Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 41

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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 41
To be precise, only part of it overlapped.
‘Male lead, what’s gotten into you?’
The progression was diverging from the Original Work I remembered.
Suddenly.
In a way I couldn’t even begin to guess at.
‘If things had gone as planned, the tax rate issue should have sparked heated arguments first.’
The war had ravaged only parts of the Eastern and Northern Regions of the Empire.
After his return, the Emperor decided to lower the Tax Rate slightly to aid reconstruction in the Eastern and Northern Regions.
‘This part has already happened.’
In the Original Work, the nobility of the Western and Southern Regions had then demanded tax cuts, citing war damages—and that was when problems arose.
The war had been long and fierce, but it hadn’t spread to the Western and Southern Regions. So while there was some damage, it was negligible.
‘Even the Emperor, who initially dismissed the opinions of the nobility from the West and South, eventually ran out of patience and began pressing them.’
That the argument was skipped meant the initial probing between the nobility and the Emperor in the aftermath of his return had vanished entirely—jumping straight to the main event instead.
In a far more aggressive manner.
‘What could possibly be shifting the Emperor’s mindset?’
Racking my memory, I couldn’t discern any catalyst that would twist the Original Work like this.
As far as I knew, nothing unusual had happened around the Emperor.
‘It might be a lack of information.’
I was slow to learn news—even rumors within the Imperial Palace escaped me unless Koni relayed them.
My only reliable source was the Original Work, but the Emperor’s past before meeting the Female Lead wasn’t explored much in the novel.
So I could only infer from flashback scenes and character dialogue, but the nobility’s request for tax reduction was a critical turning point.
The catalyst for the Emperor’s estrangement from the nobility.
The State Marriage issue became a kind of fuse that ignited the tension building from the tax reduction demand.
And if the push for lower taxes had been weaker, the Emperor wouldn’t have reacted so sensitively to the State Marriage either.
Before meeting the Female Lead, the Emperor was someone who believed that ‘a Strategic Marriage was part of his duty as Emperor.’
‘If this becomes unraveled, will the Timeline shift for other incidents too?’
I was on the brink of my plan to play it safe using my memory of the Original Work collapsing before the Female Lead even appeared.
And in the worst possible direction I could imagine.
Perhaps noticing my expression had grown troubled, Koni hastened to add:
“It’s not like anyone actually died, at least.”
But that offered little comfort.
‘They might soon, though.’
I recalled a few events that had occurred before the Female Lead’s entrance.
‘So what comes next is…….’
Afterward, the nobility would regroup and begin openly defying the Emperor at every turn.
‘Since the Emperor is already beloved by the common people and commands military authority, they’d see this gambit as their last stand—afraid that once they lose ground, their power will weaken for the rest of his reign.’
The nobility, united like this, became one cohesive force regardless of region—East, West, South, North, or Center.
Even the previous Emperor, who would be remembered as the most incompetent and unpopular ruler in the Empire’s history, hadn’t dared make enemies of the entire nobility.
So the moment they formed an alliance, they would have felt assured of a fairly high success rate.
‘Had their opponent been anyone but the current Emperor.’
The Emperor was uncompromising. Meanwhile, Kyle and the Emperor’s Intelligence Unit possessed an almost supernatural talent for uncovering corruption.
In the Original Work too, the most hardline among the rebellious nobility were stripped bare and removed from power one by one.
According to the crimes they’d committed, they received appropriate punishments: revocation of titles, execution, exile, and so on.
Not a single noble could bear even the gentlest scrutiny without scandal—every time someone opposed the Emperor, another criminal was dragged away. As this repeated, the coalition’s bonds gradually weakened.
‘Though the Emperor didn’t fabricate charges—it was their own doing, after all.’
In this process, the Imperial Capital’s bureaucracy was rocked by upheaval.
Not only administrators who’d backed the wrong faction, but occasionally even the unlucky ones affected by a powerful figure’s downfall.
Like the incident Koni had experienced before, even small fry like us could get swept up unjustly.
Originally, I’d planned to lie low and avoid trouble until the Emperor developed a conscience through romance with the Female Lead, but circumstances had changed.
I’d been keeping my head down, worried the storm’s edge might reach my circle, but if I couldn’t predict the typhoon’s path, I needed a strategy beyond simply hunkering down and enduring.
‘There’s no guarantee that I or someone close to me won’t become one of those unlucky people swept away by the suddenly shifted typhoon’s course.’
I’d been leaning toward rejecting the Blue Falcon Proposal, but perhaps the eye of the typhoon might actually be safer.
But when I’d actually received the proposal, I lacked the courage to walk into the typhoon’s eye of my own volition.
And that remains true now.
The Emperor was a fairly reasonable superior to his subordinates, so I wondered if I should accept Kyle’s proposal, but…….
‘Even if the Emperor treats those around him with some leniency, safety isn’t always guaranteed.’
Indeed, in the Original Work’s past descriptions, there was a passage: ‘An attendant who’d leaked minor information by colluding with the nobility, or an adjutant who’d botched a mission through negligence—they actually received even harsher punishments.’
‘The attendant, fine, but the adjutant was a close aide who’d endured war alongside the Emperor for quite some time, yet he was removed without a second thought.’
Wait.
Hold on.
Something critically important had just brushed past the edge of my consciousness.
My sixth sense screamed.
That I’d regret missing this.
While I agonized over a thread just beyond my grasp, Koni apparently interpreted my turmoil as something requiring comfort.
“Well, the higher-ups must be terrified, but what trouble could mere subordinates face?”
That was precisely the problem—trouble was exactly what I feared.
Around me.
A major problem I needed to recognize right now.
When my worried expression showed no sign of easing even after Koni spoke, his reassurances continued at greater length.
“Besides, we’d barely even cross paths with them anyway. We just do our jobs like hamsters on a wheel, and we’ll be fine.”
Koni was being unusually serious in his attempt to calm me.
‘That’s true. Weeds rooted in the ground actually endure a typhoon better than most things.’
“I suppose so.”
Just as I was forcing my lips upward to dissolve the tension in my expression and respond to Koni’s words, that moment came.
The thread I’d been grasping for so desperately suddenly touched my fingers.
“Koni, wait a moment! I think I’m about to remember something incredibly important.”
It was an abrupt, contextless statement, but Koni fell silent at the gravity of my tone.
Working in the Finance Department, Koni and I were essentially the weeds at the very bottom of the Imperial Palace hierarchy.
‘Since we barely existed—the sort of people who wouldn’t even appear in the Original Work—I figured keeping our heads down would be enough.’
Yet recently, I’d formed a small connection with people who’d brushed against deeper circles.
‘Now that I think about it, I did know an adjutant!’
Everett Lohas.
Even if the Original Work unfolded exactly as written, this was someone dangerous who existed close to my world.
‘Could Everett possibly be that adjutant who failed a mission through negligence and received severe punishment?’
The unfortunate adjutant barely appeared—just two or three lines, practically an extra with no name given.
The passage only briefly mentioned that the adjutant’s mistake delayed the Emperor’s purge of political enemies, that was all.
‘Since the name wasn’t explicitly given, I glossed over it.’
I didn’t know exactly how many adjutants the Emperor had, but by the chain of command there should be around ten, so the odds were fairly high.
‘Had Everett even appeared in the story after the Original Work began?’

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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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