Please Kill Me - Chapter 192
It seemed like Vasily had come running without taking a single proper breath.
“Ha… ha… I think I know where she’s gone… ha… it’s the sealing stone! The sealing stone!”
“…The sealing stone? How would Yekaterina…?”
Leonid’s eyes narrowed, and then, suddenly, a thought struck him. He froze, recalling the conversation they had had a few months ago about the sealing stone.
No way…
“Yuri! Open the underground prison!”
“Do you really believe Yekaterina went to the sealing stone?”
“I’m not sure, but if she did, it would be a disaster.”
Just hearing the mention of the sealing stone, Leonid could already imagine what Yekaterina might be planning with it.
“If she breaks it, it’ll be chaos!”
“What? No, she can’t break it! The magical density is so high that even getting close would be unbearable for most people. Even during repairs, you’d have to wear heavy equipment just to approach—”
“Then that’s even more of a problem!”
Leonid shouted, stopping himself from continuing to press Yuri, and instead, he started running out.
* * *
Then, present time,
“What about Yekaterina?”
“According to the doctor, it seems she’s passed the critical point. She’s probably asleep now.”
Yuri’s face visibly relaxed at Leonid’s words.
He slumped down on the sofa and swept his face.
“I thought we only had to worry about the Empress, but this is a real mess. What in the world is going on?”
“What’s the state of the altar?”
“It’s a bit damaged, but it’s something we can repair quickly. Since we found it early, there shouldn’t be major damage. We’ve already taken precautions, so there’s no need to worry about that part.”
It sounded like the situation was under control, but Yuri’s words carried a sense of gravity.
He specifically mentioned that there was nothing to worry about ‘that part’.
They still had plenty of issues to deal with. Yekaterina was one of them.
A few hours earlier, Yekaterina had collapsed in front of the altar, and Leonid immediately picked her up and rushed her to the First Prince’s palace. At that moment, he was half out of his mind.
— Get the doctor now! Right now!!
It was the first time Yuri had seen Leonid act so irrationally.
‘I almost thought she was dead.’
When Leonid found Yekaterina, she was already bleeding from both her mouth and nose.
Her face was pale, like a corpse, and her body was cold. So when Yekaterina weakly fluttered her eyelids, it was understandable that Leonid lost his composure in his panic.
Yuri himself couldn’t help but wonder, almost unconsciously, if Yekaterina had died.
Before hearing about Yekaterina’s condition from Leonid after the situation had been roughly handled and they had returned to the First Prince’s palace, Yuri had been anxiously wondering if she had died.
‘I’m relieved that she made it through.’
Yuri couldn’t imagine how Leonid would have reacted to Yekaterina’s death, especially given how he lost control just from her life being in danger.
And then…
Yuri’s gaze turned to the door. He was recalling someone he had seen earlier.
The young man with the blue eyes, who had a face full of unease instead of his usual friendly smile.
He had stayed behind at the palace for some late work and had said not a word to Yuri, just watching him with those wide, vacant eyes.
‘Leonid said the incident at the palace banquet was the work of Dmitry Offenbach.’
And he had heard that Dmitry had taken his sister afterwards.
They were such an odd pair. Siblings who weren’t related by blood, and with no particular warmth between them, yet they resembled each other remarkably.
So, if something had happened to Yekaterina, it wasn’t hard to imagine what Dmitry might have done.
Yuri leaned back against the sofa, feeling like he had lost all his energy in just one night. And it wasn’t surprising, given the number of incidents that had happened.
Yet, Leonid, sitting opposite him, showed no sign of fatigue, which was remarkable. More accurately, he looked almost like a statue.
His face was as rigid as ever, with no sign of exhaustion, only the light of dawn stretching across it.
Yuri could see the first light of dawn through the window.
The night, which had seemed unusually long, was finally passing.
* * *
The sudden death of Emperor Evgeny IV quickly spread throughout Ethiel.
In every region, white tapestries were hung on the walls to mourn the Emperor’s passing, and all the planned festivals were canceled.
The first thing to be canceled was the Emperor’s final command before his death.
That was, all death row prisoners were to be executed on the guillotine.
The guillotine was returned before it was used, and the prisoners were spared their lives once again.
Some were even granted amnesty due to the Emperor’s death.
These were individuals who had committed lesser crimes or noblemen who were convicted of political crimes.
Among them was Duke Leonid Rostislav.
“When the imperial decree was made, everyone expected the Duke’s death, but it looks like we’ll be seeing a lot more of him.”
“No one could have predicted the sudden death of the late Emperor.”
“He’s always going to die one day. He’d been bedridden for a long time, after all….”
