Chapter 73
Chapter 73. The Red Appeal
“The line of people coming in truly seems endless…”
Lineue, who had brought medicine for Vinea to take, looked out the window with a slightly bored expression.
A week had passed since the Empress had awakened. Following the Emperor’s orders, all the famous merchants in the empire had gathered at the imperial palace, bringing their most expensive goods.
Most of the merchants were those who had recently resumed trade with the Veshnu Empire. This was the decisive reason for the rumors that the strained relationship between the imperial couple had been restored.
The fact that the Emperor still rarely visited the Empress was quietly buried under the procession of merchants.
“Shall we have them enter the reception room one by one? If you’re tired, we can postpone it until tomorrow, Your Majesty.”
Vinea swallowed the medicine Lineue had handed her and staggered slightly. After blinking a couple of times, she straightened her posture and steadied her breathing.
“…No. It’s fine, bring them in.”
Vinea, who had been looking out the window with a peculiar gaze, turned her head.
On the way to the reception room, Lineue, standing behind Vinea, took a slightly tense breath as she saw someone approaching from the opposite direction.
Vinea, standing in front of Tatar, lightly bowed her head while holding her dress. Tatar silently watched her for a few seconds before nodding his head in the same manner and moving on.
Lineue and Deron, following behind the two passing figures, swallowed frustrated sighs.
The Emperor had summoned merchants for the Empress and thoroughly purged all individuals suspected of being involved in this incident. He had particularly begun to strangle the throat of the Emperor Emeritus, who was considered the strongest suspect, to the point where it seemed he might cut off his air completely. This news was already widespread among the nobles with some degree of power.
The cleanup targeting the forces clinging to the Emperor Emeritus had started again. Faster, more certain, and more brutal.
Those who hastily tried to distance themselves sent gifts to the Empress’s palace in the name of their families, forming mountains of presents.
All this chaos pointed to one thing: that the Emperor still cherished the Empress.
However, when they encountered each other like this, only a chilly atmosphere prevailed. Those serving them had no way of knowing why they kept such a distance.
The two walked past each other, but one side stopped after a short distance.
Tatar’s silver-gray eyes gazed at the straight-backed figure walking away.
His flickering eyes held hunger. Except for the first day Vinea woke up, he hadn’t even properly brushed her fingertips. Even when they occasionally met, it was just brief glances or greetings.
Yes, this was the original distance before the regression began. Just enough to maintain courtesy without being close.
Perhaps to the current Vinea, even his barrage of gifts would seem like nothing more than a politically necessary action.
“How unkind.”
Tatar slowly turned his body. Not yet. Not yet.
Since he had never spoken of the memories of that incident after the thirty-fourth regression, there was no way to know if there was an antidote or when she would regain her memories again.
However, he was certain that if he regressed again, he could regain his memories, so he decided to wait patiently until then.
That should be enough time to face the worst hell Vinea had spoken of, and then some.
Already, every step he took was filled with a dirty and sticky unpleasantness, but he could still endure it. Once this moment was over, it would be at most ten months until his heart stopped and he regressed again. Then, truly, Vinea, she would be to him…
―Splash.
He lowered his gaze. Black, sticky blood clung to his feet. Even though he knew it was a hallucination, the fishy scent of blood brushed his nose.
He turned his head to look at Deron standing a step behind him.
A black figure with an unrecognizable face was looking at him. Unconsciously, he reached for his empty waist and then clenched his fist so tightly that veins popped out on the back of his hand.
The black figure hesitated and took a step back. Deron, sensing that Tatar’s state was different from usual, gestured with his eyes to move the servants and knights following him a little further back.
“Are you alright, Your Majesty?”
Deron’s voice rang in Tatar’s ears like a tearing scream. Since the meaning wasn’t conveyed, he couldn’t give a proper answer.
Tatar turned his head and said,
“Block access to the training ground and bring the death row prisoners. And provide swords. Tell them that whoever can kill me will be pardoned of their crimes.”
“…Understood.”
Deron swallowed a sigh with a troubled face.
With an even more troubled expression, Tatar moved towards the training ground.
* * *
Lineue dismissed the merchant with a tired face. She was too exhausted to even count how many merchants this was now.
The flood of merchants and their items were fascinating at first, filled with things unseen in the Tessibania Empire, but there’s a limit to everything.
There was a set amount one person could handle of Veshnu Empire’s jewelry, dresses, decorations, and desserts that were hard to come by due to the war.
Her mistress simply chose one item from each merchant’s goods with a face devoid of any interest, and it was entirely up to Lineue to choose additional items on behalf of the Empress, as they couldn’t ignore the Emperor’s sincerity.
“Your Majesty, I think it would be best to ask the other merchants to come back tomorrow. I’m worried you might skip dinner at this rate…”
Vinea, sitting on the sofa with a bored expression, was about to nod when she caught sight of the next merchant’s face standing outside the open door. She lowered her gaze obliquely.
After a moment of hesitation, Vinea’s lips moved slightly as she spoke.
“Just one more place.”
“Yes.”
As Lineue nodded, a knight opened the door. Through the open door, a red-haired man appeared. Lineue’s ivory eyes widened.
‘Balak Utar?’
Isn’t this the man who was summoned to the palace a few times before Her Majesty lost her memories?
There was a time when she suspected a relationship between Her Majesty and this man, but it didn’t take long to realize that it was just this man’s one-sided feelings.
Look even now. Unlike Her Majesty’s emotionless gaze, his dark red eyes were burning as intensely as their color.
As she was contemplating whether to report Balak’s visit to His Majesty, Lineue’s eyes met Vinea’s.
Seeing those calm blue eyes looking at her, Lineue belatedly realized who she was serving.
‘Right, Her Majesty might be disappointed in me when her memories return…’
Lineue left the reception room with the knights and servants who were in the room, just as before.
Thud.
As the door closed and silence descended upon the reception room, only the Empire’s Empress and a mere merchant guild master remained.
Balak exhaled a long breath, trying to calm his trembling at Vinea’s emotionless gaze upon him.
Eventually, he stood before Vinea and lowered his posture.
He wouldn’t make the same clumsy mistake as their first meeting at the Vintero Marquis’s residence. With a posture devoid of unnecessary elements, he bowed his waist and greeted Vinea.
“I am honored to be in the presence of the Empire’s glory. I am Balak Utar, the head of the Valita Trading Company.”
Wouldn’t his voice have trembled disgracefully towards the end? Or would the sound of his furiously beating heart be audible? What if his ears turned red, or if she found the outfit he had carefully chosen distasteful? A thousand thoughts raced through Balak’s mind.
Vinea’s voice rang out in the reception room, as if spilling white paint over his thoughts.
“Very well. Show me what you have brought.”
His eyes darkened. He knew from the information he had received, but it seemed the Arpanium drug had affected her differently.
It appeared she had lost all memories of a certain period, rather than erasing the memory of one person that had left a strong impression.
Having come prepared for the possibility that she might not remember him, Balak felt a small sadness but maintained a nonchalant face as he took out an item from his breast pocket.
Not a jewel or accessory, which were the main items sold by the Valita Trading Company, but a small bottle. The blue liquid in the glass bottle, about the size of his palm, sloshed inside.
“……”
Vinea silently looked at him with eyes demanding an explanation.
Balak knelt on one knee in front of Vinea. With a trembling voice, he grasped one of Vinea’s hands.
He would have no excuse if she sent him away immediately for his rudeness. But if not now, if not at this moment, he didn’t know when he would have another chance to confess his feelings.
He knew he had already been rejected once.
But he couldn’t give up. It was impossible. He didn’t know how to stop a love that had begun like fate.
‘The Emperor will die tonight. No, it will appear so.’
He had already received confirmation from the old man who sold information. Unless one was a magician, the royal pharmacist wouldn’t be able to identify the nature of that drug.
When an ordinary person dies, it’s a doctor who makes the judgment, not a magician who determines life and death.
The Emperor, who would fall into a death-like sleep, would turn to ashes and disappear from her side forever before he could wake up again.
He had already cut off all the loose ends, so the culprit who killed him was set to be revealed as the sole act of the Castallo Duke’s daughter.
After she regains her memories by taking this antidote and he explains the situation to her, he would be able to accompany her when she likely returns to her home country.
It was a perfect plan. If the situation was dire enough for her to drink a dangerous potion to forget the Emperor, she would willingly participate in this plan.
Balak placed the vial in Vinea’s hand. Her hand, soft enough to melt, fit completely under his rough palm.
“I know your memories are not intact, Vinea. I must seem unfamiliar to you. Just this once, please trust me, who has come to save you at great risk. The maid who just left will tell you that you and I have a connection.”
He opened the vial in Vinea’s hand and drank half of it.
The antidote, which had no effect on those who hadn’t taken the Arpanium drug, went down his throat.
He wiped his wet lips with the back of his hand.
“There is no poison in it. This is a medicine that will restore Her Majesty’s lost memories.”
Balak placed the medicine back in Vinea’s hand with the most desperate look.
“Please, if you drink this medicine, you will understand all my actions. The preparations are complete, Vinea. Nothing harmful will happen to you. So please, just this once, trust me.”
It wouldn’t matter if she pushed him away. He had enough time to put the medicine in those red lips before she could call the guards.
He appealed to her emotions simply because he didn’t want to force anything on her, even in her state of lost memories.
Vinea, who had been silently looking at the vial he had handed her, moved her lips.
