“Is that what you’re most curious about?”

The Emperor’s blue eyes sparkled. Upon his nod, a laugh escaped from Reizen’s lips. When he didn’t answer, the Emperor raised his voice.

“Please just tell me that! Did she do it? Did she get pregnant, I’m asking!”

For the last words of an emperor who had ruled an empire, it proved embarrassingly unworthy of historical record.

His biological father continued begging, and Reizen turned his back on Vincent, seeing nothing more worth watching.

“…Execute him.”

A heavy word left his lips, now empty of any humor.

Vincent, with his neck fat rolls, thrashed his limbs while fixed to the guillotine.

His somewhat ridiculous movements drew cold chuckles here and there. Historically, no emperor had ever faced public execution. This practice preserved the dignity of even deposed or fallen emperors, helping maintain imperial authority in subsequent empires.

But the society that Reizen and the revolutionary army desired had no need for imperial authority.

He had preserved the imperial family’s lives until today to completely destroy this symbolism and authority, preventing incompetent individuals from ruling through birth alone.

Like carefully stacking dominoes to knock them down, he had endured humiliation until this day, not just for the ‘death’ of the Emperor and Crown Prince, but for the ‘end’ of this imperial society.

And now finally, the time had come to knock down the dominoes stacked over years.

The Emperor, bound hand and foot to the guillotine, wailed in fear.

“Reizen! Reizen, please listen to me! My son! I am your father!”

Reizen laughed coldly.

“I told you not to beg for your life. It looks unseemly.”

He lightly touched the first domino with his finger. Following his gesture, the sharp guillotine blade was pulled up by ropes more than 2 meters high. When four strong men released the ropes together, the heavy blade would plunge toward the ground, cutting away imperial authority.

“Reizen!!!”

As the Emperor shouted from afar, the ropes were released. The ropes on both sides quickly pulled in, and the guillotine struck the ground with a thud. The dominoes began falling one by one without the slightest error. The people who witnessed the end of imperial society rose up.

The execution square became a crucible of excitement.

Several people climbed onto the execution platform at once, holding up Vincent’s head and shouting while the ground shook with people’s cheers. At this revolutionary earthquake’s end, Reizen took the stage with the revolutionary army executives to announce the Sys Empire’s end and plans for forming a commoner’s parliament.

People were ecstatic.

Amid the heated atmosphere, photographers lined up to take his picture. A shower of flashing lights continued. The newspapers were completely covered with ‘Reizen Kalphenster.’

The media poured praise on his beautiful looks and flowing eloquence, and at the meeting held three days later, Reizen Kalphenster was unanimously designated as the first Prime Minister.

The first thing Prime Minister Reizen did upon taking office was to gather all the law books that had oppressed the common people and burn them.

“Woohoo!”

Everyone cheered in a festival-like atmosphere. Burning events continued throughout the capital, and people gathered in the square drank, danced, and celebrated.

As the old books burned brightly, only Reizen’s eyes, watching this, showed no emotion.

Biting his cracked and bleeding lips hard, Reizen looked at the heavily clouded sky and smiled distortedly.

He had achieved everything, but Melissa wasn’t there.

He just needed to show the results now, but the woman who said she would always wait in that place wasn’t there.

‘You promised.’

Reizen gently placed his hand on his left chest. His chest, where the mark had disappeared, constantly ached and hurt like someone had gouged it out.

It was incomparable to when he could barely breathe because of the mark. It hurt worse than being shot or having bare flesh cut with a sharp knife.

‘Melissa Grey.’

Her soul, following him like a phantom, remained beside him. By the brightly burning law books, a woman wearing butterfly-like clothes warmed her hands by the bonfire and smiled brightly at him.

Reizen tried to smile at the illusion but covered his face with both hands.

‘Melissa… Melissa.’

For the past month, he had focused only on work until his body broke. Though he had sent people across the country to find the missing woman, she was nowhere to be found, and because of this, he had no choice but to work like a madman without sleeping. If he didn’t, he felt he would die without being able to breathe…

‘Melissa.’

Where on earth are you?

While sitting in the study reading documents, a priest came and stammered.

“Actually… since there’s no particular way to remove the mark… we should consider her deceased…”

Though he hesitated while speaking, Reizen snorted coldly, treating it like a funny joke.

“Who’s dead? Did you see it? Did you see it with your own eyes?”

Though he had only put down his quill because he was quite upset, the priest flinched in place. Having committed sins like forcibly branding people on the Crown Prince’s orders, he behaved like a thief afraid of his own footsteps.

“If you’re going to claim she’s dead, bring her in front of me and then say it. Without evidence, saying she’s dead because the mark disappeared, telling me to stop looking… Really. You’re a priest, but don’t you believe in God? Is that what your God says? To give up easily without confirming anything with your eyes just because circumstances suggest something?”

“T-that…”

“Yes, Your Holiness.”

Reizen, with dark circles under his eyes, approached and looked down at the priest. Overwhelmed by the crushing pressure, the priest made a tearful face and knelt in place.

Reizen spoke while looking at the priest’s hands folded in prayer, his tone humorous.

“I’ll give you one last chance.”

Reizen Kalphenster, called the hero of the republic.

Though an illegitimate child of the former imperial family, he was a strong and reliable Prime Minister who cut off his father’s head himself despite his unfortunate birth and established a new country.

With beautiful looks that captivated women’s hearts and gentle charisma, he was undisputedly the number one bachelor that not only all members of the former Sys noble society but also all foreign royal families and wealthy commoner merchants wanted as a son-in-law.

But in the priest’s opinion, among the dozens of words of praise describing him, something significant was missing…

“What’s a priest’s job? It’s to create miracles, right?”

When the man with his back to the light glared at the priest, his blue eyes gleamed eerily. The priest felt his entire body stiffen. Goosebumps ran up his spine.

“Not reality, bring me a miracle. To me.”

You know what I mean?

As he asked with a smile, to the priest, this man seemed like a madman pretending to be sane.

* * *

Selheim was caught in the middle of the dominoes Reizen had knocked down.

Selheim, who had taken refuge in Terion’s castle, sat absentmindedly in the golden chair that had originally belonged to the head of the house. Though he still wore a neat uniform in the splendid castle, with the collapse of imperial authority, he had fallen into an ambiguous position.

“If we can succeed in assassinating Prince Reizen even now, we can turn things around.”

Count Terion didn’t give up until the end.

“Since I hear that Reizen still maintains contact with some pro-imperial nobles, I will try to arrange a meeting through connections, Your Highness.”

But no matter how earnestly solutions were offered beside him, Selheim’s vacant expression didn’t return.

He touched one cheek with a distant look, his eyes dry. His long, loose silver hair had lost its luster long ago, becoming dull and lifeless.

The man looked pale and weak, resembling a corpse right before death. It was the face of someone who had lost motivation after hearing a month ago that the mark had disappeared from his body and his former fiancée Melissa had died.

The nobles watching such a Selheim from the side could only feel frustrated.

“Your Highness!”

“Hm?”

Only then did Selheim return to his senses and open his eyes wide. It seemed he hadn’t heard any of Terion’s words, lost in other thoughts until now.

“Have you eaten?”

“I have.”

Selheim nodded weakly with a faint smile.

“But why are you so listless! With the Emperor’s passing, you should hold the coronation ceremony and formally reclaim the throne!”

“…”

“Last night Prince Owen went out and was severely stoned by commoners. When the Empress saw his condition, she was so upset she took to her bed! How could the world change like this!”

Terion shouted in anger and.

“It has changed. Changed a lot.”

To this, Selheim leaned back in his chair, tilted his head back, and muttered.

“…Even you are shouting at me now.”

At these words, Terion’s eyes shook rapidly.