Chapter 13 – The Emperor’s Temptation
“My, even knowing it’s a dream, I almost believe it’s reality! That sounds exactly like something His Majesty Eckardt would say.”
I grinned, thinking that I was finally starting to understand the Emperor, and looked up at him. But then my eyes landed on his bare chest, and I scowled.
Why is the Emperor shirtless?
No, of course, since this is my dream, it must be my desire… but did I really want to see Emperor Eckardt shirtless?
“Hmm, those are certainly impressive muscles. No, no, this is my dream, so this is just how I imagine the Emperor looks, not his actual appearance. I’m sure the real Emperor is much lankier. He might even be a bit flabby around the middle.”
After all, he’s an Emperor; he probably eats delicious food every day and gets too many calories.
Emperor Eckardt listened to me silently, but when I finished speaking, he reached out and grabbed my uninjured left hand. Then, he pulled my hand and pressed it flat against his stomach.
“Hmm? As expected of a dream. Instead of me touching him myself, the Emperor is forcing me to do it. What a wonderful excuse.”
Admiring the brilliance of this dream, and since he had given me permission, I didn’t hold back. I patted and prodded Emperor Eckardt’s stomach.
“My, muscles are hard, aren’t they? And hot. I see… these are just as impressive as the Commander of the First Knight Order back home.”
The Commander of the First Knight Order was the strongest knight in my homeland, so I wondered if the Emperor was just as strong.
Though, I’ve never actually touched the Commander’s muscles, so I don’t really know if they’re as magnificent as the Emperor’s.
“…To think that the first time my fiancée touches my body in bed, she compares me to another man.”
The Emperor’s sarcastic voice drifted down from above.
True, my comment was a breach of manners, and it was natural for the Emperor to feel displeased. So, even knowing it was a dream, I apologized.
“I was wrong to say that just now. As an excuse, since I belonged to the Knight Order back home, I have a habit of trying to gauge the strength of others. Knowing an individual’s strength is useful on the battlefield. But from your perspective, having your strength gauged without permission is unpleasant.”
“…Is that what your comment was about? I thought you were gauging my appeal as a man.”
The Emperor raised one eyebrow suspiciously, and I faltered, flustered.
“G-Gauging your appeal as a man!? W-Well, hearing such shocking words from a handsome man like Your Majesty Eckardt makes my heart pound. Um, but I don’t think there’s any need to gauge your appeal. After all, even I can tell that Your Majesty is Number One!”
Having voiced everything on my mind, I let out a deep breath.
“Haa… Still, even for a dream, this is too shocking. Touching a naked Emperor Eckardt and exchanging risqué conversation…”
Emperor Eckardt narrowed his eyes at me.
“You keep saying ‘it’s a dream,’ but surely you don’t believe all of this is a dream? After touching me so freely?”
“Eh, even in a dream, you’re complaining that I’m going too far!?”
What a strange dream, I thought, looking at Emperor Eckardt with wide eyes. He tried to remind me of what I had said earlier.
“When you touched me, you remarked that you felt heat and hardness, didn’t you?”
“That’s true, but I was having another dream just before this. And in that dream, I also felt the touch and scent of the person I was with.”
“…Was that truly a dream?”
He asked with a doubtful expression, so I affirmed it vigorously.
“Of course!”
After all, Emperor Eckardt, who hates me, fed me medicine mouth-to-mouth. There is no way that could be anything but a dream. But if I explained that, he might think, ‘So you have such desires?’, which would be unbearable, so I kept my mouth shut.
As my face turned red, Emperor Eckardt stared at me thoughtfully.
“Then, assuming this is your dream, why do you think you are having such a dream?”
“I suppose… it must be my desire.”
“Your desire…”
Emperor Eckardt murmured with a difficult expression, but I don’t think it’s strange at all.
I’m going to live in the Zaldein Empire forever, so I would be happy if I could have a good relationship with my husband, Emperor Eckardt. So, perhaps dreaming of being intimate with him is an expression of that feeling.
However, I don’t know why I’ve been having dreams with so much physical contact since last night, like the Emperor feeding me medicine mouth-to-mouth or touching his naked stomach.
Maybe I’m more proactive about romance than I thought. Or perhaps, because of how things ended with Hubert just before our marriage, I’ve swung too far in a weird direction.
Either way, thinking back calmly on my actions since last night, I’ve been doing some pretty incredible things.
Ah, even for a dream, I feel like I’ve gone too far.
“Ugh, they say you lose your reason at night, and since it’s a dream, maybe I thought I could do anything and went out of control. From now on, even in dreams, I’ll try to suppress my wicked desires. So, Your Majesty Eckardt, please overlook it just this once.”
Since this dream will undoubtedly become a dark chapter in my history, I begged Emperor Eckardt to pretend none of it happened.
The Emperor nodded magnanimously.
“Very well, I shall overlook it. In exchange, will you allow me one act of rudeness?”
“Fine!”
Even though it was a dream, Emperor Eckardt, who shared my dark history, promised to erase all my shameless actions. I was so happy I nodded vigorously. Then, Emperor Eckardt reached out and touched both my cheeks.
Wondering what he was going to do, I watched as he pinched my cheeks and pulled them hard to the left and right.
“Hyoooo, w-what are yhou dohing?”
Startled, my eyes went wide, and Emperor Eckardt asked with a straight face.
“I’m not pulling hard, but you feel pain, don’t you?”
“Of courshe, if yhou pull ih hurths.”
“That’s right, it’s bound to hurt if you pull,” I agreed. He stopped pulling and began to rub my cheeks gently.
“Eh? Um…”
Wondering what it was this time, I blinked, but Emperor Eckardt continued to stroke my cheeks silently with both hands.
What is the Emperor doing? I looked at him, and since his noble face was as beautiful as ever, my heart started pounding.
Ah, my heartbeat is so loud. Actually, come to think of it, I’ve been being stroked by the Emperor for a while now. And he’s been staring at me the whole time. Ugh, I’m getting sweaty palms from nervousness.
Pain, pounding heart, sweating… this is the most realistic dream I’ve ever had.
Just as I thought that, a doubt arose for the first time.
Is there a possibility that this isn’t a dream?
“Um…”
When I spoke timidly, Emperor Eckardt, reading the change in my expression, replied leisurely.
“What is it?”
“Is this… not a dream?”
“No.”
Since the Emperor denied it so simply, I received a huge shock.
I had stubbornly believed it was a dream until just now, but realizing it wasn’t, I wondered why I had misunderstood.
“Where on earth did you get the idea that this was a dream?”
The Emperor asked, looking genuinely puzzled, so I looked down dejectedly.
“…From the moment I woke up in Your Majesty Eckardt’s arms.”
“That was right from the start.”
Seeing Emperor Eckardt scowl, I pleaded in my heart: No, but it was continuous with the dream where young Eckardt was surrounded by adults, and the dream where Emperor Eckardt appeared in my bedroom at night and fed me medicine mouth-to-mouth, so it’s understandable I misunderstood!
Obviously, Emperor Eckardt couldn’t turn into a child, and there’s no way he would press his lips against mine when he hates me, so I’m convinced those two were dreams. But neither seemed worth explaining in detail, so I just opened and closed my mouth without saying anything.
Instead, I asked something that had been bothering me since I realized this wasn’t a dream.
“Why is Your Majesty Eckardt here at Wolff Castle? Did you come from the Imperial Palace?”
Emperor Eckardt swept back his hair and sighed.
“Starting from there, huh?”
According to Emperor Eckardt, he is at Wolff Castle because his work at the Imperial Palace settled down, so he visited as originally promised. He brought Lutz with him as an escort.
When the two arrived, Sigmund and I had gone to the mine, so the Emperor and Lutz decided to wait for us at the castle.
Specifically, they were receiving hospitality from the Wolf clan and chatting when suddenly, a blood-covered Sigmund returned carrying an unconscious me… or so the story goes.
“That must have been… difficult, to say the least.”
Emperor Eckardt must have been surprised to see a bloody Sigmund and me, I thought, nodding in agreement. The Emperor nodded back.
“Yes. To speak without exaggeration or minimization, it was a huge uproar. Furthermore, after Sigmund confessed that he discovered ancient ruins beneath Wolff Castle, it was like poking a beehive.”
“I-I suppose so.”
The topic shifted to the newly discovered ruins, and I faltered.
I didn’t know how much Sigmund had told them about the relationship between me and the Witch, so I couldn’t say anything careless. To change the subject, I said the first thing that came to mind.
“Um, so, why was Your Majesty Eckardt sleeping in my bedroom?”
There are plenty of bedrooms in Wolff Castle, so surely they didn’t run out of rooms.
I asked thinking this, but Emperor Eckardt mumbled awkwardly.
“I was acting as a weight so you wouldn’t kick off the blanket… though you probably won’t accept that.”
Emperor Eckardt as a weight? No way, such a handsome weight doesn’t exist.
Thinking this, I nodded, and the Emperor sighed as if giving up.
“Just as you had a secret that healing magic doesn’t work on you, I also have a secret. That is… I have the ability to enhance the power a person already possesses. So, since healing magic doesn’t work on you, I thought I would enhance your natural immunity and help you self-heal.”
“Eh!”
I cried out in double surprise.
Surprise that Emperor Eckardt had such a rare special ability, and surprise that he tried to use such a precious power for me, whom he hates.
“However, when I checked last night, it had no effect; if anything, your fever seemed to rise. Just in case, I tried sharing the bed for a night… but it seems it didn’t work after all.”
Hearing Emperor Eckardt’s words, I was disappointed.
Ah, I knew healing magic didn’t work, but now it turns out my self-healing ability is low too. What a truly frail constitution.
While slumped in disappointment, I thanked Emperor Eckardt for showing me unexpected kindness.
“Your Majesty Eckardt, thank you for using your precious power for me.”
“It was nothing.”
Emperor Eckardt replied as if it were trivial, then looked at my face and tilted his head.
“What is it? You’re staring at me. Is there something you want to ask?”
“Eh, no… I was just wondering why you went out of your way to use your power for me.”
Although neither of us says it, it’s clear Emperor Eckardt dislikes me. So why did the Emperor act for me?
Emperor Eckardt didn’t seem to expect such a question and frowned slightly. Then, he started talking about the Wolf Duke, which seemed unrelated at first glance.
“Sigmund sometimes takes outlandish actions. In many cases, he cannot clearly explain the reason for his actions, but he isn’t acting impulsively. Sigmund has better intuition than anyone else, so he senses something beyond logic and acts on it.”
True, Sigmund seems to act on intuition in many cases. However, it’s just that he can’t put it into words himself; he has accumulated his own data from his many experiences and is acting based on that data.
“So, even if his actions seem random, Sigmund’s actions always produce results.”
Hearing the Emperor praise Sigmund, I thought he really trusts him.
Previously, I wondered if Sigmund was staying at the Imperial Palace for a long time because he didn’t want to return to the Wolf territory.
That guess seemed correct, but at the same time, perhaps the Emperor didn’t want to let go of Sigmund either.
“Sigmund is a proud wolf. He rarely kneels to others. Yet, Sigmund prioritized you over himself and praised you. That means you have enough charm to make Sigmund kneel.”
Hmm, actually, it’s just that I was a Witch.
But of course, I can’t confess the truth, so I looked away silently.
The Emperor stared at me.
“If so, I should do what I can for you.”
“……”
I see. Leaving aside Emperor Eckardt’s own feelings, he respected his valued subordinate Sigmund and treated me with care.
Truly, Emperor Eckardt is an excellent and noble person.
I came to the Zaldein Empire from a country with zero interaction as compensation for a blunder.
Since it’s possible I’m plotting something detrimental to the national interest, Emperor Eckardt, as the head of the Empire, shouldn’t be able to trust me given his position.
So, the Emperor himself can’t lower his guard against me, but—because his trusted subordinate believes in me, he did the utmost he could.
“Thank you for staying with me all night. Thanks to you, I slept soundly.”
I’m the type who wakes up many times when I have a fever because it’s uncomfortable, but last night I didn’t wake up once. Surely, it’s thanks to Emperor Eckardt using his ability.
As proof, the Emperor didn’t deny my words. Instead, he retorted with a slight twist of his lips.
“Is that so. Though as the price for that, it seems you had endless strange dreams.”
Seeing the Emperor skillfully return a joke without making me feel indebted, I thought, He really is hard to handle.
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