The Problem Is, My Ex-Boyfriend and I Are Both Dating Other People - Chapter 17

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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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Chapter 17

It was no secret anymore that the Emperor’s health was declining with each passing day. For years now, he had not left his bed.
In the Court Chamberlain, who supported the fading sun, there was no trace of despair. The man who had served the Emperor his entire life appeared as solid and impenetrable as stone.
Lihardt remembered when the Court Chamberlain had been younger—remembered him advising caution when the Emperor had first extended his bargain.
“From now on, I’ll handle it myself. You may go.”
The Court Chamberlain regarded Lihardt in silence, as he once had when counseling a reckless youth.
But this time, he did not urge him to reconsider. Instead, he bowed his head and withdrew, closing the door behind him.
Thud.
The heavy sound of the door echoed through the silent chamber. Lihardt walked slowly toward the bed, which consumed more than half the room.
“You’ve come.”
Death hung in the air. Lihardt sensed it immediately. The Emperor would not last much longer.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Beyond the translucent curtain, the Emperor was skeletal, withered to nothing but bone.
Knowing the Emperor’s age, Lihardt had little difficulty understanding that this wasted state came not from age alone. His gaze fixed on the Emperor’s hand—blackened, desiccated, reeking of death.
“You’ve been busy, it seems.”
“I? How could I accomplish anything, lying here like a corpse?”
“Our agreement was that I find the Princess. But then you asked me to serve as her guardian, without ever explaining what that truly meant.”
Lihardt spoke through gritted teeth, each word clipped with barely contained fury.
“Did you mean to have me marry the Princess?”
“……What did you see in the Northern Region?”
At this evasion, Lihardt’s face twisted. He wanted to demand the truth, to press him. He could have done so easily. But not for Isabella.
Lihardt steadied his breathing and replied quietly.
“Tombs. Demon Beasts. And the Princess.”
“Sasha. Ah, that child the Late Crown Prince left behind—how much she must resent me…….”
The Emperor’s voice grew indistinct, mumbling.
“The Late Crown Prince……. The fault was his. All of it, everything…….”
The Emperor shifted blame in his rambling, his eyes unfocused. He was clearly suffering another bout of delirium. There would be no coherent answers today either.
Lihardt clicked his tongue sharply. The Emperor would get what he wanted in the end.
“Very well.”
He would not go willingly, but he would go. Lihardt rose slowly from his seat.
“I shall support Your Majesty’s desire to make Sasha Filliard the Emperor.”
“Yes. Of course. This throne was always meant for the Late Crown Prince, so naturally it belongs to that child.”
The Emperor’s eyes suddenly brightened, lucidity returning. A man dying under the weight of guilt.
Lihardt felt no urge to mock him. He understood, at least broadly, how the Emperor had come to this.
The Late Crown Prince had accompanied the previous Emperor to the Northern Temple—a fact known to no one. Though the incident was closed as an accident, there was another survivor from that chaos besides Sasha.
“However, I have one condition.”
One thing he needed to know.
Lihardt rose, drawing back the thin curtain. The Emperor beneath was a skull barely clinging to life. Of that wasted frame, only the eyes burned with terrible brightness.
“Your Majesty, how did you escape from among the Demon Beasts?”
The connection between the Emperor and Sasha. The Northern Region’s survivors.
“What are you——!”
“Ah, I should have mentioned this first. The Princess is remarkably clever. She remembers everything that happened when she was only six years old.”
Watching the Emperor freeze, Lihardt smiled faintly.
“Still, does Your Majesty’s wish to place the Princess on the throne remain unchanged?”
Lihardt held the Emperor’s gaze with eyes dark as blood, expressionless, then turned and left the room.
Behind the heavily closing door, a glass struck the frame with a crash, but he did not look back.
He could not afford to notice.
“I never expected the Count to emerge from there.”
Because the one person he longed for was standing before him.
Isabella had elegantly pinned up her golden hair with a brooch shaped like a blue serpent—the symbol of House of Belua, fitting her as perfectly as it did.
Lihardt studied Isabella in silence. Her green eyes, which did not flinch from his gaze, were particularly beautiful.
Lihardt clenched his fists anxiously.
Did she not expect him to emerge from there? Did that unexpected meeting please her, or——.
“……What do you mean?”
“Your Majesty has permitted no audiences these past several weeks.”
It did not take long for hope to crumble.
“The Gazette even published satirical illustrations of those lingering nearby, hoping for the opportunity to see Your Majesty.”
Her voice was cynical, her gaze assessing as it swept over him. Only then did he notice those around Isabella, pretending indifference while keeping their attention fixed on him.
Familiar faces scattered among strangers—all nobility, apparently. The Imperial Palace had ears in its very walls, they said.
‘So much fuss over some grand magic, and all it amounts to is a few rats.’
As he studied the faces of those with ears pricked, his sleeve was tugged. As though she no longer saw him as a threat beyond the boundary.
Lihardt turned his head slowly rather than startle ungracefully.
Green eyes with anxiety carefully concealed. Those black pupils gleamed with unusual brightness.
‘Ah.’
Feeling his nerves sharpen, Lihardt savored the moment Isabella’s attention fixed entirely on him. A spark kindled at the hunger to claim that gaze for himself alone.
“Count, what passed between you and His Majesty?”
In that instant, her question became the moment he made his choice.
The scales that hadn’t tipped completely even during his private audience with the Emperor now plummeted with a resounding thud.
The clearest path to hold that gaze on him forever crystallized before him. Lihardt smiled.
“I’m returning from telling the Imperial Princess that I will become engaged to her.”
The heart that had known only despair, unease, and anguish began to race with hope. Was this how one felt when a single beam of light broke through darkness? Lihardt did not miss the sudden hairline fracture that appeared in her deep green eyes.
“Engagement…….”
Before thought could even settle, her murmured voice trembled thin and fragile. In that moment, Lihardt felt a base satisfaction bloom. Like scratching away what little remained, he held Isabella’s gaze and pressed on.
“His Majesty seemed deeply concerned for the Imperial Princess. As the Duke knows well, there are no shortage of those who play with people’s hearts here.”
“…….”
“Yesterday they whisper of love, then by the next morning they cast someone aside without mercy.”
At the cruelty of his words, he saw the finest fractures deepen in her dark green eyes.
Could she truly be wounded by what he’d said? For an instant, Lihardt wanted to kneel before Isabella and confess—not that it was sincere, but that he wished it to be. He forced the impulse down.
Isabella did not love him. For ten years. That alone was the single certainty he could hold.
Had she ever loved him at all? He didn’t want to think that far.
He wanted to believe that the girl who had kissed him in that distant past had loved the boy.
The boy had grown into a man. And he still had not forgotten her.
He had struggled to forget, only to discover it was impossible from the start.
“Having received much from His Majesty, I resolved to remain at the Imperial Princess’s side in repayment.”
And so he had returned. Unable to forget, he came back to reclaim what was lost.
A lapdog had attached itself to Isabella’s side, but Lihardt had no intention of retreating.
“If fortune smiles on us, we may yet become family, Duke of Belua.”
With his head tilted at an angle, Lihardt smiled again. This time, the expression held a hint of self-mockery.

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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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