I Captured the Enemy Who Tried to Kill Me - Chapter 22
“I Imprinted the Tyrant Emperor’s Heart.”
No, everyone is like that.
‘When reading for the first time, I read everything thoroughly, but after that, how many times did I read <I Imprinted the Tyrant Emperor’s Heart>?”
It was a repetition of repetitions.
So many times that I couldn’t count.
Of course, I focused on the romance and read quickly.
I skipped boring scenes I’d seen before, and sometimes focused only on bookmarked parts.
I reread the satisfying scenes where villains get their comeuppance while giggling, but I skipped and never reread the parts where they prepare for slander or drop those foreshadowing hints.
So, because I read carelessly…
‘I can’t remember which people were involved, where their base was, what specific acts they committed, things like that.’
Why am I like this even after possessing someone?
In other novels, the original work appears before your eyes as continuous text, or the original novel falls as an actual book, or a system window kindly displays the original work.
Anyway, the conversation seemed to be entering its final stage.
The fact that my reputation among the Indoja as the Emperor’s match was like that.
The fact that there were forces trying to drive a wedge between magicians and Awakened Ones.
And.
I stared at where the Indoja were looking with their heads craned.
The sky that appeared black, the Gate.
‘Was there ever a Gate that took this long?’
Somehow it felt eerie.
For me, who still hadn’t shaken off memories of the past, Gates were especially terrifying.
It felt like a black hand might suddenly reach out from inside and grab my heart.
Rustle.
I quickly crumpled my body into the bushes.
“Oh, didn’t you just hear something?”
“It must be the wind.”
While listening to the Indoja chatting quietly, I looked at the Emperor’s rampage risk level floating in the air.
That which was still staying at a light orange level.
‘Since the day I threatened him.’
I hadn’t gone even once.
How is he enduring it?
***
As the Duke had mocked, for several days, Kaisis had been cautious with his body.
That was truly surprising.
Because no one’s words, interference, or concerns had ever stopped the Emperor before.
But he was carefully monitoring his condition in his own way.
His nighttime self becomes helplessly soft and weak when faced with his match.
He wants to cling and plead like a child.
So his daytime self had to be cold-headed.
Not like his nighttime self, who collapsed at just one statement, a mere promise not to appear again.
While he was being cautious and careful with his energy, his Indoja didn’t appear even once.
The power rampage stages of Awakened Ones relied solely on their own intuition.
Because there was no way to measure it.
But how did the other person know?
Whether he was in a state of rampage, or in a state where he could endure the pain.
How exactly?
Then boom─
The ground shook.
The bushes shook wildly, and something spread out in all directions.
An Awakened One who had been checking for signs shouted with veins bulging in his neck.
“Your Majesty, B-class tentacle, plant type! Be careful of side attacks!”
“A-class elemental series, attack all at once. Bind its limbs!”
“No, use the swamp area. Move the earth to prevent it from moving! Dig a trap!”
While listening to the rapidly exchanged commands, Kaisis surveyed the terrain inside the Gate from a high position.
Watching the winged monster that cried Kaaak─ with a long sound, he recalled that he wasn’t the only one who had been strange these past few days.
‘Duke Ariel.’
That woman was also strange.
After suspecting that the Duke was acting oddly, he developed a habit of observing her.
Like a small puzzle piece that didn’t fit, his political rival behaved differently from before.
The Duke Ariel he knew wouldn’t personally bring a small disciple along, no matter how pitifully they looked at her.
The rival he knew didn’t have habits like biting her lips to hide anxiety.
The terrible leader of magicians he knew, had no interest in others whatsoever, and certainly didn’t look after her subordinates as if observing them.
And.
‘The Duke preparing meals for cats? Even a dog would laugh at that.’
Something had happened to that woman.
That much he understood. But why did it have to be when Kaisis himself was experiencing major changes?
‘Why does no one question the Duke’s strange behavior?’
It bothered him. Like a thorn stuck between his fingernails.
Duke, Hillaria Ariel.
That woman was still an uncomfortable, cautious, and thoroughly disliked opponent to him.
Though magicians and Awakened Ones didn’t get along well, Kaisis particularly disliked magicians.
‘Don’t call me mother, Prince.’
Because his cold-eyed mother was precisely that magician.
Because she was a magician who always made him a monster and looked at him as one.
‘That attitude of not feeling any dissonance despite clearly different behavior from usual. Isn’t it similar?’
Just like how no one found it strange that a woman visited him at night.
His savior, his Indoja.
The leader of magicians, who was close to being his enemy.
There was some commonality between the two.
Even the possibility alone was unbearably unpleasant.
Of course, he wasn’t harboring the absurd suspicion that the Duke might actually be his match.
‘However.’
The rumor. That persistent rumor.
The words that had spread among magicians.
Duke Ariel is imprisoning the Emperor’s match.
To dispel that suspicion, he had given direct orders, and Duke Ariel had been cooperating quite well, suppressing her temperament.
So it should be nonsensical.
It should be.
“Your Majesty!”
Just then, flap.
The wind swayed from the wingbeat of a giant bird.
He smiled fiercely and unleashed the power he had been preciously holding back.
Along with the pain that spread thrillingly through his veins, the giant winged monster’s scream rang out.
─Kuaaaa!
Terrible killing intent that seemed to shake heaven and earth. And sharp ice pillars spreading out.
Kwang─
It pierced through the bird as it struck down.
Is his cruel Indoja feeling his power raging inside the Gate from outside?
That kind and cruel person who tells him not to search while showing nothing.
“But the Emperor is one who gives orders.”
Not one who receives them.
─Kwadududuk!
Ice pillars that seemed capable of freezing the giant monster shot up into the air.
Like giant bars, they trapped and trapped again the fleeing creatures.
And finally, they discovered the winged monster’s eggs that they had been preciously protecting.
A jade-colored light, a fishy scent.
“Found it.”
Kaisis, holding it in his hand, applied strength to his fingertips.
Pop! With a cruel, bursting sound, the red magic stone contained inside revealed itself.
“Your Majesty! Why would you…”
Directly holding a magic stone is dangerous.
He had expected the knights to be shocked, but he had entered this Gate to obtain this.
“Your Majesty, good heavens!”
Ignoring the shocked cries behind him, he stared at the magic stone embedded in his palm.
A quiet laugh escaped.
With this, even if not perfectly, he could maintain his sanity.
He would be able to confirm with what face, what expression, that person approached and whispered such words.
His nighttime self had promised not to search for his match, but his daytime self had made no such promise.
He promised not to catch, but he never promised to do nothing.
The hunter who was always soaked in blood smiled quietly.
It was such an ecstatic and beautiful smile that even the knights who had rushed over, worried about the Empero,r could only stare blankly without saying a word.
***
After watching the Emperor’s condition change to a slightly deeper orange, I accidentally fell asleep.
And I woke from my dream with a start.
“Hah. Hah.”
I wiped my forehead, drenched in cold sweat, while hearing my own rough breathing.
Was it because I had seen the blackly shining Gate today?
The memory of my death visited me vividly as a nightmare.
The pain of my whole body being crushed and trampled.
‘It really hurt. It was so terrible that I never want to experience such a thing again.’
That’s why I was desperately completing quests and struggling to survive somehow.
Because I was scared. Because I didn’t want to die.
I never wanted to be in front of a bursting Gate again.
‘I don’t want to die so miserably again.’
And they’re telling me to stand in front of a Gate and display magic?
‘Kaisis, you bastard.’
Sigh, what a terrifying prospect.
While I was looking dejected.
─Knock.
A quiet sound was heard.
I was startled.
Then once more.
─Knock, knock.
Someone was knocking on the door from outside.
