RAMHM Chapter 100

This underground space radiating only chilling cold was decorated with surprising beauty.

Brilliantly sparkling chandeliers, exotic tapestries hanging here and there, and fresh flowers that could never maintain such freshness unless someone came frequently to replace them—all arranged in enormous vases beside every pillar.

In the very center, water even spouted from a small fountain as if one had stepped into a simple, beautiful village square. Water droplets reflected in the chandelier light burst like small golden nuggets at the edges.

For a moment, it was fragrant and beautiful enough to mistake for the Crown Prince's true bedroom.

If not for the countless coffins laid before my eyes.

Yes, coffins.

Glass coffins similar to the one holding my corpse were "displayed" by the dozens.

Arranged at regular intervals occupying the walls of this vast room, the glass coffins could only be described as "displayed."

I'd felt countless chills and shudders since entering this body, but never had I frozen solid with such complete terror.

And that terror peaked when I saw another coffin near mine.

"Kuroseida... Baroness Kuroseida is..."

Having seen her portrait constantly while Rhodness searched for her, I recognized her immediately.

Every hair on my body stood on end.

"Baroness Kuroseida. My father's mistress."

The Crown Prince staggered toward that glass coffin. His touch stroking the glass like a cherished antique was so tender that nausea surged within me.

"Father betrayed Mother, then earnestly begged his own son to please cherish his mistress. Does that make sense? I never loved anything living to begin with."

Shoulders shaking with laughter, Bardenaldo spread his sweat-dampened arms wide.

"How quiet and pleasant it is. In this silent room... when I'm with things that don't breathe, I finally feel free and can love them."

"You're insane. Insane..."

I barely managed to grind out the words through clenched teeth to keep from screaming.

"What is all this, exactly... Your Highness. You're not going to tell me all of this belongs to you, are you? Were the missing women cases your doing? Why on earth, why is the Grand Duchess's corpse..."

The enclosed space made the alcohol smell from the Crown Prince even stronger. But his flushed face seemed too lascivious to attribute merely to liquor.

Opening my mouth felt difficult. As if someone had stuffed a fist down my throat, blocking any sound.

"Why... why is that corpse there?"

Only after biting my tongue several times could I finally speak.

The Crown Prince had returned to my corpse, leaning his unsteady body against the coffin before turning a nearby handle to stand it upright.

"This? Heh. Why? Are you curious?"

My corpse. Not a similar-looking doll. My corpse decorated with all manner of flowers, lying there like a living person, like someone sleeping.

My mind went white as if I'd become an idiot.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

I barely managed to shake my frozen head side to side.

"...When I killed you."

At my answer that it wasn't beautiful, his wheezing voice turned sulky—the perfect touch.

"...Killed. You killed me."

"Much more beautiful dead and quietly lying as a corpse than alive."

Bardenaldo smiled proudly like an artisan who'd created a work of art. The smile was so purely bright that I lost all words.

I'd been searching all this time for whoever killed me.

If I'd died by someone's scheme, if that was true, I'd wanted to know why.

I'd thought that was the minimum courtesy owed to my dead self. Thought it was what I needed to step over to reach a happy future.

But now the truth stood before me. The person who'd openly killed me was smiling in front of me.

Without realizing it, my feet turned backward instead of forward, frozen like stone.

Bardenaldo's white, flawless torso was soaked with inexplicable sweat. Lowering my gaze slightly, I saw his groin swollen tight.

His hand stroking the glass coffin with eyes that said I could die from how lovely this is felt like fingers stroking down my spine.

I felt ready to vomit.

Crown Prince Bardenaldo was insane.

"Insane. Insane bastard."

Bardenaldo's refined face twisted violently.

"The insane one is Rhodness—my beautiful younger brother."

"You're insane."

"Save those words for Rhodness, madam. Poor madam."

"Why are you doing this? Why bring other people's corpses here to display? You killed the Grand Duchess? Why? What did Adrienne ever do to you?"

Deliberately avoiding his straining trouser front, I continued—and he laughed strangely.

"When I can only love the dead, what am I to do?"

"!"

Bardenaldo lowered pitying eyes as if sympathizing with himself, then suddenly filled with rage and pounded Adrienne's glass coffin hard like before. A literal madman.

"Damn it, I have the necklace—why won't it open!"

"The necklace... why do you even have that necklace? What exactly—do you love corpses?"

"Damn it, it won't open. No matter what I do, it won't open. How dare you. Someone like you... how dare—"

Completely ignoring my words, the Crown Prince's fury directed entirely at Adrienne's glass coffin. Capturing every unbearable detail with my eyes, I debated whether to flee now or not.

"...Planning to run?"

The moment my feet retreated one more step, the Crown Prince's eyes turned toward me.

"After seeing all this, you plan to go outside?"

I could feel his rage at the coffin not opening suddenly redirect toward me.

"You should have died nicely by Doris's hand."

Dear God.

"Those assassins... you sent them..."

"Doris sent them. When I showed interest in you, that woman couldn't possibly leave you alive, could she?"

The Crown Prince had known Doris would move.

"Everything she wants, she must have. Everything that bothers her, she must eliminate."

Like me, knowing Doris would move...

"How convenient and easy. Killing a woman like you is nothing at all."

Bardenaldo strode toward me, frozen like stone.

His cold hand went straight for my throat. A man's merciless strength instantly squeezed my neck tight.

"...Die."

Bardenaldo, grinning ear to ear, gripped my throat and shook.

"Kh—!"

"Die and be quiet."

The force deliberately crushing my windpipe wasn't amateur work.

No.

No.

My corpse is right there. If I lose this body too—!

I grabbed the Crown Prince's choking hands with both of mine and twisted. But the more violently I resisted, the heavier and more tenaciously his solid thumb pressed on my airway.

As my vision grew distant—thwack! With that sound, my windpipe suddenly opened and cold air flooded my lungs.

Kh! Khak! Cough, cough!

I sprawled on the cold floor, gasping to handle the incoming air.

In the space spread with brilliant chandelier light, two men's black silhouettes tangled together on the freezing floor.

Thwack!

Thwack!

With trembling hands, I braced against the floor and barely lifted my torso.

"Say it..."

Thwack!

"...one more time..."

Thwack!

Novian.

Disheveled, wretched Novian—the same Novian who'd just been dragged away by knights—appeared before me and struck the Crown Prince's face with bloodshot eyes.

His split lip bleeding immediately, the Crown Prince recognized his uncle while being held by the collar and grinned ear to ear.

"Hehe. Uncle has arrived."

How such strength surged from the gaunt Novian, I couldn't fathom—but the tall Crown Prince took one final blow to the face and crashed into the corner.

Novian looked up at Adrienne's upright corpse and for a moment lost all words, swallowing hard.

"You heard. How unfortunate."

"...Bardenaldo, explain."

"Explain what? That I possess what was originally mine? That I, your lord, should explain to my uncle? You gave me the corpse."

Novian gave him the corpse? That I was originally the Crown Prince's?

This was truly the limit.

"Explain to me."

Though my whole body trembled, I braced against the wall, barely standing upright.

Novian's face, which had been glaring at the Crown Prince, turned toward me.

"Tell me what the hell you two conspired together."

Novian Ronteaux was the late Emperor's twenty-seventh prince.

His mother, sold to the aging Emperor to become yet another Empress, died immediately after giving birth to him.

His place in the succession was so low that receiving even a palm-sized fief would be fortunate.

A position where no one would care even if he were the finest Emperor material.

No backing faction, no one to guarantee his safety.

The one fortune was that the then-Crown Prince—now Emperor Julius—had a significant age gap with Novian and didn't guard against this powerless prince.

The succession struggle had been exceptionally fierce. An era when brothers watched each other and didn't hesitate even at poisoning.

Barely clinging to life through his worthless-prince days, young Novian had felt insulted that no one considered him a threat.

With no one to explain how much faction and backing was needed to reach the imperial throne, ignorant Novian had envied the Crown Prince living in bright places, receiving respect.

So throughout his time at the Royal Academy, he'd desperately fought to never lose top rankings. Wanted to prove he too was a useful imperial family member.

He'd seen foreign royalty at the Royal Academy—which had no concept of graduation—living as students well into middle age.

At first he'd viewed them pitifully, but only as adulthood approached did he realize: even after placing first multiple times, after becoming the Academy's representative student multiple times, some things never changed.

That he had no place among brothers with powerful factions.

That he too might live out his days at the Royal Academy, wasting taxes without receiving even a single fief.

Moreover, even his relatively safe position began to be threatened once he showed academic excellence.

When he first detected poison, his spine had gone cold. He'd suddenly realized: if he died, no faction would stand up for him.

In his separate palace that no one visited, he'd contemplated his path to survival.

Don't step forward.

Don't covet what you cannot have. Spend time only on what you can obtain.

Distant from succession rights and competent at assigned tasks, he naturally earned the trust of Julius, who needed a reliable vassal.

Looking back later, Julius hadn't simply needed a trustworthy brother.

He'd merely needed a brother desperate enough for falling scraps to dirty his hands in Julius's place.

Occasionally—quite suddenly—such thoughts had occurred:

When I do all the work, why does someone else become Emperor?

I too possess the deep blue eyes symbolizing imperial blood. I excel in every field—why does no one consider me a threat?

But he'd supported Crown Prince Julius to survive. Lacking the power to gather his own faction, he'd attached himself to someone powerful, striving to become that faction.

To keep Julius's hands clean, he'd dirtied his own, giving Julius all the glory.

Around that time, Novian had clearly recognized what he could obtain.

Not a prince who'd die or be exiled to the frontier, but imperial family remaining in the capital with high rank.

That position was his maximum attainment.

Stop coveting the excessive, and he'd achieved satisfactory results.

The brothers fiercely competing for the throne had all died.

Lower-ranked brothers were either driven from the palace in marriage alliances to foreign countries or couldn't remain in the capital, heading for the frontier. Some who managed neither remained eternal Royal Academy students.

But the separate-palace prince no one noticed—Novian—received the new surname "Trovika," was granted vast northern territory, remained in the capital, and even earned the title of Imperial Strategist.

From then on, his conviction solidified.

'Don't waste time on what you cannot have. Invest time in what you can obtain—that's correct.'

He should have lived that way from the start.

Should have realized early that what he could obtain wasn't the throne or his own faction.

Though he hadn't served the Emperor he'd elevated with pure intent, he'd been satisfied because Julius's ascension meant his own future.

Watching people covet what they shouldn't made his teeth grind. Foolish idiots.

But an incident occurred that shook his life's foundation to its core.

"I must have Adrienne Pirreta, Uncle."

When his nephew—whom he'd decided to serve as his second lord, this nation's new Crown Prince—had spoken those words.