Edward had become a little more proactive, but aside from that, the original’s broad framework didn’t change. Everything still moved forward exactly as it had.
Sasha was twenty-six. Edward was twenty-four. With Duke Grenville’s support, Edward rose at breakneck speed—and the Emperor and the Grand Duke, threatened by that rise, joined hands. Sasha, separate from both of them, had completely taken an independent power base into his own grasp.
He didn’t like either the Emperor or the Grand Duke, but the moment they shoved forward the Emperor’s illegitimate son—one whose mother was a complete unknown—those who’d been wavering came to Sasha instead.
What did that mean?
It meant Edward, right now, was in an extremely precarious situation, surrounded by enemies on three sides.
At a party held by a noble under the Grand Duke’s banner, a massacre would erupt. And Sasha, who learned of the plan in advance, would feed Edward poison at that party—telling him not to struggle uselessly and just die already.
Sasha agonized over it.
“Should I swap the poison?”
In the original, the poison Sasha fed Edward was the kind that paralyzed muscles—so dangerous that if you were unlucky, one of your limbs could end up ruined.
In reality, Edward developed a tremor in his right hand as an aftereffect of that poison, and as a right-hander, he suffered terribly after that.
Edward had gripped a sword as a mercenary ever since he lived as a commoner. But he could no longer hold a sword with his right hand, and when he made official appearances, he ended up wearing a splint that tightly fixed his arm in place—like it was some kind of accessory.
He adapted to his left hand quickly enough that everyday tasks caused no trouble, but when Edward’s enemies condemned him, they always made sure to spit out the words crippled arm.
“And that’s when public opinion on Sasha hit rock bottom.”
Didn’t he have a reason to hate the imperial family, given what happened with his sister? People had argued that while praising his beautiful face—but once Edward suffered so badly because of Sasha, even the fans who’d been chanting his looks couldn’t defend him so easily anymore.
Except for cases like his friend, the extreme looks-worshipper.
Of course, Edward was the protagonist, and despite a doctor saying he’d have to live with the aftereffects for life, he later overcame them like a miracle at the end.
By then, Sasha had piled up so much karma that he truly became villainy itself.
“If I want to survive, it’s better to change it.”
Even if he fed him poison all the same, he could choose one with fewer aftereffects. The result—poisoning him—would be the same, so it didn’t seem like there’d be a problem. And the arm would recover eventually anyway….
“If there are no aftereffects, then I should pick one that hurts more when you take it.”
If one side got weaker, the other had to get stronger, right? Otherwise the flow of the original would get thrown off.
Even as he said it, he hesitated a little—was this really the right thing to do? Still, wasn’t one sharp, bam! kind of pain better than being in small, lingering pain the whole time?
“Just in case, I’ll pick one that has an antidote.”
If he was going to smuggle it into the party venue, it’d be better if it was colorless and odorless.
The more conditions he stacked on, the harder it sounded to obtain—but with money and power, there wasn’t much he couldn’t do.
A few days later, on the day of the party.
The moment Edward took a sip of alcohol and then collapsed, vomiting up a bucketful of blood, Sasha froze rigid.
‘No, it didn’t need to be this strong.’
They called this poison a stealthy murderer, right? Where the hell was the “stealthy” part?
Sasha looked down at Edward, collapsed at his feet and staring up with muddy golden eyes, and clenched his trembling fist hard. Duke Grenville’s eldest son, Rio, who’d been with them, hurriedly caught Edward.
“Your Highness!”
“…Are you planning to announce to the whole world that your precious ‘Your Highness’ collapsed? It would be better to leave quietly.”
They’d been on a roll, but they were also a faction that had swelled too fast. If word spread that Edward—their centerpiece—had been poisoned, their whole power base would be shaken.
Rio glared sharply at Sasha, then hoisted Edward onto his back and vanished over the terrace railing. Sasha couldn’t stop seeing Edward’s limp arm. Watching him disappear, Sasha left the terrace.
“Marquess?”
Because it had happened in a place people couldn’t see, no one had realized yet that something was wrong with Edward.
Which meant the massacre the Grand Duke had orchestrated would proceed as scheduled.
Sasha swept his gaze over the faces filling the party hall, then left—abandoning the people surging toward him.
And that night, countless lives were extinguished.
Only then did Sasha truly realize what kind of world he’d fallen into.
*****
Nobles on Edward’s side, and nobles who didn’t belong to any faction—or who didn’t have the means to gather information—suffered enormous losses.
All kinds of stories circulated about Edward. He didn’t survive that party. No, he ran away beforehand to save himself. He barely survived the party hall, but he was left with aftereffects. On and on.
But among all those stories, the truth never made its way to Sasha’s ears.
It made sense.
Edward’s side would be desperately trying to stop information from leaking out.
‘If it follows the original, he should be alive.’
But because he’d changed the poison, he couldn’t be certain that Edward was truly safe. Even though, with the original in place, he knew Edward would never die.
Shouldn’t have changed it? Did the damage get worse because of me? Even though I knew that if I changed something, there was a chance the situation would turn worse—did I think about it too lightly?
Even in his anxiety, Sasha faithfully carried out the activities the original Sasha had done in the original, afraid he’d make things worse again if he moved on his own.
While Edward stayed quiet, Sasha expanded his people based on evidence that this massacre was the Grand Duke’s and the Emperor’s doing.
“Most of the neutral nobles have turned to our side after this incident.”
“Even among the Grand Duke’s nobles, there are many who were shocked by what happened.”
“Rumors are rampant among the nobility that the Emperor condoned the Grand Duke’s actions.”
“We truly must pull down the Lacarte imperial family.”
Not only Edward, but even the Emperor’s and the Grand Duke’s forces wavered, and the Empire’s situation whipped into a complicated storm.
Sasha greeted the endless stream of nobles coming to him, and waited for news of Edward.
Then, on the night he finally heard the news he’d been waiting for—embarrassing as it was—Sasha got soaked in late-night feelings and leaked a few pathetic tears into his pillow.
“…That bastard. If you were alive, you could’ve shown up a little sooner.”
Did he think the only people worrying about him were his subordinates? Even if it wasn’t Sasha, there had to be at least one or two people secretly admiring how gallant he was. His patience was insane. With that many people talking shit behind his back, he held his breath and waited until the exact moment he needed to.
If it were Sasha, he would’ve popped out ages ago, bragging that he was healthy as ever and all four limbs were intact.
Because Edward listened too well to his people, only Sasha had grown visibly gaunt over the past few months.
With this face, even getting thin just turned him into a fragile, pitiful beauty, and if the shadows under his eyes deepened and his expression darkened, he only became a decadent beauty.
Lately, there hadn’t been just one or two men and women who flushed red when they looked at him.
There were so many people desperate to talk to Sasha even once, hoping Sasha would take interest in them, frantic to see Sasha smile even one time.
Edward hadn’t just stolen all of Sasha’s attention for months—he’d wrung tears out of these pretty eyes.
If other people saw it, they’d be sick with envy.
Not that they’d want to drink the poison that pretty bastard offered them.
“Ugh.”
He tried to lighten the mood, but even so, the shock of having tried to hurt someone—and seeing, right in front of him, a person injured because of him—didn’t fade easily.
“…Not that there’s anything I can do about it.”
So what if he was the main villain? So what if he was a rich young-and-rich?
He was nothing more than a marionette getting yanked around by the original.
“I just want it to end already.”
Of the original’s three years, a year and a half had passed. But after absorbing so much negative energy, Sasha felt like the half that remained was unbearably long.
And the half that was left would be even bloodier than what had come before, wouldn’t it?
“Blurry eyes, blurry eyes.”
If he kept pouring his heart into things he couldn’t change, he might lose the one thing that mattered most—his life.
“To think I’d ever be grateful I don’t have friends or anything.”
Between being busy, grinding his brain to survive, and acting out the prickly Marquess Ambrose according to the original, it felt absurdly good that there was no one around him.
“I’ll make friends after everything’s over.”
If he’d even be able to make friends then. Would anyone want to be friends with a villain who only barely survived thanks to the protagonist’s mercy?
“With this face, maybe.”
Sasha clumsily wiped the tears pooled at his eyes and smacked his cheeks twice.
“Get it together.”
He didn’t have time to be depressed. The most important thing was surviving.
He’d already worked himself to death for nine years—he had absolutely no intention of just dying because the original said so.
“…I’m even secretly siphoning money off to the side. I need to spend all that.”
Since he knew he wouldn’t be able to remain the Marquess of House Ambrose forever after he survived, he was doing everything he could to prepare an escape route in advance.
Sasha brought over a mirror and steadied himself, staring at the still-shocking face that was his.
Skin so white and transparent there wasn’t a single blemish. Gorgeous platinum hair, slightly wavy, naturally covering his forehead. Beneath it, faint double lids on eyes whose outer corners came to a subtle point.
If you followed the flutter of his thick, dense, abundant lashes in a daze, then—revealed from behind them—were clear blue irises that held a lucid sky as if it had been poured straight in.
Puffy under-eye fat that was redder than usual from crying. A high nose whose tip was slightly reddened the same way. Beneath that, pink lips that looked full and moist. A small, slim face shape that held all those delicate, refined features.
No matter where he looked, it was only beautiful.
And the moment he saw that ridiculous face, the gloom blew away.
“…Seriously. This face is a straight-up cheat.”
From now on, if something sad and depressing happened, he should look in the mirror.
Making someone this pretty feel sad—he felt like garbage.
And it was him, and Sasha was garbage.
Still, the face wasn’t guilty. If he’d been a celebrity in his original world, would he’ve been less stressed than this?
“…Let’s hang in there.”
His voice didn’t match the words—there wasn’t much strength in it—but Sasha clenched his fist and swore he’d make it through the remaining half.