I Possessed The Immoral Empress

The days had become notably warmer.

Now, even at midnight, after the sun had set, the temperature barely dropped.

Roberto, eager to end his tiresome day due to the heat and plunge into the sweet dreams of newlywed life, was fast approaching the limits of his patience.

Initially, he had quietly indulged in his friend’s joyous ramblings, but he hadn’t expected several hours of non-stop chatter.

Unable to bear it any longer, Roberto yelled in an irritable voice.

“Enough! Stop it, I get that you’re happy, but please, just stop. I’m getting earwax from all this listening.”

Roberto frowned deeply and gestured for Felio to leave, but Felio seemed unfazed, still wearing a beaming smile.

“Haven’t even gotten to the really important part yet, and you’re already getting earwax?”

“What? No, the Emper…no, he said he’s done with marriage, right? I heard it all. That you’re imagining your rosy future all by yourself!”

“Hm, hm. A rosy future.”

Felio blushed and smiled subtly at Roberto’s words.

To Roberto, seeing Felio’s expression was nothing short of torture.

He felt like he might vomit up his dinner from a few hours ago.

“Now, please go! Dream about your rosy future alone! I want to enjoy my pink-hued honeymoon with my beloved wife, so leave! Out, now!”

Roberto even opened the door to shoo Felio away, but Felio, still seated, showed no sign of leaving.

“You’re really not going?”

Roberto was ready to kick Felio out if he didn’t get up.

“I can’t.”

“What?”

“I need to stay here for a few days.”

“What?”

Was this some kind of joke?

A guy who already robbed him of his precious evenings now wanted to squat here?

“Hey, why stay here, leaving your big, comfortable house? You know we don’t even have a bed in the guest room, right? You’ll have to sleep on the floor!”

Roberto, desperate to get rid of Felio, shouted irritably, but Felio, having made up his mind, took off his cloak, neatly folded it, and started towards the guest room.

“Hey! What’s this all of a sudden? Planning to run away from home at your age?”

At Roberto’s words, Felio nodded gravely.

“Yeah. I’m not going back home. I’m going to be independent. Just need a small room, I’ll find one soon. Just let me stay a few days.”

“Huh?”

Roberto couldn’t believe it. Actual runaway. Stunned by the absurdity, his anger dissipated.

“Why? Are you still not getting along with your father?”

“There’s been no particular worsening of our relationship.”

“Then what?”

“I need to prepare.”

“Prepare for what?”

At his friend’s question, Felio’s silver eyes shimmered sharply like the facets of broken ice.

“Leopold has become a variable. The Emperor would want a more powerful ally than the fallen Francoise Duchy. And there are plenty of nobles who would support him just for executing the Empress.”

“Ah…”

“If Leopold usurps the throne, there’s no guarantee the Empress will be safe.”

Guessing Felio’s intention, Roberto asked with a bitter taste in his mouth.

“So, you’re going to abandon everything for a love escape?”

“If only I could. But in the worst case, my goal is to help the Empress flee abroad.”

“What?”

Roberto was speechless at Felio’s calm, yet staggering statement.

“I’ll need funds and to find a safe means of transportation. Of course, I’ll have to prepare a fake identity too.”

Indeed, helping a well-known woman flee would require quite intricate preparations.

“So, you’re willing to completely abandon your family for her? If you do that, it’s really the end. Do you think your father will forgive you?”

At Roberto’s question, Felio just stared at him silently with a calm expression.

Feeling heat spread through his body, Roberto brushed his hair from his sweaty forehead and sighed.

“When I married, didn’t you say I was a thoughtless fool? A coward without any sense of duty to my country or family?”

“That’s what I said.”

“And now you’re willing to be the fool and the coward?”

“Yes. Willingly.”

What more could be said?

He himself had abandoned everything for love, for that irresistible feeling.

Roberto scratched his head a few times, then went into his bedroom and came out with a soft pillow and a thin blanket.

“Here, since there’s no bed, your back might hurt a bit.”

While Roberto wanted to dissuade him, he knew such a heart couldn’t be swayed. He hoped his dear friend, who was about to walk a thornier path than he had, could at least sleep comfortably, and offered the best pillow he had.

Felio took the fluffy pillow, clearly the best the humble couple had, and bit his back teeth for a moment.

“Hey, don’t you have anything softer?”

“This, you crazy asshole, what are you saying?”

* * *

The somewhat solemn atmosphere lasted only a few seconds.

In an opulent and lavish interior, a noblewoman stretched and yawned languidly behind a partition intricately decorated with carved gold, flipping through an album.

“All quite unremarkable. It’s not enough for them to be just big and flashy. They need to have elegance.”

As if she had seen enough, the noblewoman handed the album to a maid and picked up another.

The woman, her jet-black hair plaited long, started perusing the next album with her sharp eyes, gleaming with distinct golden irises.

“This one seems decent. You can handle this one. Send it to Leopold.”

“Yes, understood.”

The woman leisurely browsing through the albums was the only princess of Ballius Empire, the strongest nation on the continent.

With the Empress having passed away early, she was the woman of the highest status in the Ballius capital, surrounded by precious gold.

More commonly referred to as Princess Innian of Ballius rather than as the Duchess of Kaiodes, she was currently selecting jewelry to send to her son.

Economic and political control were far cheaper and wiser methods than force.

She was prepared to erase the Trivian Empire from the map should a single hair on her son’s head be harmed, but of course, it would be better if such a misfortune didn’t occur.

Hence, she continued to send appealing jewelry, precious fragrances, and textiles to the nobles of the Trivian Empire.

Always concerned whether her son had enough money or faced difficulties hiring mercenaries, Innian now stood up to meet merchants who would supply military goods, along with her father, the Emperor of Ballius.

As Innian was about to leave for the palace, draped in a splendid cloak, a maid rushed in and whispered something urgently.

“Hmm, really?”

A subtle smile, much like Leopold’s, appeared on Innian’s face after hearing the maid’s words.

“Tell father.”

After whispering a message back to the maid, Innian returned to her drawing room to prepare for her guest.

Soon, a middle-aged woman, somewhat aged but still retaining her beauty, appeared in Innian’s drawing room.

The woman, with striking green eyes and abundant golden hair like the midday sun, was wearing a somewhat shabby dress. What once must have been a luxurious garment was now outdated and worn.

“Please, have a seat.”

With a gesture from Innian, the woman sat down with a somewhat haughty look, her chin held high.

Her dress might be worn, but her pride was not.

‘Wandering abroad for years without any support, she still hasn’t come to her senses, it seems.’

Innian looked at Linette, once a rival and now the mother of her son’s enemy, Henry, with a bittersweet smile.

“What brings you to me? We are hardly in a position to rejoice at this reunion, are we?”

A truly splendid moment.

His fiery red hair as intense as his passion, and his deep blue eyes as if holding the ocean within. His voice was dreamily sweet.

Despite being an emperor of a nation, he had a casual and informal demeanor in front of a foreign princess.

“Hmph.”

Innian couldn’t help but snort at the thought of her younger self, who had been captivated by such qualities and had given birth to an illegitimate child.

“You must be aware of my situation.”

The relationship between the two women was indeed a complicated one.

Linette, the lady of the Roan family, had unexpectedly appeared and snatched him away when Innian thought she was his last mistress, holding her son close to her heart.

When Innian left Trivian in tears, Linette had told her with a bright smile:

“Go ahead, curse me all you want. After all, my son will inherit the throne next.”

Yet, despite her arrogant words, the previous emperor soon took another mistress, and Linette was gradually forgotten. Cast aside by her family for bearing an illegitimate child, Linette spent the child support from the emperor on her vanity and neglected her son, who was no longer of any use to her.

And here was the result.

As she had boasted, Linette’s son did become the emperor, but Linette herself was exiled and reduced to wandering foreign lands.

“Yes, I’ve heard. You’ve been traveling for a long time, haven’t you?”

“Traveling?”

Linette bristled at Innian’s euphemistic reference to her hard life abroad.

“That woman, do you know how miserably I live because of her? She took my son away and then had me exiled!”

Linette was unwilling to admit that she was disowned by her son and preferred to believe it was the empress, Henry’s adoptive mother, who had her banished. However, everyone knew that her son, the emperor, had been heavily involved in her exile.

“Then why not return? The former empress is now confined to her estate, waiting to die. What’s there to fear?”

Feigning ignorance, Innian asked with a somewhat mocking smile, knowing full well the situation.

Linette had attempted to return after hearing that the former empress was terminally ill and had gone back to her family. She had sent letters to Henry and tried to communicate through reliable contacts, but no reply ever came.

Even now, as Linette faced Innian, she was reluctant to openly admit that she had been abandoned by her son.

Innian’s golden eyes sharpened as she observed Linette’s denial.

“Time to face reality. You’ve crossed an irreversible river long ago, haven’t you? That’s why you’ve come here on your own. You must be aware of the situation in Trivian.”

Linette finally dropped her façade, revealing her true feelings under Innian’s accurate observation.

“As sharp as ever. Yes, you’re right. The relationship between Henry and me ended long ago. After all I did to ensure he was born an emperor’s son, that ungrateful wretch neither knows gratitude nor spares a thought for his own mother.”