Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 135

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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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Episode 135
Unlike when I’d brushed off my father with smooth excuses, I answered more carefully this time, with an edge to my voice.
“There’s been a problem at home, so we had to vacate it suddenly.”
Everything would have been true except for the fact that the cause of that problem was me.
“Is it serious?”
My mother asked, worry creasing her brow.
“No. It’s all been resolved. Though we’ll need to find a new place.”
I was answering with roundabout words, offering no real explanation of the situation.
When I said it wasn’t anything major, my mother seemed reassured, though my father stopped her before she could press me with those stern eyes.
“We’ll talk about the details tomorrow, Bia.”
My luggage and I had arrived one after the other, which was why everyone was up despite the late hour.
My mother checked the time and pressed her fingers to her temples, then waved her hand dismissively.
“Everyone off to bed. Lina, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
My parents’ “I’ll see you tomorrow” was still a frightening phrase even to an adult like me, but I was too exhausted to worry about it now.
“Yes.”
I dumped everything onto tomorrow-me’s shoulders and headed to my room.
Thanks to the relief that everything was finally over, I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow.
Then I gradually stirred awake at the sound of hurried footsteps thundering down the hallway.
‘That sounds like Anika.’
The steps were light despite the force behind them.
My guess was confirmed when I heard Anika stifle a laugh just outside my door.
I kept my eyes closed and pretended to sleep, ready to fulfill Anika’s expectations.
‘One, two, three.’
After counting roughly three seconds, the door burst open and Anika popped out like a cuckoo from a clock striking the hour.
“Big sister!”
“Anika? You scared me half to death this morning.”
I dutifully pretended to wake up and acted appropriately startled.
Anika laughed brightly, pleased that her prank had succeeded.
“Time for breakfast.”
Anika bounded onto my bed and threw her arms around me.
“So you came to wake me up. Thank you.”
I loved when the usually aloof Anika showed affection after so long, so I pulled her close in a tight hug.
It seemed today’s quota of cuteness had been spent, because Anika started squirming to get free.
“Let go, it’s stuffy!”
“What was that? Didn’t quite hear you.”
I pretended not to hear her just this once and held her a moment longer before finally releasing her.
“You heard me perfectly well.”
My youngest sister returned to her usual cool, prickly demeanor and spoke with exaggerated sullenness.
“Big sister, Mom said to talk to you after you finish breakfast.”
Then, as if she’d just remembered, she added an afterthought.
‘She’s going to make me feel sick.’
Wouldn’t it be better if she saw me before I ate?
But that was the least of the things that would happen today.
* * *
Edwin returned to the Imperial Palace and heard news of Lina’s whereabouts three or four hours after the investigation began.
Since there were only a handful of shipping companies and he’d visited them all searching for the fastest ticket to another continent, many people remembered him.
Edwin crumpled the investigation report in his hands.
“Did she plan this from the beginning?”
Edwin asked the question without a hint of humor, as if genuinely curious.
“If Lina had planned this, she would have been more meticulous than this. It seems like a rash action born of panic.”
Kyle answered carefully, trying to steady Edwin.
But his words didn’t reach Edwin at all.
“Lina’s not a particularly good rider. She would have taken a carriage. Find it.”
Edwin gave the order to Kyle in a tone so chilling it seemed to frost the air.
Kyle tried to say something, then thought better of it and left to carry out the command.
The moment Kyle left, Edwin fell apart.
The thin, cutting pain in his chest had become unbearable.
“Lina.”
Just saying the name of his heartless lover made his right hand—which had crumpled the report—tremble.
Edwin wrapped his left hand around his right, gripping it tightly.
But it barely helped.
Edwin clenched his fist so hard his nails bit into his skin.
He had to pull himself together.
There was no time for this.
Edwin gritted his teeth and stood up.
“Did you think I’d let you run like this?”
Despair and sorrow could come later.
After he’d truly lost her.
But there was still a chance now.
A chance to prevent Lina from abandoning him.
Edwin’s eyes gleamed like a predator closing in on prey.
Edwin summoned an aide to replace the absent Kyle and rattled off orders in rapid succession.
“Seal off Ranken’s harbor. Not even a single rowboat leaves. And summon the knights. Full assembly.”
The knights Edwin spoke of were not only his sworn brothers but the Imperial’s own elite, those who had fought through the war alongside him.
The knights, who had grown soft with peace since the war’s end, gathered one by one at the training grounds with serious expressions.
They were taken aback by the sudden summons, but Edwin’s expression was so grim that everyone maintained silence and just watched carefully for any sign of explanation.
The knights cast their eyes left and right, but it seemed none of them knew what had happened.
Then Kyle appeared.
He was the only one who might know why the summons had been issued.
The knights fixed their attention on Kyle’s lips, straining to hear.
Kyle took a moment to catch his breath after his rush, then, prompted by Edwin’s silent urging, hurried to speak.
* * *
Fortunately, my mother only asked me a few more times if there really was nothing wrong.
Since there truly wasn’t a problem anymore now, my answers were consistently confident.
After repeating the same exchange perhaps five times, my mother finally sighed with relief and pulled me into an embrace.
And she whispered against my ear.
“Did he break up with you again?”
“No, he didn’t! And before, every time I was the one who ended it!”
“So relationship troubles, then—that’s always the culprit.”
I just rolled my eyes and exercised my right to remain silent.
My mother, studying my face with a sharp gaze, decided it wasn’t anything serious and let the matter drop.
“If anything’s wrong, come to your mother. You’ve always tried to handle everything alone since you were young, and it only makes me more worried.”
Since I was in the middle of cleaning up after acting rashly without thinking, I felt a pang of conscience.
“Your face is all puffy.”
“Oh, that’s just because work’s been busy lately……”
I’d cried all day the day before yesterday and again in the early hours of yesterday morning, so my eyes were still a bit swollen.
I made a clumsy excuse.
Ignoring the sting of my conscience, I grinned, and my mother cradled my cheeks in both hands and compressed them together.
“You’re something. How much longer is your vacation?”
“Ungil morth gith shree weekths.”
She’d asked the question but kept my cheeks squeezed, so my pronunciation came out mangled.
“You’ll stay home during your break, won’t you?”
I hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
“Yeth.”
Only then, satisfied, did my mother release my cheeks.
“Perfect timing—the Twins are also on their last break before starting upper-level courses, so I rented a villa in Dietar.”
Dietar was a resort town about three hours by carriage from Ranheldiern, famous for its beautiful seascape.
I’d only meant to collect my luggage and leave, but it looked like my schedule would end up being a bit longer. Still, since I’d been neglecting my family while focused on romance, I agreed to go willingly.
“Since your break is short, let’s leave right after lunch.”
“All right.”
My family, except for me, would stay in Dietar until the Academy’s break ended, so one carriage was loaded full of luggage.
“Mother, are we bringing all of this?”
The Twins looked at what was almost a half-move’s worth of vacation luggage and gasped in shock.
“You never know what you might need.”
The house was a bit of a mess from the hurried packing, but no one in the family thought much of it.
* * *
“Someone witnessed Lina boarding a Shared Carriage. However, the direction she was headed wasn’t Ranken—it was Ranheldiern.”
Ranheldiern was where Lina’s family lived.
Three hours by carriage from there lay Dietar, which had the Empire’s second-largest harbor.
“Kyle, didn’t you say that if Lina had really planned this, she wouldn’t have done it so clumsily?”
Edwin twisted his lips into a smile upon hearing Lina’s likely destination.
“Your words proved right. She made it look like she was heading to Ranken, then went somewhere else entirely.”
Lina was someone whose job was catching smugglers and money-launderers.
She would know at least dozens of ways to slip past pursuit and flee to another country.
Lina was a far more troublesome quarry than Edwin had anticipated.
But Edwin was a man who performed at his best in difficult battles.
The same tension and exhilaration that gripped him just before entering combat now wrapped around Edwin.
Edwin rescinded his initial order to seal only Ranken.
“Seal the entire Imperial border.”
As the situation escalated, Kyle cautiously offered his opinion.
“That will create too much backlash. If word spreads that we’re detaining foreign merchant vessels and civilians, it will cause diplomatic problems.”
Edwin smiled coldly.
“You think I don’t know that?”

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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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