IDIBC Chapter 75

The Emperor, Wesley

Once the food was served again and all the bustling attendants had withdrawn, the Emperor set down his glass and looked directly at Stuart.

“Why did you do such a thing?”

At the abrupt question, Stuart raised his head and stared back at the Emperor.

“What are you referring to?”

“I’m asking why you handed Schneider’s sword to Rochester.”

“Didn’t I tell you I lost the bet?”

The Emperor tilted his head and picked up his glass again.

“Are you sick and dying soon, so you feared I would kill your son?”

“Well, isn’t that the case?”

The Emperor laughed as if he’d heard something amusing. At that laughter, goosebumps rose on the back of Stuart’s neck.

“Why would I do that? It will happen naturally once Harriot becomes Crown Prince.”

At this statement, which held not the slightest hint of denial, it was Stuart’s turn to let out a hollow laugh.

“Is that really what you should be saying right now?”

“If you wanted to protect what was yours, you shouldn’t have gotten sick. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect what’s mine.”

“…….”

“Power isn’t something to be shared even between father and son. You know that, don’t you? Especially when it’s not just anything, but the throne of the Dermeier Empire bestowed by God—you must protect it at any cost. Isn’t that right?”

Second Prince Harriot would gladly play the role of the Emperor’s puppet. The Emperor needed nothing more, nothing less than a successor who would solidify his position.

“You could have elevated my son to Crown Prince, couldn’t you? If you needed the Schneider name anyway.”

“You speak absurdly. That child? If that child became Crown Prince, do you think Harriot and his mother would just stand by and watch? I don’t understand why you expect me to protect what you should have protected.”

The Emperor pulled up both corners of his mouth like someone who had truly heard something ridiculous.

“Do you resent me?”

No, Stuart did not resent the Emperor. He had merely been curious about his intentions.

Even though he had felt it so painfully before turning back his life, once again, yet again, he had clung to his foolish hopes, expecting even a fragment of fatherly affection from the Emperor.

“Of course not. Isn’t all of this for the sake of Dermeier? I’m grateful that you don’t blame me for my weak body that has fallen ill.”

The Emperor nodded as if he had heard what he ought to hear from Stuart. Then, finally, the door to the reception room opened.

The same chamberlain who had driven out his mother approached with the same gait, only his face slightly more aged. He carried thick documents in his hands.

He politely placed the documents before Stuart. The food that was still his portion had not yet cooled.

Stuart took a deep breath, straightened himself, and slowly turned the first page of the documents before him.

“Your Majesty.”

When Stuart called out quietly, the Emperor, who had been eating, propped his arm on the table and looked at him.

“You’ve been itchy lately, haven’t you?”

“……What?”

The fact that abnormal symptoms had appeared on the Emperor’s body was a great secret even from the Crown Prince. However, before this summer even reached its peak, boils would erupt all over the Emperor’s body, throwing the palace into chaos. There were rumors throughout the palace that the bed sheets were completely soaked with blood because he scratched himself so much that scabs formed.

And that several royal physicians had died because of it.

“Brew some Partierde and drink it. You’ll see results immediately.”

Ironically, the disease could be completely cured by brewing and drinking a plant called Partierde, which grew abundantly throughout the palace. Seeing confusion appear on the Emperor’s face for the first time, Stuart chuckled. He turned another page of the documents.

It began with rather ominous words: ‘Regarding the deposition of the Crown Prince……’

“This fall will be a poor harvest. If you don’t prepare in advance, public sentiment will be greatly shaken. Well, Your Majesty probably won’t care much. After all, Rochester will solve all of that anyway.”

Stuart flipped through a few more pages and then closed the documents with a thud. Then he looked at the Emperor with a silent gaze. The Emperor’s face grew darker as he sensed the secretive words to come.

When he hurriedly raised his hand and waved it frantically, only the Emperor’s closest confidants remained in the room.

“You know, sometimes I couldn’t tell you how much my mouth itched wanting to reveal that I knew about the future. Just as much as Your Majesty is enduring right now.”

“What…… what are you talking about?”

Stuart had looked forward to this moment every day since turning back time. The day when the Emperor would invite him to this drawing room for lunch to depose him.

To see confusion appear on the Emperor’s face, suspicion sprout, denial of the unbelievable situation, and ultimately, a great display of anger.

“Your Majesty said so yourself, didn’t you? That you must do whatever it takes to protect what’s yours.”

Stuart tapped the documents before him with his finger, continuing as if it were nothing.

“Since I failed to avoid getting sick, I had to do something else, didn’t I?”

“…….”

“I’m telling you this in case you’ve forgotten that I possess the royal ability.”

The Emperor chuckled. Stuart could clearly see him disguising his nervousness with mockery.

“Are you…… are you saying you turned back time?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Unmistakable confusion appeared on the Emperor’s face, which he could no longer hide.

“If that weren’t the case, how would I know that boils have broken out all over Your Majesty’s body?”

Immediately followed a look of suspicion. So now it was time to properly deny reality?

“Ten years. Your Majesty. That’s how far back I turned time. I contracted the disease five years earlier because of it, but I hid it well, so the result is the same.”

“If the result is the same, why did you do it? You expect me to believe that?”

“No, no. That’s not what I mean by the same result……”

“…….”

“I mean Your Majesty’s attitude is exactly the same. How can you act so identically……”

When Stuart clicked his tongue, the Emperor sprang up from his seat. Then he twisted his neck with a creaking sound.

“What on earth are you saying? You turned back time? Ten years?”

At the trembling voice denying reality, a thrill ran down Stuart’s spine. The pleasure was so intense he wondered if he still had sensation in his upper body just for this moment.

“Yes, it makes sense. It makes perfect sense, and Your Majesty knows this better than anyone.”

Stuart pushed away the documents before him and pulled the food back in front of him. Looking at the meat oozing with blood, he wrinkled his brow and placed his knife down on the floor with a thud.

“Please sit. The meal isn’t finished yet.”

A despicable smile, one that resembled his father and that he had hated so terribly, naturally appeared on his face. The Emperor, who still had more to hear, obediently sat down. His eyes, nose, and mouth each held different emotions.

“But do you know something? Before I turned back time, Father feared Ricardo even then. I’m not quite sure why you were so afraid of that child, but you trembled with fear. Even when young Ricardo didn’t even reach Your Majesty’s waist.”

The Emperor’s hands began to tremble. All that remained for Stuart now was to witness the Emperor’s uncontrollable rage.

“Would you like to say it’s because of the oracle?”

“…….”

“No, it was probably because of Your Majesty’s half-complete crown, lacking the Labyrinth Map.”

“Sh-shut your mouth!”

The fact that the Emperor didn’t have the Labyrinth Map was something everyone knew, yet it had to be a truth no one knew.

Stuart laughed with genuine pleasure, his chest heaving. So this moment has finally come, he thought.

“Do you know what oracle Ricardo had in the previous life?”

Stuart slowly withdrew from the table and personally rolled the wheels of his wheelchair. The attendant who should have assisted him couldn’t dare approach and was trembling with his head pressed to the floor.

Stuart approached the Emperor, stretched out his body, and whispered in the Emperor’s ear.

“Nothing, Father. There was nothing.”

“…….”

“I mean that God said nothing—not even an oracle that he would kill his father and become Emperor.”

There was no lie mixed into these hollow words spoken with hot voice drawn up from his core.

On the day Ricardo was born, the saint’s star appeared, but certainly no oracle about him had descended. However, what was conveyed to Stuart, who had turned back time, was an utterly unbelievable story.

<One who will kill his father and become the sun of heaven.>

The day he learned of that oracle’s existence, Stuart shut himself in his room and laughed with heaving chest all day long.

Muttering that this proved God loved him especially, that he could only believe this to be so.

Stuart rolled the wheels back and looked directly at the Emperor’s face. And he anticipated the last expression he would show.

“Isn’t it truly fascinating? I only turned back ten years, yet the whole world believes it so. Even the one who received the oracle believes that God gave such a terrible and cruel command from birth.”

“…….”

“So that oracle……”

Watching the Emperor’s face turn black, Stuart chewed out each word.

“Father created it himself. Father, who became a coward out of fear of Ricardo, made it with his own hands.”