Chapter 1: The Puppet Cuts Its Strings

Even the moonlight was trapped behind the clouds, plunging the whole world into darkness.

At the most secluded corner of the imperial palace, atop a tower built of solid stone, a man stood.

Beneath his blue hair, violet eyes glimmered with a chilling light.

“Not satisfied with taking my mother’s life, now you’re trying to kill me as well.”

On the open rooftop of the tower, the man spoke with a solemn face.

Then, from within the shadows, a figure stepped forward.

An elderly man with neatly combed gray hair, sharply drawn eyebrows, and piercing eyes that shone fiercely.

He was Kazhin Fabian, the marquis who currently held the Schubert Empire in his grasp.

“If you had just quietly kept pretending to be emperor, none of this would be happening. Why did you have to be so reckless?”

“I, Rohan Schubert, am the emperor of this empire. I only sought to fulfill my duty as emperor.”

“Well, whatever the case, Your Majesty’s plan has failed. Starting tomorrow, you’ll become the tragic emperor who, unable to bear your mother’s death, chose to end your own life.”

Even before the marquis finished his mocking words, Rohan, by some magical power, began to walk toward the edge of the tower.

“…!”

It was his own body, yet he could not control it.

As if he were a puppet on strings.

“Tomorrow, a new sun will rise over the empire. A sun named Elliot Schubert. And this war will go on.”

The marquis was already smiling with delight.

Thud.

Now his feet reached the very edge, so precariously close.

Gritting his teeth, Rohan barely managed to speak.

“To murder the emperor is treason. Are you not afraid of what will follow? If Elliot discovers the truth, he’ll never trust you—he’ll watch you with suspicion for the rest of your life!”

Of all days, on the third prince Elliot’s twelfth birthday, the emperor threw himself from the tower. Naturally, it would be suspicious.

But the marquis laughed cheerfully, as though he’d just heard the most entertaining story.

Raising his eyebrows, he replied,

“Even so, who could possibly oppose me?”

A sly grin twisted his lips.

“Have you already forgotten who stands behind the sun?”

With those words, he drew a pocket watch from his breast and spoke with a fastidious expression.

“Oh dear, it’s time.”

At the same moment—

“…!”

Rohan’s body floated up into the air.

With graceful poise, Marquis Fabian offered Rohan a final farewell.

“Well then, goodbye.”

Overwhelmed by the sensation of weightlessness, Rohan’s body plummeted.

As he fell toward the ground, his first thought was, ‘Is this how I die—so pathetically?’

His mother, who was born a commoner and suffered every kind of scorn just for bearing the emperor’s blood.

He himself, forced to live quietly like a mouse, the emperor’s thorn in the side.

And the past, in which he tried to fulfill his imperial duty, putting that above even his mother’s life, in order to stop their crimes.

‘Should I never have accepted that man’s request from the very beginning?’

Rohan thought, gazing into the dark sky.



―Just six years. All you need to do is hold the throne in Crown Prince Joshua’s stead for that long.



If he would only become emperor for six years, he would be allowed to go live in the countryside with his ailing mother, just as he wished.

He would be able to leave this hellish palace.

That was how he had first become emperor.

But in this cruel palace, his younger self had been far too naïve.

‘Would it have been better to do nothing at all?’

Studying late into the night to protect his powerless mother, building up influence to stop the war, moving to seize opportunities for a counterattack—those bitter, toilsome days.

Yet the outcome was utter failure.

The deaths of those who had devoted themselves to the empire alongside him, and even his mother’s death.

If he had known all those sacrifices would end in such a miserable death and failure, would he have chosen differently?

Transparent tears welled in Rohan’s eyes, reaching up to the heavens.

And soon, those tears turned to tears of blood.

“…No.”

He would not have.

Even if he’d known the future, he would still have done the same.

To block Kazhin Fabian’s path, and to protect the empire, he would have made the same choice.

“I… am the emperor of the Schubert Empire.”

For that was the emperor’s duty.

Crash!

Even at the moment his body hit the ground and his life was shattered,

The violet eyes that symbolized the Schubert imperial family were fixed on the tower, unstirred, even as tears of blood fell.



***



“…Your Highness.”

“…”

“Ahem, no matter how tired you are, it wouldn’t do to sleep in the middle of a match, would it?”

Flash!

Rohan’s eyes snapped open.

Before him stood his vassals, looking at him with utter exasperation.

‘What is this?’

A skash board for games was set before him, and there was only one piece left on his side.

It was a strangely familiar scene.

“Well, Your Highness’s Kingshir seems to have met its end anyway.”

Tap.

The opponent’s pawn lightly knocked over the Kingshir, the last remaining piece, which collapsed weakly onto the board.

“My apologies. I never imagined I’d win so easily against Your Highness in skash.”

“…”

Though the words were polite, the tone was unmistakably one of expecting victory.

Ding!

The attendant in the center rang the bell on the table, signaling the end of the match.

“Count Nidro is the victor of the match.”

“Haha, since I win every time, it’s almost embarrassing to keep playing.”

The wrinkled old man stroked his beard and laughed.

“It’s fine, Count Nidro. I feel like I’ve learned something valuable today.”

Rohan rose from his seat.

“I’m a bit tired today. I’ll take my leave.”

As he turned, attendants draped a long, splendid cloak over his shoulders.

It was a golden tunic adorned with the imperial crest, reserved only for royalty.

Step, step, step.

He walked down a familiar corridor.

“We greet Your Highness, the prince.”

Everyone passing by bowed their heads to Rohan.

And they whispered among themselves.

“Shall I call a physician, Your Highness?”

When he reached his bedchamber, an attendant asked.

“No, I’d rather be alone.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

At Rohan’s reply, the attendant bowed and withdrew.

Left alone, Rohan surveyed his bedchamber.

“It all feels so real.”

What was this situation?

They said people saw their life flash before their eyes before death—was this that phenomenon?

Rohan clenched and unclenched his hands repeatedly.

He touched the table, the bed, and even opened the window to gaze at the scene outside.

But it was too vivid, too lively to be just a dream or memory.

“Ah.”

And then, as he looked in the mirror, Rohan couldn’t help but gasp softly.

‘So young!’

A boy’s face, still not fully grown, looked back at him.

“What is going on?”

Startled, he brought his face close to the mirror.

And then, under his chin, he spotted a faint scar that hadn’t quite healed.

“This…”

It was a scar he knew well.

He had gotten it on his fourteenth birthday, trying to hold a cat that had wandered into the palace.

‘Mother scolded me so harshly for scratching myself back then.’

Now it was just a happy memory.

Mother was no longer in this world.

“Wait.”

Rohan’s body froze in place.

If all this wasn’t a dream, but reality… Then Mother would be…

At that moment, someone knocked at the door from outside.

“Your Highness, Her Majesty the Empress is asking for you.”

“…!”

Rohan stared blankly at the door in surprise, then, as if possessed, opened his mouth to speak.

“Understood. Let’s go.”



***



“My prince.”

On a white bed, with a beautiful smile and warm eyes, his mother gazed at him.

“M-Mother…”

Rohan could barely speak.

“Why do you look so pale? Are you feeling unwell? Shall I call for the physician at once…?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Whether it was a dream or a vision, it didn’t matter.

Standing before his mother now, it felt as if he’d received a gift from the gods.

Rohan took Empress Amanda’s hand.

“Mother, I missed you. So much…”

His shoulders trembled, and his nose stung.

Tears threatened to spill, but Rohan held them back.

He feared that, if he cried, she might disappear.

“Did Count Nidro treat you poorly in the match today? Or did His Majesty the Emperor scold you? Please, Your Highness, say something, anything.”

Amanda’s face turned as white as a sheet as she grew more and more anxious.

Rohan, choked up with emotion, could barely force out a word.

“That’s not…”

“A-ah.”

Amanda suddenly swayed in her seat.

“…Mother!”

Alarmed, Rohan rushed to support her.

Her breathing was quick, and cold sweat broke out on her brow.

“Damn it, physician! Bring the physician, now!”

At Rohan’s cry, the attendants hurriedly ran off.

“Mother, are you all right? Mother!”

Yes, that was it.

The year he turned fourteen, his mother’s illness had suddenly worsened.

A mysterious frailty.

Whenever anything worried or upset her, she would collapse just like this and lose consciousness.

‘Is this really happening?’

His hands, supporting his unconscious mother, trembled uncontrollably.

A chill ran down his spine at the fear of losing her again.



“…Ha.”

As soon as Rohan returned to his bedchamber, he slid down against the door.

The physician had come, and, needing to let his mother rest, he had left her for now.

‘I’ve really come back. To the past.’

It was an unbelievable reality.

He recalled, for a moment, the resolve he’d held before dying.

Even if he’d known the future, he had vowed to block Marquis Fabian just the same.

Then this was…

“A chance given by the gods.”

Or perhaps, a sweet gift granted by the devil.

It didn’t matter which.

Even if it cost his life again, as long as he could stop that man and reclaim the empire.

Clench.

Rohan’s fist tightened until his knuckles turned white.

“Kazhin Fabian.”

His low, growling voice echoed in the quiet bedchamber.

If it was just after his fourteenth birthday, then it was now spring of Imperial Year 652.

‘In that case…’

Rohan opened a drawer, took out paper, and began to write.

“The crown prince is already gone.”

He drew a line through the name Joshua Schubert.

It had been about three or four months since the crown prince died of a sudden illness. As he remembered, it had been before his own fourteenth birthday.

‘The nobles who followed the crown prince were in an uproar.’

Even now, the palace nobility must be in chaos.

Especially those who supported the crown prince’s faction.

“The real problem is the current emperor, Beltar’s, illness.”

Rohan tapped the pen on the paper, lost in thought.

No one knew it yet, but his father, the current emperor Beltar Schubert, had long suffered from a chronic illness.

It started with his hands and feet, gradually stiffening his entire body. There was no cure, and by now, priests must be trying everything they could.

‘It was only much later that we learned the loss of the crown prince, whom he had cherished, had deepened Beltar’s grief and made his condition worse.’

Everyone—ministers, officials, nobles—only learned the truth after the emperor’s death.

He had kept his illness an utmost secret, fearing the empire would waver if he did.

With the crown prince gone, only Rohan and Elliot remained as successors, but the emperor had no confidence in Rohan, and Elliot was just five years old—how could he easily pass on the throne?

“The important thing is that I already know all this.”

And not just that—he knew exactly when the emperor would die.

About a year from now, when the emperor passed away, Marquis Fabian would approach him.

He’d ask Rohan to serve as emperor until Elliot turned ten.

“At the time, I was too powerless.”

Next to ‘Emperor,’ Rohan wrote ‘Kazhin Fabian’ and circled it.

Below that, he wrote his mother Amanda’s and his own name.

A frail, common-born empress and a puppet prince with no influence.

‘Looking at it now, I was just the perfect tool to be used.’

A hopeless past.

Scratch, scratch!

The sound of his pen racing across the paper echoed through the room for a long time.

After a while, Rohan finally stopped and stared at the paper.

On it were detailed notes of all the major future events he could remember.

Knowing the future—

That would give him tremendous power.

With only a year left before the emperor’s death, he had to make the most of that short time by creating something different from before, so he wrote down everything he could recall.

“Hmmm.”

He stroked his chin.

Knowledge of the empire?

Future events?

All valuable information, but there was something important missing here.

That was the ‘weapon’ he’d need to oppose Fabian.

With no power at all at the present, the one thing he could be grateful for was that Kazhin Fabian was away as an envoy to another country for four months.

And he had to use that time, while his nemesis was gone, to prepare as much as possible.

“Who would be good?”

Rohan had an excellent memory. Once he saw something, he never forgot it.

So to him, memory was wealth—a stockpile for war.

But no matter how many supplies one has, they’re useless without allies willing to fight at his side.

“Of course… for now, those two.”

Two people came naturally to Rohan’s mind.