Chapter 288

The Emperor and Kyle confront Joseph about the Black Crown Villages

This chapter is dedicated to Mala! Thank you for your support, every little bit counts!

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Episode 288. About 5 Months (11)

“Misunderstanding? Did you just say this is a misunderstanding?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, it's all a misunderstanding. Who would dare suggest that I, Your Majesty's son, would be capable of creating such an inhumane criminal enterprise? I would never do such a thing.”

Kyle crossed his arms and leaned back against the window sill, staring at Joseph.

His voice was filled with genuine outrage and the look in his eyes was completely earnest.

As far as Kyle could tell, he was being genuine.

As if he sensed Kyle's gaze, Joseph made eye contact.

‘He's not even flustered.’

His gaze was indifferent and the edges of his lips were slightly upturned.

‘He must be anxious to get to the bottom of this.'

“All the money created in those villages went to you. That’s not all. The money that went into them also came from a fictitious account connected to you, and an administrator you regularly associate with was receiving money from multiple deeply corrupt nobles.”

At the Emperor's furious tone, Joseph quickly lowered his gaze and hurried to kneel before him.

“I was never aware such villages even existed. I thought I was making donations to a charity, and I was sent sponsorship funds. I was completely unaware that the administrator was collecting funds from nobles, Your Majesty.”

He looked up at the Emperor with pure earnestness.

Joseph wasn't completely lying, he was only indirectly connected to the conspiracy.

“...The gardener’s daughter and his spouse who disappeared during the Dragon Fruit incident were found in one of those villages. The weapons shop owner who was involved in the Hunting Festival incident was also found there. They all named the administrator of the Ministry of Finance as the one who planned it. That secretary is your man, and you want to claim you weren't the one ordering him to do it?”

Joseph looked up at the Emperor, frowning with his brow furrowed, his face grave and serious. So much for the innocent, vulnerable lamb.

It seemed to Kyle that Joseph had been pretending to be a lamb for quite some time.

"Not at all, Your Majesty, he has been in and out of my Palace, but he is not my person. You have no idea how surprised I was to hear that such a place existed. I just wanted to work with him because he's talented, but I was unaware he had such an insidious mind...!

"Joseph!"

The Emperor's shout resonated from the depths of his chest and filled the conference room.

“....”

Joseph backed away, fear written all over his face. Or perhaps, it would be more accurate to say that it looked that way.

The Emperor surged to his feet and surveyed the room.

“How dare you continue to make excuse after excuse for your own self-preservation when you clearly knew about all of this!”

When he couldn't find anything to throw, the Emperor quickly approached the Captain of the Guard, who was waiting in the corner like a shadow.

“Your Majesty, please stay put.”

All of the servants and maids in the lounge, including the butler, fell to their knees, and the Captain of the Guard tensed.

Kyle, however, watched the scene quietly from the windowsill. The Second Prince was the only person in the room unmoved by the Emperor's anger.

The Emperor approached the Captain of the Guard, and without hesitation grabbed the greatsword from the Captain’s waist and pulled it free of its sheath.

"Your... Majesty!"

When the Captain of the Guard reached out to stop him, the Emperor shouted back fiercely.

“Anyone who tries to stop me will die on the spot.”

Everyone in the parlor gulped and tensed in unison.

Srrrrrrrrrreung!

The greatsword must have been heavier than expected because the Emperor chose to drag it across the floor to Joseph, who had taken another step back.

“My son.”*

Joseph's head snapped up. That title hadn’t left the Emperor's lips since he'd been a young child.

“No, Father. I really didn't do it. I truly thought it was a good cause and I funded it from my personal account.”

“You really didn't know?”

“No. I had no idea. My heart is breaking right now. I never dreamed they would do such heinous things, Your Majesty.”

“Good. If all of this is not of your doing, then you must truly not desire my throne.”

A momentary twitch of an eyebrow.

“.....”

Joseph couldn't deny that he coveted the throne.

“It is all my fault. As your father, I failed to provide you with the proper attention, and my absence from your life must have caused you to harbor such evil thoughts. Yes, it's all my fault.”

"Father."

“I will abdicate soon, so will you come live with me during my retirement in Verotto?”

Now he was asking him to throw off all of his shackles, to give up on the throne and leave for the Vacation Palace in the port city of Verotto so they could repair their parent-child relationship.

In other words, give up everything and go back to being family.

Joseph’s jaw twitched slightly as he looked up at the Emperor’s gaze without avoiding his stare.

“... I will do as you command, Your Majesty, but I will not leave the Palace hunted for a crime I did not commit.”

Srrreung! The sword dragged closer.

“Even if I do this?”

The Emperor's face was so calm as he held the edge of the greatsword to Joseph's throat.

Even when being asked if he would admit his guilt with a sword to his throat, Joseph slowly closed his eyes, like a martyr who refused to surrender his conviction, even in the face of death or persecution.

“If I must surrender my head to clear up this misunderstanding, I will do so. Do as you please.”

The Emperor stared at Joseph and clenched his teeth.

The Third Prince had changed so much compared to a year ago.

The fact that he was so confidently willing to offer his neck as collateral in front of the Emperor was further evidence that he had considerable power behind him.

It meant he was convinced that the Emperor would never dare touch him.

The Emperor’s face filled with regret.

“...You’ve already gone far enough, Joseph.”

Joseph's eyes widened at the words, and for the first time, a strange emotion crossed his face.

“Your Majesty.... I would never....”

“Based on the evidence that will be revealed next week, the crimes of those who led this series of events will be formally brought up to the Imperial State Council. Until then, the Third Prince, Joseph Amure, will be confined to the Northern Imperial Villa. Do you understand, Joseph?”

"I will abide by your Majesty's wishes, and if you investigate further, you will surely find that I have also been deceived."

Joseph left the room without protest and under the watchful eye of the Captain of the Guard. As the last door closed behind him, Joseph's gaze flicked to Kyle and lingered.

“.....”

 ‘He looks confident.'

That was it. The look in Joseph’s eyes which he'd caught that brief glimpse of, was filled with confidence.

Click. The door slammed shut, and Kyle's gaze quickly turned cold.

“...It occurred to me that maybe I was wrong. I didn't recognize that expression of his.”

“......”

Kyle didn't say anything. Instead, he frowned more deeply.

He was the Head of the Empire, but he was also Joseph's father. His denial was his attempt to hide his own son's sins.

“He was such a shy, timid boy. He's always done his own thing, never made a fuss about anything. Did you see the look in his eyes?”

“.....”

“Well, you probably didn’t see it from your side. He looked so earnest.”

“Your Majesty.”

“If he truly is innocent and was simply deceived by that madman it would be terribly unfair. Don't you agree?”

As far as the Emperor could tell, Kyle's face showed no emotion, just his usual indifference, but just as he was about to look away, a harsh emotion struck him, and he turned to look back at his son.

Something flickered in those impassive eyes.

“....!”

It was hot, raging fury.

His tone dripped with coldness.

“The decision is yours, Your Majesty. If you wish to do so, I will scrap the next phase of the operation.”

“You're certain.”

“That is why the next phase of the operation is necessary. To expose the rest of the truth.”

“Yes. Yes. That's all well and good. But what if you're wrong?”

“If I'm wrong, it will be because my abilities are lacking, but, Your Majesty, what will you do if Joseph is involved?”

Kyle stared intently into the Emperor’s eyes as he asked the question.

“If we fail to properly investigate it this time and towns like the Black Crown Villages are created again, we will not be able to stop it a second time. Then who should the people of the Empire blame? Joseph, who committed the crime and wasn't properly punished? Or Your Majesty, who was aware of his crimes but was too caught up in his moral qualms as a father to properly punish him?”

“.....!”

The Emperor was rendered speechless.

***.

The Imperial Palace Banquet Hall. 10:00 PM.

The news of Joseph's imprisonment in the Northern Villa quickly spread through the banquet hall. It buzzed with the sound of several conversations.

Quickly afterward, a group of people left the premises.

All of them were those who had chosen to side with Joseph.

The only people left in the banquet hall were the Imperialist faction nobles and those who hadn't chosen a side, but they were few in number, which meant that many had sided with the Third Prince.

“The fact that he didn't flinch when he was sentenced to imprisonment suggests that he's confident in his next move.”

“Pardon? Your Majesty, I was too far away to hear.”

The second secretary of the Consul’s Office, who worked under Allan, came up behind him and asked.

“...Go away. I am speaking to myself.”

“My apologies, Your Majesty.”

The secretary returned to his seat. Alone again, the Emperor looked around the banquet hall, feeling as though he had aged several years in a scant matter of hours.

‘Where did I go wrong? When did it start....'

But the Emperor already knew exactly where the blame originated. The Amure Imperial family was powerless because he had chosen to rely on the power of the House of Toulouse and the other nobility instead of growing his own strength. He believed he could independently increase his power and create an Empire that would not be shaken by the aristocracy, while also relying on the nobility to make the Empire function.

But those intentions had been wrong from the start.

***

The Second Prince's Palace. 11:00 PM.

Kyle ran up the stairs, unbuttoning his shirt one button at a time.

He should have been exhausted from the non-stop work he'd put himself through, but he didn't feel tired at all at the thought of being able to see Tara soon.

____

Editor’s Notes -

* I want to highlight some of the nuances in this scene. Here Louis calls Joseph 아들아 “my boy”/”my son” which is a very informal form of address, the kind of thing a normal parent would affectionately call their young child which is why Joseph hasn't heard this since he was very young. I can’t be sure if European nobility had similar customs, but for Korean royalty, even parents and children address one another with more formal forms of address. The Emperor would not typically speak to his son so affectionately in front of his servants, let alone call him by his first name. He would use his son’s full adult title. In this scene when Joseph is speaking to Louis as “Father” he is using 아바마마 ‘Aba Mama’ which is an honourable form of address used exclusively by royal children to address their father. So throughout this entire section, Louis is breaking formality to try to repair their parent-child bond while Joseph is resisting Louis’s attempts at intimacy and continuing to maintain royal protocol. 

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