Chapter 6.1

After one more night on the ship, and after five years had passed, I finally returned to the Quinze-Nouais Empire.

When the Emperor, who had gone on an expedition, appeared without any warning, accompanied by a child who looked exactly like him and Claire Ianster, the former fiancée of the Crown Prince, the Quinze-Nouais Empire literally became a scene of chaos.

And this news was delivered first to Celine Ianster, who had remained in the imperial palace despite the Emperor’s orders.

Celine did not believe the Emperor’s words. There was no way that her sister was alive…

But her sister, whom she thought was dead, had not only returned alive but also with a son who looked so exactly like her that no one could deny it. So even Celine Ianster could no longer just stay in the imperial palace.

After all, Claire was an Ianster too.

It meant there was no particular reason for it to be her.

And, as if by some cruel joke, the empire cheered.

Even before setting foot in Quinze-Nouais, Adrian had spread rumors that, thanks to Claire Ianster, a maritime city would be built in Carka on the Eastern Continent.

People were expecting that the construction of the new city would bring immense wealth to the empire.

In addition, when their beloved Emperor appeared holding a child who looked exactly like him, songs of praise for the Emperor echoed from everywhere.

“What is all this?”

Adrian, who had boarded the carriage for the procession, held Leo and waved his hand to the people of the empire. Every time he showed himself, the cheers of the people grew louder.

“Quinze-Nouais is welcoming you.”

I was bewildered. And Adrian lightly kissed my cheek, where I was standing with a foolish expression.

The cheers of the people of the empire filled and overflowed the plaza.

In the meantime, Adrian seemed to have become a myth in Quinze-Nouais.

In fact, I was worried about what kind of reputation Adrian would have in the empire, as he had killed the former Emperor and his son to become the Emperor.

But, he seemed to have done much better than I had thought.

The procession of people welcoming the Emperor was endless, and amidst the cheers as endless as the procession, I arrived in front of the imperial palace.

And the very first familiar face I saw was none other than Celine Ianster.

Celine was standing at the very front of the procession, welcoming the Emperor’s return to the palace.

As soon as Adrian saw her, he immediately looked at me to gauge my reaction. It was, in a way, natural for his former fiancée to have her eyes widened at the Emperor’s actions.

“Welcome back, Your Majesty the Emperor.”

Celine greeted him as if she were the lady of the house who had been waiting for the head of the family.

Adrian did not look at her. He only looked at the Imperial Chamberlain Edwin with a reproving look.

But Adrian knew. The Chamberlain would not have dared to forcibly remove Celine Ianster, who had been the Emperor’s long-time fiancée.

“It’s been a while, Claire.”

I couldn’t answer either. Meeting Celine was as bewildering as the cheers of the people.

“Please come inside.”

As she acted like the owner of the palace, her image of seeing me off at the Grand Duke’s mansion overlapped.

Even if the setting in the novel was that Celine’s soul was changed, her personality was not like this. So I had to let go of the idea that I could be the perpetrator anymore. She was not the protagonist of this novel.

When we entered, there were refreshments already prepared in the Emperor’s reception room.

“Move Leo to the room right next to my bedchamber.”

***

As soon as Adrian entered the reception room, he took care of the sleeping Leo first. At the Emperor’s words, Celine gritted her teeth.

She looked at the child with a fierce glint in her eyes. At that look, Adrian unconsciously hid the child quickly behind him so she couldn’t see him.

The room right next to the Emperor’s bedchamber was essentially the Empress’s room. The Quinze-Nouais Imperial Palace had a separate Empress’s palace, but sometimes a well-matched imperial couple would stay in the same quarters.

It was a bedchamber that had not been allowed to her for even a single day.

In fact, about a year after Claire disappeared, Celine had once sneaked into Adrian’s room, barely dressed, on the night he returned from his expedition to the North.

The Chamberlain had a worried look, but there was no one in the imperial palace who could stop the Emperor’s fiancée and the daughter of the great Ianster family.

So she slipped into the arms of the Emperor, who was sleeping on his back, looking up at the ceiling. But before she could even settle in, the Emperor’s eyes opened, and he immediately pulled her body off the bed.

And without a word, he opened the door and sent her out.

Through the closing door, Celine had clearly seen it. The Emperor was shaking his hands as if he had been sullied by something.

Celine returned to the Count’s mansion and spent the night with a young knight she had been eyeing.

In this moment, she had to feel the same humiliation she had felt back then. Celine pulled up the corners of her mouth with a forced smile.

“Your Majesty, if you don’t mind, I would like to have a private conversation with my sister.”

“No.”

Adrian answered Celine firmly.

“She is my sister. That means you are not in a position to stop us.”

As the Emperor blocked her, Celine felt her composure, which she had been struggling to maintain, break.

“But you can’t. If it’s a story you can’t tell when I’m present, bury it forever.”

“Your Majesty!”

Just then, Claire gently placed her hand on the Emperor’s arm, and his expression softened instantly. Everything was provoking Celine.

***

“I’m fine.”

At my words, Adrian hesitated for a moment but then obediently left the reception room, and I was finally alone with Celine. It wasn’t long before her lips parted.

“You’ve come back after all, Claire Ianster.”

“…”

“You’re ultimately… blocking my way like this.”

I felt a sense of déjà vu.

“Do you know how much His Majesty the Emperor has missed out on over the past five years looking for you? You should have just died when you fell off the cliff… Why did you come back alive…”

With so many people wishing for my death in both my previous life and this one, it was enough to make me wonder if I had lived my life all wrong.

“If only you weren’t here, huh? Soon, Adrian will be mine…”

“Stop it, Celine.”

I couldn’t say anything to my mother-in-law in my previous life, but it was different now.

“Even if I weren’t here, you wouldn’t have Adrian. You know that better than anyone. Don’t blame me for no reason.”

“How can I not blame you? You ruined everything from the start. Why don’t you act like you’re supposed to in the novel? Yes, that’s right. Because you’re not Claire Ianster. Am I right?”

Celine, with nothing to lose now, brought up the topic of the book with a look of madness in her eyes. But I also felt no need to back down.

On the way here, Adrian had told me about Celine.

I had already heard that she had been occupying the imperial palace and had not left, despite being told to keep her promise.

Of course, I never imagined that she would still be in the imperial palace. So the reason why the good protagonist Celine would act so ridiculously was clear.

“Yes, just like you’re not the real Celine Ianster.”

“So it was true. You ruined everything after all. You took everything that should have been mine. Even Owen and Cedric. Everything!”

Celine could not hide her excitement and yelled.

“I just did my best in the situation I was in. So stop blaming others.”

“Aah! You should have just branded Adrian’s face like you were supposed to. Then things wouldn’t have turned out this way!”

I no longer felt the need to talk to her, who was yelling. So I got up from my seat and looked down at Celine, giving her an order.

“Now that it’s clear we’re not real sisters, there’s no reason for you to be here anymore. Please leave this palace.”

I left those words and walked out of the reception room. And I went to Adrian’s office, where he was probably waiting and worried, following the Imperial Palace Chamberlain.

When I went in, a minister was already inside. But when he heard that I had arrived, he opened the door himself without hesitation. His eyes were flickering with anxiety.

“I’m fine, so just focus on your work. Got it?”

Adrian looked at me, seemed reassured, and answered with a smile.

***

Adrian looked down at the countless documents on his desk in his office. But he pushed the documents aside and gave Glenn Doherty an order.

“Summon all the ministers.”

“For what purpose?”

At Glenn’s words, Adrian smiled broadly. It was the first bright smile I had seen since Aurelian Quinze-Nouais became Emperor.

“My wedding.”

“You are finally going to hold a ceremony with Miss Ianster.”

“Yes, and right after the wedding, there will be the Crown Prince’s investiture ceremony. So hurry and summon the ministers. Every moment is urgent.”

“Um, but…”

“What is it?”

“Could I see Miss Claire Ianster for a moment? Your Majesty knows how much I have been waiting for her, don’t you?”

Adrian glared at Glenn Doherty with a face full of discontent.

“Surely that look isn’t…? I just have a desire for her.”

“What?”

“A desire for her knowledge, I mean. As Your Majesty knows, Miss Claire is like a muse to me.”

Owen clicked his tongue at the genius Glen, who was so tactless, which he hadn’t seen in a long time. A rare genius who paid no attention to others’ expressions even when the Iron-Blooded Emperor’s face was changing from moment to moment.

He was truly a treasure of Quinze-Nouais.

Glenn Doherty, who had taken Adrian’s lack of an answer as a yes, was so excited to meet Claire that he even hummed a tune as he began to handle the work.

***

The ministers, the two dukes, and the counts in the capital who heard the news all came to the Emperor’s office.

In the Quinze-Nouais Empire, only ministers attended economic and political matters, and great nobles did not participate.

However, the Emperor’s marriage issue was something that had to be discussed and decided by all the great nobles and retainers.

And at this moment, the person with the most frightened look on his face was none other than Count Hubert Ianster.

“Your Majesty the Emperor, is it true that Claire is in the imperial palace right now?”

“Yes.”

In the Quinze-Nouais imperial family, the Emperor never spoke to his subjects with honorifics. But now, Aurelian Quinze-Nouais was speaking to Hubert Ianster with respect.

Everyone in the room knew that this was the courtesy shown to the Empress’s family.

Count Hubert Ianster simply sank to the floor at the Emperor’s words.

“She… she was really… alive.”

Forgetting that it was an important occasion, Count Hubert swallowed his tears. But the other subjects began to shower the Emperor with questions.

“Then have you been hiding that woman all this time, Your Majesty?”

“Where on earth has that lady been, and where did she appear from?”

But even as the questions poured in, the Emperor remained silent. So Duke Hudin calmly asked the Emperor again, after calming the crowd.

“Is it really the same Claire Ianster? Are you sure you’re talking about the fiancée who disappeared on the day of the former Crown Prince’s engagement?”

The ducal families of Quinze-Nouais rarely interfered in the affairs of the imperial family.

But if it was a matter that would disturb the imperial lineage, the Duke was in a position to properly advise, even if it was a problem concerning the imperial family.

However, bringing up the former Crown Prince in a place where ministers and retainers were all gathered was a truly dangerous remark.

“When you brought up the former Emperor, you must have been prepared for it, Duke Hudin.”

As Adrian answered with a cold smile on his face, he lowered his eyes that had been directed at the Emperor.

“I understand. But this is a very important matter for the Quinze-Nouais Empire and the subjects who exist for the empire.”

But Duke Hudin did not back down and still demanded an answer from the Emperor.

“Claire Ianster was already my fiancée when I was the Grand Duke of the North. So there is no problem. And!”

At that moment, the ministers and retainers had the illusion that light was pouring out of the Emperor of Quinze-Nouais. His smile was that bright and brilliant.

“She has given birth to a prince. And I will soon make that child the Crown Prince of this Quinze-Nouais Empire. So after this, no one will even think of rebelling against me.”

All the ministers, retainers, and great nobles stood up from their seats and paid their respects to the birth of the new Crown Prince who would become the new Emperor.

What was heard as a rumor and what the Emperor said directly had a different weight. There was not a single person in this place who would dare to say that the child was not Aurelian Quinze-Nouais’s biological son.

Aurelian ordered all the ministers and retainers to leave, leaving only Count Hubert.

The Count, who had not said a word throughout the meeting, opened his mouth quietly when he was left alone with the Emperor.

“Your Majesty, please… let me see her… Claire.”

“Ah, I should, but…”

“Is there a problem?”

“Didn’t you receive the letter? I ordered a knight to write a letter to you, didn’t I?”

“Ah…!”

“Yes, it seems to me that you are, right now, a little too healthy.”

“No. I am in a very sick state right now. I brought my frail body all the way here just to see my child.”

But Adrian still didn’t want the Count to see her. It was because he was afraid that it would cause even a small ripple in Claire’s heart. But, he soon changed his mind.

It wasn’t something he could stop just by trying.

“I understand. I’ll ask her.”