Chapter 108

Alyssa, as everyone had said, was a good woman at first. But as her beloved husband brought in a mistress, and that mistress gave birth to a child, she became more and more twisted. As the situation worsened, the feelings of goodness disappeared, and the feelings of evil that wouldn’t have been revealed came out and took over.

It was only a matter of time before the evil manifested and ate everything up. Even more so if one had no intention to control it.

Maybe the situation would have been better if she had a child to bring down her emotions. But she, unfortunately, had a body that could not bear children, so infertile, and when she learned of this, she became almost half crazy. It was basically a death sentence, that beyond anyone else, the official Empress could not give birth to a child with the person she loved.

The Empress who could not give birth to a child lost the point of her existence. Even if she was the Duke of Oswin’s daughter, this fact cannot be changed. Alyssa wished to live next to her beloved husband until she died.

Eventually, she adopted the mistress’ son due to her obsession. Naturally, Janet rejected this, but nobody would listen to a mere mistress that had not even been granted a title. Even more so, if the person giving orders was the daughter of the number 1 prestigious family in the Empire, and the supreme Empress of the country.

Eventually, she had no chance to resist, and her young son was taken away from her arms. At the time, nobody knew that up to that was okay.

It was hard, honestly, to love a child that wasn’t her own, and one that her beloved husband had with a lowly mistress. Regrettably, Alyssa was not kind enough to do such a good deed.

She was an extremely ordinary person, but grew up in a wealthy and loving environment, and therefore was a bit more relaxed, optimistic, and affectionate than others. So perhaps she accepted her misfortunes more tragically than others because of this.

The previous Emperor watched her raise him with distrustful eyes, but Alyssa confidently told the Emperor that she would raise him herself. However, Alyssa never raised him “well.” To say that was being raised ‘well’ was wrong.

She abused him. The locations for abuse varied, but it was mostly in Empress Palace, where Empress Alyssa stayed. The Empress Palace has become a painful place for him to revive the experiences of abuse. Her abuse went beyond mental and physical abuse, and she did not hesitate to speak brutal and obscene words, as well as personal attacks. It was amazing that he could properly grow up after hearing those words since he was young.

The beatings were close to everyday. In order to avoid the suspicion of the Emperor, she wounded only places that weren’t visible, and as a result, there were plenty of small and large wounds where the Emperor would never know about unless all the clothes were completely taken off.

As a child, he grew up in her hands from a very young age, so he barely knew about Janet’s existence, and he simply had no idea why his “real” mother—Alyssa, hated him so much. He did everything he could to get in his mother’s good graces, thinking as young children did, that it was him who had a problem, but all that returned was still violence.

His mother always called him a ‘dirty child’, and his young self, who did not fully understand the meaning of it, thought that it was a hygienic problem and even made a waste by bathing twice a day, and only realized that it was of no use and quit doing that a long time later.

He realized at exactly the age of 13 years old, that his mother would never love him, no matter what he did. Of course, the result of this enlightenment was only the mind and body that remained injured, after being relentlessly destroyed.

Originally, he had a lively and bright personality, but after 13 years of dealing with such treatment, the smile on his mouth had disappeared for a long time. If one was subjected to such abuse from a woman who was originally thought to be the birth mother, the chance of growing up as a normal and bright child was close to minimal. However, his spirit was so devastated at the time, that he could not even notice this change within him.

It was a desolate life almost near death, but nevertheless, it was a life that he still retained. Until ‘that’ happened.

The previous Emperor was a person who often went on punitive expeditions. The territory of the current Marvinus Empire was the result of his father, the previous Emperor, increasing the existing borders by 10 percent, which required conquests through war. The previous Emperor frequently emptied the Imperial Palace for war, and while he was away, the one in charge of the Imperial Palace naturally became the Empress.

Alyssa’s violence would get even stronger when the Emperor was away, a result that did not change, whether he got older or not. Already, he was too sick mentally to reject her violence, and he had become accustomed to receiving her abuse. It was as if a fully grown elephant accepted the shackles that it had struggled to cut off, as part of its own body. For Lucio himself, Empress Alyssa’s existence was like the shackle of an elephant’s foot.

Even when Lucio had his 15th birthday, the previous Emperor continued to leave for wars for conquests and emptied the palace, which eventually resulted in an irreversible tragedy.