Chapter 1

“Keuak!”  

“Aaaargh!”  

The Emperor’s vast bedroom. In the tranquil and peaceful space, which contained nothing but a bed and furniture, extremely jarring screams rang out. The bed and furniture were soaked in streams of bl＊＊d that spurted out one after another. After a round of screams, corpses piled up on the floor. At some point, the screams ceased. Only when no one moved and all had collapsed to the ground, did the man standing in the center slowly lower the sword he had been gripping.

Even the pajamas the man wore were splattered with bl＊＊d. In the pitch-black darkness, his brilliant blond hair was strikingly conspicuous. His red eyes, glimmering in the moonlight, were just as vivid.

Although a massacre had taken place in his own bedroom, the man’s face remained extremely dry—his expression utterly indifferent. As he gazed at the corpses scattered across the floor with emotionless eyes, the bedroom door opened.

“Your Majesty, I’m coming in.”

At that moment, a woman opened the door and entered his bedroom. Her hair was tied back in a single knot, and she wore an aide’s uniform, holding documents in one hand. Anyone could see she was an aide working under the Emperor, but as soon as she appeared, a hint of emotion flickered in the man’s previously indifferent eyes.

As if he didn’t even notice the corpses he had just sliced apart, the man’s face suddenly returned to a naive expression. Thud—the corpses caught on the door the woman had opened. Seeing the gruesome scene, the woman furrowed her brow and let out a small sigh.

“…So, wouldn’t it have been better to just leave it to the knights? Your Majesty.”

Diana approached her lord and Emperor, Evan, forcing a smile as she did.

“Even though you received information that assassins were coming, why, why on earth did you let them into your room? Now the furniture is all stained.”

“Aren’t you curious? About how close they could get?”

“Even so, there’s no need to dismiss the knights who guard you.”

It was as if the Emperor believed he had extra lives. Evan, putting his bl＊＊d-dripping sword back into its sheath, sat down in a chair, while Diana, deliberately avoiding looking down, pulled the cord in the room to summon the servants.

“We should clean the room first.”

“Sure. Do as you please, Aide.”

Evan, having lost interest in the assassins, turned his head to gaze up at the moon. His face, reflected in the moonlight, looked flawlessly serene. Of course, the carnage at his feet was anything but.

Still, it might have been better to keep one alive to find out who was behind this. As expected.

Seeing the state of those who, by any measure, didn’t look like they could possibly be alive, Diana resigned herself and held her forehead. This damned nervous stress was flaring up again. With so many people targeting him, how could the Emperor sit there so leisurely, gazing at the moon? Diana wondered where things had gone wrong.

Was it after the Prince’s Rebellion?

The Prince’s Rebellion. After the sudden death of the late Emperor, it was the struggle among the princes for succession to the throne. Not long after the late Emperor’s death, the princes began a bloody fight. The imperial palace was instantly dyed red, and wars for the throne broke out every day.

And finally, the last prince who survived, having stepped over all the corpses of the other princes, appeared. Not the son of the Empress, nor of the imperial consort, but the son of a lowly concubine—Evan.

No one had expected Evan’s enthronement, and for a while, the palace was in turmoil. It was a stunning reversal from the prince who had lived with barely any presence until then. But no one openly voiced their complaints. After all, those powerful princes had all met a miserable death at Evan’s hands.

But that didn’t mean they were all obedient.

The assassins coming after Evan were proof of that. Thanks to them, Diana, his aide, could never relax, even at night. How had her job become one that required her attention 24/7? Diana thought, “I’ll quit this damned job soon,” as she began tidying up the scattered desk.

“Because of the bl＊＊d, I can’t even read the documents. I’ll rewrite the damaged ones and bring them back.”

“Hey, Aide.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Should we just get married?”

“Yes, Your Maj—Whaaat?”

Diana, who had responded out of habit, snapped her eyes open. When she looked up in surprise, she saw Evan, who had already turned his gaze from the moon and was now smiling at her.

“I mean, that is… mar-marriage? The kind where a man and woman hold hands and march down the aisle, that marriage?”

“Yeah. That marriage.”

She wondered if the definition of marriage had changed overnight, but unfortunately, it hadn’t. The papers slipped from Diana’s limp hands and fluttered to the floor, but no one paid them any mind. And as Diana understood what Evan meant, her mouth fell open.

*   *   *

“How could he say something so ridiculous?”

Diana’s loud exclamation echoed through the room. Slamming the table, Diana shuddered as she recalled the situation, horrified.

“Marriage? At that moment, suddenly—what? ‘It’s time to get married, so let’s get married’?”

“Oh my, did he really say that?”

“Yes! He said it was time to get married, so let’s get married!”

Despite her friend’s desperate outcry, Sophia, sitting before her, calmly sipped her tea.

“A proposal in a room full of corpses. That’s the worst.”

“It’s not about the atmosphere! The words themselves are absurd. And the reason is just as ridiculous.”

“……”

“I get that he’s bored now that he’s Emperor and has lost his goal… but is marriage really the next thing he’s fixated on?”

Born as the daughter of a rural Viscount family on the outskirts of the capital, Diana was literally the young lady of an ordinary family. Except for one thing: her mother and Evan’s mother were best friends. Because of their mothers’ relationship, Diana had played with Evan as his companion in the palace since childhood.

That’s where Diana’s life began to twist, all because of one word from Evan. It started when Evan and Diana happened to see the imperial throne.

‘I want to sit there.’

Because of that one comment from Evan, Diana’s life changed too. Before she knew it, she had become Evan’s aide, one of his closest confidants.

“I should have known when he talked about becoming Emperor as if he were choosing a lunch menu. Since then, I’ve been scared of his smile. He always does crazy things while smiling as if nothing’s wrong.”

Usually, he was completely indifferent, but when he found something new, that smile… Just thinking about it made Diana shudder with a full-body rejection.

“Anyway, he’s the type who has to do whatever he’s obsessed with. Now, I guess he’s fixated on marriage instead of the throne. Well, at least deciding to marry as Emperor is better. After all, it’s about uniting families.”

“So, what did you say to his proposal?”

“Of course I refused.”

It was stressful enough just being around him during work hours—marriage? That would cut her lifespan in half, at best. As Diana spoke, she glanced at Sophia.

“So, I was thinking…”

“Hmm?”

“How about you marry His Majesty?”

Sophia Christine of the Marquis Christine family. She was the only daughter of one of the Empire’s most prestigious families, practically fit to be Empress herself.

“Think about it. He’s not a prince anymore, but the Emperor of the Empire. You could be Empress…”

“Diana.”

“Hmm?”

“No matter how great a cockroach is, it’s still a cockroach, right? How could someone like me marry a cockroach?”

When Sophia refused with a lovely smile, Diana gave up quickly. Right—here was someone who hated Evan more than anyone else. She had just called the Emperor of the Empire a cockroach, but Diana wasn’t surprised. She had seen Evan and Sophia despise each other since childhood.

“…Yeah, I don’t know anymore. Honestly, why should I care? Whether he marries a cockroach or a silverfish, or just finds a nice young lady to marry.”

Eventually, Diana resigned herself to everything and slumped back in her chair. As she sipped her tea, Sophia added,

“Is the palace still noisy these days?”

“Of course. The anti-Emperor faction hasn’t been completely wiped out. It’s much better than before, but there are still groups moving behind the scenes.”

“Right, come to think of it, you and the Emperor can’t get married anyway, right? So you don’t have to worry about such useless things.”

Sophia continued brightly,

“Isn’t that right, Leader of the anti-Emperor faction?”