国产午夜亚洲精品AⅤ

Chapter 264

So, I really did throw the pansy she gave me away, into the other flowers.

Charlotte seemed a bit taken aback.

“Wow... you really threw it away.”

“... You told me to.”

“Still, you said even trash from me would be a gift.”

“I was just prioritizing the princess’s command to throw it away!”

“... You’re really something. Why are you like this?”

“Are you upset? If you are, I can pick it up and carry it around again.”

“Listen, Reinhart. The moment you threw it away after being told to, it was already over.”

“I guess I made a mistake.”

“At times like this, can you just learn to say nothing? Now I hate myself more for telling you to throw it away and then complaining when you actually do.”

“...”

“You can at least say ‘yes’!”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Charlotte shook her head as if she were tired.

In reality, there was a different reason for why I had thrown the flower away, but I didn’t mention it, just as Charlotte couldn’t tell me why she had given me the pansy.

Thanks to the Cognitive Dissonance spell, no passersby recognized Charlotte.

I had only met Charlotte at the beginning of the year, yet it felt like a distant memory.

The girl who was dying in a prison cell...

I hadn’t known who Charlotte was, and it turned out she was a princess, which was troublesome, but it ultimately allowed me to reach the capital.

‘If I hadn’t met Charlotte, would I have been able to escape the Demon King’s Castle safely?

‘If I hadn’t come to the capital, what would have happened to me?’

Hypotheticals were meaningless, but thinking about what might have happened if things had gone differently left me feeling lost.

I had a vague feeling that I would have either lived as a nobody, or wandered the wilderness until I died.

All of this had begun when I met Charlotte in that prison cell.

Charlotte was my beginning.

“... You look like an old man. What are you thinking about while you’re staring at me?” Charlotte asked.

“Wh-When did I ever stare at you!”

Charlotte seemed startled, as if my gaze made her uncomfortable. As we walked on, still admiring the flowers, Charlotte spoke.

“You’ve always been strange, but you seem even stranger lately.”

“... How so?”

“There’s a precariousness about you, as if I can sense anxiety and restlessness coming from you.”

I was different from Charlotte. I wasn’t good at hiding my emotions. So, if something happened between me and Ellen, people noticed, and if I was worried, they would try to cheer me up.

“I don’t know what’s making you so anxious, but how about relaxing a bit?”

Charlotte was worried about me. She was probably struggling with her own issues, yet she was thinking about me.

‘Is this really the time for her to be worrying about me? There’s something going on with you too, isn’t there?’

I was torn between the urge to ask her that and the feeling that I shouldn’t.

Charlotte sighed deeply. “Why are you tensing up more just when I tell you to relax?”

She walked a little ahead of me, quietly. Since class had just ended, it wasn’t quite sunset yet.

Charlotte’s platinum blonde hair shone brilliantly in the autumn sunlight.

The once-haggard Charlotte seemed to have regained her health. Naturally, she looked much better this way.

“Whoa!”

While admiring the flowers, Charlotte was suddenly startled and grabbed my arm instinctively.

“What, what is it? What’s wrong?”

“It was a bee! Phew...”

Buzz...

Charlotte had been startled by a bee. It wasn’t even a hornet, just a regular honeybee. The honeybee buzzed its way among the flowers and then disappeared.

“Ugh. I thought it was something serious...”

Charlotte glared at me after seeing my reaction. “What’s that? Ugh, you’re really... Sometimes I think you forget that I was raised delicately, you know?”

Raised delicately.

For her to say that was an understatement. For a princess to say, “I was raised delicately,” was in itself already cute.

She had indeed been raised delicately. Despite that, she’d had to go through some rough experiences.

“You like flowers, but you’re scared of bees?”

Wouldn’t someone who liked flowers run into bees often?

“... There aren’t any in my garden.”

‘Does that mean they’re able to micromanage the ecosystem in the Imperial Palace’s gardens to such an extent? Is that even possible?

‘Still, isn’t seeing a bee nothing compared to the rough experiences she’s gone through?’

Charlotte clicked her tongue.

“You’re so transparent. Bees are an unknown fear to me. I’ve never been stung in my life, so no matter what I’ve been through, it’s natural to be scared of something I don’t know. Got it?”

“Well, I can see you have a lot to say.”

“You really speak your mind without any filter, don’t you?” Charlotte said as she burst into laughter as if she couldn’t believe it.

Despite her words, she seemed to be in a good mood.

Charlotte liked flowers, but she was afraid of bees... That was something I learned. Although there were many beautiful flowers along the Irine River, as soon as she saw the bees, Charlotte kept a slight distance from the flowers.

Charlotte must have grown up in a garden with only butterflies.

I sometimes forgot how delicately she was raised, but such moments reminded me of it.

Charlotte seemed to find it amusing that she couldn’t approach the flowers she liked because of a mere bee, and she laughed weakly.

“Reinhart, have you ever been stung by a bee?”

“Yeah, I have.”

“How painful is it?”

“It hurts like hell.”

“Is it that bad?” Charlotte asked, looking at me wide-eyed.

“Well, you know, it’s not like it’ll kill you. It just hurts for a bit and that’s it.”

There were cases where anaphylactic shock could occur, which would be dangerous, but generally, it just hurt and that was all.

“Should I try getting stung?” Charlotte said as she moved closer to the flowers.

“Why would you do that on purpose?”

“Oh, should I not?”

Charlotte scratched her cheek and laughed a bit foolishly. She watched the honeybees buzzing among the flowers from a distance.

“Ignorance sure is scary, right?”

“... Yeah.”

There are things that are scary because you know them, but sometimes not knowing is just as frightening.

Because she was afraid of the unknown, Charlotte kept her distance from the bees. She didn’t want to get too close.

Charlotte was afraid of something.

“Reinhart?”

“... Yeah?”

“Thanks for hanging out with me today.”

Charlotte’s words were strange.

I was the one who had asked her to hang out. Charlotte had said she would make time, not that she needed me to make time for her. I was the one who had approached her first.

Maybe it was Charlotte who actually wanted to spend this time together.

Charlotte smiled at me as if she found it amusing.

“I should get going now. If I get back too late, there’ll be chaos in the palace. The palace I live in has surprisingly strict time standards. And I’ve been busy lately,” Charlotte said as she waved her hand.

“The route to the palace is over there. I’ll head that way.”

“Oh... Okay.”

To get to the palace, she needed to go that way, and I had no reason to go with her since I was returning to the Temple.

It was a sudden farewell, but there was nothing strange about it. If Charlotte’s return was delayed, it would indeed cause a commotion.

In the end, I hadn’t been able to say anything. I hadn’t been able to ask her anything.

All I got from Charlotte was a flower with an ominous meaning that I couldn’t accept.

“Goodbye, Reinhart.”

For some reason, Charlotte’s words felt like a farewell.

I didn’t know anything. But I had a strong feeling that if I let Charlotte go at that moment, I would never see her again.

My “Qi Sense” told me that if I let her go, that would be the last time I saw Charlotte.

So, I grabbed Charlotte’s arm as she was heading back to the palace.

“Charlotte.”

“Huh? Yes? Why?”

“Can you show me around your home?”

“... H-Huh?”

First, I’d asked her to hang out, and now I was asking to see her home.

‘Why am I like this? Why do my serious intentions always lead to such bizarre actions?’

***

Naturally, there was a bit of a scuffle.

Visiting a friend’s house was within the realm of normal activities. But when that friend was the daughter of the emperor and I was a commoner, it was totally different.

“No, absolutely not. Why now, all of a sudden?”

Charlotte wasn’t angry at my sudden insistence, but she kept rejecting me firmly.

“I just want to see how amazing the place you live in is.”

Charlotte seemed taken aback by how bluntly I responded.

“Why are you acting like this all of a sudden...? I’ll invite you over some other time, maybe on a weekend when it’s convenient.”

“Today! It has to be today! I’m the kind of person who has to do things as soon as I think of them! Remember when I picked a fight with the Orbis Class? I thought of it that day and took care of it that day! You know that, right?”

“I know, but why now...?”

As anyone would expect, I threw a tantrum.

Charlotte looked at me as if she was losing her mind.

Maybe she thought that no matter what she said, I wouldn’t listen because I was the kind of person who acted crazy regardless of who was around.

After repeatedly saying no and realizing it wouldn’t work, she sighed deeply and reluctantly agreed to take me with her.

I had been utterly insistent, but it was still surprising that she gave in.

‘Has the commotion around the death in the palace been settled already?’

Of course, it wasn’t an easy decision for her.

Charlotte glared at me in frustration, then sighed. “Why am I even doing this... Why the palace all of a sudden?”

“I told you. I just want to see how great a palace my friend lives in.”

Honestly, I didn’t really want to be this rude to a princess, even if she was my friend.

But I couldn’t let Charlotte go without learning anything, and she wasn’t going to tell me anything.

Moreover, Qi Sense, my new trait, gave me a powerful feeling that I couldn’t let Charlotte go back alone, or it would be the last time I was going to see her.

It wasn’t exactly divine revelation, but it felt similar.

Not only had I failed to discuss the Revolutionary Forces with her, but I also knew Charlotte was entangled in another issue of her own. To add to that, I was heading back to the palace with her out of the blue.

‘Am I causing trouble? Or am I heading towards trouble?’

I hoped it wasn’t the wrong choice.

Charlotte looked anxious, but she was still taking me to the palace.

***

The Imperial Palace was much larger in scale than the Temple.

In other words, it was much larger than a district in a city like Seoul. Charlotte led me through the entrance of the Imperial Palace. Her face served as her identification, and as a Temple student, I was allowed to enter the palace with her approval and guarantee.

The security measures around the Temple and the Imperial Palace were similar, so there was no chance of my true identity being discovered. If the disguise Sarkegar’s ring provided me were seen through here, it would have been detected by the Temple’s security systems long ago.

Eventually, Charlotte stopped trying to dissuade me from tagging along.

“I’ll say I brought you here against your will. So, just throw tantrums around me. If anyone else finds out the truth, they’ll probably kill you.”

Charlotte glared at me, and I grinned and nodded.

“Of course. I only act that way around people I know.”

“... Please, Reinhart. There are times when I genuinely, sincerely dislike you, and this is one of those times. Shouldn’t you at least not say that you’re throwing tantrums because you think I’m easy?”

“We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Admitting that you’re a friend might be one of the biggest mistakes of my life...”

I chuckled as I watched Charlotte sigh.

“But that also means it’s not the only mistake, right?” I asked.

“Shut up. I’m really starting to feel bad.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Seeing that Charlotte was about to get genuinely upset, I quickly shut up. As soon as we passed through the main gate of the Imperial Palace, Charlotte and I boarded a tram waiting at the platform.

“There’s a tram system here too?”

“Of course. It’s a big place.”

The tram had been prepared as soon as the princess’s arrival was announced, and we were the only passengers.

I pretended not to know about this, but I was aware of its existence since, in my original work, Ludwig had made a trip to the Imperial Palace.

There were three tram lines within the Imperial Palace: a line for the imperial family, a line for nobles and officials, and a line for everyone else.

The one we boarded was likely the line reserved for the imperial family.

Unlike the trams that serviced the Temple, there were no handles for standing passengers, and the interior was luxurious, with only a few seats.

Anyway, Charlotte and I rode the tram without anyone bothering us, and I was taken around a tour of the Imperial Palace.

That morning, I hadn’t imagined that by evening I’d be inside the Imperial Palace for the first time.

The Imperial Palace felt different from the Temple. While the Temple had a lively atmosphere, thanks to the presence of many students, the Imperial Palace was solemn and quiet.

The people passing by all had serious expressions, and were clearly all important figures, whether nobles or officials.

Charlotte, having initially said no, seemed to have decided to give me a tour since she had brought me along.

“See that? That’s the Tetra Palace, where His Majesty the Emperor resides.”

Charlotte pointed to a palace beyond a vast garden and fountain: the Tetra Palace.

Instead of feeling luxurious, the palace gave off a more solemn and rigid air. In terms of splendor, the Royal Class dormitory was more extravagant.

However, the large, solemn, and dignified palace seemed a good representation of the authority of the empire.

It seemed to say, “I don’t need to be flashy.”

As the residence of the supreme ruler of the continent, it exuded a sense of prestige that did not require self-adornment. The description in my mind was even more vividly realized.

The tram circled around the central Tetra Palace.

“Do you know much about the Imperial Palace?” Charlotte asked.

“Of course,” I replied.

‘How could I not?’

The imperial city, Emperatos... The Gradias empire had poured all its efforts into the construction of the imperial city.

Numerous magical barriers were laid out, embedded into the ley lines, and the walls were designed to repel not only external invasions but also infiltration by hostile forces. Both the walls and the ley lines were covered with hundreds of layers of complex magical barriers.

“There are four main palaces centered around the Tetra Palace, one for each cardinal direction: north, south, east, and west. There are other palaces as well, but those four are the largest ones, aside from the Tetra Palace. They are called the Spring Palace, the Summer Palace, the Autumn Palace, and the Winter Palace,” Charlotte explained.

“Yeah, I’ve heard about that.”

“Do you know why they are named that way?”

“No. Is there a reason for it?”

“Yes.”

Of course I knew, but Charlotte seemed to enjoy explaining it herself, so I shook my head.

“In the early days of the empire, they were very concerned about the safety of the imperial city. So, they laid hundreds of layers of magical barriers over the entire area.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Because of that, the ley lines were disrupted somehow, and the mana around here became unbalanced, causing strange phenomena.”

“And then?”

“The imperial city ended up having all four seasons simultaneously.”

“... Really?”

“Yes, really.”

It was a side effect of the immense magical power applied to the area.

Except for the central area where the Tetra Palace was located, the areas around it experienced either spring, summer, autumn, or winter, at the same time.

“Of course, a lot of time has passed since then, and quite some maintenance has been done, so those strange phenomena have disappeared. For a long time, though, they struggled to rectify it. So, instead of their original names, the palaces were called the Spring Palace, the Summer Palace, the Autumn Palace, and the Winter Palace, based on the seasons that those areas were experiencing. Eventually, even the imperial city officially adopted those names.”

The strange phenomena had disappeared, but the habit of calling them by those names remained, and had replaced the original names.

The tram continued to move, and as one of the palaces came into view, Charlotte pointed to it.

“That’s the Winter Palace, where Vertus lives.”

It was a palace with a dignified appearance. It gave off a rather cold and desolate air, perhaps because it was called the Winter Palace.

Of course, it was much more elegant compared to the ancient castle of Epiacs.

The palace seemed like a bastion of strength, but still gave off a lonely air, perhaps because of the person living there.

Vertus, plotting schemes in the Winter Palace... It seemed somewhat fitting.

Although the strange seasonal phenomena had disappeared, Charlotte looked at the Winter Palace and then back at me.

“Isn’t it a bit of a shame?”

“What is?”

“Wouldn’t it have been amusing if Vertus had to live in the Winter Palace, shivering all the time?”

‘Well... How am I supposed to respond to that?’

Seeing my bewildered expression, Charlotte covered her mouth and giggled.

“I’m just kidding. If that were the case, Vertus probably wouldn’t have chosen to live in the Winter Palace in the first place.”

Although it was called the Winter Palace, it was in the midst of autumn, just like the rest of the city.

However, despite it being autumn, it still felt like winter. It wasn’t because of the palace itself, but the garden.

‘Didn’t I describe these details?’

The vast garden in front of the Winter Palace... There wasn’t a single flower in sight. The grasses and shrubs were turning brown, but there wasn’t a single flower.

‘Strange. It’s been a while since I described it, so I don’t remember it clearly, but was Vertus’s Winter Palace garden always this desolate? I don’t think I ever described it like this.

‘I vaguely remember mumbling something about it having flowers and flower beds. But why is it like this now?’

Noticing my expression, Charlotte spoke.

“Desolate, isn’t it?”

“... Yeah, kind of.”

In a way, though, it suited Vertus. It felt neat and orderly without being flashy.

“Still,” I continued, “it’s supposed to be a garden, so it seems odd that there isn’t a single flower bed.”

Charlotte crossed her arms and clicked her tongue.

“It’s childish, isn’t it? Because I like flowers, he had all the flowers in his garden removed. When I heard that, I wasn’t even angry, just dumbfounded.”

Apparently, Vertus had a childish side to him that I did not expect.

Charlotte liked flowers, and for Vertus, that was reason enough to hate them.

So, my memory wasn’t wrong. The reason there were no flowers in Vertus’s garden was because Charlotte, who loved flowers, was still alive.

In the original story, the Winter Palace garden had flowers because Charlotte, who loved flowers, was already dead.

Once he had no reason to hate flowers anymore, he was okay with them being in his garden.

Was that it?

If Charlotte died, flowers would bloom in Vertus’s garden.

It was childish, yet it ultimately spoke to the deep-seated hatred and animosity between the two, making it a chilling detail. This must have been another backstory that I wasn’t aware of.

Charlotte smiled grimly. “You should have seen his face when I replanted all the flowers he had removed into my own palace garden.”

Vertus wasn’t the only one who was childish. Charlotte was quite childish too.

“Oh, we’ve arrived.”

The tram had arrived at the northern part of the Imperial Palace. Charlotte pointed out the window.

“That’s the Spring Palace, where I live.”

The Spring Palace...

Even from a distance, even without knowing its name, it was obvious.

It was more appropriate to call it the Palace of Flowers rather than the Spring Palace, since the garden was so filled with blooming flowers that it seemed like a festival was in full swing.

Not long ago, someone had died there, in the imperial city of Emperatos, where everyone should have been safe. Someone had lost their life in the most secure place in the capital.

I was more curious about what was hidden behind the blooming flowers in the garden.