The Slave Is Too Handsome - Chapter 52

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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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The slave is far too handsome!
052.
Doubt flickered across his eyes as he studied the paper bearing the problem. Lucian bit down on his lower lip.
What on earth is this?
The paper bore two lines of something—not quite symbols, but crude pictographic characters, if you could call them that. Or rather, drawn would be the more accurate word.
It was definitely a cipher, though.
Lucian’s eyes darted across the page. He pulled out a chair and sat, then retrieved the pencil from the drawer alongside the paper, turning it over in his hands.
‘So this is the final test. Some secret cipher or code passed down only within the Imperial Family, perhaps.’
Cipher decryption—he’d done it a few times during his mercenary days. Drawing on that experience, Lucian approached the problem by first identifying the most frequently repeated symbol.
Scratch, scratch. His hand moved across the blank space, then suddenly he struck through two lines of what he’d just written. He flicked the pencil away and turned back to stare at the problem.
His hand, which had been spinning the pencil rapidly, came to an abrupt stop. The pencil, losing its balance, clattered across the desk.
“…….”
This wasn’t a cipher crafted by an expert. It was as if a child had merely mimicked what a proper cipher might look like.
‘A child? Could it be…… that Valensio made this?’
His face grew grave as he continued studying the cipher.
He gripped the pencil again and began deciphering the code using an entirely different method.
Having cracked the seemingly playful cipher, Lucian rose slowly from his seat, paper in hand.
He ran his fingers along the walls on all sides until he found the secret entrance the cipher had indicated.
Pushing on one section of the wall, a passage hidden behind it was revealed. Just as the cipher had directed.
‘Once I cross this threshold, I will…….’
Despite his composed expression, his heart suddenly raced.
Hesitating only a moment, he took up the lantern and stepped into the passage, dark as pitch.
Soon after, the opening sealed shut, and what had been a doorway became wall once more.
The Reception Room fell silent. As if no one had ever been there at all.
People burst into the empty room ten minutes later.
“Thank you for your effo…….”
A member of the Special Task Force, having knocked and thrown open the door, trailed off. The colleague following behind him tilted his head in confusion.
“He’s not here?”
“That’s correct, he is not.”
The first officer to open the door wore a dissatisfied expression. Lucian—whom they’d been certain would be waiting, looking flustered—was nowhere to be found. They’d been sure he’d be standing there with a pathetic face.
Soon, all members of the Special Task Force entered the empty Reception Room.
“I never thought he’d actually pass the third trial.”
“We don’t know yet if he’s passed. For all we know, he might’ve just panicked and run off.”
No one agreed with that last opinion.
The moment one official checked the empty drawer beneath the desk, they all reached the same conclusion simultaneously.
They needed to prepare to meet the new Crown Prince.
Meanwhile, the Lucian they were searching for was moving slowly through the dark passage.
What awaited at the end of this path? The stale air in the secret tunnel left him feeling lightheaded.
‘Do you have any dreams?’
As he walked steadily through the dimly lit corridor, a conversation with Eloïse came back to him.
‘Dreams?’
At that moment, he’d been watering the horse he’d been riding.
After parting with Brick at the Port, the two of them had been riding relentlessly until they’d stopped at a Private Dwelling to catch their breath.
The sky was vast and the sunlight pleasantly warm, and a cool breeze drifted across the peaceful afternoon.
‘Yes. Dreams, goals, that sort of thing. Do you have any?’
Her green eyes, visible beneath a hat pulled low, were quite sharp.
‘…….’
Dreams—he’d never given them a thought. And no one had ever asked him before.
After a long silence, Lucian finally shook his head.
It was only natural. Survival had always been his goal, and at most he’d simply thought about earning more money.
Since the answer Eloïse sought was clearly not money, Lucian concluded he had no dreams.
‘Really none? Then think about it from now on.’
‘But why?’
Why did it matter so much? Lucian narrowed his eyes as he helped Eloïse onto the saddle.
‘Who knows? Maybe once everything settles into place, I’ll make your dream come true.’
That day, Lucian had laughed emptily and changed the subject, but afterward he’d often found himself thinking about dreams alone. Though he’d never arrived at any real answer.
So why, now that he stood on the threshold of the Crown Prince’s seat, did that conversation return to him?
“Hm?”
When two paths appeared at the tunnel’s end, Lucian’s reason snapped back from the hazy past to the reality before him.
‘Which way?’
The letter, which he’d only decrypted about eighty percent, contained only instructions on how to open the passage and to follow it through.
‘It must say which one to take somewhere in the rest.’
The direction apparently lay in the portion he hadn’t yet solved.
In such moments, intuition was all he had to rely on. And he’d always had good instincts—whether from growing up reading others’ moods just to survive, or from the countless hardships he’d endured to stay alive.
After a brief moment of deliberation, Lucian chose the right path without hesitation.
The corridor, which had been dark, gradually grew brighter. His measured pace quickened.
Emerging from the long passage, the Imperial Garden sprawled before him—lush with grass, trees, and flowers.
“You’ve arrived at last.”
At that deep voice, Lucian’s grip on the paper slipped, and it fell.
Before him stood the Emperor, his benevolent face serene, hands clasped behind his back.
Lucian’s heart, which had been calm moments before, began to race.
“Your Majesty.”
Lucian froze in place, barely managing to speak. The Emperor shook his head gently, then strode forward to meet him.
“You should call me Father, Valensio.”
The Emperor pulled Lucian into a tight embrace and patted his back. An unfamiliar scent reached his nose, but it felt unreal.
“I’ve missed you, my son.”
They say when someone is too shocked, words won’t come—it seemed joy produced the same effect.
Lucian, intoxicated by the sense of victory at having succeeded, found himself held in the Emperor’s arms in a daze.
Soon he gathered his wits, wrapped his arms around the Emperor’s back, and chose his words carefully.
“I…… have missed you as well.”
Lucian spoke with emotion layered into an excited tone, trying to appear as a family member overjoyed at reunion, while maintaining a subtle confusion as though his memories had not yet fully returned.
Perhaps he truly did feel something like that—yet the word “Father” still would not pass his lips.
A satisfied chuckle from the Emperor settled softly against his ear.
‘If I had a father, would it feel like this?’
The Emperor’s embrace was so warm and tender that Lucian’s formerly restless spirit began to settle.
Now he thought he could vaguely answer Eloïse when she’d asked what his dreams were.
He wanted a family. A family that could embrace him as he truly was.
***
“There you are. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
At the familiar voice, Camilo glanced up slightly. Simon had slipped into the seat beside him at some point.
“Not you again…….”
Camilo, as if the wind had been knocked from his sails, turned away and took another sip from his cup.
He had slipped out of the Imperial Palace in broad daylight to sulk alone in a hidden tavern in the city.
It was a place he’d begun frequenting often since he’d lost his temper while drunk in the Palace and been scolded by the Empress—a way to avoid the eyes of the Palace staff.
Though he’d made it clear to the staff to let no one inside, it seemed they couldn’t refuse entry to Simon, a foreign prince.
Just as Camilo was refilling his empty cup with strong liquor, Simon snatched the cup from before his eyes and tossed it back himself.
“Hey!”
Camilo glared at Simon.
“Ugh. Why do you drink this swill?”
Simon drained the cup in one go and grimaced.
Camilo shot him a look of exasperation and reached for the cup, but Simon was faster. He set it far out of reach.
“Is it because of that man Eloïse brought?”
“If you came here to needle me, get out.”
Simon’s pitying gaze only darkened Camilo’s expression further.
“What’s the problem? If you become Crown Prince, that’s all that matters.”
At Simon’s casual acceptance of the newcomer as Crown Prince, Camilo’s eyes blazed, but Simon stood his ground.
He was gauging which of them—Camilo or Lucian—would be more advantageous for him.
More precisely, he was calculating which one would make it easier for him to claim a position in the Empire. He had no succession rights in his homeland; he had no intention of living out his days as just another forgettable prince.
Simon was ambitious. It was for this reason that he’d begun hanging around the ill-tempered Camilo since childhood, feigning friendship.
“Are you just going to sit here and do nothing?”
Simon deliberately provoked Camilo. After a brief moment of thought, he’d made his choice: Camilo.
“If I were you, I’d dig up that man’s weaknesses.”
“What?”
Camilo’s eyes, clouded with drunkenness and emotion, began to clear as reason returned.
“Or at the very least, investigate Eloïse. Did they really meet by chance? I don’t think so.”
Simon coiled around Camilo like a serpent, whispering softly.
“Shall I help you?”
Camilo stared at Simon with vacant, enchanted eyes.

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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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