At the End of Ruin, There You Are (56 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 18

“How dare a mere noble show such insolence toward the imperial family!”

The Emperor was anxious—extremely anxious. The longer the Empress remained unconscious, the more frantic he became.

During that ever-lengthening time, all sorts of rumors had spread, dredging up the old conflicts between him and the Empress once again.

This marriage needed to proceed flawlessly, without a single blemish, so the Emperor could present himself as the perfectly normal head of a proper household.

Thus, he intended to further integrate Grand Duke Lusenford into the imperial family by using his niece Caella, and publicly declare that the child was both the Empress’s son and his own.

To Pheon, this was incomprehensible—but then, the Emperor had always been an incomprehensible being.

‘He was like this back then too.’

Pheon remembered. The Emperor had grown just as impatient when he desperately tried to prove his ability to father children by showing jealousy toward Pheon, and eventually began taking other women.

Desperate to prove his fertility wasn’t flawed, he fathered countless illegitimate children.

When their number surpassed ten in a single year, he briefly paused, seemingly aware of public attention—but soon resumed his obsessive pursuit of women after those children began wasting away and dying within a year.

No matter how much chaos he caused, he couldn’t escape the whispers that “there’s something wrong with his seed.”

It was the same now. He frantically searched every possible cause for the Empress’s collapse, all to avoid the accusation that the imperial family was abnormal.

The more whispers he heard from every corner, the more obsessively the Emperor fixated on maintaining the “appearance of a normal family.” Fearing his wife might die, he repented for his wrongs toward her in his own peculiar way.

Thus, upon hearing that Duchess Monde had dared show disrespect to Caella, he immediately banned her from the imperial palace—ignoring even the fact that she was the Empress’s closest friend and chief maid.

“Lusenford and Ostein are the pillars supporting this empire.”

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