ITPD 06

 Chapter 06

The Emperor and I froze, still wearing our smiles.

> “You look like a happy couple. Even though you must have met for the first time today.”

As if her mockery was a button, the Emperor, who had been relaxed, put his cold mask back on.

“Did I ever need your evaluation?”
“I was just saying what I saw. I apologize if I offended you.”
“Whether or not I accept your apology depends on hearing why you are here.”
“I came to repay the favor because I received great help at the banquet hall. I didn’t know the room’s owner would be absent at this late hour.”

The Emperor slowly frowned and called my name.

“Meriel.”
“…Yes, Your Majesty.”
> “You are the one who will become my Empress. You don’t need to welcome people who show up without an appointment.”

His voice was as cold as ice.
The man who had changed into such an authoritative tone, so much so that I wondered if he was the same person who had been laughing with me just moments ago, felt incredibly unfamiliar.

> “I am telling you to send away the uninvited guest, Meriel.”

While I couldn’t bring myself to answer, Adeline stood up straight.

“I would not have come if I had known Meriel had a prior engagement with Your Majesty.”
“My meeting with her does not require your permission.”
“Permission? You, of all people, should recognize the validity of my resentment!”
“Should I, indeed?”
“Of course! You know better than anyone how long I have longed for the position of Empress!”

A sob was mixed into Adeline’s shout. Her voice was thick with injustice and grief.

> “I know. Is there anyone who knows better than me what you did to narrow the candidates down to only you?”

“You know that, and yet you place someone from an unheard-of family like that by your side? That is unacceptable!”
> “Didn’t I warn you earlier, when you eliminated the third Empress candidate? I told you to behave so that I wouldn’t have to make this choice.”

“If something is so trivial that it can be eliminated by my hands, how dare it be fit to be Your Majesty’s companion!”

Adeline’s voice turned almost into a scream. Despair and anger were mixed on her face.

> “That position alone was my life’s goal, Your Majesty. In every moment of my life.”

Adeline, who had been grinding her teeth and murmuring, suddenly turned toward me.

> “Knowing that full well, isn’t it too cruel to fill that position with something like this?”

“Adeline. Calm down.”

I tried to soothe her by gently pushing aside the finger she was pointing at me. But it backfired.

“Calm down? You keep ruining the opportunity I’ve been eagerly waiting for, and you tell me to calm down!”
“You probably won’t believe me, but I really didn’t want this.”
> “That’s what’s even more unpleasant! That a position not allowed to me no matter how hard I try holds no value to you!”

Madness lingered in Adeline’s laugh.

I thought that at this rate, either the maid who didn’t like working, or the Captain of the Imperial Guard the Emperor had left behind, would surely come running, so I glanced outside the door and narrowed the distance with Adeline.

“Lower your voice and speak calmly. What exactly does Adeline want?”
“Ha! If I tell you, will you do it?”
“Yes. I want to do that for you as much as possible, but honestly, I don’t know what you want.”

I was sincere.
If we were talking about who was more wronged, wasn’t it me, pushed in the back and told to die without even knowing why?

> ‘I don’t even know how things are flowing, so why are you yelling at me!’

Adeline’s lips, which had even stopped sneering, twisted crookedly.

> “I want you, Meriel, to disappear. Cleanly, right now, completely from my sight. Forever, if possible.”

I had planned to sincerely listen to Adeline’s request, but I let the strength out of my shoulders and waved my hand with a tired face.

“No…. Instead of thinking that either I fail or you fail is the only answer….”
“Then? Is there another answer? Did His Majesty take you to that ‘blind spot’ and sweetly whisper that he would take two Empresses?”
> “That’s not it, but… I just think there must be a way somewhere that satisfies Adeline, me, and His Majesty.”

“Oh my. Good heavens. Meriel. I don’t like you, but I have to say this.”

Adeline frowned, still sneering.

> “You should never believe a man’s sweet talk so readily. Especially the words of a man like His Majesty, who is prepared to use anything to achieve his goals, you should be even more wary of.”

“Isn’t that too harsh? Coming from someone who so desperately wants my position.”
“Oh dear. You know that’s never because I love His Majesty, don’t you? I simply want to rise above everyone else. Why are you acting like you don’t know?”

Adeline and the Emperor looked at each other and scoffed.

I watched the exchange between the Emperor and Adeline and mulled over what he had said.

> ‘If a major accident happens and there’s a twist turning this into a decent event drama… then those two can live sweetly together, he said.’

I clicked my tongue, ‘Tsk.’

Adeline aside, the Emperor’s eyes, no matter how I looked at them, were not the eyes of someone looking at a person they had a crush on.

> ‘Why did the Emperor lie to me, acting like a friend, saying he liked Adeline? From the Emperor’s perspective, there’s no real benefit to deceiving me….’

“You thought if you coaxed me properly and played nice, I’d just quietly die, but now you’re using your head to survive.”

Just then, the Emperor sneered as if he could read my mind.

I looked at the Emperor with a feeling similar to when someone’s dagger is about to strike me down.
A corner of my heart stung a little, and I felt a bit disappointed.
Just… that was all.

“Sigh.”

I tried to shake off this feeling with a single sigh. But Adeline and the Emperor were waiting for my answer, their eyes full of anticipation.

> ‘How childish, how childish. They must be much younger than they look.’

Their anticipatory eyes fueled my defiance.

> “I’ll tell you this since you two seem very curious about how I feel right now.”

I had no choice but to open my mouth. As an adult, I didn’t want to disappoint children waiting for a reaction to the prank they’d played.

> “I think I hate this kind of thing, Adeline.”

“What. Being stabbed in the back by someone you trusted?”
“No. Well, of course, being stabbed in the back doesn’t feel good either. But rather than that… hmm.”

I paused for a moment and chose the words that best captured my current feelings.

> “Everyone treating me like an idiot and trying to get rid of me like I’m some kind of nuisance. I hate that.”

The smile disappeared from the Emperor’s face. Contrary to him, I smiled brightly instead. As a repayment for the friendship that had reminded me, even if just for a moment, of my childhood that I myself had forgotten.

“Where I lived, a cliffside mountain village, there wasn’t much to go around, so I lived every day thinking about the most efficient method. Whether it was food. Or people’s lives.”
“…….”
“So I guess that’s why…. I really hate it when people treat someone who could clearly be useful as a mere obstacle and just try to get rid of them.”

As I spoke, I approached the desk. Then I started scribbling hastily improvised sentences onto the paper I had prepared to write the letter to my family.

> “From what I see, the wishes of the three of us here are essentially the same. That I die.”

“…….”
> “Your Majesty seems to want to do something with Adeline after getting rid of me. Adeline thinks I’m in the way for her to become Empress. And my task is to live a trivial life where nothing goes my way and then die.”

Even as I spoke, I didn’t stop my hand from writing on the paper.
Considering I had impulsively scribbled them, the sentences were quite plausible, and it felt like the disappointment the Emperor had stirred up was being washed away.

I pushed away the heavy shadow in my heart like that and nodded.

> ‘See? If you just use your head a little, you can satisfy all three people’s goals and needs. Idiots.’

Praising myself and belittling those two, I felt a little better.

With a lighter heart, I held up the paper toward them.

> 『At the end of the path where light sleeps and darkness settles
> Beyond the red door, the silver secretly buried
> Behind the moon holding a lunar halo
> Shall lead the lost ones
> So the jewel of the enraged Falkenstein
> Covered by Evergreen’s blood
> Shall become the key to the seal』

It was just a meaningless list of words pretending to be profound. I had simply imitated a plausible passage from the prophecy that was currently wrecking my life in real-time.

Watching their eyes move busily as they read the nonsense I had made up made me feel even prouder.

“The jewel of Falkenstein… the red door… What is this supposed to mean?”

Adeline asked in a trembling voice.

I just shrugged once. After admiring my own useless sentences one more time, I quietly set the paper down on the floor.

> “Watch closely. I’ll show you that everyone can be satisfied without stabbing anyone in the back.”

The Emperor stared at me with an expression that made it hard to tell if he was anxious or displeased. Holding his gaze, I threw the vase he had given me to the floor with all my might.

The vase shattered into pieces with a loud crash. Then I picked up the sharpest shard and, without hesitation, stabbed it deep into my neck.

> “Meriel!”
> “What are you doing!”

The two screamed my name like a shriek and reached out their arms. But perhaps because they were amateurs, they couldn’t match the speed of a former warrior.

Watching the blood spurting from my neck stain Adeline and the Emperor red, and soak the fake prophecy, I closed my eyes contentedly.

> ‘A life that was going to die anyway should be used this usefully. Idiots.’

Now, this story would proceed as the ‘event drama’ the Emperor had secretly wished for.

Adeline would become the Empress, just as she wanted. And I, having died disappointed in someone I briefly thought of as a friend, would have successfully fulfilled that Comedy-Tragedy Total Quantity or whatever.

This was probably what Perenustus wanted.

> ‘I’m pretty good at this, aren’t I?’

Satisfaction offset the excruciating pain that was eating away at my body. Though it was a painful and slow death, I could clearly feel the corners of my mouth turning up in satisfaction.

As the warmth drained away, a terrible chill rushed in. With the man watching me with devastatingly cold red eyes as my last sight, my consciousness faded completely.