Translator: Kimmy
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“Huff, Puff, Urg.”
Ah, Mighty Emperor.
His limbs trembled, he could taste the sweetness in his mouth, and his body was soaking with sweat.
But unlike Eric, the black-haired God of War’s breath didn’t even shake a little.
“Come.”
The Emperor spoke to him but Eric closed his mouth shut to even save the energy to reply to attack him again.
One step.
His calves muscles swelled up to the limit.
Another step.
He could see the Emperor’s violet eyes glow in this distance.
“Eric!”
He heard his terrifying temporary commander yell but Eric ignored it.
One hit. Just one hit. Just touching his clothes is good enough.
Your Highness, we are quite feisty. Us 2nd Order of the Knights can at least do that much to you.
Eric had a sentimentality that didn’t match his big build, even in this situation, he started tearing up.
He was saddened by his daily decreasing intimidating aura and he wanted to prove to his majesty with this single hit.
The little boy in Eric did not want to disappoint the hero in front of him.
Eric desperately reached his hand out to him.
“Whoa”
The Emperor laughed at him.
No, Eric thought he laughed at him.
Eric’s sword dashed directly towards the Emperor with the intent to hurt him and pierce his chest.
Brigitta’s scream ringed throughout the training court.
But.
“Nice.”
Expectedly.
Eric’s sword did not reach the Black Emperor.
In the silent training court, his energy-drained body started falling.
He wanted to lie on the floor anyway.
Eric didn’t even consider trying to stand up.
But the speed was a bit slow. Or was it feeling slow because of the exhaustion?
Eric glanced at his hips feeling something grab him.
“Bri, this guy is pretty good.”
The Emperor himself was helping him up so he wouldn’t fall despite him trying to hurt him just a minute ago.
Eric’s eyes widened.
Brigitta sighed.
Of course, she didn’t think Karlos would get hurt but she did not expect Eric to go that hard on him.
‘You bastard. You are going to get 30 laps for surprising me.’
As he was about to lose his conscience, Eric trembled at Brigitta’s murderous eyes.
“He’s quite feisty, Your Majesty..”
“Yes, seems like it. I like that one.”
Thinking the Emperor’s smiling face finally looked like a normal person’s, Eric fainted for real.
*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*
Brigitta sent over the broken sword and Eric to the knights of the 2nd Order and walked towards the Emperor, satisfied.
His intimidating aura definitely decreased the past 3 days.
It was still scary enough to be inspected at least twice in the streets but he downgraded from a horrifying wild creature to a scary-looking gangster.
It was a very cheap remark towards the Emperor of an Empire but Brigitta was bold enough to not care about such things.
“Eric.. Eric. Why didn’t I know?”
“Because he is the son-in-law of a Baron*. You wouldn’t know about him. And you barely come to watch training.”
He knew Brigitta was not scorning but he still wore a bitter smile.
He did hear from the Chancellor that some military officers were sad that he barely came to them but he just decided to ignore it.
It was a struggle for him to receive strangers’ respect and honor as an Emperor.
Karlos mumbled to himself.
‘Perhaps I was distancing myself too much.’
“I’ll visit more often.”
“….I wasn’t telling you to but, well, at least they’ll like it.”
Brigitta scoffed and crossed her arms.
Despite being a temporary commander, the 2nd Order of the Knights was under her command. She was satisfied that they were able to prove to her their progress in such a short time.
“Anyway, they are such interesting people. Why don’t you go easy on them from now on?”
The Emperor thought of the knights of the 2nd Order who he was not sure they cried out of pain or despair for the past 3 days.
He almost said: Sorry for not paying more attention to you guys!
First of all, their meals were not good and there were three couples that broke up because of Brigitta’s handsomeness and good manners. Other than that the problems ranged variously including the quarrel they had with the 1st Order of Knights.
Since the Emperor just listened to them without saying or doing anything, they got a little more courageous, telling him everything they were keeping to themselves.
It would be at least 20 times that Brigitta pressed her temples in between those statements.
“Anyway, it’s good that we grain…..? gained something. I think this will do. By the way, how do you do that?”
Brigitta was always curious about exactly what his intimidating aura was since a long time ago.
If he was by her side, even the wild monsters of the Snow Mountain ran away.
But even Karlos himself didn’t know what exactly his intimidating aura was.
He only had a rough idea of it.
Perhaps Max was right about it. He could not describe exactly what it was.
“It’s just shwaa and Paat, then…..”
“……..”
“It’s something like…..Pazat, and? like Pang~ y’know.”
“Your Majesty, can’t you speak your own language?”
‘I am so disrespectful recently.’
Brigitta thought to herself.
Anyways, the ‘day’ finally came.
*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*
While the Emperor was busy ‘playing’ with the knights for the past 3 days, Brigitta was working hard on other things.
She continuously talked to Eva about the character similar to the Emperor’s made-up identity.
It’s someone tall and intimidating. We lost contact when we were young. We are naturally big people so don’t get too scared.
His name is Karl. I met him in the Royal Knights.
Etc.
Brigitta felt a bit disturbed by the details but she decided to push that away for the sake of her mental peace.
So the ‘Karl’ Eva knew was a person taller than Brigitta with a scary face, but has a calm personality and was a Royal Knight, and Brigitta’s acquaintance and a fan of her novels.
And that ‘acquaintance’ was fluttering right now.
*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*
His outfit was really plain.
He wore brown cotton pants and his boots were the ones given to the knights and were the same one as Brigitta.
There were no plain active clothes that fit him so he borrowed Eric’s shirt and the black coat he wore was a coat that was on display in the store for such a long time because of the long length that didn’t fit a normal person.
Brigitta said “hm”, and looked at her work.
His physique was good so despite wearing such plain clothes, he looked good.
She was satisfied.
The Royal Knights had holidays by shifts and did not have a ‘weekend’ like others.
It was because there was no guarantee that there won’t be any accidents happening on the weekends and you could never expect what would happen in the palace.
In the case of Brigitta, she didn’t request a holiday this week at all so she went to work all 7 days of the week.
So this was something like her first holiday since she arrived here.
“Your Ma………Karl. Over here.”
“Uh, uhh, um.”
His arms and legs strode together so he looked silly but he didn’t fall behind.
His stiffened face from nervousness looked like a face someone would yell, “criminal!”
‘What’s the point of training to lessen his intimidating aura then?’
Brigitta was a little skeptical.
“Karl, loosen up.”
“H, how do I do that?”
“Make a shameless face. Like when you are bullyi….talking to the ministers.”
“You thought my face was shameless, huh?”
“If Eva sees your face right now, she’ll run away in fright.”
“No, that can’t happen……”
Whether Karlos became serious again or not, the distance to the house did not change.
While stopping him from trying to escape, saying he needs to get Eva something better than the pudding he brought, they reached the house.
Brigitta felt a bit sorry for Karlos right now, looking back at how he was fearless during the War.
Karlos wondered if his heart was still intact.
‘My heart is beating so much, wouldn’t it have dropped at least a few inches from all this beating?’
For the first time in his life, he was worried about his health.
Looking at how his hands were sweaty even though he wasn’t wearing gloves, he was definitely nervous.
He couldn’t even open his favorite author’s door despite all the strength and courage he showed in the training court yesterday.
If Maximilien saw him right now, he would have laughed his ass off.
“Karl. Why aren’t you opening the door?”
“W, wait. I need to breathe a bit. I need to.”
Brigitta looked up at Karlos and made the you-are-so-pathetic face she made often recently.
But the Emperor ignored his subject’s rudeness and focused on catching his breath.
‘Okay, I’m doing it. It’s just opening a door.’
When his shaking fingers finally reached the doorknob……
“Hey, welc…………”
The door opened from the inside.
*.·:·.☽✧ ✦ ✧☾.·:·.*
This is the end of how it came to this point.
Brigitta stopped ignoring reality and faced it.
Eva was stiffened up like a scared rabbit and Karlos was frozen like the Rumilesa statue in the Central Garden in the palace. She looked at them interchangeably and looked up at the sky.
It was so tragically blue.
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TL Note:
Ahhh, they finally meet!! (ღ˘⌣˘ღ)
Clarification:
When Brigitta says, “Because he is a son-in-law of a Baron” it means that Eric is not in the high social rank that the Emperor would know about.
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