The Emperor Who Was Once a Tyrant Returns Chapter 139 : Chapter 139

Chapter : 139

“It is true that my mother tried to kill you. My maternal uncle as well.”

“Your younger cousin, your older maternal cousin, your second maternal uncle, your third maternal uncle—”

“I told you to be quiet!”

“Then try killing !”

I kicked off the blanket and sat up.

“You call yourself a Sword Master, yet in the middle of the night you crept in like a thief, taking advantage of the mont my people were out enjoying themselves. Did you think I would shut my mouth because I was afraid of you? I felt sorry for you—thinking you must be so cowed to co skulking in like that—so I was going to listen to your story. And now you are sitting there barking at ?”

Alexander’s mouth fell open.

“My mother and my maternal uncles and the rest of them all ca at together, and I won. You should be the one afraid of . And I will not even threaten you like you do!”

Alexander glared at . I glared right back. Looking at him like this, I realized that among my brothers he had the most ordinary face, yet his features resembled Rhiannon more than I had noticed. Unlike that fragile empress, however, he was the tallest of us, broad enough that the similarity had been easy to miss.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha! I really do like you, after all—ha-ha-ha-ha! No matter how much I try to hate you. Ha-ha!”

Alexander burst into laughter to himself, then produced a bottle of liquor and drank straight from it.

“Will you have a sip too? Ah—no, of course not. You might think I, as my mother’s son, would poison you.”

After taking another swallow, that bastard opened his mouth again.

“I admit I lashed out at you. And I apologize for humiliating you at the banquet.”

“If you humiliated publicly, then apologize publicly. You scream your insults at the whole world, then apologize only when it is just the two of us. It is petty beyond asure. Everyone who knows of your insult must know of your apology as well, or how is that an apology at all?”

“…You are truly angry. I am sorry. I will apologize tomorrow in front of others.”

“…So. What do you want?”

“Where were you?”

A Sword Master’s questions were straight as a thrust. I stared at him again, blankly.

“…I can tell when my mother lies. No one else can—not even Desmond. Not even my late maternal uncle. It was one of the things my mother hated most about . When she promised that if I only endured a little longer—if for now I obeyed Desmond and showed everyone our faction’s unity, strengthening her position—she would gradually have acknowledged as a prince… I knew at once it was a lie. I even asked her outright why she was trying to deceive her own child. She was furious.”

It sounded like sothing he would never have told Desmond, nor the dead duke. Originally, only Rhiannon and Alexander should have known this—yet he told .

There were many villains in this world who volunteered things you never even asked, and then decided you had to die because you had learned sothing you were not ant to know.

“So when Mother said she was holding you after you disappeared, I knew imdiately. Just in case, I later cornered her and made certain. I even considered the possibility that rather than securing you alive, she had killed you and buried your body sowhere.”

“And what are you trying to say?”

“Mother did not have you. Of course Mother and my maternal uncle tried to kill you—I am not denying that. You were so certain of their plot that you were not afraid even if she dragged out the Crystal of Truth. If you had truly been captured by them, that certainty would have made sense. But you were not.”

“Does an attempted murder stop being a cri because it failed? Besides, I accused them of trying to kill . I did not lie.”

“…You did. But you did not tell the whole truth. At the ti Mother lied that she was holding you—where were you?”

“Let us assu your intuition was right, without a shred of evidence. Why should I tell you? You sneak in at night and try to cow into it? If you want soone else’s truth, then pay for it.”

“…I did not kill you like I killed Edward.”

Alexander’s eyes flashed. He truly seed to be losing his ability to restrain himself.

“And I am letting you live as well.”

As I said it, I pressed the ring on my finger—pretending to activate an artifact while preparing to cast magic.

In an instant, Alexander’s feet were pinned to the floor. Ambushes were not only a Sword Master’s specialty.

Roots grew from his feet as though the floor had beco earth, planting him there like a tree and locking him so he could not move.

Outwardly, what looked like tree roots was simply his own feet. Veins extended from his soles, burrowing into the floor like thin roots, and his flesh beca the “soil” the roots could sink into. Of course, it did not truly transform that way, but by that principle it gradually caused bleeding and sliced into flesh.

It was a capture spell adapted from the thod I used when I trained alone in Circle magic.

-What nonsense are you saying? Even for a mage, who would do such cruel training?

When I spoke of it while trying to help restore Vincent’s magic, Yolande had practically exploded. She had scolded endlessly to be careful, and I listened with a smile because she reminded of a teacher I missed.

Even so, Yolande admitted she envied my power and refined the thod into sothing far gentler. Vincent recovered his mana through that thod—though it beca an entirely different attribute.

“I have never seen a trap like this.”

Alexander frowned.

“It hurts quite a bit.”

“Surrender. If you resist, it will hurt more.”

Ignoring my warning, he tried to force his way out, but he only sank deeper. His veins beca roots and his flesh beca soil—it was like being buried alive. Of course, it would not cause a Sword Master’s lower body to burst through the ceiling below. My magic barrier had excellent elasticity; manipulating space was nothing to .

“It is not an artifact. It is a modification of a barrier. And you activated it with that ring.”

No. It was magic disguised as that. Not entirely unrelated, but still.

Alexander drew the sword from his scabbard and stabbed it between his feet, as though to brace himself. Did he think I had not anticipated even that? I found myself mildly offended.

The trap shook, but the more it shook, the more blood flowed, and the deeper he sank. He complained.

“This truly hurts!”

“That is why I told you to surrender!”

“Does it look like I can surrender? I am a Sword Master, struggling against a novice younger brother who has never even crossed blades with an enemy without a mage’s help!”

“And now you say that, after you aid your sword at that younger brother?”

“I said I would, but I never actually did!”

“Between us, words are enough!”

In the next instant, sothing flew and lodged above my head—no, into the wall above my head.

A sword. He had aid there on purpose. The montum was so vicious I thought it would pierce my skull. To miss by a hair—by a single thread. My heart had lurched.

My control over the trap wavered, and Alexander did not miss the opening. Bleeding heavily, he tore himself free.

He was skilled, but it was my fault as well. I was trying not to be discovered by Michelon, Rolf, Yolande, or Vincent, so controlling my mana use and my barrier took too much of my attention. Fighting one man while striving not to alert four others was difficult.

‘It almost feels like one against five, which I apologize for saying….’

Especially since I was not drawing on Michelon’s mana as I usually did. I did not need it, and the more I used a dragon’s mana, the more my own mana grew, because the vessel of my mana sensitivity itself expanded.

Still, it was not easy to shake a habit that had beco comfortable. If I relaxed even slightly, I reached for that mana automatically. And in the end, I could not even do the basics—like disarming the enemy.

“A draw.”

Bleeding, Alexander raised one hand.

“Do you think you are the judge? You were the one who intruded and started the fight—do not be rude.”

“You are right. But I am speaking as a veteran warrior who has fought far more battles than you. You have never fought even a knight at close range, let alone a Sword Master, yet you made bleed. Of course it must have been a trap laid by your mages, but it is worth praising that you used it without letting notice.”

A Sword Master was not a mage, but as when he broke my barrier, he sensed the unusual operation of mana. His instincts were sharper.

That was why he praised for striking first without him realizing it. He had not noticed because it was not a trap prepared in advance—it was magic I cast in that very mont.

“And to show you I had no intent to harm you, I drove my sword precisely where I aid it.”

As he spoke, Alexander used an artifact to cast healing magic on his feet. But both feet were badly injured, so at best it would only be first aid.

“A draw? I do not particularly want to accept that. I want to fight more.”

I did not want to be scolded by my people, but I was going to be scolded anyway, so I wanted to fight as I pleased.

“I truly do not want to fight you.”

“You ca intending to, and after bleeding a little your mind changed, is that it?”

“It is true that you provoked until I grew angry. It is true that I resented you. As you know, my mother is not the sort who would have done sothing so reckless if it were not for you.”

“To curse the victim—this ti you are contemptible.”

“I admit it. But unlike Maximilian or Grimiati, you had sothing that provoked Mother. You know it too.”

“My innocence made her evil stand out even more starkly. But that was true of all her victims. I simply cultivated the power to defeat her, and the Empress could never tolerate that.”

It seed he had nothing to say to that. Alexander fell silent and only drank. This ti, I asked.

“Do you want to kill the Empress? If after her brother, her eldest son cos to kill and fails after fighting like this, bleeding in my room, then this ti she will surely be deposed and dragged to the execution grounds. Then you would be able to take revenge on the mother who lied to you and cast you out. Even if you fall with her.”

“……”

“Do you resent because you think I took away your chance to defeat your mother?”

“…Now that I look back, I cannot say you are wrong.”

Even with his pale face, Alexander smiled faintly.

“Anyway, we are no longer fighting now. I will pay for intruding and inconveniencing you with money. In exchange, I will not kill your knights either.”

“You threaten with Rolf’s life?”

“Of course. No matter how hard it is for right now, I can kill that one. I know Soundproofing Magic is cast in this room, but a single strike from will wake him and bring him running here. And you are the sort who would give up even the chance to kill an enemy like if it ant saving your subordinate. You think you can always create another opportunity.”

“…Why are you so desperate to know the truth? I already had no reason to tell you, but after this—after my loyal subject’s life has been threatened—I cannot tell you even more.”

“You are right. My thod is wrong. But Mother and Desmond… you destroyed them. It should have been .”

“Abandon your strange obsession. I do not resent you for ruining Maximilian.”

“You think that?”

Alexander smiled again.

“You cannot know unless you experience it yourself.”

I had experienced it. Before my regression. Do you know what happened to then? Do you know how many of those things were your fault?

“Because of you, I went from a bastard to the confined Empress’s bastard. I beca farther from the throne. Because Mother acted recklessly and failed, I am going to lose the succession struggle without even getting to fight.”

That much was true. Desmond was also the confined Empress’s child, but he was still a prince. Alexander, even without being part of the Empress Faction, now had the stain of bastardy compounded by his mother’s ruin—two disadvantages at once. At court, it was like losing a limb.

“Do you understand now what it feels like to have a dead mother from Roncer?”

Then Alexander, pale-faced yet still faintly smiling, snapped coldly.

“I do not, Your Highness.”

…On that, I admitted he was right. Discrimination against bastards was severe. In the past, there had been a case of a bastard ascending the throne even in another country, not Armatia, where the succession struggle was most intense—but it had been exceedingly rare. The only case that had not involved foreign invasion was a civil war that erupted when the legitimate heir’s mother murdered the bastard’s mother, and the legitimate heir died in battle, leaving the bastard to ascend. In other words, there had been justification.

Alexander had none at all.