Unbeknownst to Me, I am Secretly Dating the Emperor - Chapter 83

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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 83
The children at the Orphanage handed Ibeta a small gift they had carefully prepared.
A bouquet of wildflowers found in the forest, or pictures drawn with crayons in their favorite colors.
I had prepared a cake large enough so that all the children could eat their fill and still have some left over.
“Wow. The cake is as big as me.”
“Can we eat this?”
“Sister, sister. Can’t you cut it up for us soon?”
The children bounced with excitement at the sight of the large birthday cake.
“Now, let’s say thank you before we eat.”
Ibeta held back the excited children and distributed the cake.
Even on her own birthday, she was looking after them.
Ibeta’s expression was utterly radiant, untouched by a single shadow of doubt.
It was good that she was spending a happy birthday, but for a happy ending to come to pass, Ibeta’s regression was essential.
Only then would the original story begin.
‘It seems Ibeta needs some time alone.’
But it wasn’t easy to extract her from the throng of excited children.
‘There’s still plenty of time.’
I watched the sun hanging at its zenith and tried to calm my anxious heart.
Fortunately, it wasn’t long before the ravenous little ones had eaten through all the cake and prepared food, and the modest birthday party came to an end.
Everyone was laughing happily, patting their full bellies.
“I’ll help with the cleanup. Ibeta, go rest.”
“But surely I shouldn’t impose on a guest like this…….”
“No, it’s fine. You haven’t had a proper chance to rest with all the children around on your birthday anyway. Go on inside.”
After politely declining several times, Ibeta bowed and made her way to her room.
At last the minimum conditions were in place.
‘Please.’
I waited anxiously for the moment of regression to come to Ibeta.
I made excuses to visit her room several times, but Ibeta remained simply Ibeta.
Just a little happier than usual.
Ibeta with her beautiful pale-blue eyes.
‘It’s not happening.’
Cruel time flowed swiftly past.
Now there was less than an hour left to this day.
In the original story, this particularly special day was becoming an ordinary one.
Not wanting anyone to see my anxiety, I had shut myself in my room, but I could bear it no longer.
‘What do I do.’
The room felt suffocating.
I eventually went outside and began wandering aimlessly.
‘Minos Deity, why would you test me so.’
By the time I had finished complaining and praying before the shrine, midnight had already passed.
Ibeta’s birthday was over.
Without a single thing happening.
“It really is finished.”
Realizing there was no longer any hope, I wanted to weep.
‘I only wanted to save the children.’
But when the outcome becomes this twisted, however noble the intention, even that virtue fades.
I bit my lip hard.
I could not even imagine how far the butterfly effect of my actions would reach.
‘How many people did Ibeta save.’
I had warped the fates of all those lives.
Countless names flashed through my mind.
The edges of those names scratched at my heart.
I endured quietly in a spirit of repentance.
As I stood like that in a daze for a long time, Ibeta appeared from behind me.
“Sponsor?”
She was wearing only a robe over her nightclothes, as though she’d been about to sleep.
“What are you doing here?”
She seemed to have come out because she was concerned about me standing out in the cold without moving.
Her softly curved eyes and gentle voice only deepened my guilt.
‘Don’t look at me like that.’
Knowing how perfectly her second timeline had ended in a happy ending, every moment standing before her now was unbearable.
Ibeta was destined to become a saint and empress, the most revered being in the Empire.
The Emperor was a perfect lover befitting the male lead of a romantic fantasy novel, and all the Empire’s people loved her.
Hers was a life that fit the final fairy-tale line: ‘And they lived happily ever after’.
Had I never interfered.
“I’m sorry.”
I offered a selfish apology solely to ease my own mind.
“Yes, why?”
Ibeta, confused by the sudden apology, widened her eyes and asked.
“I mean…….”
‘Coming on a business trip to Diegis right at this time? Or was it arresting the antagonists just before Ibeta’s birthday in a fit of righteous indignation?’
I could not finish my apology.
Instead, I asked Ibeta.
“Was it truly a good thing for you that I arrested the priests of this place?”
It was a low question.
A question I could only ask because I already knew what answer she would give.
‘The Ibeta of now knows nothing, so she’ll probably smile and say it was good.’
Still, I wanted to hear it.
I wanted to confirm that I hadn’t acted entirely wrongly.
Tears welled up in Ibeta’s blue eyes as she heard my question.
“Do you know why there are only young children at this Orphanage?”
And then, with tears glistening in her eyes, she asked me.
When I said nothing, Ibeta continued.
“When the children at the Orphanage reach an age where they can work, the Head Priest sells them off somewhere. Then he gathers more orphans from elsewhere to maintain the Orphanage. That’s why only children of similar ages remain.”
“I see…….”
Ibeta’s first timeline had been crueler than I knew.
“Nancy was kept here because she possesses Holy Power. She’s still a child, so it’s weak, but she has the talent to become at least a mid-level priest when she grows up.”
It had been nearly twenty years since the Head Priest had fallen from the center of power.
With old connections nearly gone, he had to rely on Nancy’s modest potential, Ibeta added.
“In about five years, I think the children you saw today won’t be here anymore. Other children will be brought in, and Nancy and I will remain.”
As she spoke of the children, Ibeta’s voice grew thick with emotion, and she bit her lip to hold back the tears threatening to spill.
“Actually, only Nancy might stay. I was on the verge of being deemed useless.”
Finally, the tears that had been welling in Ibeta’s eyes spilled down her cheeks.
Grieving for Nancy, who would be left alone.
I quietly handed Ibeta a handkerchief.
Ibeta wiped roughly at her eyes with the handkerchief.
“I was abandoned before the Temple when I was an infant. When Orhan went out and came back, he found me, and there was a Golden Raven sitting beside me, protecting me as if it were guarding me.”
The Golden Raven is the sacred bird of the Minos Deity.
It was such a famous symbol that it appeared in almost every religious painting of the Minos Deity.
“Isn’t it reason enough for the Head Priest to keep me around?”
Ibeta tried to smile but ultimately failed, burying her face in the handkerchief.
The reason the Head Priest had kept Ibeta bound to the Orphanage was revealed.
‘He must have deemed it a sign of divine favor and judged that she possessed immense potential.’
“Of course, every year during the Holy Power measurement, it came back as nothing at all.”
At last something like a smile appeared at the corners of Ibeta’s mouth.
It was a self-mocking laugh.
“Most people are born with Holy Power, but sometimes it awakens as they grow. They raised me with that hope, their only hope, I suppose. If only I could awaken my Holy Power, they could use that as an excuse to climb back to the Central Temple.”
The Head Priest and Orhan had raised Ibeta like a dog watching its master’s mood.
So that she would never be able to resist them, even after awakening her Holy Power.
“I’ve spoken at length, haven’t I? To answer your question belatedly—it still feels like a dream to me, what happened to us.”
Ibeta no longer wept, but her eyes were thoroughly swollen.
“I’m sorry.”
‘For saying something pointless just to ease my own mind.’
I apologized once more.
But Ibeta refused my apology.
“You don’t need to apologize to me, Sponsor. You saved all of us—me and the children.”
Ibeta smiled with her ruined face.
With the bright, innocent face of someone who did not know what she had lost, she gave me the words I had wanted to hear.

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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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