When the Female Lead Went Off-Script, the Main Male Lead Became the Tyrant's Empress - Chapter 16.1
Arden silently watched Haster standing with his back against the gazebo.
A warm breeze that blew intermittently softly tousled his dark black hair, as though teasing the night sky itself.
His gaze was directed toward his feet, but his eyes were searching somewhere in the past.
A faint expression Arden had never once seen before surfaced upon his face.
The sight was so unfamiliar that it felt unreal, and the countless questions rising onto Arden’s tongue vanished before they could become words.
Arden didn’t need to ask.
His blue eyes held a lyrical light that disappeared and reappeared whenever his curved lashes blinked.
The expression was so faint that it would have been invisible without close attention, yet it explained everything.
Arden had never dreamed that ‘that’ Haster had experienced the sort of brief and intense love found in novels or plays.
Even though he behaved as rigidly as though every emotion had been removed from him.
“……You might unexpectedly marry someone you love.”
Arden muttered in a low, rough voice without realizing it.
“What a strange thing to say.”
Haster raised his head at the mutter.
As though he had been engrossed in a beloved book only to cut his finger on the paper and return to reality, his sharpened eyes focused clearly upon Arden.
“Is there anything more foolish than clinging to an emotion as easily altered and evaporated as love when choosing someone with whom you will spend your entire life? You have a more naive and romantic side than you appear to.”
A strand of laughter brushed across his usual blunt and cold face, as though he had never been lost in sentiment.
It was unmistakably ridicule.
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To Haster, love was no different from a fleeting delusion.
He realized that some time after his relationship with Troanne ended.
They had loved each other passionately.
And they had clashed just as fiercely.
The more they did, the more their relationship collapsed helplessly like a ship sinking in the vast ocean instead of growing stronger.
Shortly before the Winter Solstice Festival, Haster received an urgent message and returned to Yse.
And at the same time he departed, Troanne’s farewell letter was sent.
It had been bound to happen someday.
The problem was that Haster received her letter not long after losing his father.
Troanne had known nothing about it, and when she learned the truth later, she was tormented by guilt and immediately rushed to her former lover.
Haster was surprised that she had come, but he felt neither resentment nor longing.
A considerable amount of time had passed, and his feelings had already cooled.
He had cut away unnecessary emotions such as romantic affection and romance.
To him, love was like cotton candy.
It was incredibly soft and sweet, but in reality, it was nothing more than an endlessly cheap lump of sugar that deceived the tongue.
It looked as soft as a feather, but once it touched the hand, it became sticky and melted into a filthy mess.
‘As long as there is trust and loyalty, no other emotions are necessary.’
Haster engraved those words into his heart.
Several years later, he met Clary.
To speak honestly, Haster had been interested in Clary.
He worked tirelessly along the boundary between seeing her as his niece and seeing her as a woman.
She was forbidden.
She was his niece, and she was someone he had to protect.
That was why Haster acted toward her in the better way.
And his feelings were firmly settled immediately after she received her baptism.
Following that strange experience, the lust and violent impulses remaining in his mind and emotions disappeared completely.
Although Haster found it strange, he didn’t question it deeply.
He loved her. Of course, he loved her as his niece.
Affection for family and affection for a lover were clearly different.
Haster was proud that he hadn’t made a foolish choice, and he was relieved that he hadn’t forced upon her an emotion that would quickly become distorted and would soon disappear.
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* * *
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“Eheheheheng. They called me Your Highness.”
Clary grinned.
Even though she held a noble title, she was an imperial grandchild, so she was addressed as Your Highness rather than Your Grace like one would address a Grand Duke.
It wasn’t a title she had heard only once or twice, but she couldn’t help her cheeks rising every time she heard it.
She tried to restrain the corners of her mouth from constantly lifting, but her facial muscles ignored their owner’s will and acted on their own.
A blond pest tried to ruin her mood by telling her that he would be addressed as Your Majesty in a few weeks, but she ignored him maturely.
“Do you like it enough to grin until your mouth splits?”
“What, should I cry instead?”
At the hateful remark, Clary glared sideways at Arden.
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