I Will Disappear, Grand Duke

Fernan tilted his head and stared at the emperor.  And he glanced at the daughter of Viscount Cerevis.

 At this moment, a memory flashed through his mind.

 Cerevis.  A family that had been pushed out of the capital for a long time due to misconnection two generations ago.

 However, they did not stand out only externally, and they were a family that was more active underground than anyone else.

 A drug dealer secretly favored by some filthy nobles.

 And a brothel operating illegally on the night streets outside the capital.

 Behind them was Viscount Cerevis.

 This was a fact that Fernan learned during the process of identifying the source of the potion that Marquis Elody once tried to give him through Julia.

 Fernan, who finished his thoughts in a brief moment, quickly made up a bright smile.

 “I do not know what to do, Your Majesty, because you have spared no heart for this nephew.”

 The emperor, whose eyes widened for a moment in response to the gentle reaction, nodded with satisfaction.

 “You are like my son, so it’s only natural for me to use my heart.”

 At those words, a smirk passed from Fernan's sullen smile.  Soon he let out a meaningful voice.

 “However, I didn’t know that the Viscount Cerevis was a family to Your Majesty.”

 Saying so, he glanced at the woman sitting quietly for a moment, and she replied shyly with a smile of hope.

 Fernan, who had a slight frown at the sight, turned his gaze to the emperor again.

 It was in an instant that the happy face of the emperor was broken.

 "Is it safe to assume that Your Majesty is behind the black market managed by Viscount Cerevis?"

As expected, the emperor began to falter with his mouth slightly open. He immediately tried to hide his shaking face.

 Fernan, who had been watching the funny thing for a while, continued to speak slowly.

 “I’m very curious. How can Viscount Cerevis, who was pushed out of the court, manage such a large-scale organization?  Now that question is resolved."

 Unless there was someone behind him, the Viscount, who had no power, could not so secretly spread his powers underground.

 As long as the emperor supported and tolerated it, anything could happen.

 "…I have absolutely no idea what the Grand Duke is talking about."

 The emperor opened his mouth as if to swear with a solemn voice.

 After Fernand straightened his tilted head, he responded as if he was sorry.

 “Is that so?  If not, I will make this matter public right now and reveal the real culprit behind it.”

 The emperor's face hardened at that moment. Viscount Cerevis’s daughter was also trembling anxiously with a frozen face.

 Staring at them in turn, Fernan stood up.

 “If Your Majesty is still not convinced, I will send someone to the territory immediately and hand over the list of illegal transactions I found out to the Inspection Department directly.”

 “Come on, wait.”

 The emperor grabbed the armrest of the throne anxiously and nodded his head toward the servant.

 At the unspoken command to take the woman out, the attendant approached the woman who was sitting like a stone statue.

 The woman, who forcibly got up from her seat, looked back and walked out of the audience room as if being dragged away.

Snap, as the door closed, the emperor cried out with a face that couldn't contain his anger.

 “Grand Duke, how can you be so arrogant?  How dare you try to stigmatize me with such groundless words!"

 "stigma…"

Fernand stared coldly at the emperor with a completely cleared face.

 "Your Majesty, I am one of those who wish for peace in the Empire."

 “Now, what do you mean by that?”

 The Emperor glared at Fernan with blazing eyes. As if he had found the seeds of rebellion.

 Fernan did not avoid that blatant gaze and continued to speak.

 “Do you think that the stigma of Your Majesty that I have been silent about will end with this?”

 Until now, the emperor's misconduct had been unilaterally met without any countermeasures.

 Even if he acted like a solid saint, the emperor was an old man with a very bad background. Fernan had so many of the emperor’s flaws in his hand.

 Exactly, for a day like this.

 “So it would be beneficial to each other if you no longer get involved in my marriage.”

 “You, you… !"

 “Please, I ask for your cooperation so that I can remain loyal to the Empire until the end.”

 As the words continued as if he was engraving each word, the emperor began to tremble. Although Fernan had not been compliant with the imperial family until now, at least he did not do anything against the emperor's will.

 For this reason, the emperor doubted his true intentions, but he knew implicitly that in the end everything would go his way.

 But now it was different.  Fernan looked like he had nowhere to turn.  After all, he was a madman with eyes that looked like he was willing to die for treason. The emperor’s lips quivered, unable to maintain his expression.

 When Fernan began to act like a madman, there was nothing good for the Emperor.

 Fernan, who escaped from the Emperor's reception room, stepped forward without stopping.

 Even after the storm had passed, he was as expressionless as he did at first.

 He just wanted to get out of this imperial palace as soon as possible.

 The Imperial Palace was the place where his childhood was contained.  He stayed here until about fifteen.

 But he had no reason to get drunk on nostalgia because he had no good memories here.

 Ever since his father passed away by accident, Fernan has been a thorn in the eyes of everyone in this imperial palace.

 His uncle (the emperor is Fernan’s uncle), who suddenly ascended the throne after the death of his eldest brother (Fernan’s father), has been anxious since then to somehow take down his nephew.

 The emperor, who was terrified that his young nephew, who could not even make sense of it, might lose his place.

 Every time there was a big event in the imperial family, Fernan’s position became more and more ambiguous.  Much less the emperor was extremely reluctant to have his nephew in his entourage.

 He (emperor) sometimes put the young man (Fernan) in the middle of a banquet hall, venting his pressure in a clever way.  His mother (Fernan’s mother), who could not see it, always took her son to a small closet before a banquet.

 “No one's going to hurt you if you stay here.”

 Was that why?  From some point on, it became a natural habit to enter the closet on the day of the banquet.  Around the age of ten, even after his mother died.

 That shabby closet, where no one came, was the most comfortable place for him as a child. Even the day before he was going to war, he went in the closet, predicting the future.

 In the distant banquet hall, a banquet was held to pray for the safe return of the Imperial Army was in full swing.  Even though the war that sent them to death was clear, there was no lack of pretentiousness.

  Recalling that day, Fernan's steps paused for a moment.  It was because something, a small memory stuck in a corner of his mind suddenly hit his brain and popped out.

 In that closet that day, he met someone.

It was a child….. His golden eyes gradually narrowed as if measuring his memory.  A shabby closet where no one enters except for him.

 It was the first time someone had appeared there.

 The door closed with a sharp broken voice, and the quiet cries filled the room, and the memories became clearer.

 At the sound of crying sadly, Fernan’s agony, which was estimated the day of his death, shattered in an instant.

 So he went to the little girl. She looked only about thirteen years old.

 Perhaps her appearance of crying alone overlapped with his childhood. So he reached out his hand unbecomingly and stayed with her until she stopped crying. In the end, he gave her his name.

 Fernan, who had completely stopped his steps, his eyes began to tremble.

 The old memory that he had never recalled in his life, the child to be exact, gradually took shape in his head.

 Two big eyes filled with tears. Wavy light hair. She glanced at him, holding his hand tightly.

 “Can you tell me your name…  ?”

 “Fernan.”

 “…  ”

 “If we meet again someday, I will tell you my name then.”

 The girl he met again after so many years… definitely kept that promise.

 “My name is Julia.”

 “Do you remember me?  We met a long time ago…”

 On the day of the wedding, Julia asked if he remembered her, and she was talking about that day.

 Fernan touched his forehead as if he was far away, like someone who didn't know what expression to make.  Julia had remembered him from the beginning.

 Even though it was only a small memory that he had buried somewhere in his head and never brought it out.

With his forehead distorted, Fernan looked down with an empty gaze. Was the memory so precious to her, that she couldn't say anything to the man who only hurt her so much?

 Like a fool, he closed his heart from the beginning…

 At this moment, he felt like his heart plummeted hard somewhere.

 From the moment he found out that she was the illegitimate child, he could understand to some extent the reason for Julia’s fragile nature.

 But more than he alone could have guessed, Julia had more wounds.

 He also didn't know that she had to hold her breath and cried because she was born as an illegitimate child and had to be trapped in the small room without even attending the banquet.

 His distant and deep emotions boiled in his stomach. His heart beat violently.

 Fernan narrowed his forehead painfully and grabbed his collar tightly.