The Obsessive Male Lead Is Obsessed With Me! - Chapter 88
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Episode 88
* * *
At that moment, what was Nicole doing after stealing the letter the Empress had been keeping?
‘I’ll get my revenge! I’ll kill the Emperor and everyone else!’
Thanks to the letter the Empress had treasured, she learned that the Emperor had driven her parents to an unjust death in order to steal her birth mother’s alchemist notebook.
She could never forgive him. Since he had killed people to steal the alchemist notebook, she wanted to cruelly take revenge using the medicines written in that notebook.
And only then did Nicole realize.
‘It’s gone! It’s gone! When on earth did I lose it?’
Nicole frantically searched all the places she had been to find the alchemist notebook.
But the notebook didn’t turn up anywhere, and there was only one place Nicole hadn’t been able to search.
The Empress’s bedroom.
‘Could it be that the Empress picked it up…?’
The thought alone was terrifying.
But going to the Empress’s bedroom to confirm this fact was impossible.
After the letter disappeared, the Empress had strengthened security at the Empress’s Palace, and now Nicole could no longer enter the Empress’s Palace without being summoned.
There was only one method Nicole, who had no connections or anything else, could use.
Just one bottle of puppet potion she had made as a spare, just in case.
‘To the Empress… No. I can’t use it. The risk is too great.’
Someone who could return the notebook to her without much trouble even if the notebook’s contents were discovered. At the same time, someone Nicole could get close enough to give the puppet potion to.
…There was exactly one such person.
‘The First Prince.’
Having reached that conclusion, any further deliberation was a luxury. Nicole immediately headed to the First Prince’s Palace with the puppet potion.
“Bishop Nicole, what brings you here?”
“I’ve brought medicine that His Highness the Prince needs to take.”
“Is that so?”
The attendant opened the door for Nicole without much suspicion.
“Please come in.”
Cayen was supported by an attendant as he adjusted to a half-reclining position against the headboard, greeting Nicole with a pale face.
“This is the first time you’ve come to see me without being called. So, you brought medicine for me to take?”
“…Yes, Your Highness.”
Nicole bowed politely to Cayen and held up the medicine bottle high so it would be clearly visible.
“The amount of blood you coughed up yesterday was more than I expected, so I made a separate blood tonic.”
“…Tsk.”
Cayen made an unwilling expression, but he didn’t refuse Nicole’s medicine.
“Bring it here.”
“Here it is.”
Cayen brought the medicine bottle to his mouth, and watching his Adam’s apple bob, Nicole thought to herself that it was working.
But then.
“Cough!”
“Y-Your Highness!”
As soon as he drank the medicine, blood burst from Cayen’s mouth.
And it was even more than what he had coughed up yesterday. Moreover, unlike yesterday when he had seemed calm even while coughing up blood, Cayen was now suffering terribly, clutching his head with his hands.
“Your Highness, Your Highness! Are you alright!”
“Urgh, ugh…! Don’t… shout…!”
“Your Highness! Bishop Nicole, what on earth is happening!”
“How can he be coughing up blood like this after taking a blood tonic!”
The attendants screamed, and the Imperial Guards drew their swords as if ready to cut her down at any moment.
Amid the sharp hostility directed at her, Nicole froze completely for a moment, unable to say anything. She too was flustered by the unexpected situation.
‘Why? Nothing happened when the Empress took it?’
There was only one possibility she could think of.
The toxins remaining in Cayen’s body had reacted with the mind control drug, causing immediate side effects.
‘If he coughs up that much blood, he might die…!’
“Bishop Nicole!”
“Just a moment, just a moment… I’ll examine him.”
It was the moment Nicole belatedly approached Cayen to try to handle the situation.
“What on earth is happening here!”
“Your Majesty the Empress!”
At the voice of someone who shouldn’t be here right now, Nicole froze in shock, while the Empress, her face deathly pale, rushed past her to Cayen.
“Cayen! What happened, are you alright? Hm?”
“M-Mother, cough!”
“Someone! Quickly call the court physician!”
“Yes, Your Majesty!”
“And you. Answer me. What happened here? Why is the First Prince in this condition!”
At the Empress’s fierce interrogation, the attendant hurriedly answered.
“I-I don’t know anything. He suddenly started coughing up blood like this after taking the medicine Bishop Nicole brought!”
Whether intentionally or not, Nicole’s face clearly showed her confusion.
The moment she saw that face, a thought struck the Empress’s mind like lightning.
“…Everyone, restrain Bishop Nicole!”
“Pardon?”
“She dared to attempt to assassinate the First Prince. She will be punished for attempted assassination of royalty, hurry!”
The reason the Empress had come here was because the court physician had just confirmed that the Emperor had stopped breathing.
After the Emperor’s death, the Crown Prince would immediately hold the authority of acting Emperor, and after the Emperor’s funeral, he would ascend to the throne through a coronation ceremony.
But right now, the Empire had no Crown Prince. Therefore, the Empress came to hold the acting Emperor’s authority.
The Empress used her acting Emperor’s authority to temporarily postpone the official announcement of the Emperor’s death.
After that, she immediately rushed to the First Prince’s Palace.
It was natural that his son should know of the Emperor’s death. So no one suspected the Empress’s true intentions, but in reality, she harbored different motives.
‘The court physician must have become suspicious.’
She had accidentally broken a vase, and the Emperor happened to fall over it, coincidentally getting his throat pierced by a sharp fragment and dying.
Though coincidence upon coincidence had occurred, people thought it could happen because of the Emperor’s oracle.
But the court physician who examined the Emperor’s body must have discovered the external injuries remaining on the Emperor’s head.
Before the examination records were announced, she needed to either bribe the court physician or silence him.
To do that, she needed to delay the official announcement of the death, and for that, she needed something to divert attention.
‘Yes, this will be enough.’
Whether Nicole really tried to harm Cayen or not didn’t matter.
Seeing Cayen coughing up blood and collapsing made her heart feel like it would tear apart, but anyway, he wouldn’t die for reasons other than suicide.
Then she had to make the most use of this situation. So that Cayen could ascend to the throne.
‘An attempted assassination of the First Prince would be more than enough to divert attention.’
And if things went really well, couldn’t she pin the mastermind behind this incident on Lionel? The Empress was thinking that far when.
“Wait! I have something to say!”
Nicole, whose hands were bound behind her back by Imperial Guards and forced to kneel on the floor, cried out desperately.
The Empress waved her hand dismissively.
“There’s nothing to hear! Take that woman…!”
“I am!”
Nicole was also desperate in her own way.
If she was dragged away like this, she would die. Not only would she fail to clear her parents’ false accusations, but if her true identity was revealed, Archbishop Seiji who had taken her from exile would also be dragged to prison.
She couldn’t cause trouble for the Archbishop…!
“Only you must know.”
Perhaps because she was cornered? The voice of Archbishop Seiji, who had once earnestly entreated her, echoed in her ears.
“If this oracle leaks to the outside, this young lady will get caught up in the struggle for the throne. So pretend you didn’t see it.”
The content carved on the stone tablet that had been hidden away in her room was surely…
“I have an oracle!”
The words burst out reflexively without even a moment to think of anything in her mind.
Since these weren’t words spoken consciously, Nicole herself was surprised, but the person most shocked was the Empress.
“How dare you spout such nonsense in a place like this…!”
“It’s not nonsense! His Highness the First Prince promised me. That he would make me Empress!”
“What, what did you say?”
Everyone was shocked. The Imperial Guard who had forced Nicole to kneel gasped and stepped back, and the Empress also couldn’t breathe properly, stammering before belatedly asking Cayen.
“Ca, Cai. Is that really true? Huh? Is it really true?”
Cayen, who was barely holding onto consciousness, frowned as he tried to open his mouth.
Before that, Nicole shouted first.
“Your Highness! Please make me Empress! …As you promised!”
After dropping the bombshell statement, Nicole held her breath and only watched Cayen’s lips.
This was the gamble of a lifetime. If the brainwashing drug hadn’t worked on Cayen, he would rage furiously asking what kind of nonsense that was. And she would end up charged with insulting the Imperial Family.
But if the brainwashing drug had worked properly…
“…Ah, yes… That’s right. I’ll make you Empress.”
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————