Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 274

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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 274

The Emperor’s eyes opened.
His entire body throbbed. And in a place so shameful he could never speak of it to another soul, pain seared through him like madness.
As he writhed and groaned like a bug thrown into flame, he heard it—*tsk, tsk*—the sharp click of a tongue. The Emperor turned his head to the side.
Only then did he realize he was still sprawled obscenely on the floor, his entire body bound tight with rope. And beside him sat an Empress, gazing down at him with a smile that looked almost like mockery.
What? The Empress? Why in the world would she suddenly appear here? The Emperor blinked.
The Empress wore the same elaborate gown she had worn at her coronation ceremony—a garment so stately and ornate it seemed grotesquely out of place for the moment.
“It has been a long time, Your Majesty.”
“Y-you… how did you… ah! I understand now! You’ve been scheming to seize power by manipulating Elaine!”
The Empress let out a light sigh as the Emperor, suddenly convinced he had grasped the entire truth, cried out. Seeing her reaction, the Emperor quickly tucked his tail between his legs.
“Ah, no—that is, yes. I shall forgive you. Ahem, a small measure of discourtesy I can certainly overlook! And yet, I am still your husband in name. To bind me thus, when I am the very mother of the realm…”
“It appears Elaine lacked the strength to receive Your Majesty with proper care.”
“W-what?”
“I did tell her to bring someone to help, after all…”
I can understand the desire to have one’s revenge by one’s own hand alone, she said, laughing quite beautifully. The Emperor felt his skin crawl at the sight.
Where was he? Ah yes—the Hall of Glory. A place that none but the Emperor and Empress could enter.
Yet in ordinary times it was a place so dreary and musty they forgot it even existed.
The Empress, who by now ought to have been burning like a corpse, stood alive and whole before him. Why was she here with the Emperor? Alarm bells screamed in his mind.
“The Imperial Palace will catch fire today.”
“W-what?”
“Several of the finest buildings will explode, and flames will consume all. Nothing but the bones of the palace will remain.”
“What in the name of—what are you talking about?!”
“The First Consort seems to wish to destroy the palace purely out of spite, but that would be wasteful.”
The Empress, with fingers that were harder and rougher than he’d expected, poked the Emperor’s trembling cheek.
The scar on his cheek, long healed, split open and bled. The gesture was clinical, devoid of emotion—like a butcher checking the meat of a pig.
Then she seized the end of the rope binding the Emperor and dragged him along.
“At any rate, what Your Majesty must do for me now is… ah.”
“Noooooo!”
*Scrape, scraaape*—dragging a struggling adult man should have been difficult, yet the Empress walked effortlessly, as though strength flowed from nowhere into her limbs.
She sat him down in a chair that looked rather plain. The Emperor’s face went rigid at the touch of its cool metal surface.
“What… what are you going to do with me? I am your husband! The father of Adrian!”
“…Good grief.”
The Empress shrugged, as though she found nothing amusing about it. So she had remembered my name after all, she thought with a strange, belated feeling.
The relationship between Emperor and Empress had been worse than that between strangers. Ever since she had driven Adrian from the palace and confined the Empress herself, it was as good as a deliberate attempt at murder.
And now what?
Yet the Empress decided to explain her purpose politely.
“It is nothing of great importance, Your Majesty. The Imperial Palace requires a special magic—one that only activates at the moment of utmost crisis. It is somewhat complicated, but…”
The Emperor shuddered as he met the Empress’s unusually dark gaze. It was an utterly thorough look—the gaze one might turn upon a mere instrument to be used.
Who on earth would look at the Emperor of all men with such eyes? The Emperor himself could regard others that way, but to be so regarded in return…
“W-what? Such a thing existed?”
“Discovering the conditions for its activation was quite difficult for me as well. The details would be beyond your comprehension, and besides, we require Your Majesty’s own blood.”
“B-blood? You mean to pierce me? How dare you!”
“What is a little blood to you? My son has shed blood beyond counting since childhood, and Titania—I myself have made cuts on her limbs to demonstrate she possesses special power.”
“The blood of a prince and princess cannot be compared to that of the Emperor! Help! Is no one here?! Please!”
To capture the Emperor without anyone’s knowledge and move him alone with the Empress to the Hall of Glory.
To thwart the First Consort’s plot to destroy the palace for mere spite, and to proceed the situation according to their own design.
That was the Empress’s ultimate objective for today. It could never have succeeded without good fortune—with Adrian and his allies holding Brian’s feet to the fire, while Cleo let down her guard.
With the aid of the servants and attendants who knew the palace’s geography well, before the Emperor’s disappearance was discovered and enemies could interfere, they secured him and brought him to this place.
Rasper and Debbie had meanwhile set up various mechanisms throughout the palace. Particularly at the Rose Palace—the small passages and secret tunnels that Titania had commissioned from the Castrain Family proved invaluable and remained so even now.
She wanted to applaud the First Consort’s consistent pattern of entrusting such people as Sara with her work, having no trustworthy subordinates.
“Brian! Cleo! Save me, save me from this mad woman!”
“Yes, this seems better.”
*Mmph, gack! Mmmph-mmph!*
Without hesitation, the Empress wound a handkerchief that lay nearby and shoved it into the Emperor’s mouth. Then, taking up a thin blade she’d been holding, she made a cut and smeared his blood roughly onto the crude chair.
*Hum-hum*—the chair that had appeared unremarkable began to vibrate. After thrashing about for a time, the Emperor’s breath caught short, perhaps from blood loss, and he let out a choking sound before losing consciousness.
Structures built during the reign of the First Emperor.
The Northern Barrier, the Southern Barrier, the Imperial Palace, the Warp Tunnel.
The Southern Barrier had already fallen, and the Northern Barrier was at least safe for the time being.
The Warp Tunnel alone had thrived without losing its power then or now.
What remained was the Imperial Palace.
Even the Empress had been shocked when she learned of this magic’s existence. Had Titania not awakened her to the presence of a Magic Beast sealed in the Hall of Glory and the strangeness of the Underground Labyrinth, she wondered if she would ever have guessed at a device that could reduce the entire palace to ash and see the royal family dead, scattered like leaves.
A normal person would never consent to such a plan to obliterate an entire palace. But then again—what is a building compared to a person?
The Empress struck hard between the legs of the unconscious Emperor. Even in his stupor he let out a sound—*mmph*—almost a wail of despair.
*Crack, crack*. The noise intensified.
The Empress sensed the room beginning to shake in earnest and drew a deep breath.
What she aimed for was a form of Grand Magic. What she had just done was merely the ignition of that Grand Magic. Thinking of the work still ahead, she squeezed her eyes shut, trembling.
And she simply prayed.
That all things would go smoothly until the very end.
That her loved ones would emerge unharmed.
That in this final moment, all would achieve what they had longed for.

* * *

“Everyone’s strength is lacking. And we can’t even handle one old man.”
Duke Orto snapped the neck of a Magic Beast lunging at him and extracted its Mana Stone, muttering his complaint. The High Priest Illian beside him let out a hearty laugh.
In stark contrast to the two’s composure, it was a grim sight. The entrance leading to the Capital—or more precisely, a portion of the formation that gathered and transmitted the Empire’s Demonic Energy, blood, and death.
The seemingly endless tide of Magic Beasts was nearly exhausted. As they melted away the corpses piled high as walls before they dissolved into earth, the High Priest Illian groaned.
“Anyone seeing this old man would think, ‘Whatever does he eat to stay so vigorous? If he’s got something good, we should all share.'”
“What can I do—I can’t very well tear out my heart and divvy it up.”
“Don’t make such grim jokes. If we’ve collected this many Mana Stones, shouldn’t we contact the Third Young Master?”
“Yes.”
They even considered using the corpses of the weaker Magic Beasts. Human and beast unified in death, their combined power harvested and offered as sacrifice for Chernobog’s descent…
Yes, an excellent scheme. All the more so because there was almost no way to stop it once set in motion.
Only through the efforts of Rasper, Pan, and the mages sent out from the Magic Tower had they managed to decipher the structure of the Magic Formation.
Though deciphering it did not allow them to unmake the formation itself, nor could they scatter the power flowing in from across the Empire…
“Foolish creature. Absorb death? Feed on blood and Demonic Energy? As if beasts such as these don’t also require the essence of power.”
With an overwhelming powerhouse like Duke Orto, the situation became rather different.
Duke Orto sought out particularly strong and massive Magic Beasts, extracting their Mana Stones. A Magic Beast robbed of its Mana Stone was nothing but an empty husk.
Absorbing such things would provide little strength. True, the chaotic Demonic Energy itself would gather, but…
No matter how powerful the magic, force transmitted from a distance could only arrive diminished.
So Chernobog had released all the powerful Magic Beasts she had named near the Capital. Weak beasts at a distance, strong beasts nearby.
…Perhaps she calculated that would be sufficient. Under normal circumstances, it would have been.
Yet Duke Orto, who had pretended for so long to be a man at death’s door with old wounds, turned out to be far more hale and hearty than their predictions. Indeed, more than merely hale.

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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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