The Emperor lay in bed, looking at the four of them with a face full of sickness.

Inside the bedroom, Claes, Lars, Karad, and Chohee as Elysia looked down at him.

It had been quite some time since Crown Prince Claes, Lars, and Karad had divided the paperwork among themselves. Because of this, Claes got the impression that things were taking a serious turn.

“You came.”

The Emperor, attended by the Empress, raised only his upper body. The Empress, twenty years younger than the Emperor, was only ten years older than Claes. Moreover, Claes knew all too well how much she had tormented them, Elysia’s children. Displeasure hardened his face, but he soon returned to an expressionless state.

“For what reason have you summoned us, Your Imperial Majesty?”

A smile spread across the Empress’s face. This made it clear she had been whispering in the Emperor’s ear. For the first time, Claes regretted his decision. If he had known it would come to this, he would have assigned the dark mage subjugation to Karad. The false oracle incident wouldn’t have happened at all if he had been at the palace.

“Duke Serow conveyed High Priest Altair’s oracle to me.”

Duke Serow was the Empress’s older brother. Because of this, everything he did inevitably clashed with Claes. Furthermore, he consistently treated the empire’s citizens like fleas crushed beneath his feet, frequently opposing Claes, who sought to care for the imperial citizens with benevolence.

“That oracle may not be true, Your Imperial Majesty.”

Claes politely declared war. At his words, the Empress’s lips twisted. Seeing her openly display her displeasure, Claes felt a slight satisfaction. However, the Emperor’s words swept away even that good mood.

“Even so, the fact that the High Priest issued an oracle doesn’t change, Claes.”

The Emperor coughed and asked for water. When the Empress handed him water, he gulped it down. The Empress’s demure appearance secretly grated on him.

‘What are you plotting this time… you fox.’

“Claes. You’ve always followed my words well. Will you lend me your ear this time as well?”

“Always, I will follow Your Imperial Majesty’s commands. Please speak.”

Claes barely managed to answer while suppressing the anxiety clinging deep in his chest. The Emperor gazed at him with blue eyes. 

When he was young, he had been a spoiled child following his mother around, but after Elysia died of illness, he became an outstanding Crown Prince who displayed a more mature demeanor than anyone else.

“I want you to accept the words of this oracle as truth.”

Claes’s face hardened for a moment. But the Emperor continued with his selfish, premeditated words.

“I’m starting to think that perhaps the previous oracle was wrong. Otherwise, there would be no reason for High Priest Altair to issue a contradictory oracle.”

“Your Imperial Majesty. High Priest Altair was close with Duke Serow. The fact that he issued an oracle declaring Elysia merely a breeding vessel may have reasons connected to that.”

The Emperor shook his head.

At this, Claes inwardly sighed.

‘Of course, after my mother died, you never showed us even a shred of interest. You only tried to act like a father when I started making a name for myself in social and political circles.’

He shouldn’t expect any wisdom from this man. Nausea surged through Claes, but he suppressed it and spoke to the Emperor.

“If Your Majesty supports that oracle, Elysia will be placed in a difficult position. Unless you wish to plunge her into sorrow like the Elysias of previous generations…”

“How insolent, Claes. I’ve trusted you, yet you don’t trust me. Are you saying my judgment is wrong!”

The Emperor raised his voice loudly. Claes closed his mouth.

He pitied the previous generation’s Elysia, his mother, who had been violated by this man. The only fortunate thing was that Elysia hadn’t loved the Emperor and had treated only her children affectionately.

To love a human like this—the thought made him so nauseous he could barely stand it.

Claes bit his lip, but the Emperor didn’t see it. He continued speaking.

“Though I may not have many days left, I support High Priest Altair’s oracle with my judgment. So don’t take Elysia as your consort, and quickly find someone for a political marriage.”

“Your Imperial Majesty. I—”

“I don’t want to hear it! Are you saying Duke Serow and the Empress lied? I believe their words. Yet you, Claes, dare to defy me!”

Chohee, watching the exchange between Claes and the Emperor, bit her lip with anxiety. Because her head was bowed, her expression remained unreadable to others, but her body trembled violently like an aspen tree.

Only now did she realize the dream wasn’t a ‘dream.’

The breeding vessel setting for Elysia, which had been such a delicious setup for her, now heralded a fall into the abyss by preventing her from becoming Claes’s consort.

‘What do I do…’

Claes would protect her from Karad’s attempts to expel her from the empire, but now that the Emperor’s command had been issued, Karad would clearly treat her solely as a breeding vessel and violate her day and night.

‘Will Claes and Lars come to see me that way too?’

In a situation where the dream wouldn’t end, she felt herself being driven into the worst possible scenario.

Feeling a chill deep in her chest, Chohee placed her hand over her heart. The squeezing sensation inside her heart seemed to foretell the future ahead.

Tears faintly welled in her eyes. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand to keep the tears from falling, but Lars caught her.

‘Elysia…’

Lars squeezed her hand tightly with a pitying expression, then released it. That gentle action gradually reduced Chohee’s trembling.

Thanks to this, Chohee could lift her head slightly. But at that moment, she saw the Empress behind the Emperor, covering her mouth and smiling cruelly.

‘It’s you. You’re the one trying to do this to me?’

Knowing how important Elysia was to Claes, the Empress and Duke Serow sought to deal him a blow by reducing Elysia to a mere breeding vessel.

And there was no way this wouldn’t register with Claes, who was watching the same scene. Claes clenched his fists, feeling rage fill his chest.

‘…After His Majesty passes away…’

His unfather-like father had done well in the early to mid-period of his reign, but after that, he had been manipulated by the Empress and Duke Serow. However, when Claes began handling government affairs, preventing Duke Serow and the Empress from properly seizing real power, they had plotted this scheme in retaliation.

‘I won’t let this stand. After His Majesty passes away… I’ll drive you all like a rabbit hunt and pin you with charges of treason.’

But contrary to Claes’s thoughts, fireworks were exploding in Karad’s head. Now that he wouldn’t be restrained by Claes, he was overjoyed at the thought of freely treating Elysia as a breeding vessel and thrusting his c*ck into her p*ssy.

Lars, stealing glances at his brother’s profile, sighed inwardly.

‘Foolish Karad…’

He never dreamed his brother would betray him and Claes simply because he couldn’t treat Elysia as a breeding vessel. The Empress was someone who, to humiliate their mother Elysia in any way possible, had forced the young Claes and his brothers to speak insults about her and punished them if they refused. Yet here he was, cooperating with such a person.

Lars truly found Karad pathetic. And disgusting. He hated him for trying to do terrible things to the woman he loved. But there was still someone he should hate even more.

“Claes, if you don’t treat this Elysia as a breeding vessel, I’ll consider it defying my command and remove you from the Crown Prince position.”

“Your Imperial Majesty. That is—”

The Emperor coughed and drank the water the Empress gave him. Claes felt like he’d been struck on the back of the head with a hammer. His vision instantly became dizzy, but he desperately held on.

It was the moment when everything he had promised Elysia turned into scraps of paper. Claes wanted to strike his father right then and send him to heaven.

‘No, not heaven. Hell.’

Heaven was where his kind mother would have gone. His father, who couldn’t properly govern the empire and only got swept along by the Empress and Duke Serow, would go to hell.

He had never felt such resentment.

Only acting like a father when he was doing well, and daring to reduce the woman he loved to nothing but a breeding vessel.

‘You deserve to die. Die quickly.’

The Emperor no longer looked like a father to him.

“Claes. You’re not answering. While I’m alive, you must not treat that Elysia as anything more than a breeding vessel. If you don’t want to lose your Crown Prince position, answer me now.”

“…”

“Claes. Answer me!”

“…”

“Claes!”

“…Yes.”

His heart squeezed like it was bleeding. Claes’s voice had become hoarse. Yet even though he could see Claes trembling with clenched fists, the Emperor had no interest in his reaction.

Now he was merely a puppet dancing to Duke Serow and the Empress’s tune.

Thinking that Elly would lose affection for him made his chest hot and painful. But if he didn’t treat her as a breeding vessel, he would lose the Crown Prince position he had poured everything into.

‘I’m sorry, Elysia. I’m sorry, Elly.’

Claes gritted his teeth while offering an inaudible apology in his heart.

Somehow, after his father passed away, he would restore Elysia to her original position. He would find whoever killed High Priest Altair in advance, uncover the truth of the oracle, and gather all the evidence in his hands. And he would reveal it on the day he ascended to the Emperor’s throne.

However, Chohee, who had been watching, felt like she’d been hit in the head with a stone.

‘Claes…’

Even though the dream world had become reality.

‘My most cherished and beloved Claes has to treat me only as a breeding vessel…’

She couldn’t breathe. If it was going to be like this, she wanted to quickly wake from the dream and dream again of meeting him with everything back in its proper place.

‘But this is reality now…’

The dream hadn’t broken, not even in this moment.

* * *

Chohee’s quarters were assigned to a room in the deepest annex palace within the Imperial Palace.

Compared to when she had shared the Crown Prince’s palace bedroom before, this was truly insignificant treatment.

“Elysia, a Crown Princess Consort? Ridiculous.”

The Empress openly disparaged her while looking at Lars, who had brought her. Claes simply watched Chohee quietly without saying anything.

But seeing his eyes reddened, Chohee kept her mouth shut. Right now, whatever she said under the Empress’s surveillance would only appear to the Emperor as nothing more than provoking Claes to rebel.

‘I won’t just stay like this. Somehow, I’ll escape the life of a breeding vessel.’

The best thing would be to wake from the dream, but that didn’t seem likely to happen.