In This Life I Will Be The Lord Novel - Episode 255

“You’ve arrived, Your Royal Highness the Crown Prince.”
“And His Majesty?”
“He’s the same today. He might even be worse…”
The knight guarding the bedroom door shook his head.
“But His Majesty will be pleased that Your Royal Highness has come. He waits all day for Your Royal Highness to arrive.”
“I see.”
Perez replied briefly.
But he couldn’t help but let one corner of his mouth twist slightly.
The Emperor waiting for him to arrive.
The tray holding the tea set in his hand rattled once.
“Open the door.”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness.”
The loyal knights quickly opened the door to the Emperor’s bedroom.
Since Perez’s arrival time was fixed twice a day, the maids had already left.
“You’re late.”
Jovanes said with a grating gasp.
It was always the same words.
Beside the bed, a few small pieces of a shattered vase, seemingly broken by Jovanes in a fit of temper, lay scattered.
“I will serve the tea.”
Perez prepared the tea as usual.
He poured warm tea into a cup slightly larger than a typical teacup and handed it to Jovanes.
Jovanes quickly took the cup with trembling hands, struggling to breathe.
“Strangely, when I drink this tea, it’s a little… easier.”
Jovanes said that and gulped down the tea.
Perez watched him from a distance.
“One more cup.”
Jovanes hastily drank the tea and emptied the second cup as well.
“Hmph, yes. I feel a bit better.”
Jovanes said with a satisfied expression, rubbing his chest.
Jovanes had lost so much weight while bedridden that his former robust physique was unimaginable.
But the bitter glint in his eyes towards Perez remained unchanged.
“Tomorrow, isn’t it, your celebration?”
“That’s right.”
Perez remained motionless, hands clasped behind his back.
Jovanes sneered at his appearance.
“How much will they curse behind your back? That the Crown Prince of a great empire is someone of such low birth as you.”
It was Jovanes who desired that maid, whom he called low-born, and brought a life into the world.
But there was no such guilt in Jovanes’s gaze towards Perez.
“I… should have saved… Astana.”
This was something Jovanes had been saying frequently lately.
As if he thought those words would provoke Perez.
But Perez always responded with an expressionless face.
Just like now.
“At least… Astana… wasn’t… arrogant… like you…”
Jovanes stopped speaking.
He had realized that something was wrong with his body.
“Gasp, gasp.”
His breath was twice as labored as usual.
It was as if his lungs had completely shriveled, and he couldn’t draw breath.
“Gasp, hurry, the imperial… physician…!”
Jovanes said, clutching his suffocating chest and throat.
His voice barely came out through his gasps.
But Perez showed no reaction.
He simply stood there, hands clasped behind his back, looking at Jovanes.
“Y-you, what are you… doing…”
Finally, Jovanes’s body, which had been sitting up, fell backward.
Thud, roll.
The teacup Jovanes had been holding rolled onto the thick rug beneath the bed.
Step.
It was then that Perez began to move.
He reached out a hand, picked up the teacup, and calmly placed it on the side table with a cold expression.
“You, you…!”
Jovanes, as if realizing something, pointed a finger at Perez.
And with all his might, he began to shout.
“O-outside…? Call the imperial physician…!” But only a voice smaller than a yawn escaped him.
“Cough, cough!”
Jovanes’s limbs began to stiffen.
Perez, looking down at his trembling limbs, opened his mouth.
“Die. Won’t everyone be at peace if you die?”
Jovanes’s face contorted.
Perez chuckled at his bewildered expression.
“It seems you don’t remember. I’ve never forgotten those words.”
“W-what, what is that…”
“Those are the words you spoke when you handed the poison to my mother.”
Jovanes’s eyes widened in horror.
“H-how did you… know that…”
“That night, Mother had a high fever. I went downstairs to wet a towel and came back up.”
Perez said, recalling that dark night.
“You were there. You, who I couldn’t even catch a glimpse of your clothes, no matter how many dozens, hundreds of letters I sent, no matter how much I pleaded for an imperial physician.”
Perhaps knowing that it was not a dignified act.
That night, Jovanes visited the detached palace alone, without servants or guards.
Ironically, that was the first time Perez saw the existence of his father.
The first time he saw the cowardly back through the slightly open door.
“Drink this and end it. I will take responsibility for your son and at least save his life. So, die. My position is quite awkward if you don’t die.”
Perez calmly recited the memory of that day.
“You cruelly pushed away my mother’s hand, which was clutching at your clothes, weeping for her life, Your Majesty.”
“Th-that… At that time…”
Jovanes opened and closed his mouth as if to make an excuse.
But he was out of breath, making even that difficult.
Perez smiled, pleased with that.
And he said.
“Die quickly. Isn’t my position quite awkward if Your Majesty doesn’t die?”
“Cough! Cough!”
Finally, Jovanes’s eyes began to roll back.
He might have lost control of his bladder, as a foul odor wafted.
Perez spoke into Jovanes’s ear, who was convulsing.
“I will take responsibility for Your Majesty. And I will leave you in the history books as the most incompetent and foolish Emperor in the history of the Empire. So, rest in peace.”
“Gurgle, gurgle…”
A greedy sound, like an animal foaming at the mouth, flowed from Jovanes’s senselessly open mouth.
It was indeed a greedy desire, the sound of someone who should have died long ago struggling to take a few more breaths.
Finally, Jovanes’s movements ceased.
Perez looked into Jovanes’s wide-open eyes.
His bloodshot eyes were filled with resentment, ignorant of his own sins.
But that was only for a moment.
Perez, with an expressionless face, closed Jovanes’s eyes.
He also released the hands that had been clutching at his throat, placing them neatly at his sides.
Finally, he gently pressed shut the mouth that had been agape like a demon.
By now, Jovanes looked as peaceful as if he were asleep.
The bedroom, which had not had a quiet day due to Jovanes’s shallow breathing, was finally enveloped in complete silence.
Perez turned around.
And he opened the bedroom door and said.
“His Majesty has passed away.”
As the surprised knights froze in place, the maids and imperial physicians who had been waiting outside rushed in.
“His-His Majesty!”
The imperial physician, startled, checked Jovanes’s breathing and pulse, but it was already too late.
“Sob! Sob!”
When an emperor died, it was customary for those who served him, and indeed the entire nation, to be plunged into sorrow.
“Your Majesty…”
Soon, the knights also dropped their heads.
But Perez stood apart from them.
“I must announce the news.”
It was when he spoke briefly and turned around.
“…Tia.”
Florentia was standing at the end of the hallway.
At that moment, he knew.
She already knew everything.
Perez’s face hardened.
He wanted to run away, as if his secret had been exposed.
He was afraid.
Afraid that she would despise him.
Afraid that she would call him dirty and ugly.
As she approached step by step, that feeling grew stronger.
And finally, when they stood face to face.
“Perez.”
She called his name and hugged him tightly.
Florentia’s warmth permeated his stiff body.
The gazes of the knights and servants near the bedroom gathered on the two of them.
So that they wouldn’t hear.
She pulled Perez’s head closer and whispered softly in his ear.
“I’m sorry, Perez.”
Her voice was filled with sorrow.
“I’m sorry I didn’t find out about what happened to you sooner.”
Her hands, wrapped around his waist, stroked his back.
“I’m sorry you had to suffer alone.”
Thump.
It was a small sound, like a crack breaking.
It was the sound of a tear falling from his eye and soaking into her shoulder.
Perez hunched his large body.
He held her inside, protecting her.
Those who watched them simply saw it as ‘His Royal Highness the Crown Prince grieving over His Majesty’s death.’
As if to protect each other.
As if to protect your secret.
No one knew the feelings shared by the tightly embracing lovers.
It was the day Jovanes, Emperor of the Lambru Empire, passed away.