Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 145

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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 145
One conversation from an ordinary lunch day came a step too late.
“Do the others know who His Majesty’s lover is? I won’t ask who—just tell me if you know or not.”
My hurt at Helen keeping Ed’s identity secret from me faded quickly enough.
Embarrassment burned far hotter than wounded feelings.
“We didn’t want to know either. We found out anyway. But we’ll keep the secret.”
Sophia’s words echoed in my mind, and the Blue Hawk members’ bitter expressions—like they’d witnessed something they shouldn’t have—flickered before my eyes.
‘How on earth did they find out? When?’
I couldn’t even begin to guess, and I didn’t want to know.
I’d given them far too many reasons to look that way—far too many moments they shouldn’t have seen.
To be objective about it, we were like a pair of lovesick insects.
‘I thought no one had noticed.’
Every night I tossed and turned in bed, caught between longing and dread, until my leave finally ended.
‘I have to go back, don’t I?’
I’d already said goodbye to my family.
But hesitating in front of the carriage Ed had sent was unavoidable.
I wasn’t shameless enough to act nonchalant after discovering—too late—that my secret affair had already been exposed.
“Shall I offer my hand?”
Helen, who had grown visibly darker since our meal a few days ago and had been sticking closer to me than ever, offered her hand with careful courtesy.
Her usual cheerful, easy-going expression had turned solemn.
She seemed worried I might dig in my heels and refuse to go.
‘Whether I want to or not, I have to go. That’s what being an adult means.’
I let out a long sigh.
“No, I’m fine.”
I gently declined Helen’s kindness and climbed into the carriage on my own.
Helen followed me inside.
“The protocol is usually to ride horseback outside as an escort, but you might be lonely otherwise.”
Helen settled into the seat across from me and spoke with easy confidence.
She’d volunteered to keep me company because my mood looked poor.
It was a thoughtful gesture.
Alone in the carriage, I would have found myself haunted by Sophia’s voice and the Blue Hawk members’ bitter expressions all over again.
Helen was a pleasant person, and she had a gift for finding topics that would hold my interest.
“Did I mention that I’m friends with Lucy?”
The moment Helen spoke, I could focus on the conversation.
“No, but somehow I had that feeling.”
Helen laughed easily and said she heard that often.
“Lucy was in the same unit as me, but she retired after taking a serious wound to her shoulder near the end of the war. She fights by swinging a Bastard Sword like a war hammer, you see.”
It was surprising that Lucy, whom the other Blue Hawk staff members called a crow because of her love of flashy things, had a military background.
‘Though now that I think about it, she did have a lot of calluses on her hands.’
“That explains why Lucy is so strong.”
When I showed interest, Helen’s stories continued to flow.
Most of them were anecdotes from the time when she and Ed served together.
This time it wasn’t simply praise heaped on Ed.
Even though Helen didn’t intend it, Ed’s exploits gradually emerged with each major battle she described—tales of his decisive action.
His Military Prowess had been the very key to victory or defeat in that war.
‘An Ed who would lower his voice and arrogantly rally the knights with “The Empire cannot lose while I stand here”—I couldn’t picture it.’
“I can’t imagine it.”
The ‘Emperor’ Helen had witnessed felt like a different person from the Ed I knew.
“I still can’t believe the sight of Lina scolding His Majesty. It’s like a dream.”
Helen seized the opening and responded with exaggerated shivers.
“Is it really that shocking?”
When I asked as though I found it unbelievable, Helen protested and began laying out episodes in earnest.
As I listened, delighted, to these different facets of my lover’s character, we arrived in the Capital before I knew it.
At the Capital’s border, the carriage paused to pass through the city gates.
“From here, I’ll proceed on horseback.”
Helen confirmed our arrival through the carriage window and descended.
And in her place, Ed climbed inside.
“I missed you.”
Ed pulled me into his arms and spoke in a tender voice.
“I missed you too.”
I held him close in return, then let go.
The carriage began to move slowly—we’d passed through the checkpoint.
Ed settled naturally into the seat beside me.
His eyes never left my face.
Like a man who thought I would vanish if he blinked.
Embarrassed by such an intense gaze after days apart, I asked without thinking.
“You weren’t waiting at the gates because you were worried I wouldn’t come, were you?”
But Ed’s eyes flickered away.
The look of someone caught in a direct hit.
‘Oh, you didn’t.’
“Wow, you don’t trust me?”
I let my eyebrows droop as though hurt, and Ed began stammering excuses.
“I do trust you. It’s just… I got anxious.”
Whether this incident had triggered some form of separation anxiety, Ed started gnawing at his lower lip.
“I’m not running away.”
To reassure my anxious lover, I made it clear I had no intention of leaving.
Ed’s face brightened instantly.
‘His expressions change so extremely.’
A mischievous impulse suddenly arose.
“So… maybe?”
I tilted my head deliberately and let my words trail off, and Ed grumbled with a sullen face.
“What do you mean ‘maybe’?”
“I’m saying I’ll see how you behave.”
I opened my eyes wide to show I remembered exactly how this entire situation had come about.
“I’m sorry.”
Ed’s face sagged immediately, and he apologized at once.
I wasn’t truly angry—just pretending to be.
My resolve wavered the moment his expression turned so pathetic.
But I couldn’t give in too easily.
“You said you can’t date a man you can’t trust.”
But I was already losing ground.
‘If I had just cared a little less…’
I made my petulant complaint, then added a half-hearted threat that I would only forgive him this once.
Even in the face of this soft threat, Ed nodded with an earnest expression.
‘Why is he so cute again?’
Even knowing full well I was suffering from Love Blindness, nothing changed.
He still looked endearing to my eyes.
Unable to resist the grip of my stubborn infatuation and the tender ache of reunion after days apart, I kissed him first.
Ed responded with fervent enthusiasm.
The kiss deepened.
At some point, I found myself reclining nearly flat against the carriage seat.
My breathing quickened; the air inside grew warm.
How long did that last? Soon I sensed the carriage approaching the outer gates of the Imperial Palace.
I hurriedly pulled away and smoothed my hair, shifting the topic.
“Ahem—so, has the Smuggling Crackdown been making progress?”
Work talk was always the best way to cool heated air.
As the subject changed, Ed’s dazed expression cleared.
“The timing worked in our favor.”
Ed answered with a twisted smile.
The change was dramatic—like the difference between mid-summer and mid-winter.
‘Surely he doesn’t have a split personality or anything like that?’
It was precisely at that moment that Helen’s voice echoed in my memory.
“His Majesty gives you chills even when he’s on your side.”
“One of my fellow soldiers dreamed about His Majesty and went sleepless for three nights—terrified he’d dream about him again.”
‘I thought Helen was exaggerating.’
It seemed I would need time to properly synchronize ‘Emperor’ and ‘Ed’ in my mind.
Ed’s gaze, which had briefly shifted from me, returned.
The moment our eyes met, Ed broke into a bright smile as though his cold expression moments before had never existed.
Then he continued where he’d left off.
“We uncovered the Temple Institution illegally trafficking in the Slave Trade—funneling destitute people out through fake merchant vessels dealing in luxuries. The shipping records and merchant information were all falsified. And every person we rescued testified that before being taken, they’d either stayed at the Relief House or visited the Temple Institution. So we’re nearly certain.”
Ed delivered this grave matter in a flat tone, exactly as I’d expected.
“Funneling the poor away to become slaves in foreign lands?”
Through Ibeta’s background at the Peram Temple, I understood roughly how the Temple Institution operated the Relief Houses.
Yet even the Peram Temple, which I’d considered the worst case, had merely collected substantial finder’s fees before passing children on to what amounted to employment agencies—not sold them into slavery.
Among the other nobles, some did engage in illegal Slave Trade, but they typically operated as middlemen between countries where slavery was legal and countries where it remained lawful.
Of course, that didn’t make the latter approach justifiable.
But selling the destitute who came seeking divine mercy into foreign slavery felt like an act that scraped away whatever bare shred of humanity remained.
“How has the Temple Institution reacted?”
“No obvious moves yet, but they’ll naturally claim ignorance.”
Ed’s voice turned cold again.
“But this time, they won’t be able to slip away that easily.”

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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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