Deadline Is Raining in the Status Window - Chapter 305

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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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#Epilogue 2: Why doesn’t affection necessarily form after completion? That’s the thing.

Six months had passed since I destroyed the asteroid. It was summer vacation season, with that crisp early-summer weather. As promised, I brought Cecilia to Bunny Land Branch 2, located in Ilam.
“Hehehehe.”
The Emperor of the Crowell Empire was currently on his sixteenth ride of the Roller Coaster. With dead eyes, no less. What on earth did he find so appealing about it?
“Evan, you bastard! What the hell did you do?! There’s no way His Majesty would ride such a stupid contraption sixteen times!”
“I didn’t do anything. Cecilia just happens to like this stupid contraption. Enough to ride it sixteen times.”
“Don’t make me laugh!”
I blocked the Bachelor’s punch with my pinky finger. Since it had been a while since I’d defended against his attacks, I put some force into it, and the Bachelor bounced back with a “Ugh!” before stumbling backward.
That sound carried a peculiar sexiness I’d never felt from my husbands. It was refreshing.
“There’s eroticism in your voice.”
“Shut up!”
“That’s it. Violence and eros are two sides of the same coin.”
“I said shut up!”
Hmm, this was fun. I dodged the Bachelor’s flailing punches while admiring his expression. The way he was desperately trying to kill me was absolutely adorable. The Bachelor was always cute, but especially today. Perhaps it was because he was wearing rabbit ear headbands, Bunny Land’s signature product.
“Don’t have all the fun between just the two of you.”
“Your Majesty! We’re not playing!”
Only after we were having so much fun did he finally get off the Roller Coaster. This Emperor was subtly lonely. What a lonely fellow.
“But you rode it alone. We had no choice but to play among ourselves.”
“You could ride it with us.”
“I’m sick of it after three rides.”
“How strange.”
His Majesty gazed contentedly at the Roller Coaster, as if he wouldn’t tire of it even after a hundred rides. Of course, it was only a subtle change in expression visible to my eyes. Most people wouldn’t notice. The Bachelor probably would, though.
“What exactly do you find so appealing about it?”
The Bachelor, unable to make sense of Cecilia’s reaction no matter how hard he thought, asked the question despite his reservations. Cecilia smiled and said something I couldn’t possibly understand.
“I’ve never imagined it before, but if I were facing death, it would be like that.”
What the hell? You find dying amusing? You enjoy simulated death? Are you insane? But you were insane. I acknowledge that.
“You’re insane.”
“You bastard! Don’t you value your life?!”
“Go ahead, try to kill me.”
If you could kill me, I’d give you a reward. Speaking solemnly as the Demon King, Cecilia chuckled and stared directly at me.
“….”
“….”
Continuing to stare without saying a word, I felt my feet tingle for some reason and averted my gaze. I wasn’t afraid of Cecilia, but if she involved Obero in whatever she was planning, things would become quite troublesome.
“I apologize.”
“It’s fine.”
Stop spouting nonsense. If you were truly fine, you wouldn’t be applying such subtle pressure. You’re telling obvious lies. Monster-eyed creature. Dregs of the abyss.
“Now I understand why so much tax is collected from this small amusement park.”
I suppose it made sense that Cecilia, who had never visited Bunny Land before, found it bewildering. From this park—merely a landmark of Ilam—revenues flowed in that rivaled the taxes collected from an entire earldom. She couldn’t comprehend it.
That’s why whenever I’d brought up Bunny Land before, mentioning that some of its technology and profits would go to His Imperial Majesty, she hadn’t seemed particularly excited. Now do you understand how much effort I put into this? How generously I’m giving everything to you?
I shrugged my shoulders and lifted my chin proudly, and Cecilia smiled faintly, saying she understood my loyalty well enough.
“It’s not loyalty. It’s friendship.”
“Isn’t that basically the same thing?”
“Not at all. It means I could give you this much even without being your subject.”
“That is, indeed, different.”
Dregs of the abyss who understand nothing of the human heart. I wish you’d finally recognize how much affection I hold for you. And stop being so obsessed with me and Obero. Constantly clinging to people is nothing but evidence of emotional deprivation.
“Let’s eat the official Bunny Land set. You absolutely must eat it when you come here.”
They stick carrot rabbit ears into hamburger steak, apparently. I absolutely had to see you cutting into it. I laughed with a cackle and guided His Imperial Majesty, who was wearing black rabbit ear headbands, to the Dining Hall.
For some reason, Cecilia seated the Bachelor at the same table, and while he slowly sipped his melon soda, he suddenly blurted out something unexpected.
“I’ll be holding my state wedding soon. This child should have a family too.”
“Huh?”
What does your wedding have to do with the Bachelor? His Abyss Majesty tilted his head in confusion as I looked between them alternately.
“Seian married you, and Sera has already set her sights on Apet, hasn’t she? Naturally, the next turn would be this child’s.”
“Huh?”
I let out another “Huh?” When I kept repeating it, the Bachelor glanced around, confirmed that only masked attendants, Seian Mark Two, and Three were present, then carefully opened his mouth.
“You didn’t know? It’s an unfortunate matter, but I’m likely a half-brother to Her Majesty Cecilia.”
“Whaaaaaat?!”
What?! The epilogue already ended—don’t suddenly reveal some new secret birth mystery in the side story!
No, actually! You two look so similar! If you line up you and Seian and Cecilia and Sera, honestly, it would be strange if you weren’t siblings! But from the moment I first met you, you were only Cecilia’s subject! Maintain the established setting!
“Maintain the setting! You complicated royal family with all these tangled relationships!”
“This was the setting from the beginning.”
“Don’t reveal it! It’s too complicated! My head’s going to explode! I don’t need to know—it doesn’t affect my life at all!”
“Seeing your reaction, I’m glad I revealed it.”
The Bachelor laughed, and I wanted to hit him for being so annoying. Though even if I hit him lightly, the Bachelor would end up in the hospital, so I wouldn’t actually do it.
“Is he a bastard? But no matter how much of a bastard he is, Cecilia treasures bloodlines so much—shouldn’t you be part of the Royal Family right now?”
“Actually, I only have circumstantial evidence.”
Ah. So that’s why he said “likely”? Either the Bachelor’s mother claimed he was the Imperial Grandson on her own, or the Previous Emperor couldn’t remember who he’d spent the night with. When I voiced this speculation, Cecilia suddenly brought up an incredibly heavy topic.
“The day before the Empress Palace burned, I found this child in the Underground Basement.”
“I have no memories before the day you saved me, so I don’t know what happened.”
I stared at the Bachelor while peach juice dribbled from my mouth. What? Why did he have no childhood memories? Was it memory manipulation from a skill? Thinking about it more seriously… people lose their memories when they suffer extreme pain or shock.
“When I first found him, he looked like a lump of blood. I thought he wasn’t even human.”
“I heard later from the Imperial Palace doctors that he’d been beaten severely and left abandoned. They said he was malnourished from prolonged starvation.”
“The darkness of the Imperial Palace! Stop revealing it! I don’t want to know!”
What? So Cecilia had a reason for burning down the Empress Palace in her childhood? It wasn’t just an episode showing how psychopathic this child was, but rather an extreme choice made to protect a half-brother—this Cecilia who treasures only her siblings above all else in the world?
Is that why the Former Empress wasn’t severely condemned by the Previous Emperor even after her death? My goodness, such a reasonable backstory existed within the Crowell Imperial Court!
“But what does the Bachelor being discovered in the Underground Basement have to do with him being the Imperial Grandson?”
“The Former Empress was preventing the illegitimate children from being born.”
“I see.”
So that’s why the Previous Emperor had so many lovers yet so few descendants? Wow, if the Former Empress had been killing off all the children who weren’t her own, it was strange that Sera and Sera’s mother were still alive and well. A mind like a flower garden was truly powerful. A sunny disposition could overcome even the darkness of the Imperial Palace. Darkness cannot prevail against light—that sort of thing.
In any case, I understood well enough that Bachelor was Schrödinger’s Imperial Grandson. But why was he bringing up Bachelor’s marriage in front of me?

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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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