At the End of the Shattered Remains of Pure Love - Chapter 7

“Oh, this is… Do you remember, Philip?”

“Your Majesty the Emperor Emeritus. Wh-what should I remember…?”

“This energy! When my great-grandfather, Richard II, passed away, he emitted exactly this kind of aura!”

Maximilian excitedly shouted at Count Borsen, his milk-brother and chief chamberlain.

However, for Count Borsen, that memory was too old. It was natural, as it was when he was seven years old.

There was no way he could remember…

However, the Emperor Emeritus shouted with an excited face.

“Indeed, my noble first grandson…!”

He lifted the newborn child. The unusually quiet child looked up at his grandfather. Purple eyes as vivid as the surrounding aura captured him. Suddenly, he felt heat in his hands. Maximilian, startled, threw the child onto the bed.

“Your Majesty the Emperor Emeritus!”

Smoke was rising from his two hands. He had been burned. Maximilian, forgetting his dignity, was about to scream but closed his mouth upon seeing his hands returning to their original state.

“Are you alright!”

Count Borsen supported the staggering Emperor Emeritus. The Emperor Emeritus stood firmly on his feet and looked at the child. An indescribable emotion swept over him.

His son had truly obtained a superhuman. This Riscaltheon imperial family! They were reviving the Adams who had become extinct on the continent.

Overwhelmed with emotion, he embraced his daughter-in-law with tears in his eyes. The courtiers, including the chief chamberlain Count Borsen, were shocked, but Maximilian didn’t care.

“Father, please calm down.”

Alisandra, who was close to Maximilian, twisted her body away from him and calmed him down. She seemed quite composed despite having given birth to a child born as a superhuman. Maximilian nodded, wiping his tears.

“Yes, I’ll calm down…”

He sighed. Emperor Clodas, who had been out inspecting the capital, returned and blessed Alisandra.

For a while, they talked about the future of Riscarlo, centered on Alisandra and the baby. How the return of superhumans would make Riscarlo wealthy and strong. How powerful an emperor this baby would become.

No one stopped Maximilian as he rambled on about somewhat extravagant and absurd ideas, heated up like a drunk person. And then…

“So, the most important thing is the preservation of the race.”

This was Maximilian’s conclusion after endlessly discussing the continent and the era.

The reproduction of the race. So that hybrids would never again blur the world, his descendants…

These noble emperors of Riscarlo must be pure-blooded.

***

Khalil was a pious and upright person befitting a knight. Compared to his friend and lord, Clodas, he was somewhat monotonous and introverted to the point of being boring, but he wasn’t entirely without cheerfulness.

Having become a Count in place of his late father who passed away last year, he was now twenty-three, and despite his reticent personality that could be described as frustrating, he was considered a perfect groom candidate in the court.

The wind blew. He turned his head at the faint scent of lily of the valley touching his nose.

He watched the girl approaching from afar.

“Hello, Elaine.”

The woman with her hands neatly folded raised her head.

Her wavy hazelnut hair braided down to her waist looked pure and beautiful. The maiden wearing a worn but clean apron around her waist and yellow chrysanthemums in her hair to match the season was very shy. He stared at the woman who would soon become his wife and reached out his hand.

The Emperor Emeritus had arranged for him to be paired with a daughter of a tenant farmer, he was told. Though she was a free person, she was a woman who could never be matched with a noble like him. Yet under the Emperor Emeritus’s direction, she was to become his wife.

In fact, he had long had a fiancée chosen by his mother. She was the eldest daughter of Viscount Voltaine, who had been a longtime friend of his late father.

He tried to recall her hazy face. Though he didn’t have any particular affection for her, he wasn’t really pleased with the sudden recommendation from the imperial family to break off the engagement. Moreover, the woman he was told to make a marriage contract with was a commoner girl he had never seen or heard of. What sage would accept this cheerfully?

However, before being a man, he was a knight and a subject of the imperial family. Above all, he was a knight of the Holy Knight Order who must follow what was said to be God’s will.

The Order told him that when he takes Eve as his mate, he must give birth to another Eve. He couldn’t understand why they had chosen him specifically, but if it was ‘God’s will, he couldn’t object.

‘Your ancestor was an Adam, wasn’t he?’

The face of the monk telling him to take an Eve as his mate spoke as if it was a very special matter. However, Khalil didn’t particularly understand. There were quite a few noble families with an Adam as their ancestor. So there was no reason it had to be him…

‘Is there any other special reason why I should do this?’

Khalil stared at the monk ordering him to break off his engagement. A faint smile spread across the wrinkled face.

‘Your great-grandfather was an Adam, right?’

‘Yes, that’s correct.’

‘I heard you’re a direct descendant of Georges de Spetunia, who died in the Valenbard War.’

‘Yes, that’s right. But…’

‘You resemble him very much.’

‘That’s…’

‘Almost as if you were reincarnated.’

The monk murmured softly. Khalil narrowed his eyes.

Reincarnation… Being a descendant, he might resemble him, but reincarnation…

Was he suggesting that his past life was that person? His brow furrowed. The monk chuckled softly like he was clicking his tongue at that reaction. He was about to demand an explanation for the statement, but the monk turned away.

Whatever the answer, he felt that as a holy knight, he had no real choice.

He stared at the woman walking towards him from afar.

They said she was the purest Eve among those found by the order. The purest among the few Eves remaining after the Valenbard War… He recalled that war. Given that Eve was the cause of the war, very few Eves remained after it.

The number of Eves decreased even faster than the number of Adams. It was natural.

The very purpose of the Nasor Kingdom, which had declared invasion, was to replenish Eves. And he knew the end of that war. Though he hadn’t experienced it, no knight of Riscarlo could not know. Because it was such a terrible war.

“Hello, my lord.”

The hesitant woman parted her lips. After staring at her for a moment, he replied monotonously.

“That sounds awkward. You will be my wife soon, so call me by my name. I’m Khalil.”

“But…”

Elaine blushed. She was a maiden who had just turned seventeen. The girl, still more of a young girl than a woman, lowered her gaze and moved her lips. He had heard that this girl also had a fiancé, and wondered how bewildering and depressing this sudden event must be for her.

He silently stared at the girl who seemed to shrink into herself. Her delicate face was white and beautiful. Suddenly, their eyes met as she raised her head. The bridge of her nose reddened and her eyes trembled slightly. It wasn’t his first time locking eyes with a woman, but his mouth went dry.

He thought of the knights of Nasor who had killed all the Eves who refused to be taken. Given that Eve was the main producer of Adams, they must have done so to inflict damage on Riscarlo. However…

“It’s hard to change once you get used to it. Call me by my name.”

How could they… when she’s so lovely.

He tried not to pull at his lips as he looked at the girl whose cheeks were tinged apple-red.

“Thank you, my lord. Oh, no. Khalil…”

The girl bowed her head. Finding it difficult to face him, she kept blushing and lowering her gaze. Khalil stared at her intently and quietly clenched his fist behind his back.

Was it because she was ‘Eve’? The girl the Emperor Emeritus had ordered him to take as his mate was excessively beautiful. The way she trembled her eyebrows and bit her lips, even the way she tried to hide her frayed sleeves. Every small gesture of the girl stuck to him like thorns.

“Do you know how to ride a horse?”

“…No.”

“I’ll take you.”

Surprised, Elaine looked up at him. Khalil pretended not to notice her gaze and went to the horse he had tied up.

He had visited the farm under imperial orders. Even though it was a marriage made due to an imperial order, she would become his wife next month. It was on his friend’s advice that he should at least get to know her face that he had come on horseback.

He had just met her after looking around the farm where her family stayed for about an hour. The girl with a small flower tucked behind her ear was very fresh and innocent.

“It’s, it’s too high…”

Elaine, seated on the saddle, murmured in a frightened voice. Khalil held her small body as he gripped the reins. With each step the horse took, Elaine clutched his hand on the reins and whimpered. What was this all about…

“Don’t cry, Elaine. You won’t fall off.”

His heart raced. He thought of some year, some noon, of the young prince who would take his and Elaine’s daughter as a mate. It was a scene he couldn’t easily imagine. But someday it would be so. For that one thing alone, the Emperor Emeritus and the Emperor had broken off his engagement and brought this young daughter of a tenant farmer to place by his side.

So it was natural that Elaine would become pregnant with his daughter.