The Hidden King of the Back Alleys

“How is His Majesty’s health? You are the one watching him from the closest vantage point, not the Empress, are you not?”

“Like everyone else in the Empire, I am praying for His Majesty’s recovery with all my heart. I am sure there will be an improvement soon.”

“Are you hoping for a miracle?”

“The living proof of the Great Blood… how could a mere illness threaten such a thing?”

For a moment, laughter befitting an afternoon tea time filled the terrace. I didn’t say a word, simply sipping my tea between two people who had moved past subtle tension and were now openly clashing with blades drawn.

The two individuals holding the largest pieces of the fracturing power pie didn’t even bother to dismiss their attendants. Their attitude was clear: Report it if you want, listen if you dare.

“I didn’t realize you thought that way. ‘Living proof,’ ‘Dragons’… those are products of a bygone era, aren’t they?”

“Who would dare harbor such lawless thoughts? The Empire exists because of the Great Emperor, and everyone enjoys peace and tranquility within these walls protected by the Dragon.”

This was the best the Emperor’s concubine could do in front of a Prince who held his position by virtue of his hair and eye color. Like someone who had fought her way up from the most cutthroat places to a position with no guarantees, she controlled every fiber of her being, down to her fingertips. Watching Annette, one might actually be fooled into believing she truly worried for the Emperor and respected the Crown Prince.

Annette smiled, pushing a plate toward me. “Young Llewellyn must think so as well. There is no one in this Empire living under the grace of the Imperial Family who feels otherwise.” At those suggestive words, I gave a foolish grin.

“Is that so? I thought you were more suited to be a scholar, given your family’s history, but you speak exactly like a priest.”

Annette’s family had produced scholars for generations. If one traced the lineage back far enough, she was a distant relative of Laila Justia, the ruler of the seas.

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea to head to the Temple once you leave the castle.”

A body consecrated to God can never return to the secular world. For the first time, Annette’s smile stiffened. She redrew the vanished smile and lowered her eyebrows regretfully. Her face looked so sorrowful and pitiable that one felt an urge to go and comfort her.

“Watching the Edeltas brought in every spring is my joy. Looking at beautiful, brilliant things pleases the eye… and one can’t help but want to see them for as long as possible. Does greed not naturally follow?”

Except for the Empress, the Emperor’s lovers are not permitted to use the Imperial surname. According to Imperial law, no one except the Imperial Family can reside in the palace. The Emperor’s concubines are the exception to this rule. Only those who have given birth to direct descendants with succession rights—Princes or Princesses—or those given special permission by the Emperor are assigned a palace to reside in.

Annette’s words about wishing for the Emperor to live a long life might actually be sincere.

“A person becomes miserable when their greed outstrips their innate station.”

This time, Annette’s smile didn’t vanish. Instead, she laughed brightly like a young girl. A flush rose to her cheeks as if she were beyond happy, and her eyes crinkled.

“Desire may be seen as a sin, but is the reality not a bit different? A greedy human easily becomes ugly, but a person without greed becomes nothing at all.”

10. Robenus

I knocked on the dark mahogany door. It opened smoothly without even the click of a latch. I knew from experience; this wasn’t a door that just stayed unlocked. Imperial civil servants, especially those in the Ministry of Finance, tend to have good physical stamina to endure frequent overtime.

Sure enough, it was Cale’s adjutant who opened the door. His face brightened with a welcoming look.

“Shh.”

Before he could speak, I put an index finger to my lips, and he nodded with a smile. Good. The thick rug on the floor was Cale’s preference; he claimed he concentrated better in a quiet atmosphere. The Count had the same taste, so the library floors in the castle were changed periodically.

Anyway, thanks to that, I succeeded in approaching without a sound. Cale, wearing thin-rimmed glasses, had a strangely sharp expression. Thanks to Cale declaring he would work from home while I was bedridden and sickly, I now knew that this was actually his “peaceful” face while working.

For anyone else, it would have been impossible, but Cale simply gave notice. Daniel, with whom I had become friendly during his several visits to check on me, told me with a bitter smile that since the Count had a history of declaring retirement for my sake in his prime, everyone basically pushed him out, telling him to use his vacation days.

When I tapped on the desk, Cale’s face went through a colorful range of emotions in a split second. From irritable to surprised, then quickly to the familiar, gentle smile he saved for me.

“Llewellyn.”

At the sound of his voice—shifting from a biting winter wind to a summer-bound spring—the secretaries’ shoulders jolted. The expression on a young man I hadn’t seen before, likely a newcomer, was the best part. He looked like he was doubting his own ears.

However, Cale checked the time and declared that they could all head home early, causing their faces to brighten instantly. Indeed, nothing makes an employee happier than clocking out, and the most joyful thing in the world is an early dismissal.

The adjutant, who brought me a side chair, also grabbed his coat and vanished before his boss could take back the word.

“I’ll finish up soon, so please wait just a moment.”

I blocked him as he leaned in to naturally plant a kiss on my cheek. Instead, I offered the other side of my face. My left cheek had already been subjected to a barrage of kisses from Abel. He’s a low-ranking official, so he couldn’t even dream of an early dismissal. It was a kiss full of sorrow, as if he were trying to vent his resentment at being stuck at work through me.

Cale laughed for a long time after hearing the story. I had hoped to create a beautiful scene of the brothers leaving work together, but the youngest’s efforts had gone to waste. I thought about dragging Leo into it too, but that was also impossible.

“Leo will be busy. He might have to go to the East.”

“The East?”

I asked back, feeling a pang of guilt since the reason I came to find Cale had suddenly popped up. It was enough to make me wonder if Cale knew about Gredor’s diary.

Suddenly, in the middle of the night, my wrist had flashed violently. For Erkel, who was meticulous about his sleep schedule, to contact me at this hour meant it was an incredibly important matter.

[I remembered.] [I remembered! Sh*t!] [It’s Robenus!]

When I hurriedly opened the diary, sentences shouting that he remembered floated up. Even though it was just text, I felt like I could hear his voice.

<Robenus?> <Calm down and tell me.>

[Sorry. Did I wake you?] [I was about to sleep and it just popped into my head.]

<I wasn’t sleeping yet.> <But what did you remember?>

[Luke was in Robenus before he came to the capital. I wrote it as a setting and passed over it briefly, so I didn’t recall.]

<Luke? That King of Darkness or whatever guy?>

[Yep.]

<Isn’t Robenus at the eastern edge? Why the hell is a guy living there coming all the way up to the capital.>

[LOLOLOLOL] [He takes over that neighborhood and then comes to eat the capital too. :)]

<:) > <Wow, how great, how amazing.>

[I have to do that to create a reason for them to get involved.]

F**k.

Instead of writing a curse, I carefully drew a smiling face. Erkel drew something back. I puzzled over what the shape was supposed to be until I realized it was someone kneeling and begging. We urgently need to implement emojis.

[Anyway, it just came to me suddenly.] [I thought I’d received a divine revelation.]

For now, knowing the current location of a major character was a significant gain. Especially since even the original author didn’t have a perfect grasp of him.

[I don’t remember exactly why he came to the capital. To begin with, Luke didn’t have that much screen time.]

Erkel added that while his screen time was low, his popularity was high. I had decided to view everything he called “BL Tropes” with suspicion. This “neighborhood” wasn’t some cute, lively, charming place. The “trash” Erkel spoke of was real trash without a hint of exaggeration, and the “Happy Ending” he claimed simply meant that regardless of the process, the two men ended up loving each other in the end.

Having already abandoned any expectations for the “Top” characters after seeing the Crown Prince, I let out a hollow laugh. I was so fking excited to see what kind of guy Luke was—the one Erkel proclaimed to be the biggest trash among the four. Fk.

<Forget that for now. Do you remember how he lived in Robenus? Where I can find him?>

[There are a lot of back alleys in that town. Like the flip side of the brilliant lights. The most dangerous place among them is ‘Nox.’ He eventually becomes the boss there too, but I don’t know exactly where we are in the timeline, so I can’t say for sure. Honestly, it’s not like this is a dating sim; he doesn’t just appear at a specific spot on a regular basis.]

Luke—the “promising sprout” who had been a back-alley thug since his teens—was a guy who drew people in, albeit in a different sense than the Crown Prince. If the Crown Prince was like the sun, shining at the center and gathering people around him, Luke was the type to greedily suck everything in like a black hole, leaving nothing behind.

After forming hypotheses about the “Original Work’s” force of inertia and the Keywords, we were contemplating building relationships before the original plot took hold. The idea was that if we satisfied keywords in segments and watched the events unfold, we might be able to grasp the general rules and exploit them.

Karwin Dimension, the “Sub,” was in the North, so going to meet him immediately was impossible, and I put off Cedric Klein, who was supposedly a lunatic. He was the one Erkel personally marked for me to avoid on sight, but I figured if I cleared the hardest one first, the rest might be easier. I rolled up my sleeves, hardening my resolve. …I must confess, the impact of the word “tentacles” was quite significant.