Chapter 52 (1/2)
Translator: Wyvern
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Chapter 52
(This is still the Emperor’s POV)
To be honest, it’d been a long time since I’d lived with such a clear and painless mind. Well, half of it was like that before I was appointed as the crown prince, and the accumulated side effects didn’t get better in any way. I tried researching on a group of wizards who could help, but to no avail.
It was only natural that I couldn’t properly adapt to Celestia, who seemed to have fallen from the sky. It wasn’t so surprising that it was hard for me to control myself and respond to her appropriately, much less figure out why I acted the way I did.
That’s why I was so uncertain. I wouldn’t do that again next time.
I could feel my heart beating faster as I was silently thinking about her.
Naturally, her red hair and bright eyes came to mind. And the magic circle engraved on her body. Come to think of it, I felt like I was forgetting a memory that I shouldn’t have.
The thoughts that I had been mulling over in a daze were all scattered as soon as the bewildered watchman burst in.
I frowned, a nasty feeling churning in my gut. Lowe had worked under me for a long time, and he was not a person who easily showed distress.
“What’s going on?”
“Your Majesty…”
“Yes? What’s going on?”
“I… Celestia…”
An inability to finish sentences was usually not a good thing, and my frown deepened.
“So… I don’t know where she is…”
“What do you mean?”
“She wasn’t in her room and no one saw where she had gone. Do you have any guesses?”
No, I couldn’t imagine her going anywhere in particular in the middle of the night.
A chill ran down my spine. Someone used magic in the imperial palace.
Then I remembered that Celestia had asked me for permission to speak to the criminal directly. I had just nodded, thinking that she would wait until tomorrow.
I hope she didn’t go.
Although I knew that my premonitions were almost never wrong, I wanted to deny it even as I sprinted outside.
I could see the exhausted guards perk up at the sight of their emperor.
I grabbed one of them. “What happened to the prisoner in the dungeon today? The prince of the Tepoda Empire.”
“The empress dowager called for his release, but after that…”
“He was released?”
“Yes.”
Barely locked up in a dungeon, then set free? No, did anyone think that something as little as gags and restraints could seal away a wizard’s abilities?
What would a talented bastard like him be able to do if he were released into the imperial palace?
My head hurt.
After ordering the guards to search, I strode towards the empress dowager’s room. Before I could even get there, one of the guards rushed to me, prostrated himself, and cried.
“There is a maid’s testimony that she saw a man in a mask holding Celestia and flying away!”
“Now, what did you say?”
“The masked man kidnapping Celestia…”
I suppressed my irritation. “In which direction?”
Still, even though the guard wasn’t quick-witted, he remembered that much. It was hard to believe that there could be a sorcerer flying in the sky in the Imperial Palace, so he sounded uncertain as he was relating the direction in which the pair had gone.
I had seen how great Khun’s abilities were, and I had an inkling that he didn’t think that he would be arrested in front of the emperor. There was no way that he had come here completely alone, so it’d be more difficult to find him after he met with a collaborator. I thought we would be able to wring some truth out of him after his capture, but I didn’t anticipate that the empress dowager would show her hand so soon.
Oh, now I was truly pissed off.
“Defenders.”
Two women and two men in black cloaks appeared, kneeling silently.
“Chase after them.”
The four of them immediately faded on the spot, so I went ahead to the detached palace where the empress dowager stayed.
She didn’t seem to be sleeping, but she appeared as if she had fallen asleep in a light robe. She offered me a seat in the parlor in the separate palace, but I did not intend to sit down while I stared at her.
The empress dowager sat comfortably in her seat, looking up at me. “You’ve come to visit me so rudely at such a late hour and haven’t said anything, so I don’t know what’s going on. Do you know what time it is now?”
I laughed bitterly. I was absolutely disgusted with her and her pretenses. “Are you having fun?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you visit the man in the dungeon and let him go?”
She crossed her legs with a coquettish smile that a lesser man might have fallen for. “You throw such accusations at me, and you say things that other people might misunderstand. Why would I do such a thing?”
“Ha.”
“It is true that I visited him, but I was just trying to treat him a little better because he was a prince of a foreign country and I had to treat him with dignity. Shouldn’t the empress dowager take care of things that the emperor did not care about?”