***
Damian crossed the imperial palace.
Every person he encountered stepped back and bowed their heads deeply.
Damian didn’t seem to care and headed towards his own wing with bored steps. It was the western detached palace.
It must be a place that doesn’t contain a good memory. Lilian glanced at Damian, but there was no emotion on Damian’s face.
Still, she didn’t want to leave Damian alone. She followed closely and went inside his room.
“…!”
As soon as the door closed, a sharp sword aimed at Lilian’s throat.
The person aiming the sword was, of course, Damian.
“What are you?”
It wasn’t a mistake or coincidence.
Damian’s eyes were fixed on Lilian.
Lilian asked even thought she knew she would look stupid.
“Can you see me?”
“Very well.”
“I see…”
There’s no way Zagreb made a mistake, so he probably did that on purpose.
Probably because he thought this would be helpful, but it would have been nice if he had explained it in advance.
Thinking that way, Lilian looked very carefree even when she was being threatened with a sharp sword.
Damian couldn’t help but marvel at her.
But somehow, strangely, he didn’t want to kill her right away.
‘That carefree expression is strange…’
…she resembles Idoel.
When he thought that, he became annoyed.
“Don’t bother me, get out.”
“Well…I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can.”
It was a stupid answer. Damian put on a sharp look, but Lilian was not discouraged.
“I’m not going to tell you the details, but I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“It looks like no one can see you but me, so you can hang around anywhere.”
“No, I mean, Your Highness…”
Lilian tried to reach out to Damian, recalling her previous experiences. But Damian did not accept it.
“…!”
The tip of the sword pointed at Lilian even more menacingly.
“Don’t touch me.”
It wasn’t a growling voice. He was calm, However, his murderous intent was so clear that even the insensitive Lily could feel it.
“I’m in a very bad mood right now.”
“So I warn you, don’t touch me anymore and get out.”
***
It wasn’t out of dread or fear that Lily listened to Damian obediently.
‘Because he said he’s not feeling well…’
It’d be a big deal if she was injured or killed at the hands of Damian while trying to contact or persuade him, who was in a bad mood.
But she had nowhere to go. Even if the others couldn’t see her, she didn’t want to stay away from Damian.
After thinking for a while, Lilian sat down in front of the door to Damian’s room.
She thought for a moment what to do if Damian came out and kicked her out but he fortunately left her alone as if it was a nuisance.
Squatting down on the floor, Lilian thought about Idoel, Matteo, and Claude.
After some time passed.
From the other side of the hallway, a servant led by several knights approached. Seeing their urgent and solemn expression, Lilian forgot that she was invisible to anyone except Damian and jumped to her feet.
An attendant knocked on Damian’s door.
“Your Highness Damian, His Majesty the Emperor is calling.”
Silence.
The servant swallowed his saliva with a fearful face. However, because the emperor firmly ordered him, he could not retreat.
“If Your Highness doesn’t move, His Majesty said that he will reprimand Idoel.”
“…”
Indeed, Damian’s door burst open. But he didn’t show up to listen normally.
“…you dare say the Crown Prince’s name with your mouth?”
“H-Hiii!”
The face of the attendant, who was grabbed by the collar, turned blue.
Then, by chance, Damian’s eyes met Lilian’s. Lilian involuntarily shook her head.
At that moment, an amazing thing happened.
Damian shoved the attendant by the collar.
“Ugh…!”
He rolled on the floor, but didn’t die. Damian asked the knights.
“Where?”
“They are in the Blue Room. Your Highness, your sword…”
A boy who could and was willing to kill his father with his bare hands irritably unbuckled his sword and threw it away. While a knight hurriedly picked up the sword, Damian strode ahead.
The servant and knights hurriedly begant to follow Damian.
Lily, who was paying attention, joined cautiously.
***
The Blue Room was the place where the emperor usually ate. However, there’s no such thing as Damian’s share on the long table.
The emperor called his youngest son over to a table reserved for one person and gracefully washed his fingers as if he were invisible.
It was an attitude of contempt. However, Damian was accustomed to pulling the chair in front of him and sitting down.
The emperor still didn’t respond. Damian seemed to think for a moment, then he grinned and put his feet on the table.
“…”
Only then did the emperor’s eyebrows twitch.
“Damian Rupenwein.”
“Oh, you can see me?”
Damian laughed softly.
“I didn’t know.”
He said that but still didn’t put his foot down.
“I heard that you went around doing murderous things on the battlefield, so it seems that you’ve abandoned your humanity.”
“It’s a good fit for me. Is it because I resemble my father?”
“Enough.”
A sneer crept across the emperor’s wrinkled lips.
“How can I be sure that a monster like you, who has no humanity, is my child? Since the Empress took her life, there’s no way to prove it.”
“Let’s not be too sure.”
The emperor elegantly dipped a fork into the food served as an appetizer and savored it.
There was no expression on Damian’s face.
He didn’t stop talking because he was suddenly hurt by his father’s attitude. There had been too much between them to be hurt by just this much.
Damian was just mad. He never wanted to be born.
He didn’t even ask to be born.
But the man who gave birth to him comes out brazenly with an attitude of not being responsible…he was angry.
He was so angry that his lips trembled.
But he wasn’t the only angry person in the room.
The Emperor’s words also angered Lily, who was watching the situation while hiding under the curtains.
‘…what?’
It wasn’t enough to denounce his son as a monster who had no humanity, he even talked about him being an illegitimate child.
Moreover, the Empress’ suicide, which could be said to be Damian’s trauma, was so lightly mentioned by the emperor, her husband and his father.
‘If only His Highness had a choice, he wouldn’t want to be born as your child either…’
Idoel and Matteo’s friendly appearance, Matteo who was perfectly loved and cared for like a little sun, and Damian’s childhood, which was completely dead emotionally, passed by one after another.
Lilian felt intense anger as if her eyes were turning red.
A good-natured woman with little emotional ups and downs, this was the first time she knew she could be so angry.
If she could, she would have killed the emperor right in front of her eyes. She couldn’t do that, which made her resentful.
Lilian bit her lip hard. She can’t kill the emperor.
Even if he was killed, he was only an existence in Damian’s nightmare memory.
But of course, she had no intention of staying still.
Lilian, who suddenly revealed herself from her hiding place, approached the emperor without hesitation. Damian was the only one who could see her.
“!”
The moment Damian opened his eyes wide.
Lilian whipped up the hors d oeuvres the emperor was eating. And…
“…Ugh!”
The plate suddenly floated in the air and flew towards the emperor’s face without him having the chance to feel astonished.
“Y-Y-Your Majesty!”
Thick sauce and pieces of salmon trickled down the Emperor’s dazed face.
Seeing His Majesty’s messy appearance, an attendant hurriedly approached and began to wipe his face. However, the more he tried to clean, the more the greasy sauce soaked into the emperor’s beard.
Lilian didn’t let go of her anger that much. She crossed the room again, ignoring Damian’s gaze. She then picked up a plate of food on the cart pushed by an attendant.
“Ah!”
“Again…!”
“Your Majesty! Avoid!”
Everyone was shocked, but they couldn’t stop the food on the plate held by the invisible hand from pouring down on the emperor’s head.
“Pfft.”
Seeing the sauce and noodles dripping from the emperor’s forehead like his hair, Damian burst into laughter without knowing it.
“Stop, stop!”
Eventually, the emperor issued a command.
“Damian, what the hell is this?”
“Right, haha!”
The emperor misunderstood that this happened because of Damian’s magical ability. Instead of correcting his misunderstanding, Damian grabbed his stomach and started laughing. The emperor roared.
“Looks like you really want to die at my hands!”
After a refreshing laugh, Damian wiped away his tears and answered hatefully.
“I’m sorry, but Your Majesty, I don’t think there’s anyone among your knights who can kill me.”
“You…!”
“The next time you want to hold me back, think of a more ingenious way.”
“Damien Rupenwein!”
The emperor ran rampant but the initiative had already passed to Damian. Damian just muttered and stuck his tongue out.
“Good job.”
Damian followed Lilian and said so with a smile, then left the enraged emperor alone and slipped out of the Blue Room.
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