CH 23

Richard was about to utter something else, but Ophelia was quicker.

She clenched her fists fiercely and shouted resolutely.

“And I’ll be smiling happily somewhere!”

“Somewhere?”

“Yes, it should be a good place, right? It would be great if the secret fund could grow well by then.”

Richard bent down.

From a distance close enough to bump noses, a low voice rang out as if crawling at the deepest part of a cavity.

“Somewhere.”

Ophelia’s eyelashes fluttered as fast as a hummingbird’s wings.

“Uh… somewhere, somewhere. Do you have any recommendations…?”

“My…”

“My?”

Richard shut his mouth while Ophelia tilted her head, unable to understand his words.

My? No matter how much she thought about the word that returned, she could not guess.

Was there the name of a livable village or territory that started with ‘my’?

“Your Highness, where did you try to recommend…”

Before she could finish her sentence, Richard’s lips, which had been closed in a straight line, opened.

“Won’t you be by my side?”

Immediately after that, silence fell between the two.

Neither Ophelia nor Richard said anything despite looking at each other. Neither did they leave nor blinked.

Ophelia tried to respond, but for some reason she couldn’t.

Because she couldn’t come up with a reasonable response.

It was the last.

A happy ending from this terrible infinite regression.

So, as the sun rises in the east, naturally she would no longer be associated with him.

After the one common denominator disappears, nothing would remain between him and her.

To begin with, being an aide was just an excuse to be by his side.

She had no desire to die in the mountain range of documents when she didn’t have to be with him anymore.

—There won’t be…

‘Why can’t I say anything as if my tongue is stuck to the roof of my mouth?’

Richard couldn’t say anything either.

He didn’t even know why he said that.

He took it for granted.

Ophelia being with him, and him being with Ophelia.

His time with her wouldn’t be long compared to the endless, terrible hours with no end in sight.

No, it would be a very short time.

Perhaps it’s a mere passing moment in this shackle.

But from some point on, he was chasing Ophelia.

Like finding a drop of falling dew while wandering alone through the barren desert.

‘Indeed, you are poison.’

‘My savior who will destroy me in the end.’

The corners of Richard’s eyes lengthened as it curved.

That bittersweet, dazzling smile slowly spread across Ophelia’s eyes, and before long, it crept into her chest.

And as if that smile was a lie…

With an expressionless face, Richard said,

“I think the end is still far away, so let’s get this case out of the way first.”

“As Your Highness wishes.”

Ophelia took a step aside, consciously and exaggeratedly bending her back.

She didn’t look at him. No, she might not have been able to see.

His dry voice echoed above her head.

“Tomorrow, bring all the people involved in the case here. There are no exceptions.”

.

A messenger carrying Richard’s orders reached the officials before the sun went down.

Hermia, who had an affair and had this weakness discovered by Raisa, held the secret that the lover she was cheating with killed her fiancée.

The count, who ended up giving Raisa the signature she wanted because of a debt due to the mistake of his deceased son.

And even Iris, who vaguely sensed that what was seen was not everything as she went over the incident.

That night, when none of them could sleep, grappling with their own circumstances.

Richard was in the center of the Imperial Palace.

He stood alone before the imperial seat.

The second he opened his eyes as he was immersed in silence facing the throne.

The ground on which he was stepping began to vibrate.

It was a very subtle vibration, so Ophelia would not have felt it.

No, it’s not just her. If it’s a vibration of this magnitude, the ones who could notice it would only be counted with a hand.

“As expected, it wasn’t an illusion.”

Richard took one step closer to the throne.

With each step he took, the vibration was gradually getting stronger.

Then he climbed a step up towards the throne.

—Brrr.

Now, the ground trembled so much that he could feel it on his skin.

But strangely, the area was only silent.

If it had been loud, the Imperial Palace would have been on alert.

Heightening his five senses, Richard looked around, but he could only hear the quiet and regular footsteps and low breaths of those in charge of the night.

If so, it must mean that the earth rumble was limited to the place he stood.

Richard continued to look down at the growling ground.

Has this ever happened?

Shaking ground.

Even in the long, seemingly endless regressions, he had never had an experience like this.

“If it’s Ophelia, she might know.”

Not her, but her grandfather next door.

She used to tell stories that were not false, but too absurd to be true.

But he didn’t really care.

She didn’t throw up lies.

And that’s enough.

The smile that had lingered on Richard’s lips as he thought of Ophelia faded away in an instant.

This was because the earth tremor was gradually increasing, and showed no sign of abating.

If the quaking that started here spreads throughout the entire Imperial Palace, or even beyond the capital, to the entire empire… 

What happened after that was uncharted territory.

Because he didn’t know if the ground was just shaking, or if there was something else.

Right now it’s just shaking, but if the intensity gets stronger and the range expands.

“The ground may crack and collapse.”

It wasn’t even realistic when it exited his mouth.

Richard tilted his head.

The earth tremor might continue, but as it was a phenomenon that started suddenly, it could also stop as and when.

He quickly erased from his mind the unexpected and unknown.

Eventually, he left the throne room, stepping on the unstoppable echo of the earth.

At this time, Richard did not know that this was the first sign.

.

A quake started from the center of the Imperial Palace, but on the morning of the next day, no one besides Richard knew.

Due to the shaking of the land, which had become stronger than yesterday, the story of  the tremors entered the emperor’s ears. Around that time…

“Ophelia.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Do you know anything about the shaking of the ground?”

“The ground is shaking?”

Her response was one of bewilderment, as if she had heard a strange sound.

—Do you know something? 

The moment the question was about to be concluded without an answer, Ophelia’s eyes, which had been half-closed, opened.

“Are you talking about the earthquake?”

“You know something?”

“No.”

Ophelia, who just spoke as if she knew something, shook her head immediately and shrugged.

“I don’t know. It’s just that the ground is shaking, so I remember hearing that there was such a phenomenon somewhere.”

Richard, staring at such an Ophelia, asked.

“What kind of education is there in Bolsheik?”

“Ahaha… It’s such an old family. There are all kinds of books.”

Again, it was not a lie.

The Bolsheiks were a family that existed before the founding of the Empire, and the books in them were at a level that couldn’t be found anywhere else

“Why are you suddenly asking about the earthquake?”

Ophelia quickly changed her words, and her mouth dropped open at the response.

“Yesterday, when I asked if you felt anything. I was talking about the tremor. Was it an earthquake?”

“Eh… yes? No, what? An earthquake? An earthquake happened?”

Ophelia’s pupils also shook violently as if they had been struck by an earthquake.

‘No, in what novel do earthquakes happen? Is there something like the mantle flow and the collision between the continental plates? Is this Earth? It isn’t? Earth?’

The chaos and confusion that came like a tidal wave soon subsided.

‘There could be an earthquake, huh.’

‘There’s me who possessed a character and has infinite regressions, an earthquake… It’s not that strange…’

“It’s not weird, but it’s a big deal!”

That flow of consciousness astonished Ophelia. Nodding her head, she cried, 

“Your Highness, an earthquake is a very serious thing! It’s a natural disaster! In extreme cases, the Imperial Palace could collapse… Eup, eup!”

With tiptoe feet and both hands raised, she rushed toward Richards without blinking, and her mouth was blocked by his hand.

“All right, first, breathe.”

“Eup, uh-eup! Eup-eup!”

“Right now is the time to breathe. The Imperial Palace isn’t going to collapse in a matter of seconds, isn’t it?”

“Eup… huuu, huuuu.”

After Ophelia took a deep breath and exhaled a couple of times, Richard released her.

“More details.”

“Yes! You already felt that the ground shakes when an earthquake occurs, so you know…”

“I’ll listen to it after this case is over.”

“Your Highness!”

“The ground is not going to crack and collapse right now. It’s actually not that much of a vibration.”

“It can change rapidly!”

“Then we should hope that an assassin will come.”

“Don’t talk as if it’s someone else’s business…!”

—Tok tok.