In This Life, I Will Be Your Dog - Chapter 118

The Empress, looking quite shaken, turned pale as if in shock.

Her long lashes slowly lowered and lifted again as though she couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed, and the tears that welled up fell in heavy drops on her white cheeks.

“W-who would do such a thing… Who on earth did this?!”

Eyes bulging, she screamed and glared at Impes. Her red irises soon darted sharply toward Bellona, as if to kill her with a glance.

“It was you… This is your doing, isn’t it?!”

The Empress suddenly lunged at Bellona. Net spread both arms to shield her.

But before the Empress could take a single step, her son caught her and shoved her to the corner.

“Argh!”

The frail body hit the wall with a loud thud and collapsed helplessly. Impes didn’t even glance at his mother’s state as he roared.

“Who do you think you’re laying hands on?! Don’t you know she’s carrying my child?!”

“You—you…! How could you do this to me?!”

“Tch, how shameful. How much lower are you going to stoop over some worthless bastard?”

“Impes!”

The Empress’s face, red with rage and shock, was a sight to behold.

Always so refined and elegant, she now looked absolutely wretched.

Her once neatly styled hair had come undone when she fell, and her expensive dress was now a mess, soiled with filth.

But more than her disheveled appearance, what must have horrified Violentia more was her reality.

The man she loved had died a miserable death, and her son was treating his own mother like a repulsive beast.

“Your Grace, let’s leave for now.”

At Net’s voice, Impes turned his head at once.

“I’ll help Bellona. You fall back.”

“I can escort—”

“Why are there so many barking dogs around? You want to die too, huh?”

Bellona, watching the man approach threateningly, held Net back.

Facing him, she calmly looked at Impes’s face as his expression quickly softened.

His gleaming red eyes now looked dazed. She could finally guess what had driven him to this madness.

‘Mona… you really went and did it.’

Though she had forbidden Mona from visiting the Crown Prince’s palace for a while, it seemed she had gone to see him again just yesterday.

She wondered what kind of brainwashing Mona had fed him this time to make him act like this.

This was the first time Bellona had seen Impes so completely unhinged, even over two lifetimes. She was truly taken aback.

For now, it seemed best to calm him down. Provoking a lunatic in this narrow space wouldn’t end well.

“Why are you so angry?”

“I… I’m not. I’m not angry. So you don’t have to worry.”

“……”

“Your belly—is it okay? Are you hurt? Because of those vulgar people, I made a fool of myself in front of you.”

Looking truly sorry, he wrung his hands nervously, like he feared she might be upset.

Glancing to the side, Bellona saw the half-crazed Empress staring blankly at Graeme.

Once, those people had seemed so high and mighty, beyond reach. Now, seeing them like this before her eyes was hard to believe.

But it didn’t feel satisfying.

She hadn’t even begun to give them true hell, yet they were already falling apart.

And that made her past self seem all the more pathetic.

“Bellona, let’s go to my palace. You don’t look well.”

When Impes suddenly grabbed her wrist, Net instinctively reached for his sword.

Just as he was about to draw—

“Argh!”

A hand grabbed Impes’s wrist and twisted it harshly.

“If you’re going to lose your mind, at least do it properly. This is no fun.”

“You bastard, how dare— Argh!”

The sound of bones twisting echoed through the air. Caelus’s cool golden eyes showed not a hint of mercy.

“M-Mother!”

At last, Impes cried out for his mother—but she didn’t seem to hear.

Instead, she had staggered toward Graeme and was now touching his cheek with a dazed expression.

“How pitiful.”

Caelus let out a cold snort, then looked at Bellona with a frown.

“You alright?”

“Yes.”

“Go on ahead. I’ll take care of things here.”

Bellona, already feeling some nausea and tension in her stomach, nodded without protest and left the underground prison.

A crisp breeze brushed past her nose. As the thick stench of blood that clung to the musty air faded, she finally felt able to breathe again.

She briefly closed her eyes and calmed her unsettled heart.

Just then, Net’s urgent voice rang out.

“Your Grace, His Majesty—!”

She quickly opened her eyes and turned around to see the Emperor approaching from afar.

It seemed word of what had happened in the underground prison had already reached his ears.

A fierce storm was about to hit the empire.

***

The Empress and the Crown Prince were placed under house arrest in their respective palaces by the Emperor’s order.

This was only the beginning.

With the rumors Bellona had spread and the hunting festival incident added on, the empire was in an uproar.

Nobles who had lost children or whose heirs had been maimed requested audience with the Emperor every day, and citizens of the empire held protests outside the palace gates, demanding the deposition of the wicked Empress and the Crown Prince of tainted blood.

It was an unprecedented event in the previously peaceful empire.

But even amid this chaos, there were always those who moved swiftly.

A man visiting the prince’s palace early in the morning bowed stiffly, his wrinkled face tense.

“I didn’t expect Count Louvre to come see me.”

“Your Grace, it’s been too long. I had hoped to visit sooner and offer my greetings—”

“Did you wake me from sleep just to spew that nonsense?”

The Count, cut off mid-sentence, bit the inside of his cheek and bowed even deeper. He knew now was the time to grovel.

“My apologies. I only wished to clear up a misunderstanding—”

“Misunderstanding? What misunderstanding did I have with you, Count?”

“W-well…”

Sweat dripped down the side of the Count’s face. Caelus’s presence, so changed from before, was overwhelming.

Clenching his eyes shut and opening them again, the Count resolved that he would endure any humiliation to protect his house.

“Your Grace, what happened then was not my will. I had no choice but to give in to Her Majesty the Empress’s threats—”

“It seems your memory has aged along with you. To call that an ‘unfortunate misunderstanding.’ Do I still seem like a young fool who can be swayed by your words?”

“N-no, never. I only meant that the events of that day were beyond my control, I—Ugh!”

A chilling blade touched his neck, and the Count’s eyes nearly popped from his head.

“Y-Your Grace!”

“So, you had no choice but to drive a wedge between the Empress and my mother and make me a discarded Crown Prince. ‘No choice,’ you say.”

The air was so tense it felt like the blade would slice him at the slightest move. Trembling, the Count couldn’t breathe properly.

“What shall I do then? Since misunderstandings are so hard to resolve… Should I, too, have no choice but to cut off your head, Count?”

“Your Grace!”

Just then, a knock came, and Akon’s voice cut through the tension.

“Your Grace, the Grand Duchess has arrived.”

“Let her in.”

The door soon opened, and as Bellona entered, the hand that had looked ready to behead the Count relaxed.

The Count quickly stepped back and bowed low to Bellona, trying his best to appear calm.

“It is an honor to meet you for the first time, Your Grace the Grand Duchess. I am the head of House Louvre—”

“You’re Lady Lopez’s father.”

“…Yes, Your Grace.”

Cut off yet again by the ducal couple, the Count’s face turned red.

Still, considering she had just saved his life, he felt somewhat fortunate—until Bellona drove him into a corner.

“When is the wedding? It’d be best to hold it before Lady Lopez’s belly shows too much.”

The Count’s eyes widened in shock.

“Ah, I suppose you didn’t know. Oh dear. I may have misspoken…”

Bellona glanced awkwardly at Caelus, who gently patted her hand with a soft smile.

“It’s no slip of the tongue. Everyone in the palace knows Lady Lopez and the Crown Prince shared a bed. It’s the Count’s fault for not knowing.”

“Still…” Looking genuinely sorry, Bellona continued in a concerned tone, “Had we known the Crown Prince would end up like this, and Lady Lopez would behave so carelessly… I’m afraid your position must be quite difficult, Count.”

“……!”

“What if Lady Lopez really did conceive the Crown Prince’s child?”

“There are even rumors that Impes is Marquis Graeme’s son. If that were proven true… hmm. Quite the scandal, indeed.”

At the couple’s ‘concerned’ exchange, the Count’s complexion turned deathly pale.