185. I Love Your Wife

2024.04.02.

He had monitored and managed that man for over ten years, yet the fact that Clade Euphris had grown strong enough to match a Sword Master like him was beyond even his wildest dreams.

Even if he had trained in secret, there should have been clear limits.

Even if he had trained alongside Sir Eli in the palace, such rapid progress would have been impossible.

The Emperor exerted all his strength to push Clade back and panted heavily.

No matter how much his physical activity had declined compared to his prime, this was simply impossible.

Igor gripped the black blade trembling in his hand each time their swords clashed.

The thought that the blood staining the man’s body might not be his own made his face smile while his mind turned cold.

His pupils narrowed like a snake’s, then returned to normal. Things were getting interesting.

Igor, whose long blonde hair had been tousled by sweat for the first time in years, then swept it back as he caught sight of the late-arriving reinforcements of the First Knight Division. He burst into a loud, haughty laugh.

He had just confirmed Solen Racha climbing up, heavily bandaged and leaning on others for support.

Clade Euphris had defeated Solen Racha.

The strongest warrior among his peers, within the Euphris clan’s own northern territory.

He cast a cold gaze toward Solen Racha, who stood far away, staring at them with a dazed expression, then refocused on Clade before him.

Seeing Clade, panting just as hard as himself, drenched in sweat, made Igor chuckle darkly.

Indeed, the boy was more like him than like Alexei.

“Ah, not easy. Not easy at all.”

Emperor Igor muttered almost petulantly toward Clade.

Yet the wariness in his icy blue eyes sharpened manyfold.

The fact that Clade Euphris had become a Sword Master was an unforeseen variable—one not even considered in the Emperor’s perfect plan.

But he did not lose his composure. The corners of his lips, still curled in a smile, twisted into a strange, unsettling curve.

The higher one soars, the more beautiful the fall.

Originally, he had intended to capture Clade and drag him into a private chamber.

He planned to bring in a mistress resembling Eleonore, along with Yuan Pelliese, and have them serve him sexually in Clade’s presence.

He would bind Clade so tightly he couldn’t bite his tongue to death or cover his ears, forcing him to watch as lovers engaged in intimacy—watching him crumble as if the world had ended over something so trivial, then killing the women on the bed one by one until Clade shattered completely.

“Tch.”

But now, this fool dared to charge at him, claiming he didn’t care if he died too—seemingly unaware of how precious his own life was.

His once meticulous and flawless temperament had changed considerably in the time they were apart.

For a nephew who had grown in an unexpected direction, he naturally adjusted his plans.

Perhaps this way would be far more entertaining.

“Clade. How can you so easily throw away your life when you have someone you love?”

“Love?”

His face, previously calm against any provocation, twisted. Clade sneered, his lips curling just as mockingly as the composed Emperor’s.

“I don’t do love.”

“Ah—Clade, Clade! You foolish boy. Wouldn’t your wife be hurt to hear you say that?”

“Shut up and fight properly.”

“I handpicked your wife for you. Don’t you think you should show her a little more affection?”

The Emperor finished with a soft, knowing smile. This was the reaction he had been waiting for.

Clade’s bright blue eyes immediately flickered toward the base of a nearby thick fir tree, where he had just been sitting.

“I don’t think my dear nephew is truly heartless.”

From behind the tree, the tip of a blade poked out.

Yuan Pelliese slowly emerged from behind the fir, her neck bound by a rope like a dog, pulled forward by Gumnus Yotpa, who now pressed a gleaming, deadly blade against her.

The sturdy, quilted clothes Clade had carefully dressed her in—warm enough to withstand the northern cold—were nowhere to be seen.

Beneath a thin sack-like garment fit for a slave, her bare feet, horribly damaged, groped forward across the white ground.

Above her fragile, nearly broken ankles, her tangled hair and pale face, her lips marked by deep bite wounds, and her dark eyes, straining with all her might to hold back tears, finally let one cold drop fall as she watched the standoff between the Emperor and Clade.

At this breathtaking sight, the Emperor couldn’t suppress his smile as he observed Clade.

***

Her feet felt like they were tearing apart from being dragged up this harsh mountain while bound by a leash.

Her shoes had long since fallen off, and her frozen feet felt as though they’d crack like ice with a single hard strike.

She had an overwhelming urge to crush Gumnus Yotpa’s grinning face—this man who had dragged her like a dog—into nothing.

But even that impulse paled next to her desire to kill Igor before her.

Yuan whispered a name she couldn’t bring herself to say aloud, over and over.

Clade, Clade, please…

She prayed desperately that Clade would never reach the top of this ravine.

She kept imagining that the Emperor, lost in old memories and drowning in drink, would simply wait there and freeze to death.

She didn’t want to become a hostage, a burden hindering Clade’s revenge.

In her plans, there was only one goal: kill the Emperor and remove Clade’s greatest enemy from this world.

Accepting this absurd situation was too difficult.

But just as life never flowed easily according to one’s wishes,

against her hopes, Clade had finally reached the summit and faced the demon—and now saw her, taken hostage.

Clade, who had stood before Igor like an unshakable fortress.

Yuan believed Clade would maintain that strength, if only to avoid showing any weakness to the Emperor.

But contrary to her expectations,

Clade stared at her—like someone forcibly gripping his head and forcing his gaze—toward the cliff’s edge where she stood far between them.

The man’s usually unyielding eyes were now fixed on Yuan, refusing to let go.

“Now, Clade.”

“What exactly do you want?”

Clade, who had stood frozen like stone for a long moment, finally spoke.

Even as he glared at the Emperor, he couldn’t suppress the direction of his gaze—toward Yuan.

The Emperor, closely observing this dramatic shift, soothed him with a smiling face.

“I rebelled against my uncle? Yet how could I kill my beloved nephew with a single stroke? If you beg for mercy from your uncle now, and plead for forgiveness, perhaps I’ll spare you. Rebellion is an unforgivable crime—both husband and wife should die. But if you surrender obediently now, I’ll let your wife live.”

Meeting Clade’s glaring eyes head-on, the Emperor pulled out the crossbow dangling at his side and aimed it at Yuan.

“After all, don’t you want to save someone you’ve lived with all this time?”

The crossbow, though appearing absurdly small in his strong hand, bore an arrowhead Yuan recognized all too well.

A monster-hunting arrow.

The same arrowhead that had killed Clade’s father and pierced Clade’s body, tormenting him.

A demonic arrow that, unless it tore through flesh completely upon impact, would instead burrow deeper into the body.

How could she forget? She remembered the agony vividly.

And Clade, who knew that arrowhead just as well as she did, flinched visibly.

His breath, forced out harshly, turned white before his otherwise composed face.

His jaw clenched, and as the arrow’s tip aligned more precisely with Yuan’s vital point, the color drained from his face.

“Now, confess.”

“……”

“Say it. Say that you love your wife. Beg—just once—that she be spared.”

The cruel arrowhead trembled, aimed directly at Yuan.

It looked ready to fire at any moment, piercing her heart.

Thick veins rose on Clade’s hand gripping the sword.

Yuan slowly shook her head.

‘No.’

The Emperor had spouted similar words when he killed Princess Apollini, just before nearly cutting Clade in half.

“What will you do, Clade? Just like when you crawled like a beast on the ground, you can crawl again now.”

Beg.

Go ahead, beg properly.

If you beg well, I might just let her live.

The thought that Clade, who had endured those cruel humiliations as a child and protected his dignity through them, would now hesitate—even slightly—because of her dying life, made her breath catch.

Yuan was certain Clade did not love her.

So all along, she could have ignored the Emperor’s promise that Clade would come.

If the Emperor had intended, as he’d hinted, to violate and kill her before Clade’s eyes, all she needed to do was scream in pain the moment he touched her.

But this method—wasn’t it too much?

In the very ravine where he killed Clade’s father.

And now threatening to kill his wife—his own uncle.

Even if she were merely a wife he disliked, it was obvious that Clade, who had seen countless lives ripped away before his eyes by the Emperor, could not endure this in any way.

Yuan studied Clade’s face for a long time—the man who neither dropped his sword nor advanced, only glaring at the Emperor.

The small fist that had clutched the air trembled, then slowly relaxed.

She began to release, bit by bit, the faded, foolish plan she had clung to so desperately.

Compared to her, already captured, Clade—who had spent ten years preparing and climbed to this summit—had a far greater chance of achieving revenge.

Then there was only one choice.

Yuan had no intention of meeting the same fate as the late Emperor—falling here before Clade, pierced by Igor’s arrow.

Hadn’t she always intended to give everything for Clade, so he could live on?

In this situation, her own attempt at revenge was not only unlikely to succeed, but might only burden Clade further.

Her trembling footsteps moved one step, then another, toward the nearby cliff’s edge.

Just one more step—she was about to throw both her lingering regrets and her body into the steaming hot spring waterfall—when suddenly, she froze.

“Don’t do anything foolish.”

It was Clade’s low voice, now staring straight at her.

“Don’t do it, please.”

Though his voice was carefully restrained, it trembled unmistakably.

His violet eyes, bloodshot and strained, were red with emotion.

The calm, indifferent face that had endured every one of the Emperor’s insults was nowhere to be seen.

Clade’s face, barely holding back his emotions, looked as fragile as a fortress on the verge of collapse.