Beguiling the Enemy’s Patriarch - Chapter 8

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 8
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The horse galloped at an absolutely staggering pace. I couldn’t even breathe, cradled against the Emperor of Belgot’s chest, my eyebrows the only thing fluttering in the wind. The ground seemed impossibly distant. The landscape blurred past so violently that nausea threatened to overwhelm me. And the arms holding me were unyielding and painfully hard—hardly surprising, given that the Emperor wore thick, angular armor plating.
Yet I lacked both the courage and the composure to complain. Where was my fate carrying me at this breakneck speed?
The Emperor tightened his grip around me and shouted.
“We pass through the magic circle as is! Don’t fall behind!”
Only then did I realize that dozens of horses followed behind ours, each bearing mounted soldiers. The continuous roar I’d been hearing was the entire guerrilla force thundering across the earth. I forced my eyes wide open. A magic circle. He’d said a magic circle.
In the distance, a brilliant mass of light blazed with searing intensity. A vast, circular pattern spread across two stepping stones. Within it, a strange luminous mass churned and writhed like something alive. It resembled a pulsating wall.
The horse’s pace never slowed. Just as the Emperor had commanded, the Belgot Imperial Army was about to charge straight through that magic circle. I understood instinctively: once we crossed that threshold, Lebovni would truly be goodbye.
“-”
Then, finally, the brilliant light surged forward like a tidal wave, consuming my vision entirely.
My eyes flashed white. But a large hand immediately covered them. The piercing light that had stabbed at me from all directions vanished, and my body lurched violently. The Emperor’s voice reached me as if from far away.
“Don’t stop! Keep riding until we touch Belgot soil!”
With those words, my vision plunged into absolute darkness.
* * *
My head throbbed as though it might split open. The surroundings were chaotic.
“I never expected such a complete lack of resistance to the mana stone’s power…”
“So she won’t wake up?”
“I cannot say with certainty—”
The voices of people hummed around me as though coming from a great distance. I couldn’t make out a single word clearly. How frustrating. I groaned and forced my eyes open. I thought I’d opened them wide, but my vision remained barely a slit.
“…!”
After much struggling, I finally opened my eyes fully. The moment they opened, the ringing in my ears faded and the world came into sharp focus. I heard several people inhale sharply.
The first thing I saw was gleaming silver hair. I stared blankly downward. Languid, drooping eyes. And those striking violet eyes with a crimson tint. A high bridge of the nose and neatly defined lips. A slender but decidedly strong jawline.
Well. A beautiful man.
“…You’ve awakened.”
The beautiful man spoke. Even in my daze, I found myself grinning foolishly.
He was a rare kind of handsome—the sort who could outshine celebrities and even Yerenika’s beauty. He looked to be around twenty-six now. Those languid, world-weary eyes were particularly captivating. Surrounded entirely in silver—silver hair, silver armor—only those striking violet eyes with their crimson tint shone with vivid clarity.
“Princess.”
The beautiful man spoke again.
As I continued grinning like an idiot, the man’s eyes narrowed slightly. He turned his head to ask someone a question.
“How serious is her condition?”
“W-well, I should examine her first…”
An elderly man with a white beard hurried to sit beside me. He wore a peculiar monocle, and his eye on that side was noticeably smaller—apparently his vision there was quite poor.
The old man rolled up his sleeves and asked me.
“Your Highness, might I trouble you for a brief examination?”
“….”
By then, my mind had begun to clear somewhat. The haze that had clouded my thoughts gradually lifted. I frowned and blinked. The headache I’d momentarily forgotten was returning.
What’s this? Did I get motion sickness that badly?
But I quickly dismissed the thought. Something felt wrong. The headache was intensifying, tightening its grip on my mind.
“Ugh.”
A splitting headache assaulted me as though my skull were being cleaved in two. In all my years, I had never experienced pain like this. White sparks erupted before my eyes. I couldn’t even scream—my body curled inward reflexively. My hands grasped at whatever they could reach, finding something cold and unyielding.
“Princess, wait—!”
An old man shouted something and pressed his palm against my forehead. Instantly, the agony doubled. I thrashed violently, wrenching myself free from his grip.
The pain that had begun in my head spread downward through my body, consuming every fiber of my being. Lightning flickered across my vision, and then a blinding white light erupted.
“Princess!”
“-.”
The voices calling my name grew louder, then softer, then louder again. I had no mind to listen—I was too consumed by the agony tearing through my body. Something—tears, mucus, saliva, I couldn’t tell—streamed down the side of my face.
The cold, hard object I’d been gripping with one hand suddenly moved. Even as I convulsed, I clung to it like a lifeline, squeezing harder.
“Hgh….”
A large, warm hand covered the back of my hand, where veins bulged prominently.
And in that very instant, the pain that had been ravaging every vessel in my body vanished as if washed away.
“…?”
Curled on my side, I blinked blankly.
In my tilted vision, I saw parched earth. And gleaming silver armor. A stupid whimper escaped my lips.
“Wh….”
What I had been gripping like a lifeline all this time was the foot of silver armor.
The foot…?
A large, rough hand rested over mine, which still clutched the armored foot. I blinked slowly and lifted my gaze upward. The crimson eyes that had met mine the moment I awoke now looked down at me directly. Gone was the languid light—replaced by a mixture of surprise, confusion, and concern.
The Emperor of Belgot spoke in an urgent tone.
“Princess, are you all right?”
“….”
A tear that had been trembling at the corner of my eye fell.
Only then did I realize I was a pathetic mess of tears and snot. Collapsed ignominiously on the ground. The sobs I hadn’t been able to release even while writhing in pain now clawed their way up my throat.
“Hic…. What is this….”
I’d spent days on high alert protecting my sister, only to be kidnapped like a piece of baggage. I’d been thrust onto a horse for the first time in my life and subjected to an inexplicable gallop. And now I was suffering from a pain I’d never experienced before in my entire existence!
In the end, I burst into the tears I’d been holding back. If I’d known things would come to this…!
“Hic…. But I would have done it anyway….”
That was the saddest part! The Emperor of Belgot called out to me, his expression deeply flustered.
“Princess.”
“If you couldn’t take my sister, you should have just left! Why did you have to take me…. You terrible, terrible…. Hic….”
Everything in the world felt unbearably sad. The rough earth against my left cheek was sad, my face being soaked with moisture was sad.
“Sister…. Tezebia…. Hic.”
At twenty-five years old, I’d ended up like this, and the only person I could call for was Tezebia, a character from a book. And even as I wept, my fingers—stiff from gripping so hard—seemed so pitiful that I cried even louder. Why did I have to grab a foot of all things? Hic, hic.
As I wailed almost inconsolably, the Emperor of Belgot seemed truly at a loss. And in the next moment, my body was lifted into the air.
“…!”
I was hoisted as easily as if I were a rag doll. A man with a face sculpted like a divine masterpiece stood directly before me. In stark contrast to my utterly wretched appearance, he was immaculate.
“Hic…. Ugh, hic. Hic.”
“What troubles you so?”
The Emperor of Belgot slipped his hands under my armpits and lifted me up. I dangled like a scarecrow as he carried me to the side.
The Emperor set me down upon a purple flag emblazoned with the imperial symbol of Belgot. Suddenly seated upon the very emblem of the empire, I was so startled that my sobs ceased abruptly.
“Ugh… h-hic.”
“What’s there to cry about so miserably?”
As my sobs subsided, hiccups took their place. How utterly pathetic. I looked up at the Emperor through eyes blurred by tears and saliva. The man who had set me down upon the flag rose to his feet, received something from a knight, and lowered himself once more.
“I hadn’t realized you were so sensitive to mana. My apologies. Did it hurt terribly?”
“H-hic… Y-yes?”
“And for abducting you so abruptly as well. You seemed quite startled.”
An apology I hadn’t anticipated. It was far too courteous a thing for a kidnapper to say—one who had come to devastate Lebovni. I stared at him with the most vacant expression I’d worn since arriving in this world.
What the Emperor had received from the knight appeared to be a handkerchief. He gently wiped my face with the white cloth, and streaks of both liquid and sticky residue came away. Ugh, how mortifying.
“I… I can do it myself…”
In the end, I mumbled in a voice barely audible as a mosquito’s hum and snatched the handkerchief away. Even so, I was supposedly a princess of some standing, yet my appearance was utterly deplorable.
The Emperor surrendered the handkerchief without resistance. I hastily scrubbed my face with it. The agony from moments before had vanished as though it were nothing but a dream. In fact, my mind felt clearer than before. Save for the stinging in my eyes and the congestion in my nose from crying so hard, there was not a single point of pain anywhere in my body.
What was that torment, then…?
“Have you always been sensitive to mana or mana stones in your daily life?”
And it seemed I wasn’t the only one harboring that very question.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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