Empress of Another World

Thirty Seven

This man! He truly was a tyrant.

He was a terrible man.

He was showing the signs of becoming an oppressor. His father, the former emperor, apparently was the same.

Lucretius’s grandfather, Emperor Kentius, was supposedly a great king who ruled for over 30 years with a firm but fair hand. Unfortunately, Lucretius was showing his resemblance to his horrible father rather than his kind grandfather.

Coming from 21st century Korea, I couldn’t accept a punishment of cutting off someone’s finger especially when I was the reason behind it.

“Don’t do it! You said he is a doctor! Why would you cut off a doctor’s finger? That’s terrible!”

“He is right-handed, so I was planning to cut his left finger. It won’t affect his job at all. I am actually being generous considering he harmed a royal member.”

He sounded as if this was normal. How could he talk about cutting someone’s finger off so nonchalantly?

I became angrier. I shouted at him.

“You are the one who fed me poison, so why are you blaming the doctor?!”

The emperor frowned and didn’t answer me. He just stared quietly.

I couldn’t stop talking. I couldn’t let an innocent man get hurt because of me. However, I realized convincing Lucretius with my 21st-century logic wouldn’t work. I had to try something else.

“Shouldn’t you be the one to be punished first before anyone?”

I wasn’t sure how he would react to my words.

I expected him to get angry or sarcastic, but after staring at me for a while longer, he unexpectedly nodded.

What?

“You’re right.”

“… pardon?”

He grabbed my hand.

Lucretius’s body temperature was usually lower than mine, so whenever he touched me, it felt like a cool air gently blowing against my skin. However, this time, his hands were warmer than mine. My body obviously hadn’t recovered fully yet.

The point was, his reaction was shocking. What he said after was even more baffling.

“What kind of punishment do you think is fair?”

“…”

Did he lose his mind? Was he ok?

I couldn’t understand, so I just stared at him like an idiot. After a long pause, I finally asked him.

“Why… Why are you acting this way?”

Lucretius’s green snake eyes looked at me.

He whispered quietly, “Why? I don’t know.”

“…”

This was very strange. How was I supposed to take this?

I decided to push aside my confusion. Let’s slow down a little. My first goal was to make sure that the doctor didn’t lose his finger. My second goal was to make the emperor understand it was never okay to cut someone’s finger off.

Poisoning and plotting was one thing, but he needed to stop at the finger chopping.

Well, I suppose I had to talk about the poisoning too. I felt like no matter what kind of promise I got from him, he would do it all over again if necessary. The problem was that the next time I get poisoned, I may not wake up.