Chapter 26

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“Walten. Say it again.”

The Empress glared at Alexis with red eyes with veins that looked like they were on the verge of bursting. The handmaiden, noticing the venom in them, quickly motioned the other handmaidens away.

“It’s as you heard.”

Alexis said indifferently.

“And you call yourself a member of the Imperial family?”

The Empress’ roar resounded. It was right after the maids had just left and the door to the Empress’ drawing room closed.

“You’re going to leave the woman who has been missing for three years in the Duchess seat? Are you out of your mind?”

“What else can I do?”

He wasn’t shaken at all. Even if it was an Imperial Order, he had no intention of following it.

Alexis didn’t care what other people said to him. From the beginning, Kathleen Winston was the only one who could sit in the Duchess of Walten’s position.

He didn’t care if she was just a Duchess by name. Others were not befitting of the position.

He held onto that façade and endured for three years.

That she would always return, and that the Duchess’ seat would always wait for its original master.

“You’re either not looking for her, or you’re pretending you can’t find her! Did you really try to find her? Have the knights under your command really gone on a search?!”

Anyone who saw this would think that Kathleen Walten was the Empress’ daughter.

‘How pathetic.’

From a distance, they might say that she was a benevolent Empress, but up close, she was just a hypocrite mad with anxiety.

“Find her now!”

“She either has fallen to the ground or risen to the sky*. How can I bring a person who cannot be found?”

“Then you should get a divorce and marry a young lady from another family!”

“Why should I do that?”

[T/N: * Refers to the disappearance of something and cannot be understood at all.]

Alexis laughed.

The Empress from her youth would not have expected this at all. That she would be so hung up on the life of an illegitimate child, whom she was so anxious to get rid of, and the life of his successor.

“Are you really asking because you don’t know? Of course, I’m saying this because you have to continue the succession!”

“I don’t think so.”

“……What?”

“I don’t need a child with my blood. If I did, he would have been reduced to nothing but a chess piece for the Empress to use. Would I be so crazy to do such a thing?”

“You’re saying that even though you know the Empire will fall!”

The Empress rushed over and grabbed him by the collar. The strength of the grip of a woman in her sixties could have been easily shaken off, but Alexis let her do it. It felt good to see her eyes filled with frustration and fear.

“You, you think you can take me on now?”

The Empress raised her voice and laughed, then stopped. Her grip on his neck was still there.

“You lowly trash. A maggot-like b*stard. Trying to take my son’s seat and you’re shamelessly saying that?”

“I don’t know why you’re working so hard to marry such a ‘precious’ son and wanting me to have an heir.”

It was just cursing anyway. He wasn’t very impressed since he had heard it ever since he was a child. More than that, he was curious about why the Empress was doing that.

The Empress took a step back from the marriage of her biological son, while frantically obsessing with the succession of her adoptive son.

It also wasn’t enough to put pressure on him, she tried to fuel Kathleen’s unrest when she nominated Isabella Winston as a candidate for Crown Princess.

He wondered why the children of the Duke of Walten took precedence when the Crown Prince’s children would have more imperial power.

And.

‘You don’t seem to know yet.’

Kathleen didn’t seem to have told the Empress about his pharmacist.

‘Where the hell did you go?’

When all the pursuits were unsuccessful, Alexis chose to enter the enemy’s lair on his own feet. He gently provoked the Empress’ temper. However, the Empress truly seemed to know less about Kathleen’s whereabouts than he did.

His mind was a complicated mixture of confusion and doubt.

“There are many things that this lowly subject of yours who does not know grace wants to know.”

The Empress clenched her teeth and said.

“I don’t have time for that. There isn’t much time left for the four of us.”

“……”

“Bring in an heir before the Emperor dies. If you don’t want to see the land of Trivellian split and turn into a sea of fire, immediately!”

“That doesn’t sound bad either.”

As soon as Alexis finished speaking, the Empress raised her hand.

Slap!

The hand that flew to his cheek had quite a bit of strength, but it wasn’t strong enough to shake the general who roamed across battlefields. The Empress trembled with anger as she was pushed to the edge by Alexis, who was not affected by the slap at all.

“What? Say it again!”

“It’s not fair to go alone and die anyway. Wouldn’t it be better if we all die together?”

“You rotten b*stard……!”

The Empress, who was about to rush at him with her nails up, suddenly grabbed the back of her neck and staggered. Alexis didn’t pay her any mind and turned away, leaving the drawing room.

“Y-Your Majesty the Empress!”

The face of her handmaiden, who pushed her head anxiously through the roughly opened door, became hesitant. The other maids, who had escaped earlier in a hurry, saw him and turned away with a frightened look on their faces.

The sound of glass breaking was heard along with a nervous shout.

Alexis hurried out of the Empress’ palace. Low heat rose on the cheek that the Empress had slapped.

“Your Grace, we have gathered reports from local estates.”

Viscount Rylent, who was waiting outside, caught up with him and was startled.

“Sir, your cheek…”

“Let me have a look.”

He rubbed his frozen eyes and stopped talking. Viscount Rylent looked around him and lowered his voice to whisper.

“It’s as you expected.”

The earthquakes were becoming more frequent.

“His Majesty’s condition is getting worse.”

“It’s becoming restless. If things keep going like this, Trivellian……”

“Let’s go out and talk.”

Alexis cut him off. Viscount Rylent, who had nearly spilled the Empire’s secrets in a hurry, realized his mistake.

“My apologies, Your Grace.”

He carefully selected his words, and quickly reported as soon as the carriage left the Imperial Palace.

“Earthquakes that started on the outskirts are sporadically expanding and coming towards the capital. After buying off some people in the Imperial Palace for the investigation, it seems that His Majesty doesn’t have much time left.”

“Are there really no other descendants from the Imperial Family?”

“Yes. As per our investigation, unfortunately, there are a few ladies from the Imperial Family line, but you are the only male.”

Laughter erupted.

“Are you saying that Trivellian will really fall apart when I die?”

“The ground is stable only when there are two male imperial descendants. If there isn’t at least one male imperial descendant born before His Majesty the Emperor dies, that would be the case.”

Viscount Rylent felt a chill run through his back as he recalled the earthquake he had suffered on the Duchy as a child.

“Is his Highness the Crown Prince unaware of this fact? If he knew, he wouldn’t stay still.”

“I doubt it. Seeing how the Empress goes crazy about my heir, and yet he still broke off his engagement, I don’t think he knows.”

There was no way to know his half-brother’s innermost thoughts. When Peter was born, Alexis was in the imperial prison, eating trash thrown by the guards without seeing even a single glimmer of light. When the boy first appeared before him, he was dressed in precious silk and claimed to be his brother. That time, Alexis was already a young soldier who had been dispatched to stop the invasion of the Southerners.

He was in a position where he could not even properly talk to Peter as he had to go to the battlefield. He did not know what the Crown Prince who was always smiling was thinking, and he didn’t want to know.

Alexis thought that that was best for him and Peter. He didn’t have any feelings about him. Just because they were of the same blood did not mean they were family.

“Perhaps he couldn’t even dream of what the Empress did, and thinks that she will live a hundred years.”

At Alexis’ justification, Viscount Rylent changed his expression and sat closer.

“I got a call from Edith. She said she found a drug that can maintain your current state, although not as detoxifying as ice flowers.”

“Continue.”

For a moment Alexis closed his eyes, which were getting heavier, then opened them.

He felt dizzy for a moment. Then his vision went blurry and cleared again.

‘It looks like the poison is circulating again.’

He spent three years detoxifying with ice flowers, but it wasn’t perfect. The ice flower colony could not be found again, and the small amount of poison left in Alexis’ body was uncontrollably flowing through his veins again.

“It’s a medicinal herb called Tassart. The effect is known to some extent, but there is a problem. Transporting and storing the herb is difficult as it also lives in the cold. I think a different way will be needed.”

“What is the plan?”

Viscount Rylent took out the prepared report and held it out.

As soon as he took it and read his first line, Alexis frowned.

“Are you kidding me?”

Viscount Rylent was determined.

“No, I’m serious.”

“I asked you to investigate the storage of medicinal herbs, so why did a bakery appear?”

“If you look at the very last page there, there is something noteworthy about it. In a small town called Osole, there is a shop that makes pies and cakes and the cream does not go bad even in summer. It’s even cold as if it was made on a winter night. There must be another way other than simply using ice. Recruiting him is the best way for now.”

“If you’re going to say nonsense, forget it.”

“Again, I am serious, I mean it.”

Viscount Rylent added a wedge.

“I have already been there once. Unfortunately, the bakery doesn’t open very often, so I didn’t see the owner that day, but it will be open today.”

“Didn’t you say that today is the day for the renovation of Mullen Castle?”

“Oh.”

A look of disappointment appeared on his face. Seeing his lieutenant’s bewildered look, Alexis rubbed his throbbing temple and said:

“It’s fine. I’ll go.”

“I’m sorry. I made a mistake. I made an error in the schedule because I put your condition first.”

“It doesn’t matter because I’m not going to die right now. Mullen Castle needs a supervisor, so you’d better go there. The Empress won’t be sane today anyway, so it’s probably easier for me to go.”

After cursing at Alexis, the Empress would lay ill with anger for at least one day. She would call the spy she had attached to the Duke of Walten, and that would be today.

Alexis got out of the carriage on the outskirts of the capital. Viscount Rylent insisted that he would go on horseback instead, but he refused.

“What would happen if we ran into a village without a lord and rode a carriage bearing the Duke’s emblem?”

“I apologize. Then I will go to Mullen and return as soon as it is finished.”

He quickly got on a horse, leaving his lieutenant looking worried. Fortunately, the village of Osole was not too far from the capital, based on the map.

It took more than half a day to arrive at the unnamed bakery that made the freshest cream in Trivellian. It took a little more time than expected.

He tied the horse’s reins to a tree at the entrance to the village, took off his red cloak, the Duke’s robe, and put it on the saddle.

He opened the map again and looked at it, and his eyes clouded again. The writing on the paper became hazy as if it had been smeared with water.

He waited for a while and his vision returned, but it wasn’t as clear as normal. Annoyed, he roughly shoved the map back into the saddle bag and walked along the road.

Fortunately, the bakery was easy to find.

As he pushed the door open, the bell hanging from the door rang out.

He saw a woman with scarlet hair moving busily from inside the bar.

“I’m looking for someone who makes cold cream.”

The woman turned to him. The silhouette of the person is visible, but her face was hazy.

Alexis narrowed and looked straight into hers. The faint blue eyes were looking at him.

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