Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 18

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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 18
The price of taking a hostage before him was his life.
The masked man’s head, severed from his body, vanished into the darkness of the Alley.
When Lina heard an unidentifiable sound from a place beyond her sight, she turned her head to look.
“Better not to turn your head.”
At Edwin’s intervention, Lina, having guessed the situation well enough, rose slowly with her eyes clenched shut.
The muscles around her eyes grew taut from how hard she squeezed them.
Edwin chuckled silently to himself and deliberately made noise as he approached so as not to startle her.
“This way.”
He drew her close and shielded the corpse with his own body.
“You can open your eyes now.”
But her tightly shut eyes would not open.
“It’s fine, really.”
Only after Edwin teased her twice over, asking if she planned to spend her whole life with her eyes closed, did her gaze finally turn toward him.
Her violet eyes glistened with tears.
She made small whimpering sounds and trembled—clearly still wound tight with tension.
“What possessed you to be so reckless just now, you coward?”
Edwin fished a handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her, taking the opportunity to scold her.
Lina accepted the handkerchief and dabbed at the tears pooling at her eyes.
“You told me you’d buy time, Lord Edwin, and to make it work somehow.”
“I did?”
Edwin questioned her in bewilderment.
“Didn’t you?”
Lina moved the handkerchief to her left eye, then paused.
“You just gave me a wink.”
She said it in a confused tone.
“That was a smoke screen—I meant for you to dismiss it as such.”
Edwin pressed a hand to his forehead, exasperated at how thoroughly his signal had been misconstrued.
“Ah.”
Lina laughed weakly.
“Though I suppose I’m the one who should be more embarrassed.”
Edwin’s rebuke was more than half laughter.
He was bewildered, but oddly, not angry.
“To begin with, there’s no reason I’d ask someone like you—who’s never held even a wooden sword, much less a real blade—to do anything like that.”
Edwin explained with unusual patience.
“If this happens again, it won’t end like it did today. Just stay still until I get you out of it.”
Yet he was firm when it came to preparing her for any such future occurrence.
“This time you were lucky, so it worked out.”
Had their timing been even slightly off, the body lying on the ground might have been Lina’s instead of the masked man’s.
Even with Edwin’s exceptional skill, the probability that the masked man could stab Lina before he could bring him down was high.
If she’d been one of his subordinates—though, of course, someone as defenseless as Lina could never be—he would have given her a thorough dressing-down for such foolish behavior.
Edwin felt oddly unfamiliar with his own leniency.
“Yes. Thank you for saving me, Lord Edwin.”
Lina nodded obediently.
Edwin ultimately averted his gaze from her violet eyes.
Once his lengthy scolding seemed to be ending, Lina sensed the moment and changed the subject.
“I’ll launder the handkerchief and return it to you.”
Before he could even tell her to simply throw it away, she’d already folded it neatly and tucked it into her pocket.
“As you wish.”
Edwin merely nodded curtly in acknowledgment.
His eyes remained fixed on her fingers as she fussed with folding the handkerchief.
But soon his attention drifted elsewhere.
His senses had been nagging at him for some time now, in a direction that needled him like a persistent mosquito.
“How about it, Miss Lina? Close your eyes and reach out your hand?”
Taking the recent incident as a lesson, Edwin drew Lina close to him as he approached the fallen masked men.
These were the ones who, when the first masked man had taken her hostage, had tried to rise with menacing fervor despite their grievous wounds.
Now they were feigning unconsciousness after fumbling their escape and losing their chance while the chaos unfolded.
Edwin confirmed once more that Lina was within his protection before he raised his sword.
Extortion and Attempted Murder fell under different statutes in the law.
He intended to execute these men without trial.
Sensing the grave shift in the air, the feigning masked men stirred one by one and prostrated themselves flat.
“Forgive us for not recognizing your station!”
“We were wrong! If only you spare our lives, we’ll reform and live honestly, I beg you—”
“I have a wife and children back in my village—”
Edwin ignored their pleas with an icy smile.
“If your lives were precious, you shouldn’t have committed crimes in the first place.”
His sympathy was reserved for those who deserved it.
Edwin’s sword whistled through the air toward the nearest masked man’s throat.
The man’s face twisted in terror as he clamped his eyes shut.
“Wait, please!”
“What?”
But the voice that came from behind him arrested the blow.
The sword stopped a span’s length from the masked man’s neck.
Edwin turned to look at Lina, his murderous gaze barely contained behind a veneer of composure.
“You’re going to kill them?”
The violet eyes he’d instructed to stay closed were fixed on him in terror.
‘Anyone watching would think I’m the criminal here.’
Edwin felt a stab of inexplicable indignation.
“Attempted Murder carries Capital Punishment. If there was a criminal organization that conspired with them, they all receive the same sentence.”
Edwin explained that these men were simply paying the price for their crimes.
“Still…”
But Lina’s eyes, darting between him and the masked men, only grew softer.
She still did not seem to accept his judgment.
“Rather than trying to kill me, weren’t they really just trying to use me as a hostage to escape you?”
Lina fidgeted with her fingers as she reframed the masked men’s intent in the least damning light possible.
Edwin offered her only a stiff smile, his gaze hardened.
Lina, stung, looked away.
She knew she was being unreasonable.
And the masked men, sensing an opening for survival, clung to Lina desperately.
“As the lady witnessed, it was all that bastard’s doing alone.”
“That’s right! We never laid hands on anyone. So please—”
The masked men begging toward Lina were now weeping openly like children, drunk on the will to survive.
Lina’s already soft heart seemed to grow even more tender before his eyes, like overripe fruit.
Edwin deliberately released a long sigh, loud enough for her to hear.
Lina caught his eye and spoke.
“It’s not that I want to forgive them. It’s just that they don’t seem to deserve death.”
Though tentative in her manner, Lina did her best to voice her opinion.
From a certain perspective, it was quite a courageous act.
Since becoming Emperor, this was the first time Edwin had encountered someone opposing him with such fervor.
Surprisingly, he felt no anger.
Instead, the cold rage that had been building seemed to cool, as if cold water had been poured over it.
“I didn’t know you were such a righteous person, Miss Lina. To be so merciful even to those who sought to harm you.”
But this was not approval of her advocacy.
When Edwin spoke with sarcastic mockery, Lina could not rebut and her face fell.
‘I didn’t mean to discourage her.’
Edwin smoothed his furrowed brow and managed a smile-like expression.
Then, with her spirits somewhat restored, Lina ventured timidly onward.
“The National Law itself distinguishes between intentional and accidental crimes. And it seems unlikely they planned this together—”
With each sentence, she kept glancing up at him nervously, and for some reason he kept breaking into a helpless laugh.
‘She’s exasperating, so why isn’t it infuriating? Why is it endearing instead?’
Edwin finally surrendered to Lina’s onslaught and laughed in defeat.
“Why didn’t you follow in your father’s footsteps and become a legal scholar?”
His tone was cool, but his momentum had clearly been broken.
Having keenly sensed the shift in his heart, Lina began to say something about how one ought to protect privacy in official matters, then simply smiled radiantly instead.
As their eyes met—hers warm as she laughed with the corners crinkling—he felt something like feathers tickling beneath his ribs.
‘Or perhaps I’ve grown accustomed to peace and no longer have the stomach for bloodshed.’
Unable to bear it, Edwin turned away from Lina, affecting indifference.
“Still, I can’t let them off. They’re criminals.”
Lina, having expected no more than this, answered softly.
Edwin pressed the masked men with his voice pitched too low for Lina to hear.
“You have soft-hearted Miss Lina to thank for your lives.”
His voice was quiet but carried the chill of death itself.
“I intend to ensure you never commit crimes again.”
Edwin seized one masked man’s wrist and severed his tendons.
“Don’t make a sound.”
Edwin laughed like a warning.
The masked men understood this was the extent of mercy afforded them and gritted their teeth.
Soon Edwin led the masked men—now unable to ever wield a blade again—to the nearest Public Order Force station.
The eventful Festival outing was drawing to a close.

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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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