Chapter 448 --448
Chapter 448: Chapter-448
Elara looked down at the weeping, trembling creature. Her hand remained resting quietly against the velvet folds of her gown. Her pulse was steady, but deep within the unmapped center of her chest, that strange, localized warmth throbbed once—heavy, cold, and silent."Are you finished with your nonsense?" Elara asked flatly. Her voice didn’t carry a hint of anger, nor did it hold a trace of defensiveness. It was a perfectly smooth line of clinical dismissal.
The system stared at her, its tiny chest heaving as it slowly lowered its paw. It wiped its face with the back of its arm, the violet glare around its form fading into a dull, exhausted gray.
"You will regret this," the system whispered, its voice suddenly hollow, stripped of its previous rage. "You will eventually realize that what I am saying is completely accurate. And I am going to wait for that day to come."
With a faint, bitter flicker of light, the system vanished from the corridor, leaving Elara entirely alone in the vast, quiet corridor.
Elara stood in the center of the hall for three seconds, analyzing the silence. She did not dissect his psychological evaluation of her past life, nor did she log his hypothesis regarding her fear. She simply turned her body toward the southern exit and resumed her measured walk toward the courtyard. The winter berry inventory was still waiting.
After a grueling, uninterrupted day of auditing provincial land records and overseeing the winter grain distribution, Elara came to a sudden, logical realization. She literally did not possess free time.
From the moment she opened her eyes in the morning until the hour she returned to her chambers, her schedule was entirely saturated with state affairs. Even when she physically went to bed, she was frequently still awake, reviewing military requisitions late into the night until the dawn light bled through her curtains.
Julian, who had been sitting across the chamber waiting to discuss the delayed northern border treaty, stared at her with a look of utter exhaustion and mild disgust.
"Are you a human, a machine, or what kind of nonsense are you?" Julian asked, his voice dripping with exasperation as he watched her sign yet another parchment.
Elara looked up from her desk, her expression perfectly level. "Well, I am a human, I think."
Hearing that, Julian closed his eyes, lifted his hand, and face-slapped himself with a sharp *smack*. He let his hand slide down his face, groaning deeply. "Believe me, if I were given a choice—like, if you had been the one to propose this political marriage to me—I would have rejected you the very first time I saw you. Seriously, who the hell came up with the saying that a person looks most beautiful when they are working? You look most disgusting when you are working."
Elara stopped her pen. She lowered her gaze, examining her pristine dark blue velvet gown, checking the cuffs and the alignment of her silver embroidery. Then, she turned her head slightly to look at her reflection in the large glass windowpane. Her face was not bad; her skin was clear, and her hair was pinned back with absolute precision.
She turned back to him, her voice entirely literal. "Well, my clothes are in perfect condition, so how do I look disgusting? Is this a specific emotion you are currently experiencing, or do you believe my dressing sense is fundamentally flawed?"
Julian stared at her, his jaw dropping in sheer disbelief. "What the... You work all the time, you know? Even *you* would get thoroughly bored if you had to look at me working all day long."
Elara looked at him calmly, her glass-bead eyes steady as she shook her head. "No. I would be quite happy, you see."