The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride - Chapter 113

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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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The Abandoned Prince’s Ghost Bride — Episode 113

“Mm…….”
The confusion lasted only a moment before Kaiser let out a groan.
“Kaiser!”
Kaiser blinked his dazed eyes and turned his head to the side.
“……Age.”
“Are you all right? Do you have any idea how shocked I was when you suddenly collapsed?”
“Lia is……?”
With Age’s support, Kaiser pushed himself up onto his elbows. He found Lia lying peacefully beside him.
“She’s breathing. It seems she remembered something and collapsed.”
Kaiser gazed down at Lia for a moment. The peaceful expression on her face blended with the image of Aria weeping in anguish.
“……We can’t stay here. Let’s head upstairs.”
At Kaiser’s words, Age nodded and used magic to lift Lia, then sent her up to ground level. Then he supported the unsteady Kaiser.
The two of them emerged into the living room and examined Lia, who lay peacefully on the sofa. She showed no sign of waking.
Age sighed and turned to look at Kaiser.
His aura had subtly shifted.
He could be playful at times and serious at others, but this didn’t seem like a mere mood change.
‘It’s as if he’s become a different dragon.’
Recalling Kaiser’s collapse, identical to Lia’s, Age opened his mouth.
“What did you experience?”
“…….”
Kaiser flinched and turned to face him.
“No matter how I think about it, you seem to have undergone the exact same phenomenon as this woman. Am I right?”
“……Yes. I saw the moment Aria was sealed away.”
And at the same time, how Karserin died.
“Age, Karserin gave his life by choice. Solely to protect Aria.”
Age’s eyebrows twitched. From the moment he learned that Lia’s seal was a Dragon Heart, he’d suspected as much.
But there was a world of difference between suspicion and confirmation.
“Tell me every detail of Karserin’s final moment.”
Kaiser readily explained everything he had witnessed to Age.
“It seems Karserin was deceived by the First Emperor and inadvertently put Aria in danger. At the time, Aria was trapped in some kind of magic circle and suffering. It looked like Karserin created it, but surely…….”
Kaiser combed through his memories and carefully reconstructed the magic circle that had been beneath Aria’s feet.
Age’s eyes widened as he meticulously examined the magic circle.
“……It’s a sealing magic infused with brainwashing magic.”
“Karserin sealed Aria, but the First Emperor tampered with it first. Whether Karserin was late or early, Aria would have been sealed regardless.”
“No, if she’d been subject to the First Emperor directly, she would have become a complete idiot.”
Age detected a formula that carried subtly sinister undertones.
“This magic circle would be difficult to undo without the experience of a dragon who has lived through it all. The First Emperor probably asked Karserin to create this. But looking at the dark magic that was added later, it seems someone else tampered with it.”
The added dark magic. That was mental brainwashing.
“The longer the sealing persists, the more times it’s reapplied, the more it erodes the victim’s mind until they become an idiot. The witch must have done this because the dragon wouldn’t move according to her wishes.”
The mental brainwashing wasn’t the end.
“Even if Aria had accepted his proposal and broken the seal, she wouldn’t have been able to leave a certain range. That range was……yes, the area around this mansion.”
“When Lia was a ghost, she couldn’t leave the mansion. Every time she tried to leave, mysterious chains bound her.”
“It looks like the sealing was interrupted midway, so she was only affected halfway.”
What grudge could possess the First Emperor to deceive Karserin into reducing Lia to such a state?
The thought that Lia had suffered for so long and lived in loneliness because of that wretched creature made his blood boil.
And that emotion didn’t spring merely from affection for Lia.
It was deeper and more complex—a feeling he had never experienced before.
‘As if……it belonged to someone else.’
Kaiser recalled the doubts he’d harbored since the vision and slowly parted his lips.
“Age, do you believe in past lives or reincarnation?”
“……What?”
The Karserin he’d seen in the vision. When Kaiser realized he was a specter, he understood that he had been haunting him not as an enemy alone.
Moreover, when he first encountered him fifteen years ago, it had definitely been the same.

—I am you.
—This is a fragment of memory you must not forget.

Before his consciousness could resist that self, he’d seen a terrible vision and attacked Lucian.
Looking back, the vision he’d seen then seemed to be the same scene as what he’d witnessed in the underground chamber.
‘I attacked Lucian because I mistook him for the First Emperor.’
Those ominous golden eyes were still vivid in his memory. Along with the intense murderous intent directed at him and this desperate urgency to protect Lia.
“I have a feeling Karserin might be my past life. What do you think?”
If he wasn’t his past life, how else could he explain these memories and feelings?
Age’s eyes widened at Kaiser’s serious expression.
He wanted to deny it outright, but somehow his voice wouldn’t come.
‘Karserin……?’
Karserin’s face overlapped with Kaiser’s before his eyes.
They were different, yet they shared considerable similarities.
The talent they displayed from youth, the playfulness with those they held dear, and the affection unbecoming of a dragon that drew others close.
Though Kaiser seemed immature for one newly ascended to true form, he’d heard that even as a youth, Karserin had been quite a handful.
As Age fell frozen, trembling, Kaiser scratched his head.
“To be honest, I’m still uncertain myself. If reincarnation is true, I should remember the past completely, but all that’s in my head right now is what I saw just before I collapsed. However……I do understand the heart that would sacrifice one’s life to save Aria.”
“……So you’re really saying you’re Karserin’s reincarnation?”
“I’m not certain. And something’s strange about it, isn’t it? Karserin was Mother’s older brother. If I really am his reincarnation and I remember my past life completely, how am I supposed to treat Mother?”
Kaiser had meant to lighten the mood with that remark. Only then did Age exhale the breath he’d been holding and sat down before him.
“For now, let’s keep this between the two of us. We’ll need to investigate whether reincarnation is even possible.”
Yet Age was more convinced than Kaiser himself that he was Karserin’s reincarnation.
Or rather, now he could finally make sense of all those moments when he’d seen Karserin overlap with Kaiser.
Age, who’d been lost in thought for a moment, pulled the Dragon Heart from his pocket.
“Take this. You should have it.”
“Karserin’s…….”
“When you two collapsed, it suddenly reacted to something and merged into one. If you really are Karserin reincarnated, it’ll surely be useful to you in some way.”
“But you were keeping it to investigate.”
That was exactly why Age had gone to the Northern Region as soon as he broke Lia’s seal.
He’d hoped that investigating the Dragon Heart might yield something. But now that someone who might be Karserin reincarnated stood before him, was a mere Dragon Heart truly more important?
“Enough. Just take it.”
Faced with Age’s firmness, Kaiser had no choice but to accept the Dragon Heart.

* * *

The next morning.
“Your Majesty!”
“You can’t——you mustn’t do this, Your Excellency!”
As Lucian strode purposefully down the corridor, he turned at the commotion behind him.
Duke Sebans was advancing with a face twisted like a demon’s.
The servants around him desperately tried to stop him, but they couldn’t slow his pace.
“Should I handle this, sir?” James whispered to Lucian.
But Lucian said nothing. The duke had already reached him.
“You must reconsider, Your Majesty!”
Duke Sebans bellowed at Lucian with fierce, blazing eyes.
“Spirited as ever this morning, Duke.”
“You can’t break the engagement! You simply can’t!”
“Ah, so that’s why you’re here.”
At Lucian’s cool response, the veins in Sebans’s neck bulged further.
“How can you speak of breaking an engagement! If it’s broken this way, where will that girl have any standing in the Empire? It’s been thirteen years! Thirteen years of engagement! Rumors are already spreading about your beloved, and now you speak of betrayal?!”
At the word “beloved,” Lucian’s eyebrows twitched.
“And do you truly believe you have the right to do this?! How dare you block my daughter’s future!”
As the increasingly agitated Duke Sebans overstepped, James opened his mouth in alarm.
This wasn’t his office or the reception room—it was a corridor where countless people passed through.
And there were many witnesses present. If this continued, the situation could spiral beyond repair. Just as James was about to step in——
“Are you finished?”
Lucian spoke. Unlike the inflamed Duke Sebans, he had maintained composure from the start.
‘No, “cold” would be the better word.’
A coldness that could remain unmoved even if one’s throat were cut.
James sensed from the beginning that Lucian’s patience had nearly reached its limit.
“Haven’t I told you countless times? Keep your daughter under control. Why would you test my patience and create this mess?”
At the thick killing intent and chilling golden eyes, Duke Sebans trembled with his fists.
“But still, no matter what……!”
“Moreover, your daughter secretly sought out my woman without anyone’s knowledge.”
Duke Sebans flinched at this revelation.
“I made myself clear. I have no interest in this position.”
Lucian whispered so only Sebans could hear.
“Even in silence, half was already lost. Your daughter kicked it away with her own feet. And if that woman knows my identity yet still speaks of love for me rather than my brother—is she in her right mind?”
“Ugh……!”
“Or perhaps this independent action of your daughter’s is actually your handiwork?”
“Your Majesty!”
“One more word.”
Lucian cut off Sebans’s words with a roar.
“Touch my woman even once more, and next time it won’t be the duke who faces me—it will be you.”
At the ominous, bestial golden gaze, Duke Sebans understood.
This was genuine. This warning would be the last; next time, it would be the emperor’s true wrath.
‘I warned her repeatedly!’
Duke Sebans’s head throbbed as he thought of his troublemaking daughter.
But that didn’t mean he could simply back down now.
Even if the engagement were broken by mutual consent, there would be talk. If it were broken under such shameful circumstances, Lirlis would have no choice but to marry into an obscure house.
“Your Majesty, please——please hear me out!”
“What’s all this fuss?”
Before Duke Sebans could finish his plea, someone else interjected.
“F-Father-in-law.”
It was Ruber. Serena stood beside him.
Serena had turned away because of yesterday’s incident, which Lucian found awkward, but only Ruber quietly took in the situation.
“Leopold, why don’t you go? You have much to do, I hear?”
Faced with this clear gesture of support, Lucian’s eyes widened for a moment.
“But——Father-in-law! This matter isn’t yet settled!”
“I think I can settle that matter well enough. Leopold, why do you linger?”
“……Then I shall take my leave.”
With someone offering to help before him, there was no reason to refuse. Lucian passed by Ruber, who gazed straight ahead unmoved.
As Lucian left the corridor, Duke Sebans turned to Ruber.
“Father! How could you……!”
“There are too many eyes here. Shall we discuss this somewhere more private?”
Ruber raised his hand, and Dane, standing nearby, stepped forward to discreetly guide them to a secluded location.
“I’ll speak with him for a moment. Go on to the garden.”
Ruber kissed Serena’s forehead and departed with Duke Sebans. Watching them leave, Serena quietly clenched her fists.

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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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