“Aack!”

Late at night, a small room in one corner of the palace became noisy. The physician poured medicine into the mouth of the princess who was thrashing about, while maids serving the invaders massaged the limbs of their pitiful lady with pale faces.

In the midst of this chaos, the woman who had raised her upper body tried to move somehow, her long golden hair hanging down. But unlike her trembling, dynamically moving limbs, her red lips were bluish as if death had fallen upon them, and even a thin trickle of blood flowed.

“Tsk.”

The physician clicked his tongue and forced the medicine all the way into Yerena’s mouth. Then he firmly covered her mouth as she tried to spit it out.

Thud. Finally, after swallowing the medicine, Yerena released the tension in her limbs and let her body go limp. Sitting with her upper body leaning against the bed’s headboard, with a blank expression, she looked just like a marionette with cut strings.

The black-haired man who had been watching the commotion while standing at the end of the bed slowly approached Yerena. The maids who had been holding her quickly bowed their heads when they saw Roshan and stepped aside.

The physician, who was still covering Yerena’s mouth, quickly removed his hand when he saw the sharp gaze directed at his hand. His pounding heart revealed how nervous he was.

“The, the princess’s condition is not good, so I used a strong sedative. She won’t be in her right mind.”

Roshan gestured for the physician who was explaining the princess’s condition to step aside. The physician promptly retreated.

Roshan, with a hardened face, suddenly raised his hand and roughly grabbed Yerena’s chin, which had gone limp. The princess, who had been taking shallow breaths under the strong medicine, could not resist his force as her head was lifted.

“Huu……”

A moan that seemed to express pain escaped from her straight white neck. But Roshan paid no attention and fixed his gaze on the cloudy blue eyes that couldn’t reflect anything, roughly moving his hand to tilt the princess’s head this way and that.

The eyes that had lost their light remained motionless despite her turning head. Seeing no change at all, the man who had been manipulating the woman like a doll released her hand with a pushing motion.

The woman, whose head slightly hit the bed’s headboard, moaned in pain for a moment before slightly turning her head. Then, as if sensing Roshan’s presence closest to her, she fixed her head straight toward him.

Her eyes were sightless, motionless like those of the dead. Yet Roshan was overcome with the illusion that they were making eye contact. He looked at Yerena with narrowed eyes.

After a moment, for some reason, Yerena suddenly began to shed tears. And before one stream of tears crossing her cheek reached her mouth, she raised the corners of her lips and smiled faintly. It was a faint, dreamlike smile.

Though it was just a moment, Roshan felt as if lightning had struck him, entering through the crown of his head and exiting through his toes. His skin tingled, and a sharp pain reached his left chest.

As he struggled with this feeling he had never experienced before in his life, the princess who had been smiling quietly collapsed silently. With closed eyes and her head dropped lifelessly, she looked so much like a corpse that Roshan caught her falling upper body with one hand and turned to the physician.

“Th-that…… She seems to have fallen asleep due to the sedative.”

The physician, who had been watching Yerena beside him, stammered in response to Roshan’s unexpected gaze. Roshan released the princess after hearing the physician’s answer and took a step back. Then, deliberately turning his back to her, he spoke for the first time since entering the room.

“……The princess’s eyes?”

“As I mentioned before, she seems to have lost her sight. Whether it’s temporary or permanent needs further examination, but from what I’ve seen so far, it appears to be the latter.”

After listening to the physician’s explanation to the end, Roshan glanced at the princess who had fallen asleep as if she had fainted, then sharply turned his body instead of responding. He immediately headed for the door.

Though his expression was indifferent as he walked, the physician involuntarily took a deep breath at Roshan’s profile. He felt like he might suffocate from the atmosphere. Not just the physician, but the maids seemed to feel the same way, as they hunched their bodies even more and trembled.

Bang. The door closed, and Roshan disappeared. Only then did the physician exhale deeply in relief and wipe away his cold sweat. Then, remembering his patient, he turned around.

The princess, while asleep as if she had fainted, was crying again and calling for her family members who were no longer in this world. Finding her appearance so pitiful, the physician’s eyes unconsciously reddened and he muttered,

“……Perhaps it’s better that she cannot see. It would be torment to be dragged away and see the face of her enemy every day.”

* * *

“By the grace of His Majesty the Emperor, the undying sun of the great Vistius Empire, the name of Sedas will be maintained. However, the Sedas Kingdom must look up to the Vistius Empire from now on, and the king of Sedas must swear loyalty to His Majesty the Emperor.”

Hayden proclaimed in a resonant voice from the platform above the hall. With his tall stature, cold-looking silver hair, and long, sharp eyes that already made him appear ruthless, when he spoke in a chilling voice, sighs and cries erupted from various places below the platform.

“Oh, why……”

“God. Save Sedas.”

Those expressing sorrow were the nobles and palace people of the Sedas Kingdom. But those who vocalized their emotions were few; most simply bowed their heads in terror and silently shed tears.

Among the knights occupying the platform in the hall, some, including Frederick, made no effort to hide their sneers at the audience. Looking at the people of the defeated nation, they were thoroughly intoxicated with feelings of superiority and victory. Some of the young men of the kingdom, full of vigor, clenched their fists at such attitudes, but that was all. Parents who had already lost their grown sons desperately restrained their younger sons, fearing they too might fall to the swords of the imperial knights.

As time passed and even the few sounds of crying subsided, Hayden cleared his throat and looked back. At the highest seat in the hall, once the place of the king of Sedas, sat Roshan, the leader of the invaders. With a bored expression, he gestured vaguely for his subordinate to continue.

“Let the new king of the kingdom come forward.”

After bowing deeply and respectfully toward Roshan, Hayden turned around again. Then he called out in a loud voice for someone. From among the group of nobles from the Kingdom of Sedas gathered below the platform, two people emerged from the crowd.

A young man with red hair and a middle-aged woman with the same colored hair. They clearly resembled each other.

“Those people……”

“……Aren’t they the woman from House Wirgo and her bastard?”

The red-haired young man was Brick, the illegitimate son of the dead king of Sedas, and the middle-aged woman was Bianca, Brick’s mother and the half-sister of the queen. The nobles of Sedas recognized the two and whispered.

Brick flinched, slightly hunching his shoulders at people’s gazes, but his mother, the woman, kept her back straight. And she spoke sharply to her son.

“Walk proudly. Aren’t you now the king of this country?”

“……Yes, Mother.”

Unlike Brick, who was extremely tense and watchful for people’s reactions, Bianca couldn’t hide her elation. How long had she waited for this moment? She ground her teeth, recalling past humiliations.

‘Now my son is the king of this country!’

In the past, Bianca had sneaked into the drunk King’s bedroom and boldly pretended to be her half-sister, stealing a night with the king. But the king, who had a close relationship with the queen, immediately cast her out, trembling with shame.

‘Behead that thing immediately! No, I’ll do it myself! Bring me a sword! Now!’

The king had been so angry at the time that she nearly had her head cut off right there in the bedroom early in the morning. But the queen protected her ungrateful half-sister, and Bianca was able to save her life. And from that one night, Brick was born.

‘Adora is my only wife, and my children are only the three she bore: Allen, Antonio, and Yerena.’

However, the king acknowledged neither Bianca nor her son Brick. Because of this, they had to live in the Sedas Kingdom as if they didn’t exist for many years.

‘Adora, I won! I’ve beaten you, sister. Your sons are all dead, but my son lives and has succeeded that man!’

Bianca, flashing her black eyes and sneering at her dead half-sister, was still quite pretty despite her age. But her upturned eyes and somewhat vindictive expression made her unapproachable.

“Please walk faster. Being so sluggish, really……”

Bianca scolded her hesitant son again. Brick’s lips moved slightly as if he wanted to say something to his mother, but soon he drooped his shoulders and quickened his pace.

“Come this way.”

When the two arrived near the platform, one of the knights guided them onto it. Brick flinched again at the knight’s cold voice as he climbed onto the platform.

“Your Highness. This is the new king of Sedas, Brick Sedas.”

Hayden referred to Brick as king. However, despite seeing a king from another country, he showed no respect and observed no courtesy. And no one around pointed out Hayden’s attitude.

“Is your name indeed Brick Sedas?”

“Y-yes. I am B-Brick Sedas.”

Roshan, still seated, asked Brick who stood before him. Brick, seemingly uncomfortable with the surname he had been unable to use until now, answered affirmatively with his head bowed low and in a timid voice. At his demeanor, the knights on the platform laughed out loud. Had the always serious Knox not warned them, their laughter would certainly have continued for some time.

“I, Roshan Vistius, convey the imperial edict of His Majesty the Emperor.”