The Former Empress Roughly Hides Her Abilities - Chapter 154

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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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【Chapter 154】

“This is treason.”

No answer came back.

“Can you all not hear me?”

He looked around at the assembled crowd and gritted his teeth.

“I am the Emperor! I am your sovereign, this…”

The Emperor’s words echoed hollowly across the open field.

The nobles only stared at him.

Like watching an actor’s monologue on stage, or letting a child’s tantrum pass by.

The longer the silence stretched, the more ragged Torbiyan’s breathing became. As his emotions intensified, his face flushed red.

He had been born the legitimate heir. With no brothers or even branch imperial family members, he was crowned Crown Prince as soon as he turned three.

From childhood too early to remember, he had been a ruler. It was natural for others to submit to his authority.

Therefore, the experience of being ignored was unfamiliar and alien.

The shock of the world that had supported him beneath his feet tilting was considerable.

Torbiyan’s lips trembled.

A sense of loss overwhelming enough to make his vision dizzy washed over him, but.

‘This too will soon be reversed.’

He tried to endure the pain, clinging to a single hope.

Fortunately, there was a way to reverse all of this.

Regression.

‘Right, I just need the book,’

…but.

He looked down at his hands. He didn’t know when he had dropped it, but there was nothing in his hands.

‘Where is it?’

His gaze, frantically searching the surroundings like looking for a lifeline, fell on Rianel again. He could see a familiar leather cover in her hands.

Torbiyan swallowed dryly.

Confirming that what he wanted was in another’s hands, he drooped his eyebrows and struggled to put on a gentle tone.

“Empress.”

Rianel’s eyebrows moved slightly at the unwelcome address, but he didn’t notice.

His obsession with being able to return and his craving for the book drove him forward.

However, that attempt was blocked by Asil raising his sword blade.

This was worlds apart from when they had leisurely watched him stumble backward as if enjoying an unseemly spectacle.

When the sword tip grazed his skin and drew a thin line, Torbiyan had no choice but to stop in place.

“Don’t you want to go back?”

But he was still clinging to a thread of hope.

‘I only need to persuade one person anyway.’

Rianel, the one who had orchestrated this situation.

“Don’t you have anything you want to go back to the past and change?”

At the same time, he recalled Yuna’s words.

The careless Yuna had spilled many stories to Torbiyan. He brought up something from among them that might entice Rianel.

“Do you know that the starting point of this world is your mother conceiving you?”

The Pope’s reason for wanting to keep the nun Lisa bound to the Temple was connected to this.

This world begins from the part where Lisa becomes pregnant.

And.

‘There’s a reaction.’

Seeing Rianel hesitate, the corners of his mouth slowly rose.

The excitement hidden in his desperation made his breathing rough, but he tried to hide it by pulling up the corners of his mouth.

“If you regress with me, you might be able to save your mother.”

However, Torbiyan saw Rianel’s expression turn coldly mocking.

“Do you truly think His Majesty believes my mother would want time turned back to save herself?”

“Wouldn’t that be natural?”

Whether nun or whatever, Rianel’s birth mother was also human.

“If she’s human, yearning for life is instinct.”

Rianel had never met the former Duchess.

She could only hold onto the traces she had left behind for her.

Though her intentions remained unknowable.

She knew only that she had cared for and cherished her.

“If my mother truly loved me, she would never have wanted me to suffer through retracing the past again.”

Rianel walked forward, clutching the book.

Sensing ominousness from this, Torbiyan’s lips quivered.

“What, what are you trying to do—”

“So please forgive me.”

Rianel brought the book to the torch.

Despite being called a sacred object, the book caught fire easily.

“No!”

Torbiyan tried to twist his body to escape, but Asil’s blade held him back.

Unable to advance or retreat, he flailed his arms and shouted from where he stood.

“Stop it now! Put out that fire immediately.”

But no one in the gathering moved.

The remains of what had been the book scattered in the wind and disappeared.

The moment what could have been a second chance was futilely broken.

He tried to wield the crown of reality.

“You people… can you truly still call yourselves nobles of the Empire after this?”

“…”

“You who listen to my words less than beasts would! Are you truly nobles who have received the Empire’s grace!”

Torbiyan spat out his rage, breathing roughly. When he staggered, unable to control his emotions.

“Do you truly have the qualifications to stand above all people?”

The crowd parted and a woman revealed herself.

Torbiyan’s face contorted upon seeing the Empress Dowager.

If Rianel was the one who had orchestrated this situation, the Empress Dowager was the one who had condoned it.

“How.”

Even while struggling with the sensation of his heart being squeezed tight, Torbiyan barely managed to speak.

“How can Mother do this to me?”

Even if the whole world turns its back on me, shouldn’t you alone not have abandoned me?

“I am your son!”

You were the one person who had given me everything.

From when he was very young, you who called him the future Emperor and drove him harshly.

How can you take everything away from me?

The Empress Dowager fell silent, then closed her eyes, unable to look at him.

“Yes, I gave birth to you.”

Those words contained not joy but self-mockery.

The late Emperor had not loved the Empress Dowager.

He had a lover of low status, and he had made this clear even before their marriage.

[I am someone who cannot give you love.]

[It doesn’t matter.]

Love held no meaning for her.

Having lost in competition with her full siblings over the ducal title, she wanted the highest position in the Empire, second only to the Emperor.

If she could attain that position, she could abandon everything else.

[This is a transaction. His Majesty protects his lover, and I become Empress.]

Afterward, the Empress Dowager bore a son. Over ten years later, the late Emperor’s lover gave birth to a Princess and died of puerperal fever.

Protecting the Princess was a matter included in the contract with the previous Emperor. Moreover, her son had been appointed as Crown Prince, so there was no reason to be wary of the Princess.

The Empress Dowager took care of the Princess without incident, while pouring everything she had into her son.

She believed that the only fruit she had left in this world would carry on her will even after her death.

She had hoped more than anyone that Torbiyan would grow into an outstanding Emperor. But only recently had she come to face reality.

“I raised my son wrong.”

Having turned her back on the fruit of her lifelong devotion, she turned toward the nobles.

“All of you, listen.”

Maintaining her usual haughty attitude.

“This place is not suitable for discussing state affairs according to proper protocol. However, given the urgent circumstances, I will present one agenda item.”

There was only one agenda item brought up in this emergency Administrative Council meeting.

The deposition of the current Emperor Torbiyan.

“Those in favor, raise your hands.”

* * *

Torbiyan stared blankly at the nobles.

In the quiet space where silence seemed to stretch eternally, hands began to rise one by one.

“…I agree.”

Asil Novantium went without saying.

“I as well.”

The elder nobles, of course.

“I also agree.”

Those who had flattered Torbiyan, naturally.

“….”

Even those sitting in the back seats whose names he didn’t even know.

The sight of everyone raising their hands in the same direction felt surreal.

“How, how dare….”

Like someone whose words were blocked, Torbiyan only moved his lips before scratching his throat to squeeze out his voice.

“I am the state.”

Yet they dare try to cast me out.

‘Those bastards must be traitors who have rebelled against the state.’

How else could they commit such an act?

“I won’t let these traitors—”

Torbiyan’s words couldn’t continue.

He felt his legs being swept from under him as he was forced to his knees.

“Restrain the deposed Emperor.”

His lowered field of vision clearly revealed his changed circumstances.

Just before completely collapsing to the floor, Torbiyan lifted his chin toward his last savior.

The Empress Dowager, who even at this moment couldn’t face her son’s downfall and kept her gaze averted.

“I can understand that you resent me. But what do you intend to do with the Empire? Will you leave the throne vacant?”

He raised his voice as if this was for patriotism rather than his own safety.

“Who else besides me could become Emperor in the first place—”

Torbiyan had become Emperor not because of outstanding qualities, but because there were no other options.

This was a fact that Torbiyan himself knew better than anyone.

“You see? You have no alternative—”

“I will clean up your mistakes.”

A clear, distinct voice interrupted.

It was a familiar voice, but not in a form he knew, so it sounded strange.

Torbiyan confirmed the speaker.

Unlike his own shabby state, the figure in neat attire was the young Princess whom he had never even considered a competitor because she was not yet complete.

His shoulders shook.

A hollow laugh became mockery that spread throughout his body.

“Are you saying you’ll place that thing on the throne instead of me?”

Then the Empress Dowager would act as regent.

Just as she had when he was Emperor.

“If so, that young thing would be no better than me, so why….”

Why did they choose that thing instead of me?

That thing even had a lowly mother, unlike himself.

And Tiren.

“That’s correct.”

She did not deny his words.

“I am someone with many shortcomings.”

Torbiyan certainly had talent. However, that talent was only slightly superior to others.

He was only smart enough to recognize his own limitations and Rianel’s excellence.

He had spent his life longing for and envying her talent.

He wanted to possess it, and at the same time wanted to destroy it.

Throughout all this, the burden that he as Emperor must be special had crushed him.

He had extremely avoided anything that would bring criticism, and eventually stopped involving himself in state affairs altogether.

“I will live while filling in my shortcomings.”

I will become a different Emperor than you.

Tiren raised her head and looked at each person gathered in the room.

“In addition to deposing the current Emperor Torbiyan, if you agree to my ascension, please raise your hands again.”

Tiren had the aspirations that a new monarch should display.

Torbiyan watched the hands that had gone down once rise again.

Unable to accept that the foundation supporting him was crumbling, he twisted his body.

“What on earth did I do wrong!”

Why must I be pushed aside by that young thing?

“What was I lacking….”

Then State Minister Callen spoke up.

“You asked why?”

“That’s right! I did nothing wrong. So why—!”

“That’s exactly why.”

Callen cut off his words.

“What?”

Torbiyan’s mouth fell open in bewilderment.

“Because Your Majesty did nothing.”

The reason you are being deposed is solely because of that.

Callen drove the point home clearly before turning away.

Finally, a completely collapsed world.

Torbiyan remained on his knees, hanging his head deeply.

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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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