Chapter 58

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Translated by Sylph

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net.
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Clois also thought that the Imperial Palace was particularly quiet from the morning.

Although he was famous for working day and night, he did not hold back his ministers until holidays without reason.

“Even so, it is much quieter than usual.”

At Clois’s murmur, the Chief Chamberlain, who was pouring tea, answered.

“It seems many people have not entered the palace because it is the period of the seasonal festival.”

“Ah, is it already that time?”

The seasonal festival was a short festival in the capital that took place when the seasons changed.

Since the seasonal festival transitioning from autumn to winter was the most prominent, the one from spring to summer was held on a relatively smaller scale.

It seemed he had forgotten about it for that reason.

‘Then many children from the Gifted Center must have gone out as well.’

He remembered that in the documents Seraphina had recently reported, it was written that it was the first official outing period since the children had entered.

Was it because he was aware of the children’s absence?

Even though no sound should have reached him, the Imperial Palace seemed even quieter.

Clois, who was sitting alone drinking tea, said he would go for a walk and headed toward Lilian and Evbien’s graves.

The Chief Chamberlain could not say he would accompany the Emperor on his usual walk and simply bowed his head.

Passing the guards and entering inside, Clois gave a bitter smile as he looked at the graves bathed in sunlight.

Was it because the days were becoming increasingly warm? The trees surrounding the tombstones were in full bloom with large and small flowers.

If there were no tombstones, it was a landscape so beautiful that no one would think of it as a graveyard.

As he walked around and cleared away weeds, he suddenly thought of Evi and approached the bushes where the child always appeared.

‘I think it was around here.’

His face soon hardened as he examined the bushes.

It was strange. Certainly, when Evi returned, there was a path in the bushes that even a small animal could pass through without problem.

However, as if saying he had seen wrong, the path in the bushes was completely blocked with no trace remaining.

‘Didn’t she come and go twice?’

Yet, far from the child being able to enter, the bushes had grown so densely that even a squirrel would have difficulty crossing over.

“This is truly…”

In fact, he had intended to block the bushes.

It bothered Clois that Evi continued to visit this place.

It wasn’t because it was Lilian’s grave.

‘Because Evbien’s grave is also here.’

When she visited for the second time, during their conversation, Evi had briefly pointed at the small tombstone and asked who was buried there.

He couldn’t bring himself to say that his daughter was there. If he did, when Evi found out whose grave this was, the fact that he was the Emperor would be revealed.

But more than that…

‘The words simply wouldn’t come out.’

He hated the idea of saying that a child of the same age as her was buried there more than he hated death itself.

Clois was confused as to where exactly such feelings of his originated.

Was it that he didn’t want to show a child a grave of someone her own age?

Or was it that he didn’t want to show his daughter, lying in the cold ground, the sight of himself laughing and chatting with another child?

‘Why?’

Clois himself was aware that he was being uniquely gentle toward Evi and taking more care of her.

Far from scolding the child who had entered this place, he sent her back as she was, and not stopping there, even sent her a gift.

Moreover, so that the child could continue to meet him, he used a fake identity and had even prepared a professor’s office now.

‘So this is why everyone worked so hard.’

Clois came to understand the hearts of the nobles who tried to push their young children before him in any way possible.

She was just a girl of the same age. A child with the same eye color as Lilian… just about that much.

‘If she had been even a little different, would I not have gone this far?’

Clois imagined Evi with a different hair and eye color.

But even if that child possessed different colors, she would have been equally pitiable.

She would reach out her arms toward him without any guard and hug him tightly while laughing.

Just by seeing that sight, his heart would become full of the desire to do anything for her.

He turned his head and looked toward the Gifted Center.

Since the weekend overlapped with the seasonal festival, there wouldn’t be many children remaining in the Gifted Center.

‘Evi will be staying.’

Elam City was a far place.

Moreover, it was difficult for the Director of the orphanage to move for the sake of one child.

Clois fell into thought as he imagined Evi staying alone in the dormitory.

‘I should tell Seraphina to hurry the opening of the Gifted Center library. Besides that, I should tell her to plan other things so that the children remaining on weekends won’t feel bored or weary.’

Then he remembered something Seraphina had reported.

“As you requested, I have prepared Professor ‘Sian Roshen’s’ office. All the people who have offices there are people who often go on external business trips, so I don’t think it will arouse particular suspicion even if Professor Sian is not seen often.”

She also mentioned that it was prepared similarly to Clois’s office, so please stop by there occasionally.

‘What on earth did she do?’

He became curious about his room, which he hadn’t seen yet.

‘Should I go for a moment?’

Normally, he wouldn’t have even thought of going.

The children might not know him well, but among the professors, there were those who knew his face.

However, wasn’t today coincidentally a day when most people had gone out?

After pondering for a moment, as if he had made up his mind, he looked toward the Gifted Center.

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It was just as Clois had thought.

After returning to his quarters and changing into plain clothes he occasionally wore when going out into the capital, he headed toward the Gifted Center using a secluded path.

Occasionally, a staff member of the Gifted Center passed him, but without recognizing who he was, they just offered a formal greeting and passed by.

He walked toward the professor’s office with a more comfortable mind.

The inside of the Gifted Center was even more silent than he had thought.

‘It’s too quiet.’

There was no way the remaining children wouldn’t be lonely.

‘Well, everyone will be preoccupied during the next outing.’

Clois recalled the academic schedule of the Gifted Center.

This time, everyone would go out excitedly, but next time, going out wouldn’t be easy.

Because there were exams right around that time.

‘That’s why everyone stayed in the dormitory crying.’

Clois had also attended the Gifted Center when he was young.

Because his mother had sent him to solidify his influence in advance, he met noble children of his age.

Even the current Duke Kaylan and Marquis Lagselve. They were all friends and subjects he had met back then.

‘Come to think of it, I heard Arcel and Ruska treated Evi well.’

Evi had been chatting away to Clois about how she had been doing at the Gifted Center lately.

The one she talked about the most was her friend Irene, but the talk about the two boys was by no means small.

‘Speaking of which, when was the last time I saw those two?’

They were children whom Lilian had cherished very much. So they also had a deep friendship with him.

However, after he became Emperor, he had only seen their faces a handful of times.

Even then, it was just accepting their greetings when meeting at large banquets, and there had been no warm conversations.

‘I should call the two of them separately later.’

If he were to choose an heir anyway, it would be one of those two children.

So it wouldn’t be a bad idea to start meeting them frequently again from now on and observe how the two had grown in the meantime.

‘Should I lend them a royal villa during the summer vacation?’

The thought occurred to him that then those children might take care of Evi and go along with her.

In the meantime, he arrived at the professor’s office.

Creak.

Opening the door and stepping inside, he was surprised to see the interior, which was decorated quite similarly to the atmosphere of his office.

Then, seeing the bookshelf filled with books, he swept his hand over his face.

“Is the setting that I’m a foreign language professor?”

If so, he should have just had one of the four main foreign languages; why did she have to put all of them there?

‘It’s not that I can’t do it, but…’

While he was wondering if he should re-study the things he hadn’t used for a long time to act as a professor in front of Evi, he saw a paper placed on the desk.

“Huh?”

It was a child’s handwriting, large and round, recognizable at a glance.

“Hello, Professor Sian…”

[Hello, Professor Sian. I’m Evi Alden. I came because I was notified that your room is here, but since you weren’t here, I’m leaving a letter. Goodbye. (I didn’t touch the books, I just looked. Really.) I’ll come again!]

At the end of the letter, there was a slightly squashed drawing of a rabbit.

At that drawing, the corners of Clois’s eyes curved softly.

To think she had stopped by here before him.

‘How long must she have been waiting?’

A sense of regret washed over him as he imagined her waiting for him for a long time in this place before leaving.

“She says she’ll come again.”

When would that be?