Chapter 1

“Aaaagh!”

A sharp scream rang out nearby, and her footsteps stopped dead.

Ellen instinctively ducked behind a tree and looked around, then caught sight of what lay before her and her body went rigid as ice.

‘……Your Majesty!’

The pure white snowfield was slowly turning red, stained by the blood trickling down the length of a blade.

The Emperor swung his sword without hesitation, and the keen edge pierced each target with precision. Not a single one escaped that blade.

“Aaagh. P, please spare me. I’m sorry. We didn’t know and hide her on purpose. She had such an innocent face and said she wanted to live here……We only did it for a small reward.”

“Is that so.”

He curved his lips into a dizzying smile. It was a beautiful smile, entirely out of place on the man responsible for the carnage around him.

“Yes. That’s right. So please, at least spare my li, urk.”

Thud.

A crimson stream shot up along the blade that had pierced through the abdomen. White steam rose where hot blood spilled onto the cold snow. A blizzard swept through the space between, and the stench of blood saturated the air in every direction.

‘I’ve been found out after all……’

Ellen pressed her hand over her mouth as she looked at the people strewn across the snow. She forced open her eyes, which felt as though they might freeze shut, and stared at him.

Beneath hair darker than the deepest night sky, crimson eyes that called to mind precious jewels gleamed with a bewitching light. Against flawless white skin, the sharp line of his nose cast a clear, defined shadow.

Leonid Del Raphae.

He was a tyrant whose name would be etched into the history of the Cavern Empire forever. Seizing upon the moment his father, the late Emperor, fell gravely ill, he had eliminated every one of his brothers and claimed the throne.

Leonid did not stop the purges even after his coronation, and only after the heads of more than half the Empire’s nobility had rolled did the brutal bloodshed finally cease.

After that, he made a show of establishing a harem and filled the imperial palace with countless women.

That was where all the misery began.

Of all the women in the harem, the only one he ever brought to his bed was Ellen, and because of that, the sharp jealousy of the women poured down on her without mercy.

But what was even more agonizing than that was the Emperor’s obsessive fixation on her body alone. She had known that the fierce, consuming intimacy between them could never be love, yet she had wanted him so desperately that she found herself hoping it might grow into something more.

The more she loved Leonid, the more painful it became. To survive, she had to break free from him. Only then did it seem like she might be able to breathe again.

She had fled a full year ago.

Ellen hid behind the tree and pulled her hood down low.

A dull ache settled in her chest as memories of the grueling days she had endured in his harem surfaced.

She had to escape, and quickly. His patience had run out long ago, and if she were caught now, there was truly no telling what he might do to her.

‘He’ll k*ll me too. Just like what he did to them.’

Fear closed around her entire body like a vice. The people here belonged to a criminal organization that would do anything for money, committing murders, robberies, and other unspeakable filth.

The only reason they had left Ellen alone was one thing, and one thing only: the Illiard Guild.

A year ago, when she escaped the harem and fled the palace, Ellen had sold the jewels Leonid had given her and hired the Illiard Guild. Their fees were steep, but their efficiency, discretion, and intelligence network were formidable. They had the power to back it up as well.

But……

When the Emperor learned Ellen had vanished, he unleashed the imperial guard, his personal knight order, and even his covert reconnaissance unit.

She had known his obsessive madness well enough not to expect him to let her go quietly. Even so, she had never imagined he would deploy a force capable of razing an entire territory just to catch one woman.

Against that kind of military might, intelligence and money alike were useless.

In the end, after fleeing through every region she could reach, she had come all the way to the northernmost edge of the Empire. The Guild had introduced her to these people, and she had secured lodgings through them. The only ones who had shelter in a place this remote were criminal organizations, so she’d had no choice.

‘There was nowhere left to run……’

All she had wanted was to live in peace somewhere that wasn’t his harem, and yet here was this horrific scene before her.

Ellen clutched the bag of groceries to her chest with trembling hands.

If she hadn’t gone to the neighboring village to buy food, she might have been caught without any way out. The thought of it sent a fresh wave of dread washing over her.

“……Hah.”

The withered thorn bushes surrounding her twisted grotesquely in the fierce wind. The cold was brutal enough to strip flesh from bone.

Her robe-clad body shook like a leaf in a storm. Ellen couldn’t tell whether it was from the bitter cold or from fear.

She had come close to being caught while running before, but this was the first time she had come face to face with him like this.

“Ellen.”

Leonid drove his sharp sword into the snow and called her name. His coat billowed around him, revealing a body as solid and powerful as a beast. Through lips redder than the blood soaking the snow, he exhaled a hot white breath.

Ellen instinctively stepped back.

‘I can’t lose my head here.’

She pressed deeper behind the tree and pulled her hood down tight.

“Your Majesty. It seems these people truly did not know the whereabouts of Lady Ellen.”

“They simply sheltered her in this remote mountain village in exchange for payment?”

“Yes. It appears there was no particular contact beyond arranging her lodgings.”

“I did not come all this way to lose her. Find her. Now.”

He smiled, a smile so captivating it could stop the breath, and pointed his bloodstained sword at the cold corpses.

“If you fail to find her this time, I will make every last one of you look like that.”

“By your command! We will find her swiftly and present her before Your Majesty.”

“Who said anything about presenting her?”

“Pardon?”

Madness flashed in those beautiful eyes. It was the same look she had faced countless times before she fled.

“I am the only one who may touch Ellen. Do you dare lay hands on the Emperor’s woman?”

“N, no. I misspoke. Please, forgive……”

Cowed by Leonid’s ferocious bearing, the knight dropped to his knees in the snow and begged for mercy.

“If you want that, you’ll have to prove it with your actions.”

“I, I will keep that in mind. Your Majesty.”

Led by the man, the knight order scattered in all directions with swift precision.

Leonid slowly raised his head and gazed up at the pale winter sky.

“Where on earth are you, Ellen.”

He closed his fist slowly, trapping a snowflake in his palm, and a faint, bitter smile crossed his lips.

“To think you believed you could escape me. You’ll come to regret that foolishness.”

For just a moment, his expression looked desolate. And at the same time, terrifying.

‘Get, get a hold of yourself. I absolutely cannot be caught.’

Ellen shook her head hard, trying to throw off the fear. She forced her thoughts back to what she needed to do right now.

The mountain itself was small, so the search wouldn’t take long, and that also meant she would be easy to find.

The imperial guard and the entire knight order had already begun combing the mountain, so moving carelessly would only increase the chance of running straight into them. She had to hide somewhere and hold out until they withdrew.

‘Besides, everything I need is back at the house.’

In preparation for exactly this kind of situation, she had hidden valuables like jewelry behind a wall. She needed to retrieve those before she could run.

‘I’ll hide somewhere like a cave and go back once they’ve finished their search.’

Ellen abandoned the bag of food and turned in the opposite direction from where they had gone. She moved carefully, glancing around as she went, but it wasn’t long before the killing cold began to muddle her mind.

“……It’s too cold. At this rate I’ll freeze to death before they even catch me.”

Through her dimming consciousness came the savage howling of beasts. Ellen recognized them as the imperial hunting dogs.

Drained of color, she quickened her pace. But despite her desperate effort, the sound of the animals tearing through the mountain grew closer with every passing second.

She searched frantically for somewhere to hide. But unlike before, there were no large trees to be found. She had wandered into a flat stretch of the mountain at the worst possible moment.

“What, what do I do.”

The terror of being discovered tightened around her throat. Ellen moved as fast as she could, searching desperately for any cover. But there was nothing, only bare, scraggly thornbushes.

“No……I can’t be caught like this.”

It was at that very moment.

“Your Majesty, there are footprints ahead that appear to belong to Lady Ellen!”

The footprints pressed clearly into the deep-packed snow were the problem.

Ellen heard the voice from a distance and turned her head with a sinking dread. There was Leonid, standing among the knights.

“……!”

Their eyes met directly. The shock of it nearly stopped her heart.

Ellen watched Leonid lose all composure and come running straight for her, and she stumbled backward in terror.