Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 54

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 54
Up close, the man was fractionally shorter than Everett—barely the width of a fingernail.
His hairstyle was nearly identical, though the color differed slightly.
‘Everett’s hair is a flawless jet black, even under sunlight.’
This man’s was black with a faint blue tint to it.
His eyes, too, weren’t the color of midday sun or pure gold, but closer to amber yellow.
And yet this man bore a striking resemblance to Everett.
Striking enough to have confused me for a moment.
The man who resembled both me and Everett stood facing us at a distance, as though in standoff.
A lukewarm breeze, heavy with summer’s sticky humidity, brushed against my cheek.
For some reason, my mood felt far from good.
* * *
Everett—the real one whom Lina had just encountered—believed that the sole reason he’d managed to become a knight of noble rank despite his serf origins was his appearance.
Not because he was so strikingly handsome as to be remembered in history.
But because he resembled a powerful figure handsome enough to leave his mark in history.
The Emperor Edwin, precisely.
His resemblance to that face had made him a Shadow Knight, and it had unquestionably created the opportunity for his success.
Knowing that he’d risen this far through a convergence of coincidences, Everett understood his own shortcomings and worked all the harder because of it.
He didn’t question even the sudden extended assignment, but set about packing his things at once.
He trusted the Emperor enough to readily agree when Edwin said he would borrow his name for a time, however mysterious the intention might be.
‘Once I return from Bellot, it will be autumn.’
Everett, assigned the task of escorting the Bellot delegation, was deliberating whether he might finally visit his homeland after so long.
‘Five years, is it.’
Since he’d left home.
Since he’d first met the Emperor.
The day when it felt as though he’d spent every ounce of luck his life contained.
* * *
The Empire, which had remained prosperous until the late Emperor’s reign, had begun its decline in merely a decade.
Neighboring kingdoms, sensing opportunity, waged endless war.
The people of the Eastern and Northern Regions, bordering those rivals, died by the countless, and the Empire’s territories shrank incrementally.
A moment came when it seemed the Empire would inevitably fall.
But the Goddess did not abandon the Empire.
Edwin killed his uncle, the late Emperor, to avenge his family, and became Emperor himself.
He was merely fifteen years old. But Edwin, who brutally executed the late Emperor and the sycophants who encouraged him in decadence and excess, became an object of terror to the nobility and a spark of hope to the people—hope they’d thought extinguished. The people’s continued support flowed forth, each believing that whoever became Emperor could scarcely be worse than his predecessor.
After a hastily conducted coronation, Edwin went directly to the war front.
For the military situation had continued to deteriorate even during that brief period when Edwin was restoring order following the late Emperor’s death.
Young though he was, Edwin was already a finished commander and a formidable knight.
With his participation, conditions gradually improved.
Newspapers that had carried only reports of defeats began, rarely, to print news of victories.
The winter Edwin turned seventeen, after he became a Sword Master, the balance of the battlefield tilted decisively toward the Empire.
The people of the Empire, worn down by the late Emperor’s tyranny and the suffering of war, rejoiced and revered Edwin.
The future gleamed faintly in the distance, yet it was clear the war would end in Imperial victory.
Life remained harsh, yet there was hope.
But a small problem stood between them and that hopeful future.
Imperial victories stemmed entirely from the extraordinary abilities of one man—the Emperor himself, a magnificent commander and Sword Master.
For this reason, Edwin, despite being Emperor, had to traverse the most perilous battlefields constantly.
This was not a problem that became apparent until the kingdoms formed a coalition and launched their final offensive.
But as the theater of war broadened, Edwin remained one man.
Gradually, his limits began to show.
The Allied Kingdoms Coalition targeted the battlefields Edwin had abandoned.
Without him—their supreme commander and mightiest warrior—their fighting strength plummeted.
Edwin found himself forced to move more frequently to counter the Coalition’s advances.
Perhaps because he had no time for internal affairs before deploying, information leaked, and ambushes during vulnerable moments of transit became commonplace.
Most of the Coalition’s stratagems ended in utter failure, yet rarely they achieved modest success.
The best day of Everett’s life came on a winter’s day when the Coalition’s ambush managed, for once, to inflict genuine damage on the Imperial Army and Edwin.
That day, Edwin and Blue Hawk were already considerably exhausted from consecutive battles before the Coalition’s ambush ever began.
The terrain of the ambush site itself was unfortunate.
The Coalition forces who attacked were annihilated by Edwin and Blue Hawk’s hands, but several injured soldiers resulted on the Imperial side.
Edwin tended to the wounded and, desiring brief rest, made for a small nearby fief.
That fief was Everett’s own homeland: the Schurac Fiefdom.
At twenty-five years old, Everett was working as a guard for the fief.
By chance, Everett was the one on watch duty that day, guarding the crude stone walls he himself had helped build, when Edwin arrived at the Schurac Fiefdom.
He couldn’t have known it then, but looking back now, it was the moment the Goddess’s blessing touched Everett.
Edwin’s party were people Everett could never have imagined crossing paths with in his entire life.
Even as Everett trembled with fear—spurred on by the head of the guard threatening that if he so much as made eye contact he’d lose his head—he stole glances at Edwin and Blue Hawk throughout his watch.
At that distance they seemed no bigger than a finger, yet from their silhouettes alone an air of nobility flowed.
He wanted to see them more clearly.
‘A story I could boast about even to my grandchildren.’
As Edwin’s group receded into the distance, Everett’s caution evaporated with his relief.
He widened his gaze and stared with unwavering intensity.
Then, at some point, his eyes met those of Kyle, who had sent Edwin and the wounded ahead and was giving instructions to the lord.
Everett froze like a frog before a snake, unable to even think to look away naturally.
‘I’m done for,’ he thought.
The surprise was that Kyle’s eyes widened as well.
Everett squeezed his eyes shut, convinced this was how he would die, and began his final prayer.
But then Kyle called out to him, raising his voice.
“You there, guard. Over here.”
With Kyle’s gaze fixed on Everett, the other guards standing watch beside him had drifted far away, leaving no one near Everett.
There wasn’t even room for hope that Kyle meant someone else.
Everett approached like a prisoner being led to the scaffold, dragging his feet.
Having no idea how to address nobility, Everett bowed and scraped as he would to the lord.
As Everett bowed, an appraising gaze swept from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet.
“You bear a resemblance.”
Kyle murmured as though lost in thought.
“Pardon? I didn’t quite catch that.”
Everett, tense from his heightened alert, regretted missing Kyle’s words.
Fortunately, Kyle didn’t seem particularly angry.
Rather than repeat what he’d said to Everett, Kyle addressed the lord.
“Lord of Schurac, I’d like to have a word with this one for a moment.”
The count from the capital was, to the lord of this rustic fief barely large enough to qualify as a hamlet, a figure as exalted as the heavens themselves.
The lord promptly bent and bowed, urging Kyle to do as he pleased.
“By all means, Count Simeon.”
Everett’s own wishes were entirely disregarded.
“Come.”
Before the lord even finished speaking, Kyle gestured for Everett to follow.
At this point, Everett gave up thinking.
When someone is sufficiently terrified, the mind simply shuts down.
His only consolation was that Kyle hadn’t immediately killed him for making eye contact and missing his words.
He simply walked as ordered.
To the lord’s chamber.
“Your Majesty, it is I. I beg your pardon for intruding briefly.”
Kyle knocked with proper deference.
It was Edwin who now occupied the lord’s room.
Which meant Everett was standing before the chamber where the Emperor himself was staying.
Everett took a careful breath without Kyle noticing.
A moment later, permission came from within.
Kyle, who had entered, gestured to Everett.
The meaning was clear: come in.
Everett stepped into the room as he had walked before—simply doing as instructed.
“What is it?”
Edwin asked, seeing Everett follow Kyle inside.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————