I Became the Mad Empress

I thought I might as well take a look at this person who was supposedly so amazing that someone would lose their mind for love of them.

As I prepared to go out for the first time in ages, the servants of the East Palace whispered that perhaps Her Majesty was announcing her recovery and preparing to return to the main palace.

If that happened, the tightly closed gates might open again, freeing the imperial family from rumors of a curse.

Those who had been relegated here with the Empress might also find their freedom.

Carrying everyone’s expectations, I arrived at the main palace—a place so splendid and beautiful that it existed in an entirely different dimension from the abandoned old castle.

The dreary carriage passing through the well-maintained palace grounds seemed out of place.

Yet the old castle was still part of this imperial palace.

The rotten underbelly hidden by the magnificent imperial palace.

I had been wondering if the Emperor would be as beautiful as this place, which was something I’d been looking forward to.

‘…Not bad.’

Even at first glance in the reception room, he displayed quite a striking appearance.

Judging by his black hair and red eyes, this manuscript was indeed the revised version, in line with Director An’s preference for pushing the Emperor as the male protagonist.

So this face is supposed to tremble with regret in front of my corpse?

It was so thrilling that I almost felt like actively supporting that revised direction. I even briefly considered that a passionate drama might not be so bad.

But the moment his unbelievable personality was revealed alongside his unrealistic appearance, I deeply regretted having entertained such thoughts even for a moment.

The room was filled with guards protecting the Emperor, presumably to prevent the Empress from throwing herself at him. I let out a small scoff as I looked around at them.

“…You’re telling me she was made to cling desperately to this kind of jerk?”

“…What?”

“You heard me. Why pretend you didn’t? How pathetic.”

When I was keeping quiet, he called me a mute idiot.

Now that I’d opened my mouth, the Emperor frowned with irritation and swept over me with his intense red eyes.

Since I absolutely hate anyone touching my body, I immediately pushed away the hand gripping my face.

“Don’t touch me.”

“…What kind of game are you playing now?”

His expression crumpled with bewilderment.

Everything coming out of my mouth must sound like nonsense to him.

His denial stemmed from the absolute certainty that Diana Veronique would never reject him, which made me even more disgusted. The Emperor was an idiot trapped in excessive narcissism.

“…Do you even know what you’re doing right now?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m trying to find out.”

I turned around, picked up a poker from the fireplace, and looked around.

There were far too many guards in the room to assist just two people.

Sure enough, the guards tensed up immediately when I merely pretended to swing the iron poker a little.

“Ha, I’m not begging you to kill me or anything.”

The arrogant man watched my behavior with contempt as his gaze swept over me.

I sneered at his unfunny remark and responded to his arrogance with my own, raising my head high.

“Shall I? I’ve been thinking carefully while trapped in that crumbling castle. If I go mad, who would be most troubled by it?”

“Seize the Empress!”

“Don’t touch me!”

The guards who rushed forward at the Emperor’s command stopped in their tracks at my shout.

Coming on so aggressively wouldn’t work—the Emperor couldn’t kill me.

“Listen carefully. If you put me on the execution block, I will call out your name and curse you. I will curse and curse again until everything built under your name crumbles and breaks.”

“You’re insane…”

“…Aren’t you curious? Everyone’s calling me an evil spirit. What will they call you after I’m gone?”

The Emperor harbored suspicions that Diana might truly be an evil spirit who had borrowed power from heretics.

As expected, Antheo’s face began to pale at my threat.

If I were to die now, all criticism would be directed at the Emperor sitting on the cursed throne.

People would connect even small mistakes to the curse I left behind and call him the cursed Emperor. He would likely hide behind the castle walls again, terrified of the angry populace.

“Coward.”

“That’s enough, Diana!!”

“…!”

But the fun was short-lived.

When the enraged Emperor called out this shell’s name, I was momentarily startled by the tremor that ran through my body and dropped what I was holding.

Clang—

The moment the iron implement fell pathetically to the floor, the guards seized the opportunity and roughly pushed me down again.

The Emperor, who had been sending me looks of disgust without reservation, glared at me from a distance.

When his red eyes met mine, an emotional turmoil I had never experienced before frantically choked me, stopping my breath.

‘…Ha.’

It felt like my insides were plummeting to the bottom.

Heat rose to my face, my throat tightened, my ears and chest tingled, and my lips trembled.

This emotion absolutely wasn’t mine. This horribly unfamiliar and unpleasant feeling seemed to be love—that damned emotion the woman had left behind.

‘What is this….’

I found it difficult to hide my confusion at this strange bodily reaction.

I have no memory of ever feeling affection for anything.

All emotions were merely tools for my acting. So this must surely be a residue left by the shell’s owner.

Or perhaps it was an inviolable aspect of the revised manuscript.

The Empress who loved the Emperor went mad.

That part seemed to be something I couldn’t control, as the emotion began to dominate my entire body in an instant.

The unpleasant sensation from my wrists that had been grabbed earlier now reacted violently to the slight touch on my shoulders, and I could no longer bear to meet the Emperor’s intense red eyes. Diana Veronique completely crumbled before this man.

When I instinctively lowered my eyes and my body trembled, I heard Antheo’s soft mockery in my ear.

“…I can only tolerate this insanity once or twice.”

“……”

I clenched my fists, trying hard to suppress that emotion, but the vivid trembling wouldn’t be easily suppressed.

“Judging by the way you speak, you’re clearly still out of your mind, but I must say it’s admirable that you’ve come back to fulfill your duties even in this state. I can’t help but reward such devotion.”

Antheo roughly grabbed my chin and turned my flushed cheeks from side to side.

“Why are you walking around on two feet anyway? You should have just stayed there and withered away quietly.”

‘This b*stard.’

I couldn’t help but lament how Diana Veronique had become a doormat for this kind of b*stard, receiving such treatment.

I looked up at Antheo as he continued speaking.

“…I’m a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a different reaction.”

“Did you think I’d beg you to come back to me?”

I couldn’t just play along. I had no intention of making such a pathetic display, and while my body responded to this man, those weren’t my emotions.

“Well, I’m suddenly curious about what you think. What do you think drove me mad? …Because I loved you too much? Because I was jealous of the woman who had you?”

I asked the man who was confining and testing me.

“…In my opinion, that explanation seems closest to the truth. You know, that rumor about a woman possessed by an evil spirit.”

Suggesting that it would be better to keep a woman mad with love by his side than to sit in a place defiled by an evil spirit, trembling with fear.

“Ha, that’s not even funny…”

“Stop provoking me. You’re making me want to rain curses down on you.”

His neck is so white and long.

Why is it stretched out so beautifully? As if begging to be cut.

Antheo turned to the guards with a disgusted look as I laughed.

“…Make sure she can’t take a single step outside the East Palace.”

“Are you punishing me? I thought you said you’d give me a reward, you liar.”

“Furthermore, the crime of insulting the Emperor must be dealt with severely. I will dispatch Duke Veronique to the southern conflict zone.”

“…Your Majesty!”

The atmosphere instantly grew tense at the Emperor’s declaration.

But how funny,

“As you wish.”

I’m the kind of person who would rejoice at my father’s death.

Such threats had no effect on me whatsoever.

/”Useless thing.”/

The Emperor’s expression froze at my attitude as I pushed my father toward death without a moment’s hesitation.

In the early part of the novel, the Emperor dispatches the Duke to the southern conflict zone to completely uproot the Veronique family.

If he doesn’t comply with the imperial order, Duke Veronique, once called a hero of the Empire, would be reduced to a cowardly weakling. If he does go, he would deplete his family fortune and turn his territory into ruins in an unprepared battle.

At a time when everyone was reluctant to support the southern conflict zone, putting forward Duke Veronique meant using him as cannon fodder, holding the reason that he had placed his mentally ill daughter in the position of Empress as collateral.

Coincidentally, the Duke’s territory of Wendelloon was also in the south.

The Emperor had essentially offered Duke Veronique, once praised as a war hero, a glorious death.

“…Duke Veronique has only wasted precious time on a monster like you.”

With the passage of time, the once-hero had become an aging gentleman who couldn’t even protect his own daughter, and Diana Veronique had fallen from being the old hero’s trophy to a burden.

“Why do you assume defeat, when my father hasn’t even heard the news yet?”

I snickered and mocked them, who meant nothing to me.

The Emperor looked at me as if I were a terrible monster, and the remnants of the ghost who found it unbearably painful to receive such a gaze from the man she loved began to torment me.

※※※

Upon returning, the palace attendants bustling about the room started to irritate me.

“Everyone out.”

I raised my voice firmly so there would be no need to repeat myself, and everyone fled the room.

I looked around the now-quiet room, sat down at the dressing table, and quietly examined my face.

Pale blonde hair, makeup applied over a dry, withered face, and empty blue-gray eyes stared back at me.

Despite everything about this face being unfamiliar, there was one thing that hadn’t changed.

/”That b*tch is cold-blooded…”/

/”Yoon Jane, there’s something weird about her.”/

/”Really?”/

/”Monster.”/

Whether in dreams or reality.

Whether in fantasy or death.

Where a monster goes, a monster exists.

If everyone says so, it must be true.

If I felt no regret or remorse even at the moment of death, perhaps they were right.

Having been so ruthlessly driven away and returned, should I be shedding tears now?

Drip.

Hot liquid flowed down my expressionless face.

As I stared blankly at the sight,

Click—the door opened, and through the mirror, I saw a red-haired woman entering the bedroom.

“…I told everyone to leave.”

Had she not received the message? I signaled her to leave through the mirror, but the woman maintained an equally expressionless face and approached me, saying:

“…The priest will be visiting soon to examine your previous wound.”

“Tell him not to come.”

Debora, who had shown slight confusion at my tears despite her impassive expression, let out a small sigh.

“…Please allow me to at least bandage you, Your Majesty.”

In Debora’s hand was a bandage.

Only then did I feel the heat from the wound.

That made me feel even more unpleasantly alive in this place.

The priest was right. Continuing to stubbornly delay treatment was like saying I wanted to drag out these annoying matters.

I nodded slightly, and the lady-in-waiting began to untie the dress strings.

“Then, excuse me.”

The lady-in-waiting examined the burst wound quite skillfully. Despite her stoic impression, she treated the wound with great care, meticulously wrapping the bandage before finally looking up.

“…Is there any discomfort?”

Then she spoke with the same calm demeanor as before.

Her attitude was different from others who trembled in fear as if they’d seen a ghost when facing me.

Debora, who had wrapped the bandage with familiar hands, draped a robe over my n*ked body after finishing the treatment.

Having completed her task, Debora turned to leave the room but suddenly turned back, approached me again, and quietly met my ash-gray eyes.

“…I notice you seem to remember your academic knowledge… May I ask exactly which parts of your memory you’ve lost?”

Though delivered in a matter-of-fact tone, the question contained her tenacity in seeking information about herself.

“I remember as much as I want to remember.”

I don’t know what answer she expects from me.

Even asking such a question means she already suspects me.

Is she hoping for deception?

Debora simply nodded at my ambiguous answer.

“…It’s better not to answer questions you don’t know. There’s nothing good about revealing that you’ve lost your memory.”

Then, as if offering advice, she changed the subject and brought a comb to brush my tangled hair.

Despite my shuddering hate of anyone touching my body, somehow the lady-in-waiting’s touch was comfortable and not unpleasant. I stared at the lady-in-waiting in the mirror, puzzled by this strange situation.

“You’re not afraid of me.”

Everyone here treats the Empress as a woman possessed by an evil spirit and fears her, yet somehow she doesn’t seem to.

“What reason would I have to be afraid?”

“Everyone says I’ve gone mad.”

Possessed by an evil spirit, or cursed.

Our eyes met through the mirror. She shook her head and said firmly:

“There’s no reason to fear such baseless rumors.”

“Baseless rumors… Well, let’s say they were. Now they’re true.”

“……What do you mean?”

“I really am crazy now. So either get used to it, or if you don’t like it, disappear quietly without getting in my way.”

I watched the confused Debora through the mirror.

This absurd situation still wasn’t funny to me, but one thing was certain: the moment I, as an entity, took possession of Diana’s body, I wouldn’t let trivial emotions ruin things.

So this lady-in-waiting would never get the answer she wanted from me.

※※※

When Angell arrived at the Empress’s chambers, he encountered Debora, the Empress’s lady-in-waiting, who was just opening the door to leave.

The two exchanged brief bows, and as Angell was about to enter the chambers to fulfill his duty, the lady-in-waiting’s arm shot out to grab the doorknob.

“It would be best if you minimized physical contact with Her Majesty.”

Was she being cautious about the priest visiting the Empress’s chambers?

Angell frowned slightly as he looked at the lady-in-waiting.

“…She doesn’t like it very much.”

Only then did Angell realize that the lady-in-waiting was concerned for him, not the Empress, and he stared at the door with a strangely rigid expression.

Beyond that door was the woman called an evil spirit.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

The lady-in-waiting stepped aside only after hearing his answer, and Angell carefully opened the door and entered the Empress’s space.

“……”

In the dark room, he saw the Empress sitting in front of the mirror in a white robe, staring blankly at herself.

“You’re here.”

“…Excuse my intrusion.”

“Don’t you ever get tired of this?”

The Empress turned her head and spoke to Angell with an expressionless face.

“I’ll tell them you came by. You can go.”

The Empress spoke indifferently, as if bestowing mercy upon him, and Angell sensed that this kindness came from her hearing that it would be troublesome for him if she wasn’t treated.

He felt somewhat relieved that the Empress didn’t seem as merciless as he had thought.

“In a way that won’t trouble Your Majesty…”

Angell’s steps toward the Empress suddenly halted.

The moonlight filtering through the window was the only light in the room.

As he took one step closer, traces on the Empress’s cheeks that hadn’t been wiped away reflected in that light and sparkled.

They were tears.

Angell stared blankly at those traces before breaking into a shabby smile.

“Your Majesty is not an evil spirit.”

“…What’s with you suddenly.”

The Empress frowned at his statement, then seemed to contemplate something before casually asking a question.

“…Why do you think I’m not?”

The very fact that she was curious about this already provided him with a confident answer.

Angell felt the doubt that had been weighing on his mind being resolved.

“If you had coveted heretical power and become an evil spirit,”

Angell knelt before the Empress, took the edge of his robe, and gently wiped away the traces on her face.

“You wouldn’t have been able to feel any emotions.”

“……”

If that was the criterion for identifying a heretical witch, then I was indeed the evil spirit they spoke of.

If this priest spared me once more with such kindness, I planned to do only things Diana Veronique would never do and completely ruin this novel.

Unaware of this fact, the priest seemed relieved and smiled as he wiped away the tears.

Meanwhile, I didn’t even know the meaning of these tears.

“Since you mentioned that the previous treatment method was uncomfortable, I’d like to propose a different approach, if that’s alright with you.”

I looked with displeasure at the priest who reached out his hand to me with a now more comfortable tone. The priest examined his own hand and made an embarrassed expression.

“Adding another layer of cloth would be more comfortable for you, but then it wouldn’t be effective.”

“…What are you talking about?”

“I heard that Your Majesty dislikes physical contact.”

“Who told you that?”

I had never mentioned this fact to the priest before, or to anyone else here. How did this priest know that I dislike physical contact?

“Lady Debora specifically cautioned me.”

I let out an admiring chuckle at the priest’s mischievous words.

Could she have noticed from my tense state while she was wrapping the bandage?

If so, she’s really something.

That wasn’t the only puzzling thing.

The hand the priest extended to me.

This hand that showed no intention of being withdrawn was suspicious.