Celebrity Lady - Chapter 146

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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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Celebrity Lady
Episode 146
Lark sensed something amiss in Rubetria’s state and dismissed the guards and attendants.
“What’s wrong? What happened?”
“Ah, um…….”
Half relief, half uncontained excitement she could scarcely steady.
Rubetria, her hands clutching his cheeks, barely managed to open her mouth and ask.
“You’re alive…….”
“…….”
An incomprehensible, strange question.
Yet Lark sensed it instinctively. Why she had come to him so abruptly now, asking such a thing.
“Yes, I’m alive. I’m fine.”
“Thank goodness. Really. Hic. Thank goodness, thank goodness…….”
Lark caught the tottering Rubetria and carried her to his bed.
He sat her down and, kneeling before her, slowly arranged her disheveled hair.
Rubetria wore only indoor clothes beneath a light outer robe. Even slippers for wearing at home…….
Without a moment’s thought to propriety, she had simply rushed to the Imperial Palace.
‘Why?’
Surely she had wanted to confirm with her own eyes whether he lived or died.
“Did I have a dream where I died?”
“No.”
“Then?”
“It wasn’t a dream.”
“……I see.”
Lark bit his lip.
From that answer, he understood clearly what he had dimly suspected.
“Things are going wrong, aren’t they?”
“Your Highness, I have no wishes left now…….”
Rubetria sobbed and leaned into Lark’s embrace.
“So this time, you absolutely cannot die. You mustn’t…….”
* * *
Spirits who govern time can instinctively sense the flow of time that defies providence.
It’s like cutting through a single thread and awkwardly splicing another thread into that gap—there’s a wrongness in the flow of time itself.
“Hmm?”
Pose, one of the Three Time Spirits, suddenly sensed the wrongness.
He had felt something similar once before. When thirty years of time had been rewound.
And this time too, it must be…… the power of the ‘King.’
“Only a few hours left. Just imagining that idiot Lark’s vacant expression makes my blood boil.”
January 13th.
Pre-dawn darkness outside.
Nathan, having not slept a wink, trembled with exhilaration, and until just moments ago, Pose had been restraining him.
Pose’s eyes landed intently on the poison sitting before Nathan.
‘Something about this felt like a trap…….’
Pose snatched up the powdered poison.
Nathan flinched.
“What? Give it back.”
Because Pose had kept hesitating and discouraging him about this perfect opportunity, Nathan was startled by his sudden move.
“Wait, Nathan. Let’s think about this.”
“Yeah, right. Who’s stopping you? First hand that over, then go think to yourself.”
Ignoring Nathan, Pose drifted upward and pulled away.
“Hey!”
Well over half a day’s time had been awkwardly excised, yet Pose retained no memory of the missing hours.
‘Someone rewound time.’
If it were the ability of Geston, a mid-tier Spirit, regression would not apply to Pose, who was apex-tier.
So he should certainly retain the memory, but if he had none at all…….
‘It was definitely the King.’
The King’s Contractor had rewound time.
‘When a single wish is already too precious to squander, what reason could there be to desperately rewind just one day?’
Today, Nathan would poison the Emperor’s teacup.
Though Pose had pleaded many times for careful consideration, Nathan’s eyes burned with unwavering resolve and madness.
Most certainly……Nathan had drunk the poison. Pose was sure of it.
‘Then the King’s Contractor rewound time to save the Emperor after he drank the poison and died?’
No…….
Pose laughed bitterly.
She would never squander a wish so foolishly.
If the Emperor’s death had grieved her that much, she would have rewound further. She would have gone back to when she could prevent this entire plan.
Yet only one day.
‘This was a trap, and Nathan drank the poison. But after that, something unexpected must have happened. Something that forced her to rewind time.’
Without hesitation, Pose scattered the poison he held into the air. White powder scattered across the void.
“You crazy bastard!!”
Nathan shrieked.
Pose lunged before him and seized him by the collar.
Nathan flinched.
Unlike his usual playful expression, Pose’s eyes had turned cold, carrying an undeniable pressure.
“Nathan.”
“Sh, shit. What the hell are you doing, you crazy bastard…….”
“Do you want to live?”
“What?”
“If you want to live, do exactly as I say from now on.”
* * *
Lark hurried forward with an urgent expression.
“The Second Prince followed our plan and had tea time with His Majesty. However, His Majesty did not collapse, and immediately after the tea time ended, the Second Prince claimed he had killed you.”
That meant the Emperor had become a variable.
If the Emperor, unable to bring himself to kill his own son, had wavered in his resolve at the last moment…….
It was entirely possible.
Then Nathan would have realized the trap, preserved his life, but understood that everything was lost.
Cutting off Lark’s head was proof he had decided to die alongside him.
‘He’s unpredictable.’
Knowing that Nathan did not fear death, Lark felt nothing but anxiety.
“It would be best to persuade His Majesty again to prevent any change of heart, but events that have already unfolded seem destined to unfold the same way. Even if he claims he was persuaded, seeing the Second Prince’s face might make him falter again…….”
Lark agreed with this assessment.
So he was about to go directly to the Emperor and inform him of the revised plan.
But then…….
“My lady!”
Rubetria, dressed neatly unlike the pre-dawn hours, was waiting outside the Executive Office.
Lark brought her in and spoke at once.
“Something’s wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nathan cancelled his audience request. Are you certain they actually had tea time?”
Rubetria’s eyes widened.
“He cancelled?”
“According to what you said, the incident should happen at eleven, when Nathan requested an audience with Father. Isn’t that right?”
“That’s right.”
“Yet Father seemed quite bewildered. Nathan cancelled the appointment this morning.”
“That can’t be!”
Rubetria, clutching her chest in shock, trembled violently.
‘Why is the future changing? The Second Prince shouldn’t know anything yet?’
She had deliberately rewound only the minimum time, lest even a small action alter the future.
Yet in that brief interval, as if he had foreseen the trap, Nathan cancelled his meeting with the Emperor…….
“Don’t worry too much. Father has just issued an emergency detention order.”
“To capture the Second Prince?”
“Yes. Since we can’t know what he might do with the Spirit’s power, we’ll move him to the Tower of Silence and lock him away. For now, Nathan won’t know anything, so he’ll comply quietly while feigning injustice.”
If they confined Nathan to the Tower of Silence, which suppressed Spirit abilities, they could at least breathe easier for now.
“It seems we’ve stirred up the hornet’s nest. If I’d known the Second Prince didn’t value his own life and would act like a madman, the whole plan would have been pointless from the start…….”
Rubetria pressed her throbbing temples hard.
From the beginning, trying to defeat an unprincipled prince within the bounds of law was a losing game.
Without evidence of treason that would warrant execution for an ordinary person, they couldn’t confine him to the Tower of Silence.
‘All the evidence I gathered will only be useful for Tower of Silence confinement.’
Even confining Nathan to the Tower, what guarantee was there that some catastrophe wouldn’t occur in the one-in-a-million chance before he withered away with age?
That was the worry that had driven her toward seeking his execution…….
“The marriage laws are one thing, but that strange penal code favoring the imperial family should be changed too.”
“I agree. And that……wish you mentioned this morning.”
“Yes?”
“I suspected the Spirit’s power you possessed was limited to a certain degree.”
Lark sighed with apprehension and continued.
“But hearing that you have no wishes left now sounds very, very dangerous to me.”
“Yes.”
Lark laughed weakly and caressed Rubetria’s cheek.
“So that means…….”
In that moment.
Lark’s eyes widened.
“Ah.”
……She vanished.
Rubetria, who had been right before him.
Like magic.
“What is…….”
The warmth that had been in his palm was gone without a trace.
There was no need to think.
It was Nathan’s doing.
“RUBETRIA!!!”
Lark’s scream shattered the air as he burst through the Executive Office door.
* * *
“Ah…….”
I had merely closed my eyes once and opened them again.
Yet I found myself sitting somewhere unknown, my hands and feet and body bound with rope.
‘This is bad.’
Who on earth had moved me from Lark’s Executive Office to this place in the blink of an eye?
It was not hard to guess.
‘Only the Second Prince could do something like this.’
But why Nathan was already acting like a madman was unclear.
To openly kidnap the lady using Spirit power, right in the Imperial Palace no less…….
‘Why is he acting so recklessly?’
Before rewinding time, killing Lark must have been because he had lost all hope.
But now?
“Thunk.”
As I was thinking, I felt the cold touch of a blade deep at my throat.
“Hello. Don’t be too startled.”
Fortunately, the Short Blade withdrew from my neck.
The one who dragged a chair before me and sat with a thud was, as expected, the Second Prince Nathan.
“My lady. Why so suddenly…….”
“I have a question for you. Can you answer it?”
“Yes.”
Nathan suddenly pulled the chair closer and tapped my waist with the sword’s tip.
Rope was bound there.
“Just answer what you see. It’s not difficult.”
“Yes…….”
“Should I untie this rope for you, or not?”
At his question, I froze.
‘F*** it all.’
The meaning of this question.
I knew what it was.
“……Don’t untie it.”
He was asking if I could see the future.
“Oh, that’s right. As expected, the Bisता Contractor is truly something else. Next question then.”
“Thunk.”
Nathan pressed the blade to my throat again.
“Will I wound the lady’s neck, or won’t I?”

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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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