The Obsessive Male Lead Is Obsessed With Me! - Chapter 111
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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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Episode 111
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Meanwhile, after Duke Roheim and Lionel had gone outside.
Someone let out a light cough in the meeting hall where only silence had settled.
“Since the Second Prince’s will is so firm… it seems it will be difficult to break the engagement between the two families.”
“Even if we were to proceed with breaking it, this would be a matter to handle between the Imperial Family and the Roheim Family.”
“That’s right. This agenda item no longer needs to come up in meetings.”
The nobles friendly with Duke Roheim rose from their seats first, and the Former Empress’s people, led by Count Keller, couldn’t bring themselves to stop them.
“…What will you do now?”
In the meeting hall where only the Former Empress’s faction remained, Count Keller spoke with a troubled tone.
However, as if she couldn’t hear those words, the Former Empress was still staring only at the door. It seemed she still couldn’t believe that Lionel had gone against her will.
‘It was strange that he had been so obedient all this time anyway.’
But why was the Former Empress making an expression as if she had been betrayed, when she herself had discriminated against the Second Prince so much?
It was then that Count Keller clicked his tongue lightly.
“…Then, wouldn’t it be fine if we made the Roheim side refuse the engagement?”
The owner of that slow voice was none other than the Emperor.
Count Keller looked at him with a slightly surprised face and asked.
“Making the Roheim side refuse the engagement, what method are you speaking of exactly?”
“It’s simple.”
Cayen spoke of the method he had thought of in his slow tone.
Count Keller was impressed. It was certainly a plausible method.
“Indeed… We could also restore public sentiment with this.”
“Right. Then Cecilia would also come forward saying she wants to break the engagement with Lionel. And after that, what comes next is… Ugh!”
“Your Majesty!”
Cayen clutched his head and collapsed from his chair with a pained groan, and the Former Empress, who came to her senses belatedly, jumped up from her seat in shock.
“Cayen! Someone! Quickly carry His Majesty to his bedchamber!”
The Imperial Guards who had been waiting immediately rushed over and lifted Cayen.
One ran ahead to clear any obstacles from the path, and another knight carrying the Emperor followed behind.
Someone let out a hollow laugh watching that scene which had become quite familiar now.
“His Majesty has collapsed again…”
“I clearly heard that his health was improving, but what on earth is going on.”
That was right. Cayen collapsed so frequently that his subjects were sick of it.
No, if he were just sickly, they wouldn’t say anything.
In the several weeks of state council meetings he attended, the words he said most often were “Do as you lords see fit.” Anyone would think they had seated a puppet emperor.
In fact, since the Former Empress was handling all the important state affairs, it wasn’t entirely wrong either.
‘Learning how to oversee state affairs can be learned gradually… but being so frail.’
And there was one more important problem that others didn’t know but Count Keller was aware of.
Namely, that the Emperor and Empress still hadn’t consummated their marriage.
At first, he thought they were delaying the wedding night because the Emperor was sickly. But listening to the Former Empress’s lamentations and the whispered stories of palace people, it seemed the Emperor was rejecting the Empress.
Of course, Count Keller also knew the fact that the Emperor and Empress didn’t have an affectionate relationship, as the Former Empress had spread.
So his heart might not be moved. Count Keller acknowledged that much.
But hadn’t the Emperor taken that seat relying on the Empress’s oracle?
Cayen absolutely had to have a child with Nicole. Only then could his legitimacy be recognized.
‘And yet he keeps the Empress at a distance… Perhaps the Emperor’s reproductive ability is…’
Come to think of it, the person who received the oracle about bearing a future sage king was the Empress.
In other words, as long as the Empress remained the same… it wouldn’t matter if the Emperor changed.
No, the probability of him changing was high.
[You shall rise to an exalted position regardless of your own will]
The oracle was telling him so!
‘Yes… It’s certain. The Emperor will change.’
Count Keller, thrilled by the conclusion he had reached, covered his mouth with his hand to hide any emotions that might have shown on his face.
‘If I confirm just one thing, I can solidify my conviction in this assumption.’
For that one thing, Count Keller secretly contacted someone without even the Former Empress knowing.
* * *
Cayen, who had been carried to the bedchamber, was laid on the bed.
Several court physicians immediately took the Emperor’s pulse, but since they fundamentally couldn’t understand why the Emperor kept collapsing, there was nothing they could do.
“Former Empress, the Empress has arrived.”
“Nicole!”
Even though Nicole had now become Empress, the Former Empress carelessly called her name in private places.
“Come quickly and examine the Emperor. Why on earth does Cayen collapse so frequently!”
“…I will examine him.”
Nicole approached Cayen’s side and examined his body.
However, the holy power she perfunctorily injected couldn’t be absorbed into Cayen’s body and just scattered meaninglessly outside.
Nevertheless, Nicole, who showed sincerity by injecting holy power several more times, shook her head weakly.
“I don’t know the reason either.”
“You don’t know, you don’t know! You should know! Didn’t you guarantee that you would completely cure my son!”
“Former Empress! Please calm down!”
The maids and court physicians barely managed to stop the Former Empress who was grabbing Nicole and shouting loudly.
Taking advantage of that gap, Nicole quietly slipped out of the Emperor’s bedchamber.
“…Empress, please don’t mind it.”
Those assigned as maids to the Empress’s Palace looked at Nicole with pitying eyes.
It was both sympathy for Nicole who was being scolded by the Former Empress despite being the Empress, and compassion for a woman rejected by her husband.
Since neither was pleasant, Nicole, who had returned to the Empress’s Palace, gestured for the maids to leave.
“Let me be alone.”
“Yes, Empress.”
Left alone in the Empress’s Palace bedchamber, Nicole stared blankly up at the ceiling.
Was she paying the price for deceiving others by claiming someone else’s oracle as her own and becoming Empress? She had been practically confined to this Empress’s Palace all along.
The Former Empress hadn’t restricted her freedom. It was just that there was nothing Nicole could do in this vast Imperial Palace.
She knew no one, had nowhere to go. All she could do was just…
‘I need to make the medicine quickly.’
Nicole opened the secret drawer of her desk and took out the research notes and several dried herbs she had stored inside.
What she was currently researching was a brainwashing drug. The very brainwashing drug that would make the Empress personally hand over evidence that the Emperor had fabricated a rebellion, and that had made Cayen make her Empress.
‘I know all the ingredients. If I can just remember the precise amounts…’
From the beginning, her purpose in entering the Imperial Palace had been one thing.
To reveal to the world that the rebellion her parents were known to have led was actually fabricated. To secure evidence for that.
However, even though she had secured evidence, there was nothing she could do. She could no longer return to the temple, and there wasn’t a single person in the Imperial Palace who could help her.
In the end, all she could rely on was the brainwashing drug.
She could no longer use brainwashing drugs on the Former Empress and Cayen, who had already been given the drug once. Especially not on Cayen, who kept having strange reactions unlike the perfectly fine Former Empress.
So the targets she needed to give the brainwashing potion to were…
‘The nobles who attend the state council meetings.’
She didn’t understand politics. So she didn’t know whose words carried weight.
Therefore, she would give the potion to all the nobles attending the state council meetings, making them reinvestigate the rebellion from 20 years ago.
If only her parents’ innocence could be revealed that way… then she would take her own life.
To confess that she had dared to claim as her own the fate that God had arranged.
To restore the honor of the Archbishop, who is being mocked by everyone for having given birth to a bastard child.
* * *
Two days later.
Thanks to the Imperial Palace messengers who traveled throughout the capital under the Emperor’s orders, one piece of news spread throughout the capital.
It was the news that in two weeks, a ceremony for conferring titles and medals would be held at the Imperial Palace to honor those who had distinguished themselves during the Northern Monster Wave incident.
At the same time, such rumors began to circulate.
The rumor was that Lionel, who had greatly distinguished himself as supreme commander in the north, would receive the title of Grand Duke as an imperial family member who could not become Emperor, and would be granted the devastated northern lands as his estate.
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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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