Episode 9. Abolished Askaar

Taxes, which had been reduced at best, have soared once again.

Not only that, but most of the welfare programs for the people, such as the numerous medical, educational, and poor relief programs, disappeared.

This is because there was simply not enough money.

All of this happened in less than three years.

“So… where the hell are all our taxes going?”

“Well, the girl next door just got a job as a kitchen maid in the imperial palace, I heard….”

Once called the greatest emperor of all time, Askaar had been reduced to a madman in just three years, and his subjects had become a liability to the people of the empire.

“He’s the Emperor, he’s Nabal, he’s a complete lunatic!”

“Ssh, the guards will hear you. Watch your mouth.”

“What are they going to do if they hear it? “Do they think the country is in good shape now?”

The monuments that had been erected to honor his achievements now came to symbolize not achievement but broken power and arrogance, and the weary and exhausted tried to seize the cracks and somehow right a nation headed for the mud.

But what do they do when the Emperor is out of his mind?

“Well, I heard he’s going crazy and is living with a dead body.”

“The dead body hasn’t even rotted for how many years?”

“Well, he’s been throwing all government money at it to keep it from decaying, so it’s not like it’s going to get any better.”

And the farmers plowing the fields.

“His Majesty the Emperor, cursed by a warlock, has become a madman and is waiting for a princess to wake up from the curse-!”

Children running around through the streets.

“Is that true?”

“Even It’s true. It’s what they say when my son comes to visit during holidays to meditate, he says, that the Emperor eats together with the corpse, sits, and sleeps with the dead body treating her alive.”

The women gathered around and chatted.

All they talked about was the Emperor Askaar.

“Don’t you know, last month, it was tulip season. The Emperor brought a dead person to the tulip fields, and he spent the whole time talking to the dead person about whatever he was talking about.”

“Oh my God, oh my God, that’s so true. What can we do… “If this continues, our country will become truly miserable.

“Tsk tsk, nobles don’t know what to do….”

“The emperor has become ill. Are we going to just watch?

“Anyway, such greedy people live like a dead rat, they will kill themselves like rats.”

A nation under the rule of a great emperor that had once shone like the sun had quickly lost its shine and fallen into stagnation.

One by one, the neighboring nations saw an opportunity to join forces and attack the empire in an attempt to expand their territory and one by one, citizens tired of the unreasonable taxes began to leave for other countries.

Unfortunately, they were all out of Askaar’s mind.

“under… Ashria.”

All he could see was Ashria, the woman he had stayed with three years ago

Askaar spat out a hot breath and thrust his c*ck between her legs. My c*ck, swollen and erect, poked its head through the tiny opening with familiarity.

It should have been painful to thrust something the size of my forearm into her without any foreplay, but she didn’t struggle.

No, she didn’t even move, let alone struggle.

The slender woman on top of him was simply stiff and rigid, lying on the bed like a piece of wood.

“Ashria… Ashria….”

Either way, Askaar gripped her unresponsive pelvis and moved his hips rapidly, his erect glans scraping impatiently against her cold, narrow inner walls.

The damp, sticky flesh that clung to his shaft was no longer the same.

The temperature of the bare skin that touches against his fingertips, the feel of his c*ck in and out of the hole.

A body that had long since ceased to breathe was a completely different beast than the one that was still alive and breathing.

But even as he cradled the hardened corpse in his arms, Askaar didn’t mind, pressing his mouth to the nape of her neck.

But even as he cradled her stiffened body in his arms, Asukaar didn’t care, and he pressed his lips to the nape of her neck.

“I love you, Ashria.”

He kissed every inch of her cold body and plunged his withdrawn c*ck deep inside her once more, feeling the thick ej*culation from Ashria’s cool flesh.

He thrust his hips up a couple more times, grinding his lower body against hers, unleashing a torrent of c*m inside her doll-like body.

Unfortunately for Ashria, all that existed was an uncomfortable resting place.

* * *

Asker’s day began as usual with Ashria.

As soon as he opened his eyes, he looked at the woman he’d slept with the night before, carefully examining her body for any signs of decay or injury.

Then, when the maid brought face wash, he washed himself first, then carefully wipes Ashria’s face with the warm water.

That wasn’t all.

“Ashria, you have to eat this, too. huh?”

Askar muttered to himself as if he was seeing something in vain and ate breakfast with the hardened corpse.

Her eyelids were tightly closed and inaudible, but nevertheless, Askaar placed a fork into her cold hand, saying something or other to see if she was tired.

All the ministers who spoke the truth had their heads cut off by him and died a long time ago. The maids who witnessed the whole scene right next to him looked like they were dead in front of the emperor, but that didn’t mean they were serious about it, that it didn’t stop them from speaking.

Most of the handmaidens who were allowed to come and go from the Emperor’s quarters were from noble families, and the rumors that had been spreading since he had r*ped Ashria had grown even more uncontrollable since her death.

In the past, there were absurd rumors going around that even if an emperor had an affair with the empress, the imperial power was so strong and the support base was so solid that, rather than criticize him for his immorality, it was said that a darker imperial seed would be born and the country would prosper even more.

But not now.

He was no longer the emperor who had once shone in the glory of the empire.

All that remained was an insane man wandering around, searching for the memory of his loved one in the face of a woman’s dead body.

‘Did she really think I would give her a proper burial if she died like this?’

Askaar chuckled with a half-dazed expression and held Ashria, who was now truly a doll, into his arms.

It was all he could do to hold on to her eternal sleep and not let it sag.

The reason why he whispered the words “I love you” was because he knew it was the only word that could distort her face.

Devoured by his own emotions, Askaar didn’t know what he was living for.

Just like Ashria did when she was alive, All he could do was repeat, over and over again, with the same vacant eyes as Ashria’s in life, the same ordinary day as the day before she left.

Even when he thought back, the Ashria of that day had been so ordinary, without the slightest hint of strangeness.

Except for begging to meet Eton, eating more croissants than usual, devouring grilled sea bass like nobody’s business, and tossing and turning in bed.

That day, today, and tomorrow too.

It was an ordinary day, as usual.

* * *

The normal day that Askaar had hoped to continue was soon shattered horribly.

It was to be expected.

It was amazing he’d lasted three years, now that the Emperor was no longer attending to state affairs and spending the country’s wealth on preserving the dead.

For the nobles, who had been secretly preparing to rebel for years, it was no small task to abdicate an emperor who no longer had the will to live.

The shouts of countless knights and the loud noise of shouting filled the palace.

As he sat at his desk reading something with Ashria, Askaar watched the blades come closer and closer, and he gave his head in obedience.

The brilliant Emperor, once called the Sun, was blinded by the fleeting brilliance.

“Behold, my men!”

The emperor who had thrown himself upon the battlefield with his own two feet, and who had slit the throats of so many of his enemies, was no longer existed.

“The burden is the sun, and the sun is all things.”

The end of the great emperor, who had planted the colorful imperial flag embroidered with gold on a bloody battlefield was worse than any other death.

“Revere, worship.”

At his death, the multitudes of his subjects cheered, and Emperor Askaar’s head was thrown to the walls of the palace, each leg to the north and south, one arm to the west, and his torso to the wild beasts. He was torn to pieces and thrown away.

Strangely enough, however, the emperor’s one arm was missing.

In any case, he was no longer the Emperor to be feared and worshipped.

In the wake of Ashria’s death, the shattered nation began to rise one by one under the hands of its many subjects.

Imperial September 2, 1838.

The incompetent Emperor was gone, and the Empire was preparing to welcome a new ruler.

After a dark night, the dawn would come, and they would once again enjoy their former glory.

And Ashria could finally rest in peace.

Beneath the desk where Askaar sat, Lourrane Antkal’s journals were scattered across the floor.