Chapter 5
5. Not even calling the government by its name
“Is it refreshing?”
“Yes, not there… a little higher up.”
“Yes.”
Splash, splash.
The sound of water echoed in the silver basin. The scented oil made by crushing costmary and pomegranate in palm oil gave off a subtle fragrance, wafting through the bedroom.
I left my smooth, callus-free feet to Derrick’s care while I was busy eating ripe red grapes.
Even I had to admit—my adaptability was incredible.
‘Aside from the inconvenience of having no magic, being an empress is pretty nice.’
And not just any empress—a figurehead empress who didn’t even have to work.
I had power, backing, and loyal servants attending to me. There wasn’t a single thing to worry about and stress over.
At this rate, being human was manageable.
“Um, Your Majesty.”
“Yes?”
“There is… something I’d like to ask.”
And the one responsible for the greatest pillar of my comfortable life was this knight, Derrick Noert.
He reacted sensitively to every single gesture and glance of mine, and he always tried to grant my wishes.
Take today, for instance.
It was absurd for a royal guard knight to wash and massage someone’s feet. If any noble family found out I treated my guard knight like this, the world would be turned upside down.
Knights had immense pride. Even when serving a master they deeply respected, they wouldn’t kneel so easily.
And washing feet, of all things?
Yet Derrick, without a single complaint at my words, prepared warm water and scented oil. Then, with eyes that looked as if he had received a favor, he carefully attended to me.
I was quite satisfied, so there was no reason not to answer his question.
“You may ask me anything.”
“The other day… you refused His Majesty the Emperor’s visit, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Are you… feeling alright?”
His tone seemed genuinely concerned at first. But did they think I, at my age, wouldn’t catch the hidden meaning in his words?
Derrick was hoping I was completely unaffected.
He was asking, hoping that not even a teaspoon of lingering affection for the Emperor remained. It was rather cute.
I tilted my head slightly and gave an eye-smile.
“I am used to being served.”
“…….”
“I no longer wish to serve anyone. Romantic feelings are also a form of service to me.”
Even among my older sisters, I was the notoriously cheeky youngest.
The only one I truly respected was my eldest sister.
Other than her, there was no one before whom I would bow my head.
Whether I had grown weak, become human, lost my magic, or was on the verge of having my soul pierced and erased by a blade forged of divine power—
I was born without knowing how to bow.
Enrique was the sole, unique exception to that.
“So the answer is simple. Whatever the Emperor does or doesn’t do, I am not only fine, but I wouldn’t mind never seeing his face for the rest of my life.”
At my clear answer, Derrick’s hands paused for a moment, then resumed moving.
‘He really is like a winter bear.’
His build, his height. His muscles.
Most of all, I liked his ashen hair and eyes, like a snowy winter sky.
I glanced over Derrick, then reached my hand toward the bowl of grapes and quickly swallowed a few more.
“Ah.”
Just then.
As I bit into a plump grape, juice spilled onto my lips. Derrick looked up, startled by my small cry, and the moment I met his eyes—eyes that desperately tried to hide their longing—I felt a mischievous urge.
“!”
I, who had been wiggling my feet, stuck out my red tongue and licked the grape juice off my lips. Watching me trace my own lips must have been quite stimulating, as a vein bulged in Derrick’s neck.
I laughed heartily and pressed the tip of my foot firmly against his kneeling thigh—solid and muscular.
“Knight, could you bring me that diary over there?”
“…Yes.”
A metallic edge tinged the stoic knight’s voice.
Teasing him was quite enjoyable. Whenever I toyed with him, his yang energy grew even stronger, making it easier for me to greedily swallow it and convert it into life force.
But he was pitiful, so I shouldn’t push him too hard.
I took the diary Derrick respectfully handed me and opened it to the page I’d stopped at yesterday.
This diary, bound in red goatskin and filled with high-quality paper, contained records of what happened after ‘Leonarda Achillo’ became ‘Leonarda Nix’.
I had found it a few days ago while redecorating the bedroom to my taste, and since it seemed useful, I was reading it.
But why hadn’t I finished reading something so important yet?
‘Because it’s frustrating! Incredibly so!’
My own love life had failed, so I had no room to talk, but honestly, reading about someone else’s failed romance was infuriating.
I had to take deep breaths several times while reading Leonarda’s scribbled entries. It made me so mad I couldn’t stand it.
[I hate him so much for not looking at me. I wish he were dead. I wish he would just die so I wouldn’t have to see him… Or maybe I should… Ah, I can’t take it anymore…….]
The ‘Or maybe I should…’ part was scribbled over haphazardly with black ink, but I could roughly make out the hidden words by tracing the ends of the alphabet strokes. And at the end of the last sentence, a couple of tear drops.
I finished reading yesterday’s page with bleary eyes, thumped my chest once, and turned to the next page. Meanwhile, my maid, Charlotte, who had entered, dried my feet with a soft towel.
[I’m so lonely I want to get an animal. A puppy would be nice, a kitten too. But why do I sneeze so much when I get close to animal fur? Can I not even keep an animal? Then I don’t know where to fill this loneliness. Why was I born like this?]
‘So Leonarda had a fur allergy.’
[I was feeling good for the first time in a while, so I attended a dinner banquet with the ministers. The attendant serving the food first put some in his bowl. Then naturally moved to that woman’s side. When that woman said ‘sorry’ in an embarrassed tone, the attendant acted surprised, as if just realizing his mistake. What… am I in this palace?]
It was only natural that the legal wife should take precedence over a concubine.
No matter how cherished a mistress might be, it was against decorum for her to be treated better than the legal wife when in the same place.
‘Frankly, the fact that a mistress is seated at a dinner banquet with ministers is incomprehensible in itself.’
But given that the Empress’s influence in the palace was currently negligible, let’s set that aside.
‘Did that attendant keep his head?’
If it were me, I would have gouged out those useless eyes.
Since there was no mention of any punishment, it seemed he kept his insolent head firmly attached to his body. No wonder discipline was lax.
The real Leonarda must have been an incredibly kind person.
“Tch.”
I irritably tore off a grape and popped two into my mouth at once.
Reading all kinds of stories that choked my breath while my cheeks bulged and I chewed grapes made me want to either throw this diary away or burn it immediately.
“Hoo.”
I forced myself to endure and turned the pages with trembling hands for a few minutes.
‘Anyway, so you’re saying that the mistress is doing everything the empress should be doing, using the excuse that the empress is unwell.’
So that’s why they can’t call the mistress a mistress! They have to call her a Saintess?
‘How ridiculous. So what if she’s a Saintess? Do I care? Oh, they were childhood friends? So what?’
The Emperor must have deliberately placed Leonarda in the empress’s position.
If a healthy person became empress, he wouldn’t be able to give power to the woman he loved. That must be why!
‘Wait, so does that mean he’s still just waiting for her to die as soon as possible?’
What a crazy bastard.
After reading the diary to the end, I remembered Enrique and felt absolutely filthy.
“It’s your fault. Making me kill you…”
Even without closing my eyes, the scene of Enrique blaming me vividly came to mind.
Enrique, who wasn’t being mind-controlled or under anyone’s spell. In his right mind, he decided to kill me.
What on earth was his love?
Would it be better if Enrique’s feelings weren’t love? Maybe it would be less miserable if he had never loved me, not even for a moment.
But he did love me, to some extent.
‘Just less than he loved himself. Exactly that much.’
Even though I was born and raised as a demon and never learned about love, I knew what loyalty, duty, and aesthetics were. And even knowing he was a holy knight, I would not have killed Enrique.
That much was certain.
‘Did Enrique think I would kill him once his true nature was revealed?’
Is that why he attacked without hesitation?
Even though I had no intention of attacking.
‘He definitely said it. He asked me why I came down. He resented me. He said he resented having to kill me with his own hands…’
That meant Enrique tried to have me killed by someone else.
Our honeymoon house must have been the trap.
But things went wrong because I escaped from there.
‘Ah, no matter how many times I think about it, it’s so messed up.’
Suddenly, I recalled the unfamiliar woman with pink hair. The man who had disliked touching me stood still when that woman ran and hugged him.
“Ah, my poor Enri! My love. It must have been so hard for you, all this time?”
That one sentence implied a lot.
She was close enough to call him ‘Enri’. Probably the woman Enrique truly loved.
Since he was an imperial prince, she was likely a noble.
The woman I saw in his dying eyes was wearing expensive items from head to toe, so my assumption was reasonable.
‘Not only that, it was probably that woman’s plan to send Enrique to that region in the first place, to have him meet me.’
She’s quite an ambitious woman. Enduring an entire year to make Enrique the Crown Prince.
I applaud her patience, at least.
‘If it were me, I could never just sit by and watch my man stay with another woman for an entire year.’
