The Princess' Bedroom Doll

Raha held the blue jewel tightly. She remembered that Shed said that her clothes were too thin for winter. She looked down at the silver needle that held her thick shawl securely in place so it wouldn’t slip. Why did Shed do this?

A color that filled her empty chest as if it was sewn together.

“In whose name did it come?”

“It was sent from an ordinary Eastern Kingdom.”

“I see.”

Raha thought it was mixed and sent somewhere. But it was great.

Raha, who had been looking down at the brooch for a long time, got up from her seat. Her feet, wet with water, moved lightly on the green grass. 

“Where are you going, Princess?”

“I need to eat something. I’m hungry.”

Oliver’s ears perked up. He couldn’t remember when was the last time the Princess said she was hungry.

When the master regained her appetite for the first time in a very long time, there was even a commotion in the kitchen of the Princess’s Palace. The chefs scurried about, and soon the hot, delicious food was served.

“Princess, just in case you want to eat more, more food has been prepared……..”

“This is enough. Do you want to feed me all the food in the imperial Palace?”

“It’s not like that, but….”

Freshly baked soft white bread and fresh salad were placed before Raha. Golden butter with fragrant fried nuts and fruit jams in a variety of colors hung on both sides, beef wrapped in large leaves and baked whole in the oven, and a chicken dish with lemon juice also smelled delicious. Iced tea with ice floating in it was also in the crystal goblet.

Raha started eating slowly. The quantity was too much for her to finish, but compared to the past when she could not eat even a few slices properly, this was amazing.

When the meal was almost over, an unexpected visitor came to visit.

“Princess, I’m sorry to come unannounced.”

It was Jamela. She was a little surprised to see Raha eating, but did not lose her dignity. With the graceful appearance of a grand noblewoman, she cut to the chase about the business that brought her here to visit.

“A few moments ago, His Majesty declared war on the Thirteen Kingdoms’s Union.”

* * *

“What in the world is this?”

Karzen chuckled. The letter in his hand fluttered.

“Your Majesty. I have received confidential information.”

The Thirteen Kingdoms’ Union has conducted an experiment to destroy the blessings of the Del Harsa royal family. This news came to him in secret only a few days ago.

He was not surprised.

Karzen “deliberately” did not destroy the Holy Land completely. There was no reason why he couldn’t do it if he wanted to step all over it. He just didn’t do it because the loss would have been overwhelming when he calculated the actual profit.

Above all.

The experimental subjects in the Holy Land pulled sins and threw them as slaves of Raha, but he could not kill all of them, even the priests who led the experiment.

There were reasons to observe people who believed in God as if it were their life. But above all, it was Karzen who calculated that if he could keep some of the foundations of the experiment alive, it would spread like insects across the continent.

Because that would be the cause of the war.

The number of kingdoms that Karzen had trampled on exceeded ten, and now they all succumbed to violence and fear. Karzen’s new concern was that he had no country to trample on even if he wanted to go to war. It was impossible to wage war without a cause.

So Karzen sowed the seeds of war names all over the place by keeping alive those who led the experiment.

Be fooled by the possibility that anyone could destroy Del Harsa. They proceeded with the experiment in secret and were found out.

It was a good excuse for Delo to go to war.

“Why is this so stupid and uninteresting?”

Karzen tapped the table. It was within the expected range of being enthralled by the possibility of devouring them, but the problem was timing.

“Isn’t it a bad time to start a war right now? Raha’s health isn’t very good either. “

Duke Winston was eager to oppose the expedition, especially since Karzen was about to marry Jamela.

Karzen didn’t like it either. He wondered when the slave would return and whisper to Raha about running away, and what expression his twin would show when he killed the slave in front of Raha’s eyes. That made the decision easy. It had been a long time since the war, but it was not difficult to postpone it to a later date.

[Listen up, kings of the Thirteen Kingdoms. I’ll send all the experimental subjects back to their home countries in the presence of the envoys sent by the Delo Empire. At the same time, immediately send the Crown Princes or members of the immediate royal families of equivalent rank and status back to Delo. They will be taken as first class prisoners of war].

In return for his unsinkability, Karzen sent a letter to the Thirteen Kingdoms advising them to surrender. It was a generous offer, far better than being trampled on by the imperial army.

It was, but …….

The answer Karzen got back was beyond his imagination.

 [The 13 Kingdoms’s Union announces in a knightly manner that we have gathered a great cause not to accept the tyrant’s unfair surrender condition.]

No one on the continent could have predicted it. That the 13 Kingdoms’s Union would dare to refuse Delo Empire’s offer.

“They have gathered a great cause. It’s amazing.”

Karzen’s shoulders gradually began to shake. Soon, his loud laughter filled the national political conference room.

“It’s interesting. Very amusing.”

None of the nobles seated in the conference room could open their mouths. In the huge conference room, where only overwhelming silence prevailed, Karzen, who had spent his entire life at war, slowly raised his head.

“It seems I have been treating the Holy Land so nicely. I didn’t know there were some arrogant b*stards like this….”

Instead of having the eyes of a successor, the emperor decided to marry a daughter from a strong family as his empress.

Did that make him look weak? Were they going to rub it in the face of a monarch whose momentum has waned in anticipation of a national wedding? The intention was not transparent. Karzen’s gray eyes were already half turned.

“Tell the thirteen insane kings!”

Karzen rose from his seat and laughed, a madness expression on his face.

“Under the forces of Delo, they will be begging for the mercy that they refused!”

 “Long live the emperor!”

Karzen kicked his seat and left the conference room. Immediately the huge conference room became as noisy as a swarming beehive. Duke Winston’s face turned pale and his mind went blank. This was the moment when all the trouble he had gone through would come to nothing.

‘Did they succeed in the experiment in the Thirteen Kingdoms?’

Otherwise, there was no way they could brazenly give that answer.

Most of the nobles present would have thought the same way. Of course it wouldn’t matter to Karzen.

Whether the experiment was successful or not, the 13 Kingdoms’s Union’s answer was over the top.

It was already as good as a confirmed parent government, and its size was greater than any of the kingdoms it had conquered so far. Therefore, according to the imperial law, the high status nobles also had to participate directly in the war by deploying more than 90% of their household knights.

The matters decided in the conference room that day spread like wildfire, and within a week the news of the war spread to the remote countryside of the empire.

* * *

“Your doctor is not useless at all. You’re almost cured.”

The day of his departure for war, Karzen, who had come to see Raha, spoke in a rather satisfied voice. Raha’s body, which was only bones and skin, had a little flesh on it now. Karzen thought about touching Raha’s body some more, but the war would take at least a few months.

 No need to upset the twin, who was docile.

“Raha.

Yes.”

Karzen pressed the top of Raha’s soft eyelids with his hand.

“There are too many arrogant people because I don’t have these eyes.”

Raha slowly opened her mouth, her eyes were still covered by Karzen.

“I’m sorry, Karzen.”

“Yes.”

“…….”

“You have to apologize to me forever, Raha.”

Raha’s lips shook for a moment. Then she smiled her usual lovely smile. Her eyes are still hidden by Karzen’s hand, and she couldn’t see properly in front of her.

Karzen gave orders to the maids while keeping his gaze fixed on Raha.

“Call the chamberlain.”

The chief chamberlain, who then entered the Princess’s bedroom, bowed his head deeply. Karzen gave a short order.

“Bring it.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. I have it ready.”

In an instant, luxurious treasure chests piled up in Raha’s bedroom. But such treasures were trivial things Raha always saw.

Rather, it was something else that caught Raha’s and her attendants.

Sitting in the golden birdcage was a bird. A silver snipe. Thin and pointy-mouthed, with pitch-black, round eyes. And the dazzling silver feathers that deserved the nickname “bird bathed in the moonlight”… It was a precious and beautiful bird.

Raha fluttered her eyelashes and asked.

“Is it Lady Jamela’s bird?”

“No way. It’s yours, Raha.”

Instantly, goosebumps rose along her spine. Raha was glad that Karzen was not hugging her. She asked in an innocent tone.

“Mine? If Duke Winston knew, he would probably have a stomach ache.”

“The silver bird I had given to Lady Winston was a very similar one.

I caught another one as a backup just in case.” (*It was a tradition to give the silver bird to the soon- to- be empress. But Karzen gave one to Raha too.)

‘Then why don’t you just give this one to Jamela Winston from the start? Or you should raise it yourself.’

Despite what she thought, Raha said, looking at the silver bird sitting in the birdcage with a stunned expression.

“If Lady Jamela’s silver bird dies, she will be very heartbroken. I’m taking care of this one just in case.”

“Okay. Raha.”

A perfect answer that didn’t go against Karzen’s mood in the slightest. Raha motioned at the birdcage. The attendants hurriedly carried the precious bird away.

“It’s already time to go.”

Karzen was already clad in armor and cloak from the time he came to Raha’s bedroom.

“There are many rare treasures in the Thirteen Kingdoms’s Union. Is there any gift you would like to have?”