I Became the Mad Empress - ✿ dusk blossoms ✿

A quiet room.

Minerva swirled her dress as she looked around the room, then stood before the mirror.

The priests had treated the burns on her leg, the wound on her collarbone.

And also…

The scratches on her back, the bruises on her arms, and the marks scraped on her side.

/”You seem desperate. But I think we still have time to create a few more wounds.”/

If only she hadn’t been startled by the changed Empress back then, she wouldn’t have needed to go through all this trouble herself.

Those small wounds had long since disappeared with the priests’ treatment. Even the burn marks and the collarbone wound were now fading.

Minerva touched her collarbone wound and hardened her expression as she recalled the Empress from that day.

/”Let’s play a game. We’ll see which one of us will disappear from this place forever—me or you.”/

Was the Empress ever the type of person to say such things?

She was someone who always feared losing what was hers, yet always acted dignified in front of her, flaunting her status as Empress until she was thrown into that old castle.

A person who was too inflexible and boring.

“……She said it was my mistake.”

Hahaha—. Minerva, sinking into despair, burst into laughter as she faced her body that had been tattered and then restored by the priests’ abilities given almost like charity.

Had she been pretending to be elegant all this time while harboring such an ugly side?

Because of the Empress’s deception, Minerva had nearly pushed the Empress into being branded a heretic by keeping silent about her own mistake, and she had become a shameless woman who told lies out of fear of the Empress’s recovery.

Even her father couldn’t hide his disappointment in her, rebuking her for being humiliated at a mere hunting gathering.

/”Have you already forgotten what I did to put you in this position?! If this gets out, it’s over for both of us. Do you understand?!”/

As that sickening sense of indebtedness began to weigh her down again, Minerva began to scratch her body frantically while facing the mirror.

Starting with the healing collarbone wound, then her neck, legs, arms, face.

As every part of her body began to itch and feel horrible like it was being eaten by insects, she screamed until she nearly lost her breath.

“How is your body, Lady Atrens?”

Someone kicked open the door and entered without warning.

Minerva slowly lowered her hand that had been about to scratch her face and turned around.

The person who had entered her room so casually was a nameless lady who had once worked as the Empress’s maid.

Now she stayed by Minerva’s side as a companion, blending in inconspicuously among the noisy sparrows, and whenever she had a chance to be alone with her, she would persistently approach and speak to her, looking for opportunities to pick up crumbs.

/”Who knows? If you stay by her side, the owner of the castle that will soon be built might change.”/

She had been told that the lady had said such things behind her back.

Minerva already knew through others that she had impudent intentions.

“My, the wounds have faded so quickly. As expected of Warmwell’s priests.”

The lady, completely unaware that Minerva saw through her intentions, tried to mimic the role of a devoted friend who stayed by her side until everyone else had left, swaying her body and showing concern.

Watching this detestable woman, Minerva suddenly thought of a good way to end this tiresome situation, so she erased her cold attitude and welcomed her with a smile.

“It’s barely noticeable now, isn’t it?”

“That’s fortunate. I was so shocked at first…! At times like this, I wonder if I should thank the Empress. Thanks to her, I was able to receive treatment from those hard-to-meet priests.”

Minerva welcomed the lady who was giggling and making a fuss with no sign of dislike.

“You came at the right time. I was just wanting some tea.”

“Where are the others?”

“They’re not coming today. They said they wanted to rest.”

“Oh… I didn’t know. I’m sorry, Lady Atrens.”

“No, it’s better this way. Now I have someone to talk to.”

With a gentle smile, Minerva sat on the sofa and waited for the lady to bring tea.

The woman asked the maids outside for teacups, a teapot, and hot water, while she herself began selecting tea from the cabinet.

“Ah, the one in the far left corner.”

“……This one?”

“Yes. I’d like to drink that one today.”

Soon the maids entered the room, and the lady who had personally selected the tea casually added the tea leaves.

After some time, the properly brewed tea was poured into each other’s cups.

“You know, lately I’ve been so troubled by people asking everywhere why the city gates are closed.”

After pouring the tea, the woman continued her chatter as if she had been waiting for this moment, and Minerva silently took a sip of tea with a smile on her lips.

“The provincial nobles don’t know the situation here…. They say the atmosphere among the imperial citizens is suspicious too, and it’s such a hassle trying to keep the household staff quiet….”

“Ugh…!”

“Lady Atrens!!”

The woman who had been chattering was startled by Minerva, who suddenly grabbed her throat with a pale expression, and rose from her seat, screaming.

※※※

“Do you really think what you’re saying makes any sense?!”

Imperial guards swarmed into the East Palace again before even a day had passed since my return.

Last night, a woman who was once the Empress’s maid had allegedly attempted to poison Minerva.

The maid was immediately captured and soon confessed to her crime, and as dawn broke, they tried to put the Empress on trial again.

Just one night.

The flow that seemed like Diana’s honor would be restored by the priest’s testimony was so futilely ruined.

Debora desperately blocked the imperial guards who were barging in, and Diana, who had been examining some mysterious documents in her room, eventually heard the commotion.

“What is it now?”

Diana glared at the imperial guards with an expression of utter annoyance as she came down the stairs, scanning the Emperor’s dogs who shared the same name.

“Your Majesty’s maid attempted to harm Lady Atrens.”

At the lead guard’s words, Diana’s gaze turned strangely toward Debora.

“What did you do?”

“I didn’t!”

At Debora’s cry, filled with both bewilderment and indignation, Diana furrowed her brow as if wondering what all this commotion was about and approached them.

“I only have one maid, and she’s right here. What maid are you talking about?”

“……We’re referring to Lady Wiz who used to serve Your Majesty.”

Diana stared blankly at the guard who answered with a threatening expression, then let out a snicker.

“A maid who never visited me once during my confinement here suddenly harmed the mistress for my sake or under my orders? ……How unfortunate. With Hereis gone, only fools are left.”

Unable to hide the mocking laughter that kept erupting, Diana examined each of the gathered dogs with a crooked smile in her eyes, then shook her head and said:

“Tell them to stop this nonsense. I’m tired, so tell them not to come looking for me except to return my authority.”

※※※

Regina Wiz was imprisoned in the underground dungeon.

The charge was poisoning—attempting to assassinate the woman who was the Emperor’s mistress and appointed as the Empress’s substitute.

She couldn’t understand.

She had merely selected the tea, and even that tea was Minerva’s choice.

If she was guilty of anything, it was unknowingly brewing tea leaves containing poison with her own hands.

In this unjust situation, Minerva, who had survived the critical situation with the help of priests staying in the West Palace, came to visit her and said:

/”I heard your family is deeply in debt. ……I’ll solve it for you. If you help me just a little, we could become good friends who help each other in the future.”/

When the beautiful woman’s eyes became eerily empty as she faced her, Regina Wiz saw a demon with an angel’s face.

She finally realized what kind of delusion she had been living in, but it was already too late.

Her plan to nod in fear, listen to Minerva’s proposal, and just save her life for now was cruelly shattered, and she met her death on the spot. Without a chance to defend herself, she received summary execution for harming the Emperor’s lover.

Sadly, Regina Wiz departed on a long journey, leaving behind the image of someone who had been trying to please the mistress to pay off her debts.

No one would remember her life. Not even her name.

Angell, who hadn’t slept a wink, stared endlessly at the window where daylight was already breaking and sank into thought.

/”Angell. There are no windows here. This will make it difficult for your father to find me.”/

Recalling the woman who had pleaded to him in a half-dazed state, Angell furrowed his brow and thought of another woman trapped in that enormous coffin who had called for him.

In truth, when Angell confined his mother in a windowless room, he felt relief rather than guilt.

It was far more advantageous for him to minimize any chance for his mother to fly away.

He had thought he was doing it to protect his mother, but now he realized it had been for himself.

He didn’t want to lose the only reason for his life.

That was why he had confined his mother, which became the catalyst for her to flee the room, and the boy who had already found a new purpose in life continued to live even after his mother’s death.

For the sake of an impossible reunion with a girl.

There were times when this fact felt quite futile, but whenever he saw Diana retaining her innocence from those days despite her illness, all those doubts and emptiness disappeared.

But once again.

When faced with the possibility of losing his purpose, Angell became anxious.

The girl who had returned from the brink of death was no longer the girl he had known before, and Angell now frequently doubted his choices.

Indeed, was the Diana Veronique he was trying to protect by committing numerous sins really the same girl he had known?

Knock knock—

While deep in thought, someone knocked on his door.

“Her Majesty is looking for you.”

※※※

“You came.”

The Empress, who had summoned him at an unusual hour, welcomed him while stretched out on a sofa in her chemise.

A warm light flickered in her cold eyes, and the Empress showed no intention of upholding her dignity before him, even as she remained in her position after his arrival.

“I heard you were looking for me.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

At Angell’s question, the Empress raised her upper body, leaned against the sofa, and looked at him. She looked almost like a seductress filled with purpose.

“Angell.”

Angell’s expression hardened at the sight of the Empress looking at him arrogantly with her head tilted back against the backrest.

Her authoritative appearance, as if reigning over all creation, kept disturbing his composure.

“You are beautiful. Have you ever thought about why you are beautiful?”

/”Your father is the most beautiful person in the world. He is someone who receives the love of all people from his exalted position.”/

A woman’s voice seemed to answer the Empress’s question.

Angell’s brow furrowed.

“If you’re looking for me for a purpose other than treatment, I’ll leave.”

The Empress examined him with interest as he answered with a hardened expression.

“Why do you want to treat me?”

“……”

“Just because it’s a priest’s mission?”

He couldn’t easily answer.

Because it was certainly not due to his mission as a priest.

“Why did you choose to walk the path of a priest?”

Even though he didn’t answer, the Empress continued her questions, staring at him with a quiet, sharp gaze.

“Why did you come here?”

“……”

“Because you want to alleviate your guilt through me.”

At the Empress’s final words, Angell unconsciously clenched his fist tightly.

The Empress, not missing this change, smiled coldly.

“I told you. I’d give you a chance.”

The Empress had told him on that first night when he saved her that she would give him three chances.

She had also threatened that the moment he passed those chances, she would immediately take the Emperor’s head.

Yet he still stood here.

Perhaps she thought he would shoulder her anger for her?

As the Empress’s questions lengthened, Angell increasingly doubted himself for not seeing the figure before him as a demon.

Truly, am I here to transfer the guilt of everything I couldn’t protect onto this woman wearing the guise of a girl?

“I’ve always been impatient, never able to get past three chances, but……this time I thought I’d try something different.”

“……”

“It’s the same as before. You’ve already saved me three times. So I’ll contemplate how to live this extended life, and I’ll seek the most terrible method of revenge while resenting those who locked me away here.”

The Empress rose from the sofa and slowly turned to walk toward the inner part of the room.

Then, walking to the window that faced the direction where the main palace would be, she looked outside and said:

“So I thought I’d give you one truly final chance.”

The Empress opened the window wide, and,

“Because I’m the one who put that shackle on you.”

She sat on the railing and left those final words for Angell before falling.

In this sudden situation, Angell instinctively reached out his hand and approached the window, but the distance was too great, and the Empress fell helplessly.

Holding the railing, he looked down to find the fallen Empress, and below flowed a river.

So it was this window last time too.

Angell made a firm resolution that he must block this window, when suddenly he recalled the Empress’s final words.

That she was the one who had put his shackle on him.

Angell tightened his grip on the railing as he pondered the Empress’s confession.

※※※

Pain shot through my back as it hit the water’s surface, followed by water spray that tickled my painful body like a caress, enveloping me completely.

/”Jane. A swan isn’t white. When it swims through mud, it sometimes becomes a black swan, and when it swims on water, it appears white again, but that’s okay. No swan’s feathers are perfectly white.”/

My mother, who often showed me old videos and sat me in front of them to show her most brilliant moments, would often tell me such things.

Between acts, performing as both white swan and black swan in her intense past, my mother couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

/”Mom. Birds are stupid.”/

/”……”/

I tried shouting at my dazed mother who couldn’t tear her eyes from the screen, even tried blocking the screen, but she had no intention of returning from the distant past.

/”If you like birds so much, why don’t you fly away?”/

That day too, I offered a small suggestion to my mother who sat blankly watching videos in the living room, and she finally turned her head from the screen to look at me.

I still can’t forget the bizarre smile on my mother’s face at that moment.

/”Miae!!”/

My mother flew away.

She entrusted her heavy body to the empty air, thinking she could soar to great heights.

Sometimes I recall my mother in the process of falling to the ground.

In my imagination, my mother wore that same smile even in the moment of her fall, mistaking it for flight.

Where am I now? In mud? In water?

Wherever I am, the fact that I’m a monster doesn’t change.

The priest in my manuscript is Diana Veronique’s salvation.

He stays by her side as she dies trapped here, helping her revenge.

This most upright man falls in love with Diana Veronique and willingly corrupts himself.

In the final act, Diana Veronique, successful in her revenge, sits on the imperial throne contemplating her blood-soaked life and loses her life to a king from another country who comes to the land stained with chaos.

The priest is condemned as a key figure who betrayed the temple and caused war on the continent.

The two head to the netherworld together.

They become spirits there, together forever.

That priest was the only being who would love my protagonist forever.

A man containing all my wishes and desires.

With him actually existing before me, I felt both joy and once again became disgusted with myself.

The reason this priest helps me is solely because he was designed to do so.

And at this moment, if he saves me once more, perhaps inevitably I would embrace him and head toward the abyss.

If he saved me once more, I had planned to reveal all the truth and give him a chance to escape.

I wanted to be understood.

I wanted at least one person to understand me and stay with me forever.

But now that it had become reality, I became afraid.

If you, who will be with me, learn the truth, will you resent me throughout that eternity?

I found myself simultaneously wanting him to save me and hoping he wouldn’t.

So I will tell you, who sees me as salvation, that the person who gave you that trial was none other than me, a monster.

The moment I made that resolution, a white light cut through the mist.

Truly, feeling both emptiness and joy at the priest who gave me the answer without leaving room for doubt, I closed my eyes.

Not long after, I felt hands gently lifting my waist.

If someone had seen us, perhaps they would have thought we were a pair of lovers dancing in midair.

With a splash, my body, which had felt light, landed heavily.

“Please!!”

The water-soaked priest’s shout reached me.

“What are you really trying to ask me? Please just tell me properly. Stop asking things you already know.”

“……”

Without even the strength to spit out water, I could only stare blankly at the angry priest.

“Please…. Please don’t try to push me away like this.”

“……Are you crying?”

Water had been dripping onto my face all along, but the temperature was subtly different. Through my blurry vision, I could see the priest’s contorted face.

His crying face was beautiful again. After admiring it for a while, I reached out to wipe away his tears. The priest trembled slightly at the touch, then turned his head away.

“I know why you’re kind to me.”

“……”

“It’s because of your mother.”

“……How……”

How did you know?

At his questioning gaze, I could only offer a bitter smile.

“……I resent the god who burdened you with such a fate.”

Looking at the priest who had turned his head away, I asked the question I really wanted to ask.

The priest seemed to compose his emotions for a while before shaking his head.

Then, looking at me again, he met my gaze with his summer-green eyes and said:

“I don’t resent Him. At least she surely had a world she longed for.”

“……”