The Eldest Daughter Walks Down The Flower Path - Chapter 147

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Eldest Daughter Walks the Path of Flowers Episode 147

The lifeless masquerade that had been performed daily on the stage of the Imperial Palace came to an end.

What was chosen instead was a tragedy filled with terror.

Olivier refused to become an actor in this tragedy.

After being rejected by Radis, he was rarely overcome by deep melancholy.

It felt as if he had fallen into a mud pit.

He was a person accustomed to falling into swamps of depression, and he knew how to escape from them.

By separating emotions from physical activity and moving his body, the melancholy would eventually disappear.

That passive action was his only way of overcoming depression.

However, this time even that was impossible.

It was because of unfamiliar emotions—a sense of defeat and loss.

Those two emotions bound his hands and feet, preventing him from moving.

The sense of defeat was faint, but the sense of loss was great.

It felt as if all the fighting spirit he had possessed had completely vanished.

That sensation pulled him down, down.

Thanks to this, he came to take an action that the previous him would never have taken.

He decided to step down from the stage and watch all of this with the eyes of an audience member.

As with all tragedies, the opening of the play was brilliant.

The Emperor declared that he would hold Charle’s Crown Prince succession ceremony on an unprecedented scale.

After that, he summoned lords from various regions and began hosting splendid banquets every day.

Of course, the Crown Prince succession ceremony was just a pretext, and he had other plans.

The purpose of the Emperor, who was both the conductor and villain of this tragedy, was to demand tribute from regional lords and high-ranking nobles to raise funds for the impending war.

However, there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world.

The same was true in the relationship between ruler and subject.

Since loyal subjects refused the meaningless war of conquest, only profit-blinded opportunists flocked to the Emperor’s side.

In exchange for tribute, they thrust all sorts of contracts at the Emperor.

Most of them required enormous responsibilities for future generations.

They wagged their silver tongues and chattered like this:

“Your Majesty the Emperor already holds mighty weapons, so why should you fear defeat? The northern kingdoms will kneel before Your Majesty and offer gold, silver, and treasures.”

Surprisingly, the Emperor stamped his seal on those unfair contracts with utmost pleasure.

Olivier, who watched the Emperor from outside the stage with colder eyes than anyone else, realized something.

That the Emperor was no longer here.

He was traveling between a glorious past and a future filled with delusions, having forgotten the present.

The Emperor staged an interlude of comedy.

He called for a dyer to make his white hair and beard the same color as in the past.

To hide his wrinkled face, he didn’t hesitate to apply thick makeup that bordered on disguise.

The climax of the comedy was when the Emperor had a blacksmith hammer out the beautiful armor he had worn in his prime so he could wear it again.

The blacksmith certainly did his best, but no matter how much he flattened the armor, it couldn’t fit around the Emperor’s waist, which had swollen to two or three times its original size.

In response, the Emperor pushed the blacksmith alive into the furnace for the crime of ruining the armor.

The blacksmith’s screams led the play back into a miserable tragedy.

Olivier in the audience said:

“You are no longer a hero. You are merely past glory.”

However, his voice was swept away by the madness on stage and heard by no one.

The tragedy soon faced a crisis.

An oracle came down saying that black flames would lead the Empire to destruction.

The Emperor used every means possible to make it seem as if this were not true.

In the process, blood flowed like rivers and countless gold flowed into darkness.

Instead of the cheerful High Priest who always went around laughing heartily, his substitutes were dying off.

As assassin attacks continued, the High Priest resigned and went into hiding.

When the High Priest stepped down, the Temple instantly split apart.

Beautiful hymns and earnest prayers could no longer be found in the Temple.

What could be heard were only loud arguments as they fought like demons in a mud pit.

Olivier said in a sorrowful voice:

“You are not a guardian. You are merely a destroyer.”

The Emperor decided to issue government bonds to urgently purchase war horses, weapons, iron, and gunpowder.

Pelletier Bank refused to cooperate, but the Imperial Bank, which was under the Emperor’s influence, could not refuse.

Olivier watched as the Emperor carved up and sold off the Empire like a merchant in the marketplace to start a war.

Those who drove the tragedy toward catastrophe were the Iszad Party nobles.

“They say the entire roof of the Jewel Palace of Jentla is made of gems. All of that will belong to Your Majesty!”

“Have you heard the story that gold nuggets are piled up like stones in the Gold Mine of Migo, Your Majesty? They say that just washing your hands in the river there will leave gold dust on them!”

The Emperor, drunk on strong liquor, laughed heartily as if he had already grasped all of that in his hands.

The more the Emperor rejoiced, the deeper Olivier sank into despair.

Olivier looked at the Emperor surrounded by Iszad Party nobles and said:

“You are no longer an emperor. You are now nothing but a cold jeweled crown. Those people are wearing you on their heads while wielding power.”

However, his voice did not reach the Emperor of the Empire.

Just as it had always been until now.

Still, Olivier continued to speak:

“You reigned but did not rule. You were always cold to children who needed care. In the end, everything will be destroyed.”

He turned his eyes away from the stage.

Originally, Olivier’s purpose was to place the foolish Charle on the throne and then use him as a puppet to slowly but perfectly destroy the Imperial Palace.

Emperor Claude and Empress Adrianne had to live and watch that entire process.

They had to see how the successor they chose would completely destroy the future of the Imperial Palace and Empire with his own hands.

Olivier wanted to see them make the futile effort of hastily blocking a collapsing dam with both hands.

And also their despairing faces when they intuited that everything would collapse.

After that, Olivier had planned to quietly leave this place.

At the end of his long and gloomy revenge, when he rested his head on his beloved woman’s lap and closed his eyes, he believed he could truly resolve his long-held resentment.

However, the Emperor who had taken everything from Olivier also stole away even his chance for revenge.

The Emperor was violently destroying in just a few days the Imperial Palace that Olivier had planned to slowly ruin over a long time.

The Imperial Palace would now fall into irreversible chaos.

However, the mad tragedy would end someday.

Even if it was after everything was completely destroyed.

Olivier decided to wait until the day when all noise would subside and silence would come.

Radis seemed to want to save Alexis’s soul.

It was something befitting her gentle nature.

However, unfortunately, that was an impossible task.

This stage was full of evil people, and each of their desires would lead the play to destruction.

The only ending that suited them would be a desolate tragedy.

Elizabeth, who stood in front of the fountain in the Imperial Garden, exhaled a thin, deep breath to suppress her trembling.

She gestured to her maid Violet to come closer.

“Do I look strange right now?”

At her words, Violet’s eyes widened as she looked Elizabeth up and down.

This morning, Elizabeth had received a sudden invitation from Olivier, the 3rd Prince who had become her fiancé.

The content of the letter was brief.

He had something to say and wanted to meet briefly.

Though it was a sudden appointment, Elizabeth did her best.

She canceled all of her day’s schedule and devoted the entire morning to grooming herself.

By the oath to the God of Light, Violet had never seen Elizabeth put so much effort into grooming herself.

Thanks to this, Elizabeth was now in a state where she would not be lacking at all even standing alongside Olivier, the 3rd Prince, who was considered the Empire’s greatest beauty.

Her golden hair, carefully brushed and adorned with silver and pearl accessories, shone sweetly like long streams of honey, and her lightly powdered skin was spotlessly white like freshly fallen snow.

On top of that, the light blue dress she had chosen after changing three times was modest enough not to violate etiquette while being dazzlingly well-suited to Elizabeth.

Violet shook her head enthusiastically and said.

“Strange? Miss! You look the most beautiful today out of all the times I’ve seen you!”

Elizabeth’s face clouded at her praise.

“You say that every day, so I can’t believe it…”

“What? I’m always sincere!”

“Is there anywhere my makeup has smudged? Is my hair still in place?”

Unable to bear her anxiety, Elizabeth finally bit her lips tightly.

Then some coral-colored lipstick got on her pearl-white teeth.

Panicked, Violet widened her eyes and said.

“Oh, Miss! You got lipstick on your teeth…!”

“Oh my, oh my! A, a handkerchief! Give me a handkerchief!”

“J-just a moment. Where did I put the handkerchief…”

It was just as Violet was about to search through her pockets.

“Lady Russel.”

At the voice as cold as cracking ice, Elizabeth and Violet froze in place.

Elizabeth turned around with the softest smile possible without opening her mouth too wide.

Olivier was standing behind her.

Though the weather was hot enough to make one’s forehead damp just from standing still, he looked as cool as a sculpture carved from ice.

Especially his violet eyes were so cold that just receiving his gaze made one feel a chill.

The moment she met those eyes, Elizabeth felt her excited heart sink at once.

She clasped her hands together neatly and opened her mouth.

“Yes, 3rd Prince.”

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