Chapter 27

Celestia hid behind a giant pillar and craned her ears to the whispered words.

“…….I’m quite certain, Your Highness, the Empress.”

“Then why was the Emperor so cold-hearted?”

“I’m not sure about that……”

The voice answered back in an awkward tone.

“Are you trying to play me now?!”

Following the angry voice of the Empress, the man, nervous, answered.

“He is definitely a pill-resistant person. There’s no question about that. Now, from what I can tell, he’s quiet about his medication. However, when the prince used mana for the first time, Her Majesty, the Late Empress had asked why medicine didn’t work on him. She’d told me to keep it a secret…….”

The man’s voice trailed off.

After a brief silence, someone heaved a sigh out of frustration.

“Enough! It’s ridiculous that you thought I would believe that.”

“Your Majesty!”

“And here I wondered if you’d finally reveal a plausible weakness of his…..”

The Empress’s sigh was barely audible.

‘Dear God, this Empress. She’s insane.’

Celestia’s head was spinning fast. What should she do? If it was known that medicine didn’t work on him, it might affect his position.

This supremacy, the Burg Empire, seemed outwardly ruled by a rigid Emperor waving everything with his hands. However, looking at the center of all political forces, the former king had planted so many extraterrestrials that the political balance was kept subtle.

The sound of their speech grew more and more stealthy. She could barely understand even when she brought her ears closer to the wall.

She looked around. Fortunately, she saw no one passing the corridor.

She wondered if she’d keep listening, but she remembered the slogan of the pickpocket guild, “If I’m going to steal anything, I’m going to steal something bigger like a country!” Her close friend used to say that to her.

Yeah, she would have to listen till the end to get some information. In others words, she was already on a path she could not turn her back from. From the time she started eavesdropping.

She was nervous. It felt like all the cookies in her hand were going to be crushed. She slipped to place her ears on the wall.

“Do not speak of what happened today. If you want your neck to be safe.”

“So, is my wife’s life really going to be saved?”

The voice of the man sounded quite familiar.

Who was it? She pondered on it for a moment, but only a vague afterimage came to her mind.

“Of course, it would. Only after we wait and see if the information you gave is true or not.”

“It’s not that Your Highness doesn’t believe me, is it? It’s been a while since you’ve been keeping a watch of events.”

“I thought it to be plausible when I first learned it, but the Emperor looked unusually bright today.”

“But, I……. I didn’t know how that worked……”

“Anyway, it is done. I shall call you next time for more details, so let us talk about it then.”

The end of the conversation jolted her. She quickly moved away from the wall.

This was serious beyond imagination. What kind of nerve did she have to overhear this?

She tried to rush into the next room, but none of the doors opened on her push. She had to take shelter by standing close to a pillar and hiding herself in its shadow.

The door opened, and she heard the sound of footsteps rushing out.

She was nowhere to be seen from the Queen and her party’s side. However, she was only a step away. If the Empress stepped towards her way, she’d definitely spot her.

At that moment, she felt her back dampen with tension.

Clack. Clack.

The heels of the empress hit the floor as she took two steps from her position and was almost around the corner where she could be seen. Celestia swallowed silently, spotting the shiny jewel on one of her shoes and noting the luxurious shoe nose that was finished very generously.

‘Don’t come here. Don’t come here.’ Celestia prayed in earnest.

Did her prayer go through?

“It’s this way.”

Came the polite voice of a man. The Queen’s shoe nose disappeared in an instant. Her breath stayed hitched as she felt the coldness of the wall with her back.

Even the distant echoes of her heels terrified her.

It was only when she barely made sure that the party passed the corridor that she took a breath. Still unable to move her body, she stayed there for a while longer.

She shifted when she heard the voices of the maids laughing and chatting in the hallway where the Empress had disappeared.

She leapt out all of a sudden, fleeing from her hiding place as soon as possible.

She couldn’t even recall how she got back to her room. Almost instinctively, she had crossed the bridge and came down the stairs.

“Oh my god……..”

Her legs were shaking even when she entered her room. ‘That was crazy.’

She paced around the room before slumping down on her bed. She felt a little calm after taking a few deep breaths.

She barely took a glimpse on the clock. It was past 9 PM.

It might not be serious that the Empress knows that his side-effects pills did not work, so she thought it’d be fine to not inform the Emperor of this right now. Moreover, it was already too late at night.

In addition, she had only ever asked to see His Majesty once. And so, she decided to postpone it tomorrow.

But as soon as the idea struck her, she immediately got up from the bed and walked to the building where the Knight was stationed. To let him know that she must see the Emperor today.

This was what she thought.

The Empress had Serek as a magic officer. Serek might reveal to the Empress that Celestia has the ability to nullify the negative effects of magic.

The Empress was now half-confident with the information she got, but if she heard Serek’s testimony, she would be sure of it. The Emperor’s weaknesses and the reason why he had a servant like her who isn’t suitable to enter the palace.

That was the only thing that needed to be stopped.

She thought it’d better to ask the Knight who knew the situation well than to ask for a visit through Serena or the mayor. She asked to see the Knight who escorted her to the Academy. As she walked out into an open space in front of a fountain, a Knight with snowy skin appeared.

He was in his armor even when it was already late. Even though what she asked for must have looked unexpected, he looked at her without much surprise, as if this had happened before.

“I am sorry to have interrupted your rest, sir knight.”

“What’s the matter?”

She stayed quiet for a moment, unable to speak up in front of Knight staring down with those yellow eyes of his, seemingly indifferent and unfriendly. But she somehow managed to open her lips.

“Is it really impossible to see His Majesty, the Emperor today? It’s necessarily urgent.”

He shook his head without a thought.

“His Highness must have gone to bed. It is absolutely impossible now.”

Well, he was a hard worker from early morning to late at night. She didn’t know when he actually slept. But almost every time she went to see him, wasn’t he always looking through his papers on his bed?

But she couldn’t have said that.

Seeing that he was adamant even when she mentioned it was urgent, there was no room for persuasion anymore.

Even though she didn’t want to, she accepted and decided to go back.

“Very well. Then, I’ll come to request a visit tomorrow. And…… I’m sorry to have called you out late at night. Please take this.”

She had some cookies from the Emperor’s room wrapped in a handkerchief, which she held out to the knight. He hesitated, perhaps embarrassed, before silently picking it up and gazing down at it with a blank expression.

“By the time you get back from the Academy tomorrow, it’ll be fine to meet him.”

“Thank you.”

“You can tell me anything.”

She thought he was such a sharp knight and a gentleman for telling her to be at ease with him. She doubted that he had the right to wake his king in the middle of the night.

She was confident that she could wake him up even though he was sleeping with circumstances like this, but they also had a huge difference in status. In any case, she was still a humble person.

Eventually returning to her room without any luck, she lied down on a quality, fluffy mattress covered up by a warm, light blanket while munching on cookies.

Most of her worries evaporated away as she felt comfortable. Unfortunately, even in this perfect and happy environment, she had no choice but to continue thinking.

First, she thought of asking Serek to keep quiet, but he wasn’t a great man to listen to her pleas or orders. If he did, he’d ask for a private house in return and persistently disturb her.

She didn’t forget him showing his shameless face at the banquet again. She felt ashamed for loving him……. What was the point of asking such a man to do something?

Moreover, if she asked him, he might notice that her ability had now become an important topic of the conversation. But she couldn’t help by doing nothing.

She sighed deeply.

As expected, the fastest way was to speak directly to the Emperor.

Thinking, she reached out for another cookie before letting her eyes fall on her empty fingertips.

There were none left.

She remembered not reaching Luana’s room to deliver the cookies, but those cookies were gone.

She couldn’t even recall carrying them back.

She must have kept it somewhere when she was eavesdropping.

Why would she do such a stupid thing?

She searched around the room where she might have placed the tray, but she found none.

She had kept the cookies beside the pillar she was standing by before.

Would it be suspicious to go around the bridge again in the middle of the night?

She waited until early dawn to go to the corridor, but the package of cookies had already disappeared. She returned back, thinking someone might have cleaned it up.

A Dark Shadow

She had to head to her Academy after spending a thoughtless night without a wink of sleep.

The Knight climbed the carriage and sat inside without a single word.

Even after arriving at the Academy, she paid no attention to class. She was lost in thought about the Empress’ words.

Vincenzo, the gentle and smart classmate of hers, asked her five times because her worries seemed to be too obvious.