I Captured the Enemy Who Tried to Kill Me

The original female protagonist didn’t appear, and instead, I ended up guiding the Emperor and even forming a half-imprint with him.

The storyline that originally revolved around the female protagonist had already diverged from the beginning, providing me no guidance.

‘My memories are also hazy.’

So what should I do now?

“Variables are like that meow. No one knows how big a storm will come from a single butterfly’s wing flap. Be prepared meow.”

Tap tap, the cat’s tail hit the floor.

I saw Luias silently moving his lips in his sleep, grabbing that tail.

Unlike how she rebelled against me with all sorts of excuses, Lucy quietly offered her tail to him.

When did they become so close?

“What do you want me to do?”

The guide. And the status window.

They clearly had a direction they wanted me to take.

It seemed they were urging me to actively dive into this story world.

Never had it felt as eerie and ominous as it did today.

It felt exactly like being a puppet connected by invisible strings…

It was truly unpleasant.

“Don’t you already know meow? Either actively find someone else to put forward as the Emperor’s match, or resolutely take that position yourself meow.”

You clearly want the latter, don’t you?

I didn’t say those words but stared at her accusingly, and the cat somehow grinned eerily.

Just then, a familiar sound rang out.

“…Sigh, not today.”

A glittering status window.

Information about someone turning orange.

‘Damn human, using his power recklessly again.’

I frowned deeply.

Honestly, even if I understood Kaisis’s reaction, disappointment, and sensitive anger, I was also human.

It was a relationship where I’d earned his dislike from the beginning without doing anything particularly wrong.

He got close to me against my wishes, and I had to deceive him at night and be friendly.

I wasn’t thick-skinned enough to shamelessly enjoy such a day-and-night division.

It became increasingly uncomfortable and awkward.

His wary, disapproving gaze during the day.

His arbitrarily familiar gaze at night.

“I don’t have the confidence to guide that person normally with these feelings.”

At first, I tried to think simply.

Although Kaisis’s unfamiliar behavior was strange, I actually felt a sense of liberation not having to act like the Duke in front of him.

But right now.

After what happened during the day, I couldn’t act normal tonight of all nights.

I wanted to shout out loud.

That I’m not the match you look at so lovingly.

That the real one was someone else.

So this was just a fleeting relationship that could change anytime.

Don’t look at me so tenderly, making me misunderstand!

You don’t know anything about me either, do you!

But contrary to my noisy thoughts, the cat guide was calm.

“No need to think so complicatedly meow. The choice is yours, and you bear the responsibility for it meow.”

Yes, that. That’s exactly what being irresponsible means!

Feeling anger rising toward Lucy, I just turned away.

The more I ruminated on today’s experience of losing control of my body and the unhelpful status window, distrust sprouted in my heart.

I couldn’t trust anything.

“I’m going.”

When I didn’t feel anyone following, I turned my head to see Lucy licking her lips without moving from Luias’s side.

“Aren’t you coming?”

The cat shook her head like a human. And even scolded me.

“Don’t you feel sorry for this child meow? I’ll stay by his side with my warm body temperature meow.”

Ah, I see.

Why is she doing something she never did before?

I snorted and closed the door, returning to my bedroom.

And after sending away the maids who wanted to attend to me, when I put on my nightgown myself and lay comfortably on the bed.

“What is this now?”

I found the familiar status window.

Something I had seen once before.

A branching point choice.

[An important branching point has occurred.

Invitation from the Gate.

The lost one desperately desires the light of salvation.

He hates and is wary of you, but has unknowingly come to trust you, causing a change in his favorability.

Will you accept the Gate’s invitation?

Please decide carefully.

Choices come with responsibilities.

Saving someone’s life can connect you deeply with that person.

Your choice will determine the flow from now on.]

So this means…

‘If I press accept, does it mean I go inside the Gate? The one calling me should be the Emperor, but why a Gate?’

I twisted my face.

It’s now the dead of night.

Clearly…

Something must have happened at the Imperial Palace.

“What on earth is this?”

My fingertips hesitated for a brief moment.

It was eerily unsettling that the status window contained the exact wording that Lucy had warned about.

Somehow, I felt uncomfortable, as if someone was pushing the absent original female protagonist’s position onto me and watching mockingly.

I was confused about whether this was truly a proper world and whether I was really alive in Hillaria’s body.

And a Gate, of all things.

“I.”

Unlike the cautious S-class Guides back in South Korea, I had multiple experiences entering Gates without team protection, being called here and there.

Although I wasn’t as skilled as combat Guides, could I still enter a Gate?

Could I think normally even after seeing the magical beasts, monsters, and creatures inside the Gate?

Gulp, I swallowed dry saliva.

I couldn’t understand why the Emperor suddenly needed emergency guiding inside a Gate.

But what could I do?

I still fell asleep like a normal person and felt happy eating delicious food with this body.

I felt good wearing soft, luxurious clothes, and got annoyed when work was overwhelming and difficult.

Yet the magicians who followed me had become quite cute and entertaining, and I’d begun to notice the Awakened Ones who desperately sought salvation from me.

So now, Hillaria was me. I was alive.

And Kaisis needed to stay alive, too.

Not because he was the male protagonist of the original work, not because he was an important figure.

But because he was the strongest SSS-class Awakened One in this empire.

It was the same reason I had tried to guide Espers in South Korea, holding onto them despite finding them nauseating when they refused me because they didn’t like themselves.

If they live, I live.

“Although I don’t like following the status window’s intentions.”

My fingertip pressed firmly on the button asking, “Will you accept?”

—Yes.

“This is my choice.”

To save Kaisis.

At the same time, my vision turned white.

***

After the fierce confrontation with the Duke at the Imperial Palace during the day, Kaisis went to every Gate he could enter like a madman.

Places that needed urgent entry due to risk of rampage, and places that were still stable and didn’t need attention—he went to all without distinction.

His knights quietly observed and matched pace with Kaisis, who wasn’t acting like himself.

And he.

‘This isn’t even funny.’

He couldn’t understand himself.

‘Why did I move?’

Everything was confusing.

Bright red blood. The woman’s irritatingly cold expressionlessness. The unchanging relationship.

But why had he been disappointed and angry about it?

‘What’s different about my relationship with Duke Ariel that I would have such disgusting emotions?’

Isn’t disappointment the result of having expectations?

He, for that woman?

Since when. Why on earth?

‘Something has been strange for a while.’

It wasn’t the first time he had moved to protect the woman when she was in danger.

When similar incidents happened in front of Awakened Ones.

When facing a hooded figure in the back alley.

And this time as well.

‘I didn’t move for Luias.’

He ran like a trained dog to block her path.

When he had the absurd suspicion that perhaps the Duke couldn’t use magic, she demonstratively performed spatial movement magic that most magicians couldn’t even attempt.

Even while knowing it was ultimately mockery and neglect toward Luias.

—Crack!

Ice surged.

His heart pounded with foreboding.

This was almost like, well.

‘Like an Awakened One facing their match.’