The Tyrant's Happy Ending - Chapter 1.8

Still, there were strange habits, too—eating hurriedly before the food ran out, washing obsessively. But these quirks weren’t uncommon among nobles, so they hadn’t seemed too out of place.

However, today’s outing had challenged all those assumptions.

‘No noble would have touched that food.’

Yernen had donned the tattered clothes of a commoner without hesitation, clothes that reeked as though they hadn’t been washed in weeks. And he had eaten in a dirty, shabby tavern that would have made most nobles gag just by entering. Even when Lyle, who hadn’t touched such food since his days on the battlefield, offered Yernen the tasteless soup and coarse bread, Yernen ate without complaint.

There was no disgust. No outburst.

Lyle had expected Yernen to flip the table, sneer at the inedible bread, or take a bite and retch. He had watched closely, anticipating some reaction.

But Yernen simply ate, without a word of protest.
Lyle couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched Yernen handle the tough, rock-hard black bread, the kind usually reserved for long-term military rations.

Rather than biting directly into it, which would have been nearly impossible, Yernen soaked it in the thin soup first, softening it as if he already knew the best way to eat such bread. It was a skill, a survival technique most nobles—or even well-off commoners—wouldn’t know, simply because they’d never have needed to.

Even more astonishing was that when the meal was over, Yernen had cleaned his plate with such grace and care that not a trace of the watery soup was left behind. His table manners were impeccable, even as he dined on the humblest of food.

Lyle was so stunned by this that he continued to observe Yernen for quite some time afterward, dragging him around to various places to test him further. Yet, even after spending hours together, Yernen showed no signs of discomfort, disgust, or even an attempt to purge the unpalatable food he’d just consumed. He seemed unfazed.

This wasn’t just about eating. Yernen clearly knew how to eat such food. That meant he had experienced this kind of life before. And there was no way the Portnum family, or any noble house for that matter, would have allowed a child of their bloodline to live like that.

It had to have been before Yernen took over this body.

This led Lyle to speculate that Yernen might have been a fallen noble—a noble so destitute that they had slipped into poverty. Someone who had once held pride and status but had fallen so far they were living hand-to-mouth, barely scraping by in a dingy inn, refusing to work but too proud to beg, until they could no longer resist the hunger gnawing at their belly.

If that were true, then the theory that Yernen had originally been royalty, or even a noble of higher standing, was completely off.

The Helio family, the ruling imperial house, had always been small in number. Because they were considered to carry divine blood, they were elevated even higher than the founding nobility. Even the most distant branches of the family lived lives of luxury, far surpassing the wealth and status of nobles like the Portnum family.
No matter how much trouble a member of the Helio family caused, they were never truly punished.

The bloodline was sacred, so even the most disgraced royals lived lives of indulgence until their deaths. No one with the Helio name would have experienced the kind of destitution Yernen seemed to know.

Even when Yernen ascended to the throne and ruthlessly killed off all the direct and distant members of the royal family, he didn’t enslave them or reduce their status. He simply executed them swiftly. No royal with Helio blood had ever lived as a commoner.

There was the remote possibility that a Helio could have gone into hiding, blending in with the people, but it seemed unlikely. The temple had a sacred artifact that could track the location of any member of the royal family.

“Still, something feels off,” Lyle muttered.
His instincts were sharp, honed over years on the battlefield. This keen intuition had saved his life, and the lives of his men, countless times. Even here in the capital, where the battles were fought with politics instead of swords, his instincts hadn’t dulled.

And those instincts were telling him that something wasn’t right. Despite the theory that Yernen might be a fallen noble, his gut was screaming that there was more to the story. His intuition kept nudging him toward an impossible conclusion—that his betrothed might be…
‘No. That’s ridiculous.’

It couldn’t be. Yernen Helio was dead. He had died two years ago, right before Lyle’s eyes.
The temple had confirmed that Yernen’s soul had entered the cycle of reincarnation.

Even if Yernen had been reborn, there was no way he could be inhabiting the body of Portnum’s young lord.

‘It can’t be him,’ Lyle thought, trying to shake off the unsettling feeling.

But strangely, instead of finding comfort in the differences he had noticed between Yernen and his betrothed, Lyle felt worse. The more he tried to convince himself that they weren’t the same person, the more disgusted and uneasy he became.
Lyle furrowed his brow, crossing his arms in frustration.

“At this point, it’s almost like I secretly wanted it to be him,” he muttered to himself, feeling the weight of the situation.

“We’re running out of time,” Steffin, his right-hand man, chimed in, sounding equally exasperated.

Steffin was right. The imperial wedding was now less than a week away, and they still hadn’t uncovered the true identity of Lord Portnum. Without that knowledge, they couldn’t determine whether he was a threat or an ally. And that uncertainty left Lyle in a precarious position.
Despite being a war hero who had unified the entire northern continent, Lyle’s current standing as emperor wasn’t secure.

His impressive military feats, which would have cemented his legacy as a Duke of Beltimore, didn’t hold the same weight as the imperial title. In this empire, the emperor’s legitimacy came from the divine bloodline of the Helio family. No matter how powerful or capable Lyle was, the people viewed him as a temporary ruler, a placeholder for the “true” heir who carried Helio’s divine blood.

That’s why Lord Portnum’s stance was so critical. His cooperation—or lack thereof—could either stabilize or further weaken Lyle’s position. But despite being mere days away from the wedding, Lyle still hadn’t figured out who his fiancée truly was.

Strangely enough, Lyle found himself less concerned with Portnum’s exact identity than he used to be.

‘For some reason… it feels like it doesn’t matter,’ he thought.

Despite the harsh words and constant threats of breaking off the engagement, his fiancée seemed to genuinely want Lyle to become the rightful emperor. This shift intrigued Lyle in a new way.

He no longer simply wanted to know who Portnum was for strategic reasons; now, it was personal. He wanted to understand why this person seemed so willing to give up everything, including wealth and status, just to leave.

Steffin was still anxious, wanting to confirm Portnum’s identity to protect Lyle from any hidden schemes. But Lyle’s curiosity had taken a different direction.

‘I just want to know who he really is,’ Lyle mused. ‘Why does he want me to succeed so badly, yet plans to walk away once I’m emperor?’

If Lyle could find out before the wedding, that would be ideal. But even if he didn’t, it wasn’t the end of the world. He was determined to uncover the truth—sooner or later.

“Well… it’s going to be interesting, that’s for sure,” Lyle said with a cold smile, his eyes gleaming like a predator closing in on its prey.

Meanwhile, in the Portnum residence, Yernen clenched his jaw as a wave of nausea hit him. He frowned deeply, feeling queasy. His caretaker, the nanny, rushed to his side, looking panicked.

“My dear, hold on! It’s almost time, just hang in there a little longer!” she exclaimed, gently trying to comfort him.

She knew that physically fragile people were often more sensitive, and her young lord had been in a coma for 18 long years. His body, weakened by so much time in bed, was bound to react strongly to any kind of stress.

To her, Yernen’s sharp temperament was entirely understandable. Someone who had suffered for so long, physically and emotionally, was bound to become easily irritated. She believed that the fact he had held himself together for so long without lashing out more often was a testament to his strength.

“Would you like a little bit of chocolate to help?” she offered kindly.

“No, I’m fine,” Yernen said, though his mind was far from settled. The servant was supposed to arrive soon to announce the beginning of the imperial wedding, but the delay was making him increasingly restless.

The nanny, who had been caring for Yernen for two years, quickly picked up on his irritation. Unfortunately, she didn’t fully understand the real cause of his unease.

She assumed it was the long wait, but in truth, it was the looming reality of marrying Lyle that troubled him.

‘It’s really happening,’ Yernen thought to himself.

He had tried to convince himself that it didn’t matter, but clearly, it did. Marrying Lyle—a man who probably wasn’t even giving it much thought—brought on an unexpected mix of emotions. There was a sense of nostalgia, but also a deep sadness.

Knock, knock.

His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Is it the chamberlain from the Imperial Palace?” the nanny asked as she hurried to the door. But instead of the chamberlain, someone else appeared.

“Yernen.”