It was hopeless.
Because of the count’s betrayal, most of the soldiers in preparation were subdued before they could even properly fight.
Leaving behind the nobles who demanded answers from him or scrambled to flee, Sasha quietly rose from his seat.
And the meeting hall—where ear-splitting screams and shouting had been flying back and forth—fell silent.
Sasha accepted the eyes pouring onto him with calm composure.
“So the result is in.”
Then he walked past the large table where the letter Edward had sent lay and approached the meeting hall door. From behind him, someone asked,
“What will you do?”
Sasha turned back and finally said what he’d wanted to say all along.
“We surrender.”
“…Surrender, you say?”
The moment he received the document Edward had sent demanding surrender, he’d wanted to burst into cheers.
It’s really over.
A humanitarian document, as if it perfectly contained the protagonist’s temperament: if the command surrendered, the lives of the people beneath them would be spared.
But read another way, it also sounded like: the command would not be spared.
Looking at the face full of “I want to stop you,” Sasha answered,
“Don’t I have to take responsibility too?”
Just like I kept demanding responsibility from you.
As if there was no longer anything worth hearing, Sasha turned and left the meeting hall. In the silence behind him, he heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back.
Is someone trying to run?
That was what he thought, but instead, multiple footsteps drew closer to Sasha.
Don’t tell me they’re trying to stop me. Are they saying we should fight to the bitter end?
He was seriously considering sprinting at full speed to the window and screaming that he surrendered when they called out to him.
“Marquess.”
Sasha looked at the nobles—ones who seemed especially broad and imposing—hiding his worry. He was scanning for an escape route when an unexpected statement came.
“We will take responsibility as well.”
Around fifteen nobles forced the corners of their stiff mouths upward.
No. You really don’t have to be loyal to me to this extent.
Sasha truly could not understand them.
“If you come with me, you’ll die.”
He tried to frighten them off, but they looked like they’d already hardened their resolve. Half the nobles who’d stayed in the meeting hall until the end had followed him.
‘Did I have leadership like this?’
Was there some talent he didn’t know he had?
But he couldn’t be happy about discovering a new talent.
‘If I bring them all, won’t they see me as even more dangerous?’
If all your subordinates betray you and you look pathetic, you’re less threatening, aren’t you?
If, even cornered like this, he dragged a dozen nobles along with him saying they’d take punishment together, it might brand Sasha as a full-blown dangerous individual.
But he couldn’t think of anything to persuade them, and if he lingered like this, the more extreme nobles might flail and do something stupid before Sasha even got the chance to surrender.
In the end, Sasha had no choice but to move with them.
Imperial knights who had already brought carriages and were waiting saw Sasha and his party and sharpened their momentum like a blade.
Sasha strode straight up to Rio Grenville, who stood at the very front of the line of knights that looked ready to draw swords at any moment.
“Let’s go.”
“I figured you would—…What?”
Sasha didn’t bother repeating himself. He just hopped right into the carriage. He didn’t want to talk to Rio Grenville any longer than necessary.
That bastard was the protagonist’s knight who, in the original, cut off Sasha’s head. Every time Sasha met him, his neck went cold, and hiding that reaction was always a pain.
Sasha sat in the seat, staring down at Rio with chilly pride as Rio looked back at him like this was absurd. Then the nobles who’d followed Sasha surged on their own into the two carriages behind the first.
‘Why aren’t they getting in here….’
Even though he was tense, part of him felt relieved that he didn’t have to manage his expression inside the carriage. At the same time, he was so frightened that he almost wanted to be with people in the same situation, just to soothe the anxiety.
But before Sasha could call the other nobles over, the door shut and the carriage headed toward the Imperial Palace.
It looked good from the outside, and apparently it really was a good carriage.
Why would they send such a nice carriage for a criminal?
‘Have I gotten too immersed in being the villain?’
His way of thinking had gotten petty.
Sasha imagined Edward sending him a carriage that looked splendid on the outside but was garbage inside—so your ass went numb—just to mock him: you’re only decent on the surface.
And Sasha decided that once this was over, he would cleanse both body and mind completely.
‘Assuming it ends well.’
Sasha replayed what he needed to say when he met Edward.
It wasn’t like he had something grand to say.
In the original, no matter how much Sasha spat vicious words and chanted prayers for Edward to be ruined, Edward still tried to spare him.
Thinking of Edward—who stayed calm and answered, I won’t kill you, even when Sasha, driven into a corner, screamed for him to do it—made Sasha’s racing heart slow just a little.
He tried to spare even that loud, cruel Sasha.
So wouldn’t he obviously spare someone like me?
I was way kinder than the original Sasha, wasn’t I?
Even just this month, he hadn’t killed Duke Grenville’s second son, he hadn’t taken Edward’s youngest sibling hostage and cut off their ear to send it as a threat, and he hadn’t refused to accept defeat and fought to the very end.
Of course, he’d still done plenty of bad things.
Instead of killing the duke’s second son, he’d kidnapped him and stuffed him in an underground prison. And instead of touching Edward’s youngest sibling, he’d burned down the house they lived in.
Sasha, who knew the original, could boldly say that this counted as being unbelievably kind.
But the other side, with no comparison point, might see it differently.
Relief, my ass.
Sasha arrived at the Imperial Palace even more anxious, but he feigned a dignified attitude and headed for the audience chamber where Edward was.
“Only the marquess goes in? We’ll go in too!”
“What are you planning to do…?”
“We will stay with you to the end!”
Right before the audience chamber, the nobles who’d followed Sasha caused a commotion, but it was quickly put down.
“Don’t make a scene.”
If Edward decides I’m dangerous because of you, what then? It’s not like you’ll save me.
Maybe it was because of that thought—Are you out of your minds?—but his voice came out colder and more ruthless than usual, and the nobles shrank back and shut their mouths.
Leaving them behind, Sasha stepped into the audience chamber.
Edward, seated on the throne, greeted him.
He wasn’t officially Emperor yet, but he was openly displaying that he already was the Emperor in every way that mattered.
Sasha forced strength into the cheeks that wanted to lift into a grin and crossed the audience chamber—not fast, not slow—until he came to a stop in front of Edward.
And Rio, who had escorted—no, “escorted” written one way and “hauled in” read another—Sasha all the way here, proudly moved to stand behind Edward.
Sasha wanted to snatch that bastard’s sword and hurl it, but right now, he needed to finish this last conversation with Edward properly.
“Marquess Sasha Ambrose.”
A low voice with deep resonance weighed down the room and seized control.
Sasha met Edward—who now looked not like a prince, but like an emperor—without a flicker.
“I didn’t think you’d actually come.”
What did that mean? That he’d come to find his own death?
Sasha wanted to smack his own useless brain for spiraling into negative thoughts.
Afraid that dragging words out could lead to unintended results, Sasha cut straight to it.
“Didn’t you send for me?”
That’s not what I meant to say.
Maybe because he was tense, the crooked tone he’d always used slipped out. Sasha kept his eyes burning as he pretended not to notice Rio standing behind Edward.
“Are you surrendering?”
At times like this, you could afford to be a little nastier.
“If you keep your promise.”
As if Sasha’s answer surprised him, Edward stared at him without even blinking—then slowly rose from the throne.
Watching Edward approach, Sasha opened his mouth.
He knew he had to say it, but it wouldn’t come out easily. He’d practiced this line over and over last night, and now it finally spilled out.
“Kill me.”
“…What?”
A voice rougher than ever burst from Edward as he was coming down the steps.
Sasha clenched down hard on the urge to drop to his knees and shout that it was a slip of the tongue.
“Even if you beat me, your weakness doesn’t disappear.”
“You—!”
Sasha raised his voice even louder than Rio, who was about to explode.
“If you want to be a powerful emperor, there are times you need to be cruel!”
Was it because he’d tensed his throat to keep his fear from showing? A sharp shout laced with hoarseness rang through the audience chamber.
“If you spare everyone, then who the hell is going to fear you?”
His throat tasted like blood, but Sasha said what he had to say.
“Cut off the possibility of a second, a third Sasha Ambrose.”
Sasha forced his shoulders wide instead of letting them shrink and stared at Edward with resolve.
“Punish traitors. Follow a principle so simple and so obvious.”
He did it.
He said everything he’d practiced without shaking.
But his joy was brief.
A heavy silence fell over the audience chamber.
Edward didn’t speak.
Rio, who’d been ready to rage, didn’t speak either.
A chilling silence where he could hear nothing but his own breathing.
‘Why isn’t he saying anything?’
Please answer already.
If he had to keep waiting, he was going to choke.
If even one more minute passed, he might end up crying and clinging to Edward’s leg.
Unable to meet Edward’s strangely wavering eyes, Sasha lowered his gaze as if he were still proud.
And then—after a stretch of time that felt like eternity to Sasha—
“No. I…”
The thing Sasha had wanted most, since possessing Sasha Ambrose, finally arrived.
“I will not kill you.”
Good.