she had wanted was Patrizia. Not Lucio! She shed a sad voice with tears pooling in her eyes.

“Ah… What to do…”

“As of now we will start the search, so do not worry too much, Lady. More than that, what is Lady Phelps doing here, when you should be in the Imperial Palace?”

“I came to greet His Majesty’s return, and that’s when I heard this news. Oh my goodness… This situation…”

As she swayed like a weak woman that was in shock, Glara quickly supported her, as she had been standing next to her. After seeing this, the Duke of Efreni instructed Glara with a vigorous expression.

“I think Lady Phelps is very surprised. Come on and take the Lady to another location.”

“Yes, sir.”

Glara replied quickly and supported Rosemond, who continued to boast a fragile appearance and came out safely from the barracks. Rosemond’s feeling of dizziness was closer to acting in a play, than for it to be reality, Rosemond was really keen to fall in that moment.

It wasn’t just Patrizia that had disappeared! This was the worst ending for Rosemond. The disappearance of both Patrizia and Lucio.

If Lucio did not return, the worst case would be that he died, and the position of the next great Emperor would of course be passed on to another blood relative. If that happened, she would no longer be able to stay in the Imperial Palace. Rosemond bit her nails with growing anxiety. It was too late to do something about this, there were too many eyes watching.

“Damn it, what should I do? How…”

“Majesty!”

It was then that someone passed her and hurried into the barracks. Rosemond turned around to look at the situation with a frowning face, and slowly approached the barracks. The knight that had just entered exhaled a rough breath, and calmly reported something.

“I found both of the Majesties, Sir Duke!”

Rosemond’s eyes widened in an instant at the knight’s words. She didn’t know whether to be happy or sad about this situation.

In any case, it was surely a good thing for Lucio to have been found, but since they had found not just the Emperor but ‘both Majesties,’ this meant that it was not only Lucio but Patrizia was also included. Rosemond snapped her teeth in an instance of anger. Was it a failure.

“Useless things.”

Rosemond muttered these words in an angry voice, but these were soon buried again by the voices of the nobles that soon followed.

“You mean you’ve found both Majesties?”

“Where are the two of them now?”

“Are both of them alive?”

“Please calm down, Sir. Both are safe. But…”

At that time, there was a disturbance outside, and the knight’s words were naturally interrupted. When the nobles stepped outside, one by one to see what was going on, they saw the Emperor and the Empress on horseback. The nobles who found the sight of the two were startled, and ran towards them.

“Your Majesty!”

“Your Majesty, are you okay?”

“….”

The Emperor was unconscious in the arms of the Empress, and the Empress holding the Emperor looked very exhausted. She soon opened her mouth and instructed in an urgent voice.

“His Majesty has been poisoned. Call the imperial physician right now! Where is the imperial physician?”

The Empress was a woman who was known to use honorific words without having treated the lower people poorly. For the first time in her life, such a woman was naturally dealing with the nobles, who were neither maids or servants, lowly. It was as if she had always used that tone. Everyone was taken aback by the sudden change of tone, but the first one out of all of them to quickly embrace the change was the Empress’ father Marquis Grochester, and the rest of them soon followed.

“What are you all doing? Without calling the imperial physician immediately!”

As soon as those words ended, the people who had vague expressions began to move again quickly. The knights helped Patrizia and Lucio descend from the horse, and Patrizia gradually felt faint due to the poison that hadn’t been completely neutralized, but focused with all of the might inside of her, to concentrate and not lose consciousness.

As the court guards rushed to look over Lucio, who had already fallen, Patrizia discovered Rosemond, who was standing near the two of them. At that moment, she felt a tremendous amount of anger beyond her control, but she wondered how to best use this situation to her advantage rather than release the anger. After a short period of distress, she decided to make the most sensible, and least regretful choice.

“Why are you here?”

“Your Majesty Empress.”

Rosemond bowed gracefully. The trembling of her body from earlier couldn’t be found with this movement. And it was a very shameless gesture towards Patrizia, who couldn’t possibly know about what had happened in the previous situation. She shed a giggling laugh at the preposterous sight.

“Sure, Lady Phelps. For what reason are you, all the way here?”

“I came here because I wished to meet His Majesty, Your Majesty.”

“It is my job to escort His Majesty and return with the Emperor to court. It is not within your authority as a mistress. Are you daring to challenge the Empress’ authority?”

“That could not be, Your Majesty.”

Rosemond was a woman who did not lose her act at any moment. To be overwhelmed by her emotions, she was beyond too worn out.

However, because she was also a person, she was still sometimes shaken. Of course, it was a rare moment, but it certainly existed. Like…

“You would not have come all the way here to serve His Majesty, right?”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

“Am I dead or alive. Was that not what you were curious about?”

Like now. Rosemond’s facial expressions cooled down and froze, and she could feel the nobles and knights around her feeling flustered by her own skin.

Patrizia stared at Rosemond with a cool and hard face, and as soon as the imperial physician arrived, she refocused on him. She calmly explained the situation.

“His Majesty was poisoned in my stead. He has consumed the sculler juice, but for some reason he does not wake up. Come on and look closely.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

The physician answered with a serious voice and began to examine him, and during that time Patrizia looked around at the nobles who stared at her as if asking for explanation, and began to speak to them with a low voice.

“As you have just heard, I received an assassination attempt. The Emperor was shot by the assassin with a poisonous arrow instead of me, and I held onto His Majesty who fainted and ran away from the pursuit.”

As the attempt to assassinate the Empress became a de facto fact, gossip erupted all over the place. Patrizia did not lose her coolness and continued to speak in a strong voice.

“But eventually I was driven to the cliff, and I almost died in the hands of the assassins with His Majesty. Eventually, I had no choice, so I threw myself down the cliff.”

“Oh my goodness!”

When she spoke this far, some of the nobles cried out with a loud voice. Patrizia remained calm despite the not so bad reaction, and didn’t look away from Rosemond, who had suddenly regained her tranquility, and looked towards the direction of Patrizia and Lucio with a shocked expression as if she knew nothing. A woman who was so shameless that she didn’t even consider herself to be shameful. Patrizia felt her throat struggling to close, and barely managed to talk.

“The survival was close to destiny. It would have been impossible if the Emperor was not a descendant of the Sun.”

“Your Majesty who is not a direct descendant of the Sun like His Majesty, has returned without harm, and so it seems that God’s grace has touched Your Majesty.”

Like it, but not like it praise, but not praise. Patrizia couldn’t stop the chilly laugh that escaped out. She thought she couldn’t stand it anymore, and in fact didn’t even feel the need to endure it, so she shot back directly at that woman.

“Aha, indeed. The Emperor and I were not meant to die from a mere mistress’ conspiracy. If God had determined his and my destiny as such, I would not have been chosen as the Empress in the first place.”

“…”

With these words, the turbulent atmosphere rapidly subsided.