Rushed towards the Imperial Palace to see the Emperor.
The surgical team, fully equipped, was with me. Next to me, Acella bounced along with short strides.
“What are the symptoms, Your Majesty?”
“It seems like poisoning. Using a healing spell seems to only make it worse.”
“It must be a curse then. What about the infection route?”
“He brought the alcohol, Your Highness. I’m sure there was nothing when it was tested before; it’s strange.”
“It must be one that absorbs divine power as its food. I believe my sister’s testing spell was rendered ineffective.”
“Oh, so that’s why using a healing spell only strengthened him and made things worse. It’s a blunder on the girl’s part.”
Acella bit her lip.
With her level of skill, she shouldn’t have missed it after a calm examination, but since it was Gunter’s gift, the Emperor must have let his guard down.
Livio was the one who played that situation.
“Teacher, let’s go!”
As I stepped out of the Inner Palace’s front door, the holy knights waved at me while preparing the ambulance.
Just as I was moving, knights suddenly blocked my way.
Clatter, clatter.
Before the knights, she stepped up confidently.
“Prince.”
Acella’s blonde hair danced gracefully.
“Royal Princess.”
“Are you planning to go to His Majesty?”
“Yes, it’s urgent.”
She looked at me with a more serious expression than ever.
“It’s an order. Don’t go.”
*
As soon as Acella heard the news of the Emperor’s collapse, she headed to the Inner Palace.
‘I didn’t think it would happen this quickly.’
In my Clairvoyance, the Emperor’s assassination was an event years later, so I had been a bit careless.
When she saw her future, she couldn’t tell how long Livio, the attending physician, would be working.
While she thought it suspicious, she didn’t know it was the real culprit, so her response was slow.
A painful mistake. If the Emperor were to die immediately, she, who hadn’t yet grown her faction, would be at a disadvantage in the succession war.
‘But Prince Gunter is in a situation where he can’t inherit either.’
On the contrary, if she could suppress the period of chaos, it would be a great opportunity.
‘No, that’s a matter for later.’
What was important to her right now was not politics but Lars.
She was worried about Lars more than anything.
Just like how Marquis Gothberg was called away, a healing request would come for Lars too.
If he set out to heal the Emperor, it was obvious he would be in danger.
Even in my Clairvoyance, all the Empire’s top healers had rushed in but still failed.
The Emperor was certainly dead.
And if Lars got blamed for the assassination of the Emperor…
In the worst case, he would be executed like Marquis Gothberg.
‘In that future, he would’ve been the next Emperor, so I would have eventually given the order.’
Acella speculated she would have commanded it due to the flow of the situation.
In that context, Lars wasn’t even his personal doctor, so there was no reason to protect Gothberg.
It was certain that whoever the murderer was, a severe punishment would be meted out.
Imagining that possibility, Acella couldn’t think of the Imperial Family’s flow at all.
Her only wish was that he would be safe.
“It’s an order. Don’t go.”
For that reason, Acella said to Lars in a firmer tone.
Seeing Ambrosia standing next to him made her see the scene from her Clairvoyance overlapping.
The image of both of their heads dropping from the guillotine flashed before her eyes.
Lars calmly responded to her.
“Royal Princess, His Majesty is in critical condition.”
“I heard. But you’re my attending physician. Touching His Majesty’s body would be overstepping.”
“Princess Acella, there was an imperial command.”
Ambrosia interjected. Acella glared at her.
“An imperial command? Did the Emperor explicitly designate Gothberg to treat himself?”
“Umm…”
“Isn’t the situation that you’re taking my attending physician without even my permission based on your judgment as healers, Ambrosia?”
“That is…”
Ambrosia’s words trailed off.
The Emperor only mentioned Gothberg’s name but couldn’t outright command what to do.
“Thinking back, it wasn’t an imperial command.”
“Then officially, there’s only your request for cooperation as His Majesty’s attending physician. It has no power that supersedes my orders.”
Acella’s logic was valid, and Ambrosia couldn’t refute it.
By the principle, Lars had no obligation to treat the Emperor, and if something went wrong, the responsibility would follow.
If the Emperor were to pass away, the Moonlight Palace would lose Gothberg. Ambrosia wasn’t oblivious to that risk.
“Royal Princess, can we talk for a moment?”
To ease the standoff, Lars tugged at Acella’s wrist and moved briskly.
Once they reached beneath a tree, he urgently urged her.
“Don’t do this now.”
“Why? Are you trying to defy my orders again?”
“Are you saying that having His Majesty die right now would benefit the Moonlight Palace?”
“What?”
“With Gunter in that state, you don’t think that if you suppress Heike amid the chaos, you could become the next Emperor, do you?”
Lars’s words held truth. He was accurately grasping the flow of the Imperial Family.
But hearing that made Acella’s resentment boil over.
How could he not understand her feelings? She hated him for not knowing.
Of course, it was her who hadn’t mentioned Clairvoyance.
Lars couldn’t possibly know the possible future that awaited him.
“If that’s truly the case, I have no choice but to defy you. I can’t turn a blind eye to a patient I can save.”
That damn patient.
Unable to hold her anger, Acella yelled.
“His Majesty can’t be saved!”
“I can. You know my skills.”
“No matter how skilled the Prince is, it’s something we don’t know…! What if you end up taking the blame for killing His Majesty!”
“What kind of extreme assumption is that? Even during the mock battle, why would you say such things?”
Because I saw you die.
Acella swallowed the words that rose to her throat.
“…Prince, as confident as you are in your medical skills, I am equally confident in my politics. My predictions do not go awry.”
“That may be true, but…”
Lars didn’t deny it, perhaps realizing the point.
Acella took a deep breath.
“What if you fail? A succession war will break out in the Imperial Family to determine the next Emperor. Regardless of who becomes the next Emperor, both you and Ambrosia will be imprisoned due to the responsibility for the failure.”
“…That is true.”
“The next Emperor will want to show a remarkable presence to the public for political stability. They would certainly execute the murderers of His Majesty in the square, wouldn’t they?”
“That would be effective.”
“Have you never considered that you might get caught up in that?”
“Well…”
Lars couldn’t refute Acella’s argument.
Her predictions echoed the actual history he knew.
In a context where Lars knew nothing of Clairvoyance, he deemed Acella’s judgment superior.
“That’s insightful. A perfectly valid prediction.”
“Right? If you understand, leave His Majesty to those attending physicians. That’s their job, after all.”
“But Royal Princess, that assumption only comes into play if I were to fail.”
Lars grinned at Acella.
“I’ll succeed.”
His confident demeanor nearly made Acella waver.
She wanted to trust him, just like when she sent him to treat the princess before.
…But that simply wouldn’t do.
If he remained so arrogantly confident, he could fail and tumble down someday.
Especially when things were as irreversible as they were now, that simply could not happen.
In her last attempt, Acella earnestly poured her heart out to him.
“Don’t go.”
“I will.”
Lars stepped forward and brushed past Acella.
She turned sharply toward him.
“Prince!”
Ignoring Acella’s call, he sprinted towards the carriage.
Acella clenched her fists tightly, helplessly watching his retreating figure.
*
“Yah!”
The knight hurriedly drove the horses. The ambulance reached the Imperial Palace in just three minutes.
“Gothberg, is Princess Acella alright?”
Ambrosia asked me.
“I’ll get scolded later. I already have one punishment saved up, so I’m a bit worried.”
“Hmm. Anyway, what’s important right now is His Majesty.”
“I agree.”
Though I answered that way, it was true that a discomfort lingered in my heart.
Acella’s prediction was accurate. In reality, Gothberg was exterminated due to the events following the Emperor’s death.
Well, Acella had been the one to hold him accountable for the assassination, though.
In actual history, when the Emperor died, Livio disappeared, leaving no one to be held responsible.
The arrows came to rest with my father and Ambrosia.
As she said, it was something likely to happen regardless of who became the Emperor.
But now, I could manage it.
I had the team and the skills.
The carriage arrived, and I quickly headed towards the Emperor’s bedroom.
Given the emergency, the guard check was lightly performed under Ambrosia’s authority.
“Where’s His Majesty?”
“His complexion is getting worse.”
The deputy healers surrounded the Emperor lying on the bed, unsure of what to do. Naturally, because the healing spells weren’t effective.
“I’ll take it from here. I need to touch the royal body; is that alright?”
“Please do. I’ll take responsibility.”
Ambrosia nodded.
I examined the Emperor’s condition.
The symptoms from the diagnosis were abdominal pain, vomiting, pupillary constriction, and muscle fiber spasms.
The injury was clearly poisoning.
“Administer an atropine IV.”
“Yes!”
Chloe quickly finished setting up. The team members immediately began recording.
I checked the pupils. They would dilate if the condition improved, but there was still no reaction.
“Administer a continuous low-dose injection of 2mg per hour.”
This wasn’t a simple case of poisoning. The curse causing the symptoms itself needed to be eliminated.
“We’ll need an MRI scan.”
I rubbed my hands together and brought my palms above the Emperor’s body.
Maintaining a distance of about five centimeters.
I slowly swept my arms down while scanning the entirety.
Acella had been remarkably terrified during this procedure.
The results appeared in the status window. I tapped the output function to bring it up.
“The injured area is the stomach. It’s obstructed. Luckily, the pylorus is spasming, so the toxic substance hasn’t moved into the duodenum. Hugo.”
“It’s a form not listed in our database. It’s at least a high-level curse.”
To manipulate a curse already placed with an amulet, we needed to know exactly what kind it was.
Since Hugo is familiar with virtually all intermediate-level curses, the likelihood that it was a significant one was high.
Once the curse was extracted and separated from the infected person, then we could physically restrain it.
“How about endoscopy?”
“It’s still experimental and unstable.”
The equipment team was creating an endoscope based on the technology of automata, but it wasn’t yet at a level suitable for actual combat.
Given the Emperor’s old age, endoscopy would be safer than open surgery.
However, with cases like this, endoscopic surgery could increase the risk of future cancers.
Having made my judgment, I spoke to Ambrosia.
“Sister, I’m going to say something that will sound insane, so I ask for your understanding. It’s to save His Majesty.”
“What do you mean by that?”
I dropped the bombshell on Ambrosia without any preparation.
“I need to make an incision on His Majesty’s body.”
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