Acella received a mock battle request from Gunter and thought it was a good opportunity.
It was a chance to showcase her abilities against the Crown Prince and prove the status of Moonlight Palace.
She had no intention of losing, and her chances in a strategic battle were significantly high.
It was Gunter who was getting agitated, even though it was a lucrative matter for her.
“I’ll think it over slowly and get back to you.”
The psychological battle had already begun. Acella deliberately took her time to increase his anxiety and check any unsettling factors that could hinder her victory.
After Gunter left, Acella immediately sent the head maid to monitor the movements in Sun Palace.
As she read the documents, one thing caught her eye regarding Gunter’s recent developments.
“Recently, a new attending physician came in. Is he the successor of that ridiculous Inquisition officer?”
“Yes. He brought vitality back to the Crown Prince and reportedly saved His Highness Gesa recently, so his skills are said to be quite good.”
If Gunter’s behavior had changed despite not much happening, it might be related to the altered environment.
The recent peculiarities at Sun Palace were limited to the new attending physician.
Acella instinctively felt that he must have played some role in this.
“Not only the prince’s charge, Wanda, but Gesa was also in a critical situation. He must be skilled. I’ll have to ask the prince for details later.”
As Acella turned the pages, she confirmed the attending physician’s identity.
And as soon as she saw his portrait, her eyes narrowed.
“That’s him.”
He was the long-haired healer who had dragged the Gothberg family into the incident of the emperor’s death she had seen with clairvoyance.
“Your Majesty, do you know him?”
“No.”
Acella denied it. She had never actually met him.
‘It gives me a bad feeling.’
She had been focused on that man in her clairvoyance. It meant he was involved in the incident.
Perhaps he might be the real perpetrator behind the assassination.
‘I need more information.’
Acella headed to the training grounds to cast clairvoyance.
With each casting, she became more accustomed to it. Her magic skills were improving without limits.
Wooooosh, her vision was pulled in.
In a brief moment when her perspective shifted, Acella witnessed the scene.
The shimmering time lines were intricately intertwined like ropes.
Following the flow of time, she encountered a peculiar interval.
‘It looks like an endpoint… no, a starting point.’
As the time lines connected by a single rope branched out at a certain point.
It appeared to be just over a hundred threads.
However, most of them, except for a few, had their ends cut off as if they had been severed.
‘Why do they end there?’
Clairvoyance basically shows the scenery of the time frame the caster is perceiving.
If the caster is not on the time line, clairvoyance does not activate.
Perhaps it means she will die at that point.
Visually, she understood what Seymour had mentioned regarding potential.
Among countless futures, one time line would be chosen based on choices made at that moment.
‘It might also be possible to make possibilities a reality or spawn a new time line.’
There was also a time line that continued without interruption, leading to a distant point.
‘What could happen at the fork?’
From the length, it didn’t seem like it was far in time.
She might have to make a significant choice in a few years.
‘If I can grasp this….’
Acella reached out toward the time line.
If she could seize the time line, she would surely be able to see the future she desired.
Ugh.
But no matter how much she struggled, her arm felt powerless, and the time line kept slipping away.
In the end, Acella, unable to select the desired point, was pushed away, and she fell at one of the split ends.
‘Where is this?’
Acella found herself standing on a tower balcony overlooking Central Square.
She glanced at the mirror.
Empress Acella.
Not right after her coronation, but herself, who had grown to be a dignified adult.
‘Am I in my mid-twenties?’
Seeing herself in the mirror, the Empress smiled, seemingly pleased with her beauty.
Acella felt goosebumps from that smile. The woman with lifeless eyes suited the word tyrant.
The head maid, Lucy, the attending physician, Lars, the Commander of the Moonlight Palace, and all her familiar escort knights were nowhere to be found.
Had they all left her?
Acella felt a little lonely.
She looked down.
—Your Majesty! Please help the people!
—Have mercy!
Nobles and commoners begged her for their lives.
Acella immediately realized the reason.
It was a plague. The square was filled with the sounds of everyone’s coughing, and some had collapsed from coughing up blood.
As the empress, she merely looked down on them.
No, it wasn’t just that.
‘She seems to be enjoying this.’
Unknowingly, her lips twitched with a smirk.
Joy bloomed in her heart.
‘Causing pain to others…’
It was fun teasing Lars.
But she wouldn’t laugh at a situation so dire.
If she continued to act like this, would she become that evil? Doubts about her nature surfaced.
Acella’s mind became chaotic.
—Bang!
At that moment, the door behind her burst open, and a man appeared.
The knights blocked the entrance with their spears to stop him.
“Empress Acella!!”
His shout was filled with rage.
Acella’s heart dropped.
The man who clearly showed hostility toward her was none other than Lars.
Having aged into a fully grown man, Lars looked quite worn out.
His eyes were bloodshot, and his body was covered in scars.
Without caring for his own life, he poured curses toward the empress.
“They’ve all died! The entire Hero Party died from the plague! What the hell is going on? You left things to get this bad?! You incompetent tyrant!”
The knights subdued Lars and brought him to his knees.
Acella walked toward him, clicking her heels as she looked down at Lars.
“How foolish of you, healer. Isn’t it your job to cure the sick? If you were so worried about the citizens, you should have acted more diligently.”
“Is that really what you’re saying right now?! You’re the one who let the plague spread all over the continent!”
With a cough, Lars spat out a large amount of blood.
He glared at Acella with fatigue-ridden eyes full of resentment.
However, she rather enjoyed his gaze and laughed demonically.
“You talk big for someone so useless. Arrest him. He shall be punished for not subduing the Demon King.”
“Acella!!”
Lars screamed in a final plea before collapsing on the spot.
“He’s dead.”
Acella shook her head in disappointment at the knight’s report.
“How pathetic. I wanted to make him suffer more.”
She stepped back onto the balcony. Acella raised her glass and drank while gazing down at the people, using their cries as a toast.
Chug.
Her vision faded, and Acella returned to reality.
“Haah, haah.”
She was out of breath. Her forehead was drenched in sweat.
She felt dizzy and thought she might collapse.
“Ugh.”
Somehow, she sensed the nausea from her earlier abdominal pain returning.
Excited by the scene she had just witnessed, her insides twisted.
“Lars.”
With a strong grip on her wand, Acella’s hand trembled.
“Lars is dead.”
Her lips trembled, and her heart raced madly.
Seeing him die right before her was a huge shock.
“He died from the plague after overdoing it in the Hero Party.”
Acella bit her lower lip and vowed.
Lars must not participate in the Hero Party.
The main reason he was drafted into the Hero Party was undoubtedly his lack of a family.
If one had power, they wouldn’t need to take such risks themselves. They could send subordinates to handle it while they enjoyed the political benefits.
“Lars’s family.”
They were annihilated for allegedly assassinating the emperor.
It was clear that the healer named Livio was at the center of that incident.
“Lars can’t get involved with him.”
As Acella thought about this and retracted the cast magic circle, she spotted Lars and Tanya approaching her from afar.
“Haah.”
Seeing him alive and moving, Acella felt an unmatched sense of relief.
He was still alive. The moment she held onto the hope that such an unfortunate future would not come true.
Thud. Lars suddenly stumbled and collapsed to the ground.
“Lars?”
Acella threw her wand aside and rushed toward him.
“Lars!!”
Tanya supported the fallen Lars’s head.
As Acella reached them, she knelt and checked on him.
Her hand felt as if it would burn when she touched his face; it was scalding hot.
Kelsshh.
At that moment, Lars coughed.
Acella’s hand was stained bright red with the blood he had coughed up.
“L-Lars…?”
Acella’s shoulders trembled.
The scene she had just seen with clairvoyance, where the plague took him, overlapped vividly in her mind.
“Hey, Lars!”
“I’ll take him to the inner palace immediately. Don’t worry, Your Highness.”
Tanya calmly picked up Lars and immediately moved.
Acella sat on the spot, as if her battery had run out, trembling.
Unbeknownst to her, the head maid came to support her, and she stared wide-eyed.
‘Lars must have a weak constitution.’
He frequently collapsed or lost consciousness before, whether during his attending physician exams or while fighting the wyvern.
What kind of attending physician can’t manage his own health?
‘…No. It’s because it’s Lars.’
He must certainly be doing his best for his own health as well.
If this is his best, it might mean his actual condition is much more serious.
“Lucy.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Send a reply to Gunter. Let’s settle this match right away. We’ll each bet our knights and the palace resources, and.”
Acella stood up.
“Also bet his garnet brooch.”
If it’s the artifact that breathes life into a phoenix, it might help improve Lars’s condition.
Acella thought it was best to bring him something he could not obtain himself, as she lacked professional knowledge in healing spells or medicine.
“Moonlight Palace will devour Sun Palace.”
“As you command.”
As she swallowed her regret for not being able to speak with Lars, Acella took her leave.
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