IWLUBCD - Chapter 116

"The Emperor is Mad."

Isaac recalled the rumors people had been whispering before he came here.

The whole empire was talking together.

The Emperor is crazy.

And as soon as he saw Carsis, he knew the rumors were not false.

Carsis placed Bellona in a coffin filled with aiasis and did not leave her side all day. Even today, a month later.

Carsis's impression has changed a lot since he last saw him.

He looked up at him with half-open eyes and a disheveled appearance, as if he hadn't even shaved his beard for several days.

“...Isaac.”

Only then did Carsis realize that Isaac had returned, and there was a look of resentment in his eyes as if he was wondering why he had come now.

“What about Paulo?”

But he went to Paulo without any reprimand for Isaac.

“...I brought it.”

Isaac then pulled Paulo, who was following behind, forward.

Paulo, too, was in a terrible state due to his long life on the run.

He looked back and forth between Carsis and the coffin behind him to assess the situation.

And before he could even assess the situation, Carsis spoke.

"Say it."

"Yes...?"

“Tell me how to save Bellona.”

It was a random question, but Paulo, already looking at the glass case behind him, understood what Carsis meant.

‘Are you telling me to save that woman...’

He wondered why he didn't kill him as soon as he found him. It seemed like he remembered that he had revived the emperor in the past.

Paulo was deeply troubled.

It was thanks to his alchemy and his vast wealth that he was able to save the emperor.

Of course, now that the man has become the Emperor, he could save that woman even if it cost him thousands of people's lives.

But.

'In the first place, it was the blood flowing within his body that was able to save the Emperor.'

Graham was saved because he had the blood of Clepius, who had the power to heal.

However, the woman whom the Emperor had ordered to live did not inherit his blood, so no matter how many hundreds or thousands of sacrifices he had and how much excellent alchemy he had, he could not save her.

But he knew that if he told this fact to the Emperor, he would kill him right away.

Paulo had to figure out a way to get out of here safely.

"That is..."

He deliberately stalled for time to examine Carsis.

He was so close to being a cripple that you wouldn't have thought he was an Emperor if his eyes weren't red.

And that also meant that the current Emperor was not making rational decisions.

'This is an opportunity.'

Fortunately, he had the brains to not miss that opportunity.

Paulo, who had been thinking for a while, smiled with satisfaction as if a good idea had come to him.

Then he took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

“...Unfortunately, we cannot bring that dead woman back to life.”

As Paulo explained why Bellona could not be saved, Carsis's face gradually darkened.

"But."

He met Carsis' eyes with an impudent gaze.

“You can go back to before she died.”

“...Return to before she died?”

At his answer, Carsis withdrew his murderous gaze towards Paulo and gestured for him to continue speaking.

“Yes. Have you ever heard of the Barley family?”

Isaac's shoulders flinched next to him at the mention of the word Barley.

But Paulo and Carsis didn't notice this.

“Yes. The power of Barley, one of the five ducal houses, is the ability to revert to time.”

“But the entire Barley family would be dead.”

“No. He’s alive. Just one person...”

The corners of Paulo's mouth elongated.

“The successor of Barley.”

“Do you know where he is?”

He nodded confidently to Carsis' question.

“I don’t know exactly where he is, but there is a way to summon him. Give me just a moment and I will bring him before Your Majesty’s eyes!”

Contrary to Paulo's confident voice, in fact, he did not know the whereabouts of the survivors of Barley.

It was the same when he spoke to the Emperor in the past. How could he know the whereabouts of someone who had already died long ago? However, there was no other way to deceive Carsis.

'Now all that remains is for the Emperor to order me to find Barley's successor.'

He deliberately said that he knew how to summon the successor, not where the successor was.

He thought that he could only meet Barley's successor if he went forward himself.

And Carsis seemed to be silent and pondering whether his plan had worked.

His prediction that the Emperor's judgment was different from before proved correct.

'They won't send me alone. At least they'll assign me a guard.'

Then all he had to do was shake off the person who was assigned to guard him. If he could escape safely this time, he would leave the empire altogether.

There was no chance of getting caught hiding on a southern island like last time. That was when Paulo was secretly plotting a way to escape from the empire.

Isaac, who had been quiet, whispered.

"Lie."

It was a small voice, but it was clear enough for Carsis and Paulo to hear.

“Everything he says is a lie.”

“What, what?”

Paulo flinched at Isaac's sudden denial.

'Do you know anything?'

Paulo considered the possibility that Isaac might know something, but then gave up.

The secret about the kidnapped successor of Barley was originally known only to the Emperor and himself.

There was no way that such a young, blue-eyed child, and a commoner at that, could know about that secret.

Paulo, who had gathered his thoughts in a short time, began to express his anger confidently.

“You’re lying! Do you have any evidence that what I’m saying is a lie?”

“I know Barley the best.”

“What? No, where did this guy lie...!”

Isaac clenched his fists as he glared at Paulo with a cold gaze.

“It is said that one eye of the successor to Barley, who was born with power, is golden like the sun.”

“How, how could you do that...!”

It was a top secret, known only to the Emperor and the five Dukes.

But do you know that he was a commoner who helped rebel and rose to fame?

Paulo's eyes fluttered with an unknown, ominous feeling.

'Wait a minute, no way...'

At the same time, one fact flashed through his head.

He studied Isaac's appearance carefully. Then, one by one, truths that had not been visible before began to come into view.

'The hair color of the Barley family has been passed down through generations...'

He had silver hair.

Like Isaac now.

'Ah.'

Only then did Paulo realize Isaac's true identity and begin to back away. But Carsis was standing behind him. There was nowhere for him to run.

'I have to make an excuse somehow!'

He had to think of a way out of this crisis.

But Isaac's words were faster than Paulo could think of an alternative.

“Because I am Barley’s successor.”

“I, his words are false! Your Majesty! The successor of Barley... bang!

When Paulo was about to make an excuse in response to Isaac's bombshell announcement, Carsis was already holding a sword in his hand.

Carsis struck Paulo down with his sword, seemingly unwilling to listen to his excuses. It happened so quickly.

Isaac, who had been staring at Paulo's corpse that had collapsed to the floor after his last scream, looked at Carsis. The two of them met in midair as if Carsis had never taken his eyes off Isaac since the moment he cut down Paulo.

“No matter what you say, you’d better make an excuse.”

“Carsis said in a voice that contained no emotion whatsoever.

“Or, just use your power for me without saying a word.”

Carsis didn't even think to question the truth of Isaac's words.

Because Carsis knew better than anyone that Isaac was not the kind of person to say such nonsense.

But apart from that, Carsis felt betrayed by Isaac, who had kept the fact that he was Barley's successor a secret from her until now.

Isaac was one of the people who knew best how desperately they needed the power of time, as he was close to Carsis and Bellona.

If only she had known from the beginning that Isaac was Barley's successor, Bellona wouldn't have had to die so painfully.

Thinking about it that way, it would have been enough to cut off Isaac's head right now, but his earnest desire to save Bellona barely held him to his senses.

Isaac looked at the corpse of Paulo, who was still dead without even closing his eyes, and then at the sword of Carsis, which seemed ready to strike him at any moment. Then he opened his lips that had been tightly shut.

“My first memory was of an old tower with cold, damp air hanging around.”

And then he started bringing up dusty memories he had never told anyone about.

“I was like you, Carsis. No name, no idea who I was, always alone.”

So he understood Carsis better than anyone else, because he had experienced a similar childhood.

“Then one day, a girl came into the tower I was in. Just like you first met Bellona, ​​I met that girl too. Naturally, she became my everything.”

A girl who was kidnapped by the Emperor for political reasons similar to her own.

“Elizabeth.”

The girl's name was Elizabeth Cretian.

“The only difference between you and me is that, unlike your Bellona, ​​Elizabeth died... that night she escaped the tower with me.”

He could not forget the feelings of that day.

The helplessness and frustration of not being able to protect someone precious.

“It was only after I lost everything that I realized why I had been trapped there for so long.”

Isaac put his hand to his left eye as soon as he said that.

And when he took his hand away, instead of the blue he had seen before, there were golden eyes like the sun.

“That all that misfortune was because of the power I had.”

The Emperor, who feared and desired this power, kidnapped his mother and himself from her womb.

And it was when he was 14 that he learned that his family had disappeared because of it.

From that day on, Isaac, a boy, dreamed of revenge against the Emperor who had taken away everything he should have enjoyed.

Of course, he did think about going back and changing the future. However, there was one fatal problem that would arise if he went back.

“I was kidnapped while I was in my mother’s womb, and even if I were to return, I wouldn’t be able to escape the damn tower I was trapped in. And I wouldn’t be able to save Elizabeth, who got sick inside the tower either.”

So Isaac waited.

Someone who can use the power of their authority to change the past.


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