Chapter 17

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Theodore fell off his horse. I couldn’t come with him because I was having a cold.

Surprised by the news of his sudden fall, I contemplated and ran to his bedroom.

“Sir Yves…!”

“Are you okay? I heard you have a bad cold……”

The knights standing in front of the bedroom looked at me and kept silent.

“His Majesty, I heard he fell off his horse. Is he okay?”

As they gasped for breath, they glanced at each other with subtle expressions. This made me a little bit anxious.

“Why? Is he in a very bad condition?”

“Um, that’s…”

“He wasn’t seriously hurt. Fortunately, he woke up quickly….”

After a while, the words that came out of their mouths gave me a blank expression for a moment.

So my Theo is now… hurt his head…?

He looked fine on the outside, but he was a little strange…?

I opened the door that had been closed and went inside the bedroom, which felt particularly quiet.

Then I saw him sitting on the bed with a frown. He had a head injury and was bandaged, but his handsome face was still there.

I was relieved to see him sitting there intact.

“Your Majesty.”

Conscious of his aide next to him, I called him that instead of ‘Theo’, and he looked at me with his forehead frowned, narrowing his eyes.

The first moment I saw that expression, I was taken aback. Was he in a lot of pain? Thinking like that, I worried Ben more.

“You got hurt a lot…… ”

It was then.

Ah!

Suddenly he grabbed my wrist and pulled me in. My body, which was weak with a cold for several days, was dragged to him helplessly.

“Your Majesty, why, why…… .”

I stuttered in bewilderment.

It wasn’t just him and me in this place.

And although Theodore was a beast that knew no time or place, it was always limited to places where there were eyes of others.

Because he respected my opinion that I did not want to go out in public until Chernicia’s reinstatement was settled.

“You….”

He looked at me, his golden eyes shook greatly.

***

Earlier.

When Theodore woke up, the first thing he felt was a strong shock hitting his body.

“Ugh…”

It wasn’t just the back of his head. His whole body was throbbing in pain, as if he had been beaten. 

“Your Majesty, you’re awake!”

The urgent voice heard next to him was that of his assistant Armin.

“Shut up. My head is ringing.”

Theodore grabbed his forehead with one hand and cursed quietly, but suddenly the surroundings became quiet.

When Theodore raised his head in the strange air and looked around, Armin was looking at him with a very bewildered expression.

This made him feel even worse.

“What’s wrong with your eyes? Have you never seen a sick person?”

“…I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I’m just surprised.”

Armin hurriedly bowed his head and apologized to the fierce eyes that seemed to take his eyeballs out if he continued looking.

“…?”

Then Theodore wrinkled his forehead as if he didn’t understand, and looked at Armin.

Armin quickly responded to the fierce momentum he felt even though he had his head bowed.

“When I heard Your Majesty’s abusive language, I felt nostalgic, so I made a mistake. Because you only used kind words….”

“…?”

The wrinkles on Theodore’s forehead grew even deeper. It was when he turned his head involuntarily, thinking he was hearing a nonsensical dog barking.

“Snow…..”

Theodore’s eyes widened slightly as he looked out the window for a moment.

“You fell off the horse. Fortunately, there are no major injuries other than the head wound, but if you have any discomfort..… .”

“Armin Meyer.”

Theodore interrupted Armin’s explanation and asked in an unbelievable voice.

“Why is it snowing this season?”

Then it was Armin who was bewildered. He seriously wondered if the emperor was tormenting him with another embarrassing question.

The emperor had been strangely docile since last summer, but he had a hobby of tormenting his subordinates with odd questions.

“Of course, it’s this season, so it’s snowing…”

Armin answered very carefully so as not to offend Theodore as much as possible. He had served the emperor the longest along with the commander of the Order, Lyndon.

In other words, he was a person who knew better than anyone how to survive while pleasing a boss with an ugly personality.

But Theodore’s face became noticeably harsher.

“Are you joking around with me now?”

“Ha, Your Majesty…… ?”

Armin pretended to be afraid on the outside, but on the inside he thought, ‘Ah, this b*stard is starting again.’

He sighed and swallowed the sorrow.

“I don’t know what you mean…… ”

“It’s snowing in the middle of summer? Is that normal?”

“What? Midsummer? Now it’s winter……”

Armin blurred his words, not knowing whether this was to torment him or if the emperor really thought it was summer.

Then Theodore suddenly asked fiercely if he felt that Armin was different from usual.

“It’s winter now?”

Then he looked around his bedroom.

Thick carpets on the floor and thick curtains on the windows. And the thick bedding on the bed he was sitting on now, no matter how many times he looked at it, was used in winter.

Obviously, it was a hot summer that the girl in his old memory hated especially until yesterday.

Maybe someone is playing a bad joke?

But who?

Who dares do such a thing to me?

Unless they have eleven lives…

Theodore would repeatedly kill his opponent in ten different ways as long as he found the instigator of this bad joke.

And everyone in the palace knew the emperor’s cruelty.

“I fell off the horse…..”

Theodore traced the vague memories. In his last memory, he was indeed riding a horse.

He was riding a horse under the hot summer sun…

“Apple……I’m sure the apple fell on my head…”

Someone threw an apple at him. And Theodore raised his head… … Through the dazzling sunlight… The face of Yvonne….

Unfortunately, the moment he thought about it, his head ached.

Theodore placed his hand on his sore forehead and glared at Armin. 

“Then did I fall off the horse after being hit by the apple?”

“What?”

Armin became increasingly difficult to understand the Emperor’s words.

A little while ago, he was talking about a hot summer, and now, suddenly an apple?

“Your Majesty was attending the New Year’s celebration. Originally, you avoided participating in the event because you were busy with other things, but you couldn’t miss it this time and attended ….”

“New Year’s celebration? So today is the first day of the new year?”

“Yes, it is.”

“….”

Theodore remained silent for a moment, then commanded in a terrifyingly forged voice.

“Call the doctor right away.”

The doctor, who had confirmed that there was nothing wrong with the emperor’s body just a few minutes earlier, rushed to the scene again.

The doctor’s diagnosis was truly hopeless.

The emperor’s memory was lost. The great Emperor of Albrecht was suffering from amnesia.

Neither the emperor’s aide nor the imperial court’s officials were in mourning and did not say anything because they were grateful. A quiet stillness flowed through the room.

“A f**cking disease….”

When Theodore, who was swearing, frowned at the throbbing headache, someone opened the door and ran inside.

“Your Majesty.”

Theodore, who had raised his head at the sound of a slightly hoarse voice calling for himself, suddenly stopped.

Judging from the way he was dressed, he must have been an escort knight……

Ah!

He grabbed the stranger’s wrist and pulled the person toward him.

Then, the face of the knight, who was surprised, appeared in front of his eyes.

“You…”

Theodore’s two eyes staring at that face trembled thinly.

Theodore knew this face better than anyone.

Yvonne Chernicia.

The treasure that he found when he was a child in the dreary imperial palace.

Is she really Yvonne? How did she get here…?

His heart was beating like crazy.

He had been looking for her for a very long time. Even in his last memories, he was looking for Yvonne.

“How are you…… .”

His lips shook with a trembling voice and he suddenly felt a strange sense of alienation.

He turned over the hand he was holding and looked at her wrist.

Her hand was clear and soft, unbelievable that it belonged to a knight, and her white wrist had no scars.

Theodore remembered Yvonne’s hands. Her hands were not this clean. The scar, which was her most painful weakness, was on this wrist, and ten years ago Theodore planted his divine power there.

So that wherever she disappears, she can be found again.

Although the magic was cut off from Ferdinand after the fall of Chernicia, if Ferdinands covered it with their magical powers, a small amount of his magic had to remain on this white wrist.

But Theodore felt nothing on Yvonne’s wrist.

Theodore lifted his head again and looked at her.

The woman had a face that resembled Yvonne more than anyone else, but……

It was not Yvonne.

It was a fake imitation of Yvonne.

Theodore’s eyes, staring at Yvonne, sank coldly.