Chapter 41
41
Maria desperately dug at the sand. Thankfully, she hadn't fallen into a deep pit or quicksand-like trap.
'Why do I have to die? What did I do wrong!'
She felt wronged and resentful. She had never spoken harshly to anyone and had only lived her life diligently. It was God or fate that was cruel. They had completely ignored all her efforts and only thrown hardships her way.
'I won't die. I will survive and pay them all back.'
To chase her all the way to Helland to kill her. Nancy must have revealed that she had hidden assets, and that's why Laurent had ordered the dethroned Empress to be killed. They were humans who didn't know the extent of their sins. She could picture it clearly without even seeing the Lastonia Imperial Family. Nancy and Laurent would be vying for Henry's favor. And she would be their sacrifice. Laurent was a greedy person, but Nancy's betrayal filled her with rage the more she thought about it. If she had even a shred of guilt, she should have kept the secret of her hidden wealth.
'I'll give it back to them in the same way.'
She would make Nancy pay the price for her betrayal, for ignoring human decency, and Laurent for treating human life so lightly. And after taking the throne from the incompetent Henry, she would use him as her stepping stone. No, she wouldn't be satisfied until she had completely annihilated the Coburg family, just as they had wiped out her family.
Maria dug at the sand like a half-crazed person. But when she pulled out one leg, the other sank deeper, making it difficult to support herself. But sometimes the mind controls the body, and Maria finally managed to escape from the deep sand. After all that hardship, all she saw was the vast desert stretching out before her. She was speechless. All she could see was sand, with no end in sight.
There wasn't a single blade of grass. This place was probably the gateway to hell. Maria watched the sun begin to set and roughly determined her direction. She wasn't sure if she could reach Helland by heading north from this point.
'Let's just walk. Maybe I'll run into a band of desert bandits.'
She desperately hoped to find at least one other person. But the more she walked, the more her strength rapidly declined. She was terribly thirsty, her lips were cracked, and the moisture in her mouth was gone, making her skin feel like it was about to tear. And that wasn't all. She was slowly being roasted by the scorching sun.
'How did I end up here?'
She couldn't believe that she was crawling through the middle of the desert. The anger that had been boiling in her chest was long buried in the sand, and only the instinct to survive remained. And Maria kept calling out one name.
'Gunther Paisley.'
She couldn't die like this. She had to see him. Or maybe Gunther would come to save her.
'I have something to say.'
She had to tell him that she remembered, that she knew everything that had happened between them ten years ago. She also wanted to thank him for bringing her to Helland. If it hadn't been for Gunther, she would have died at Henry's hands, and her head would have been hung in front of the Lastonia Imperial Palace gate.
'Gunther.'
Maria paused and repeated his name. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she caught the tears flowing down her cheeks and moistened her cracked lips. She was now confused whether it was joy or sorrow. She walked aimlessly forward. Occasionally, when a huge sandstorm blew, she hid behind a large dune. For some reason, the events she had shared with Gunther flashed before her eyes as the sandstorm passed. And she deeply realized.
'I want to see you again...'
She had thought he was a strange man, lacking reason, with excessive obsession and greed, and a self-righteous person who did whatever he wanted. She also mistakenly thought he treated her as a trophy to show off to others. But when she thought about it, he had saved her life several times. Around that time, Maria's thoughts were shattered.
Several shadows were cast on the sand besides her own. She should have been glad, but a cold shiver ran down her spine. She instinctively felt that there was something above her head and slowly looked up. A flock of hungry Magical Creatures were flying around. But they were a little different from ordinary hawks.
'Magical Creature.'
Had they smelled a human? Maria collapsed on the spot. She had only heard about Magical Creatures, but she never thought she would actually see one. From a distance, she had thought they were just hungry hawks, but their appearance was completely different from hawks. They had small heads with large, fist-sized eyeballs that protruded, and strangely, they had multiple pupils. Compared to their short wings, their arrow-shaped tails were very long. They seemed to fly by maintaining balance with their long tails rather than their small wings. Above all, their sharp beaks were so sharp that they looked like they could tear through human flesh, making them threatening.
'What kind of Magical Creature is that?'
Maria racked her brain about what to do. She didn't know what kind of Magical Creature was flying above her head to eat her, but the fact that it had multiple pupils in its large eyes meant that it must have very good eyesight. On the other hand, since it had no nose, it hadn't found her by smelling her.
'I have to hide.'
Maria ran towards a large dune and began digging at the sand. She had to hide until the Magical Creature gave up, thinking its prey had disappeared.
* * *
Henry was preoccupied with the thought of taking possession of Maria's hidden wealth.
'I need Maria's consent to transfer her assets to me.'
It was possible if he removed the disgrace of being a traitor. In the end, Maria couldn't die, but it was also difficult if she lived. If she died, Gunther Paisley would cause a ruckus, and if she lived, she wouldn't easily agree to his demands. In fact, he didn't want Maria to die. She had once been his wife.
'She wasn't an easy woman to begin with.'
Henry ruffled his hair in frustration. He had heard from Nancy about Maria's wealth. He had to receive her assets and sell Maria at a high price to a man who wanted her, as Nancy had suggested. No, selling his ex-wife was too vulgar. She was a Barren Woman who couldn't have children, but she was still young. He was opening the way for Maria to live a good life as her ex-husband. If only she had fixed that stubborn personality of hers. Honestly, she was a flawless Empress.
'No, she was a woman who treated the Emperor like her younger brother. She thought she was the only one who was great.'
Henry shook his head violently.
'An island in the Southern Continent is a goose that lays golden eggs.'
Fortunately, his divorce from Maria had not yet been finalized. Legally, he was still her guardian and husband. Just then, the Chamberlain came to see Henry with a stack of papers. He placed the stack of papers on Henry's desk and sighed.
"Your Majesty, you must take care of this."
"Invitations?"
"Yes, invitations to the late Empress's birthday banquet. We plan to send them to the nobles of the empire as well as the royalty and nobles of friendly nations."
"Look, why should I do such a thing? This is clearly something that should be done by the Inner Palace..."
There was no one to take charge. If he sent out invitations in the name of a mere mistress, everyone would feel disrespected and offended. Moreover, there were quite a few foreign royals who were close to Maria. He couldn't ask Monica, the birthday person, to do it either. It was rightfully the Empress's job.
"This is a headache. Have the Chamberlain do it in my stead."
"Me? Then please write at least the invitation message, Your Majesty..."
"Just find what Maria wrote before and copy it roughly to send it."
"Ah, yes, I see."
But the Chamberlain's face was dark. Maria wrote the invitations with great care, asking about the other person's well-being in great detail, so it was difficult to copy them roughly. Also, she changed the content for each person, so if he wrote and sent them uniformly, the VIPs would not be satisfied. Besides, he had terrible handwriting. At that moment, the door to the office opened and three women rushed in at once.
"Emperor, on my mother's birthday, I want to go boating on the lake."
"Boating?"
His mother was quick to find things that cost money. He was tearfully grateful.
"Your Majesty, no, Henry... Will our precious son become a prince? When?"
"You should say a son who doesn't hurt even if you put him in your eyes."
He used to find Laurent's clumsy Lastonian language cute, but now it was starting to annoy him slightly. Above all, Laurent's son could not be registered in the imperial family's registry for the time being. Maria's matter had not yet been resolved, so why was she talking about a prince?
"Your Majesty, will you come to me tonight? I've been crying every day since the miscarriage..."
Nancy was crying again. Henry squeezed his eyes shut and rubbed his face with both hands.
'The Imperial Family is a mess.'
At this moment, he felt Maria's absence keenly.