V2 Chapter 116

The Demon Empress sat in her armchair, put one leg over the other, rested her face in her right hand and stared at her reflection in the mirror.

Her expression callous and indifferent as she stared at the beauty reflected in the mirror.

“Boring…” she muttered under her breath.

Every day for her turned into arduous waiting—she had never thought that she would miss him like this the moment he left her side. It was even a miracle for her to be able to endure it until this point. But now… her patience is running low…

It’s been a year… a year without seeing her precious son.

She thought she would be able to endure it, but she was wrong. Every day seemed like torture. Her days turned dull and gray, and her patience started to whittle. And she found herself already losing her calm.

I wanted to see him…

I wanted to feel his warmth…

I wanted to feel his kiss…

—But she couldn’t leave and see him.

Personal reason aside, if she leaves now, the hyenas hiding within the Capital would show their tails and play around as much as they like. Although she wouldn’t care whatever they do, even she herself knows that it would be troublesome if things become worse. She was slowly whittling away all the rats inside the palace, but the more she does it, the harder the others hide. Now, any wrong move would mean rebellion…

If only the war in the south or north, either one would be settled, she would not care about these puny beings who think themselves infallible. But right now, the war is still on-going. If rebellion or any conflict within the Palace appeared now, it would not only affect the war but all the Demon Empire. And if she focuses her attention to her ungrateful brat, the other wolves in wait from every direction would pounce on the current Imperial without hesitation.

From what she had gathered, it seems like the War of Beasts seemed to be doing some shady things in the South. Even that Old Hag from Lilith’s Sin seemed to be quite worrying now that she was keeping her silence. Sitana gnashed her teeth in anger as she thought about these bastards who keep eyeing on her position.

The moment she let her guard down, no matter how strong she is, she would be devoured—

The worst-case scenario would be if Lucifalion contacts the other groups…

Sitana clenched her fist in anger—if not for these idiots, she would have already spent her time with her baby Aanuel a long time ago.

Don’t give me an opportunity… if not, I will surely ground all of you to dust!

Sitana’s eyes flashed a cold gaze. So icy, the entire room was flooded with terrifying killing intent that even the bronze mirror in front of her cracked from an invisible pressure. Individually, she would not even put each of these people in her eyes. However, she can’t do anything reckless if she is being surrounded like this. She was like a Lion being eyed by predators from every direction. Hence, she couldn't make a careless action.

She hated this feeling of constraint.

She dislikes this feeling of being restricted by someone else!

This must have been in Lucifalion’s plan all along…since he was arrogantly placing weeds without a care in her garden.

She never cared about this before, as she was confident about her power.

Absolute power crush everything in its path.

However, she as proven mistaken.

Even personal power has its limitations.

This lesson, she engraved deep in her heart. Next time, she would not be so careless and underestimated everything beneath her. Even an ant can hurt an elephant...indeed, a wise saying. Even still, Sitana smirked in contempt. However, although Lucifalion was indeed smart and intelligent as expected of one of her sons, who bear the name of Orcanium, he must have not considered an external party.

To this, Sitana’s eyes flashed a gentle expression as a certain boy appeared in her mind. Even without her doing, the pawns placed by Lucifalion were getting harassed and slaughtered like pigs one by one. Although she can deal with them, Sitana would fall into an even greater scheme as she would only gather opposition.

However, her baby knight was harassing all these people even without her waiting to make a move.

And it was done in an incredible way that was beyond her.

It was left without any chance of counter-attack—some of them are done by stealing their wealth secretly, and harassing them in the business field, weakening their influence and destroying them little by little.

It’s not something she could do, even with her power and influence. But, her baby knight was doing it instead—even though he was not in the Capital, his hands and limbs still extend into this place. Burrowing deeper and deeper—building a great foundation under everyone’s noses without even arousing any suspicion.

Due to his interference, the pressure on Sitana’s side was relieved little by little, and by the time she knew it, {Adam’s Company}, who had appeared out of nowhere, was now one of the biggest tycoons in the industry of the Demon Empire.

With their reputation and novel products above common satisfactory rate, as well as business policies and ingenious marketing plans, almost half of the business organizations in the Demon Empire were already under the Company’s hands. And it was still increasing.

Despite the opposition and rejection of most nobles and aristocrats, before they knew it, {Adam’s Company} became untouchable in the industry of the Demon Empire.

Sitana shook her head with a faint smile as she recalled the night when a messenger suddenly appeared out of nowhere, claiming to be her baby’s subordinate and asking for support to establishing the Company. At that time, she thought that her Aanuel was just playing around, but never did she think he would be this much of a genius in business as well.

It really surprises her…

An unknown company with unknown origin establishing its power and prestige inside the Imperial Capital just within a few months, even someone like her, The Great Demon Empress, she’s not capable of achieving such success. In any case, she has no talent in crafting and inventing novel things.

Despite her happiness of her precious son finally rising up like a dragon, she was left with complicated emotion.

Because all this happiness and pride backfired on her. These happy emotions turned on her and were increasing her longing and missing for him.

Her desire to see him and hold him tight…was getting stronger.

But she can’t—because her precious baby knight must be spreading his wings in some place and rising up like a comet. She can’t break his ambitions and plans just because of her desires…at least not for now. Obviously, not because she chooses something else, something grand, something like power or influence, or ambitions, or dreams, rather than her precious Aanuel. That would never happen.

For her, nothing is as precious as him.

If she could choose her fate, she’d be willing to abandon the empire and her throne.

Up until now, she’s spent her days on horseback.

She led the army to conquer the lands.

She’s an empress that fulfilled all her roles and worthy of respect.

From the perspective of her people and soldiers, she’s a brave and peerless Empress and Commander.

From the perspective of her enemies, she’s their nightmare on the battlefield.

A terrifying Demon that can make the world tremble.

But nobody but her own tears that flow from her eyes every night and herself know that she’s also a woman longing for her man—her boy to come back. No one could understand the longing and missing messing her mind and squeezing her heart every passing day. After all, before she was an Empress, she too was a…woman…!

But she endured it—she endured her longing for an entire year for him because it’s necessary.

Because it is for his sake…!

Sitana turned her gaze towards the ‘toy’ she had received from him—he called it, ‘Stuffed Toy’…? Her lips arched into a smile. It was a soft doll-like toy, the size that of a child. Made from a very soft hide stuffed with cotton inside. And it extremely looked like her precious Aanuel… did he made it and sent it to her, because he knows that she was missing him dearly all this time…?

Her heart feels sweet.

She was gloomy the entire year because of his leaving but seeing this thing cheered her up a bit.

I will wait for a while.

In any case, he will return a month later—return to her side.

As Sitana was reminiscing about her precious son, a beautiful girl wearing a classic maid uniform entered the room, bringing a silver tray.

“Your Majesty, your evening cup as ordered,” while saying so, she placed the tray at the side of the small table beside the bronze mirror and offered a still steaming cup of coffee.

Sitana’s messy thoughts lost out to the spicy cinnamon-like a coffee blend that was introduced by the {Adam’s Company} which she became fond of, after one taste. The maid bowed politely and step backward, in which, she caught a glance at all the books she dreamed of adding to her collection, but because it was extremely popular and so it was always out of stock. Now, it was actually in the room of her Majesty.

From her memories, the Demon Empress was not much of a reader like her. However, these books were made and written by a certain someone and so, despite not in her taste, she bought every type of book that can be found at {Adam’s Company} to read it, wanting to place it as a treasure. Though, it seems like, before she knew it, the Great Demon Empress become engrossed with the books and now was reading it every time in her spare time, becoming a fan.

Of course, she can’t blame the Demon Empress because the stories written in the books were just soooo good, it could not be compared to other books she had read before. Much less, the paper used was the one invented by the {Adam’s Company} which was extremely neat and white-clean. Accompanied with great stories and pictures, anyone who read it would surely become a fan of it.

Not even the Great Demon Empress could ignore its allure, much less her.

When she had heard about the fact that all these stories were written by His Highness, what kind of shock assailed her—only God knows.

Never did she thought that His Highness could be so learned and intelligent.

Glancing at the piled up books, the maid could only sigh in envy. Here was the collection of romantic short stories she really wanted to read. Fairytales and there was—what they call it, something like a science fiction novel where unimaginable things appeared such as robots, or spaceships, or the world outside of the world—the space, the universe—extremely wonderful.

Of course not only those kinds of books. There are also studying materials such as mathematical books, language books and many more.

Unlike her, the Empress could obtain it without a problem. In fact, every now and then, the people from the {Adam’s Company} would offer her the new books in advance that would be put in sale after a month or so. She was the first for everything.

Sitana took the offered cup and blew across the surface of the black brew.

She really likes the taste of this coffee, no, she fell in love with it. She enjoyed the warmth that spread out from her stomach and chest as she drank in the intimate setting that was a mixture of spiciness and bitterness.

As Sitana was enjoying her evening coffee, the maid stopped behind her and started taking care of her hair.

The maid held the empress’s hair and carefully and meticulously combed it. Her Majesty has never once dedicated any effort into looking after her hair, but her long golden hair that seemed like strands made from the sun was perfect. The maid carefully combed her majesty’s hair as she was afraid of hurting her. That said, her majesty was no stuck up woman, so she wouldn’t throw a fit over a broken strand of hair.

“… Your Majesty, a piece of new information came up. His Highness the Second Prince seemed to have already departed from Okmahun City and was now on his way to the Haaravar Empire along with Princess Sibylla.” The young maid who was carefully combing Sitana’s hair spoke.

This young maid with a beautiful black hair was none other than Somelia Lush, Sitana’s loyal servant.

“Oh? Did he?” Sitana raised her head and look through the figure standing behind her, reflected in the mirror. Her lips curled upwards as she stared at the black haired girl’s beautiful, turquoise eyes and pale pink lips. There was a black choker tied around her neck, appearing like a collar, with its red gemstone shining in the candle’s light.

“Does your majesty not worried about his highness going into the human world…?” she asked, somewhat curious.

“No,” Sitana replied without hesitation. “My baby would not easily be in a disadvantage even if he went to the human world. He’s not that weak…”

“But your Majesty—”

“Somelia, you seemed quite worried about my son…?” Sitana asked, simply out of curiosity,

Though, as this was meant as nothing than an innocent question, Sitana was quite taken aback by her loyal servant’s fierce reaction. The girl’s face instantly turned bright red, and her lips began to tremble. The worried and concerned-filled eyes she had just moments ago were now wide open and nervously moving around, as if avoiding Her Empress gaze.

“N, no, of course not—ah, no, that’s it. It-it’s only right for me to worry about his highness well-being. I am your majesty’s loyal servant and I, I know that your majesty would be hurt if some, something bad happened to his Highness, so, so I—”

“Hmm, sure doesn’t like that’s the only reason,” Sitana smiled mischievously.

Her expression right now was not that of an Empress, but that of a normal close friend. After all, Somelia might be a servant, but she had always been with Sitana ever since she was a child and had been serving her a long time ago.

Somelia was one of the most loyal and most trustworthy people in her side—thus, Sitana treats Somelia and the others like her like a close confidante, sometimes even teasing them like this. She treats them as her sister or even daughters. In exchange, Somelia and the others serve Sitana with utmost loyalty, that they would not hesitate to take their lives if need be.

Only Somelia and the others know that Sitana, the Demon Empress the world knows might be cruel and cold but to those people she acknowledged, she was actually quite a warm person. This is also why they serve the Demon Empress with complete devotion and was willing to give their life to her without any second thoughts.

“..are you saying my son’s charm is not enough, that you would not notice it…?” Sitana asked with a sharp tone.

“Your, your majesty…I…” Somelia took a step back to hide her intense blush.

Seeing this panicking expression, Sitana drop her judgment;

“…I think you need some punishment, my dear bold servant…” Sitana’s lips curled into a mean grin.

To this, Somelia looked askance. Her expression paled but at the same time a strange glint of expectation appeared on her eyes; “Yo, your Majesty—!!?”

… …