Five Years Later
Five years later, in the Terran Empire, there was the Chaos Merchant Guild.
With the black rose as its emblem, the Chaos Merchant Guild emerged like a comet on the continent one day.
They led the cutting-edge trends, and anything they planned or created became coveted by everyone.
Their products, designed to incite human desire, sold out as quickly as they were made.
The Chaos Guild grew by absorbing smaller guilds and merging with collapsing large ones, expanding its size.
Now, it had grown powerful enough to establish a nation with its wealth alone.
Just a merchant guild.
Just a mere guild.
Even the nobles and royals who spoke like this could not believe their eyes, as the wealth of the Chaos Guild overflowed without end.
Naturally, those in power tried to subdue Chaos with their own strength, and some almost succeeded.
However, the victor was always Rose, the hidden powerhouse of Chaos.
At least partially.
*** *** *** *** ***
Rose knew she was dreaming.
Yet, despite knowing it was a dream, she felt a distant despair.
As if sensing her realization, the Emperor of Argar appeared from the darkness.
His dazzling golden hair and the blue eyes beneath it, filled with deep and sinister desire, stared at Rose.
“Lucentia, you’re really alive.”
He burst into laughter as if he had seen something incredibly amusing.
But Rose could see the seething anger within the Emperor.
More than the disgrace brought upon Argar, it was the fact that Rose had deceived him that seemed unbearable.
‘This is… a dream.’
Even as she tried to muster courage, Rose, who had been tormented for so long, felt like a frog before a snake, unable to move.
She was terrified and scared.
So much so that she felt utterly powerless, unable even to think.
The sound of footsteps grew louder and closer.
The Emperor was approaching, but Rosze couldn’t move.
Finally, stopping right in front of her, he ordered with eyes twisted in disgust.
“Die. As you should have.”
The Emperor suddenly transformed into a giant snake and swallowed her whole.
*** *** *** *** ***
“Ah!”
Rose woke from the nightmare with a gasp, her face drenched in cold sweat.
Her hands, gripping the blanket, trembled.
Her pale face, stained with sweat and pain, heaved with rough breaths as if she might break at any moment.
As her breathing gradually calmed, Rose’s anger, fear, and terror began to fade.
“Fortunately… it was just a dream.”
A self-mocking laugh escaped her as she reassured herself.
But it wasn’t something to be relieved about.
For the past few years, Rose had been having prophetic dreams where she was chased by Hin.
No matter how much she ran, like when she had to become the deposed Empress, the Emperor always found her and took everything from her.
Her life.
The Chaos Merchant Guild she had built.
Even the people who supported her were all devoured.
Clutching her sweat-soaked clothes as if to tear them apart, Rose spat out her despair through gritted teeth.
“Damn it.”
Rose held her throbbing head.
“Damn prophetic dreams.”
The memories of her childhood were blurry, but at first, she found the dreams amusing and fascinating.
It was fun, like playing with a toy in her hand, whenever things seen in her dreams came true.
However, Rose’s reality was not so easy.
After her mother’s death, the quality of the food supplied to the annex gradually deteriorated, and even the expensive gifts from her father started to disappear.
Though she suspected the maid in charge of the food distribution, there was nothing a young illegitimate child, who had lost her only protector, could do.
In such circumstances, all Rose could rely on were the trinkets and belongings her mother had hidden, detesting the gifts from Count Arodel.
But it wasn’t easy for young Rose, who had never experienced the outside world, to decide to leave.
The prophetic dreams moved the five-year-old child, who hesitated and agonized countless times.
Rose muttered self-deprecatingly.
“Even if it wasn’t a dream, I would have died anyway if I stayed.”
After having a dream about starving to death, Rose, half out of her mind, spent half a day in a daze before dressing in the most worn-out clothes and sneaking out through a hole in the annex.
What started once a week became twice, then three times, and as she somewhat adapted, she faced numerous hardships, including almost being kidnapped.
The world never treated her gently or leniently just because she was a child.
The years she endured with all her might were enough to turn the clumsy child into a tough young girl.
However, the age of ten was still too young and immature to even conceive of the business she wanted.
Rose desperately needed a trustworthy adult to handle her funds, and around that time, she met Gray, who was about to commit suicide.
She recalled his wry smile at the words of a young girl, her usually furrowed brows relaxing.
‘So, you want to do business? With me?’
The despair-filled blue-gray eyes that looked at the ten-year-old girl had a faint smile.
Wearing worn-out clothes, he took a coin from his pocket, handed it to Rose, and gently patted her head.
‘Kid, you’re making me laugh. Hearing such a grand joke at the end of my life.’
‘Who said it was a joke? Are you joking with your life?’
‘What?’
To his incredulous response, Rose, handing over a bundle with all her possessions, said.
‘If you’re going to die anyway, why not entrust your life to me? You won’t regret it.’
After a few more tussles, Gray eventually joined Rose.
He sometimes recalled that day with amazement, but she wouldn’t have dared without the dream of the future.
What courage did a ten-year-old have to hand over her mother’s belongings, practically her entire fortune, to a man she had just met?
It was all because of the prophetic dream.
As she cautiously observed Gray, who was steadily building the guild, Rose led him to anticipate future business through her dreams.
Two years later, by winter, they had saved enough money to leave the Count’s household.
When she was finally about to become independent and cut ties completely, an order came from her father, who had long neglected her.
Thinking of that day, Rose muttered through gritted teeth.
“And then I met the bastard of my life.”
At the time, Hin, who would become the Emperor of Argar and the one who made her the deposed Empress, was just an insignificant puppet prince standing quietly beside her father.
The boy’s first impression was beautiful and frail, but the more she looked at his doll-like expressionless face, the more unsettling it was, making her not want to approach.
Trusting her intuition, Rose stayed as far away from them as possible, holding her breath.
Count Arodel, who had gathered all his legitimate and illegitimate children, shamelessly placed a hand on the prince’s shoulder and said.
‘I have many children, so there must be a suitable fiancée for the prince among them.’
The moment she smirked at her brazen father’s words, Hin’s eyes stopped on Rose.
Contrary to what she expected, the prince, who hadn’t given anyone a second glance, quickly left the Count and approached her.
‘I’ll choose her.’
Surprisingly, her father shook his head firmly instead of readily agreeing.
‘Lucentia is poorly educated. How about someone else?’
Unexpectedly, the prince did not relent.
After a brief standoff, the Count respected Hin’s decision and began to shower Rose with excessive attention, as if to make up for the previous neglect.
‘Why did the prince choose you?’
Rose couldn’t answer what she didn’t know.
She pretended to be naive for a year, and eventually, the Count respected Hin’s decision and permitted their marriage.
Thus, Rose became the Crown Princess, facing obstacles she had never experienced before.
She hoped the prophetic dreams would help, but they betrayed her.
The dreams that had always supported and helped her began showing her future death as the deposed Empress.
At first, she thought she could change it like the other dreams.
After one, two, three attempts, when the tenth attempt failed, and she had tried a hundred times, even the strong-willed Rose couldn’t help but be devastated.
‘No matter what choice I made, the future where I became the deposed Empress and went to the guillotine never changed.’
The prophetic dreams constantly warned her it was inevitable.
Moreover, as if to add insult to injury, once Rose, an illegitimate child, became the Crown Princess with her father’s backing, the whole world seemed to conspire to drag her down.
Count Arodel, always prioritizing his own interests, was of no help, leaving Gray and the guild as her only reliable allies.
Rose struggled fiercely, but with the resources, connections, and information she had at the time, she saw no way out.
Recalling the days she spent crying all day in helpless frustration, she bit her lip.
‘I just have to wait for the right moment.’
That sense of helplessness might have driven her obsession with freedom.
She could never forget the spring of her twenty-first year when she became the deposed Empress and ended her life in Argar.
The day her spies switched her with an alchemist’s doll on the way to the guillotine was still dizzying to think about.
And now, this damn prophetic dream was trying to entangle her with the Emperor again just when she had started to live a decent life.
“Ha, damn it.”
If gods had personalities, Rose was sure they had to be awful.
Swearing with every curse she knew, Rose got out of bed.
It wasn’t entirely unexpected.
She had not only deceived the Emperor but also smeared the honor of the Argar Empire.
More than that, she had relocated the Chaos Guild to the Terran Empire, an enemy that Argar loathed.
There was no doubt that the moment Hin found her, he would behead her.
“But I can’t just die, can I?”
Rose was no longer the fragile Empress nor the pitiful deposed Empress.
She was the head of the Chaos Guild and the hidden power in the commercial world of the continent.
Rose bit her lip and stood by the window.
“I’ve run as much as I could. If I can’t avoid it anymore, I have to break it.”
Even amidst countless choices in her prophetic dreams, she couldn’t destroy Argar, but there was one method left.
Rose, who had settled in Terran, Argar’s enemy, to prepare for any eventuality, thought of the person she was about to meet.
He would be her escape route.
Though her face showed fatigue and weariness, her eyes shone vividly even in the darkness.
What impeccable timing.
A chilling smile that could make anyone’s heart sink appeared on Rose’s lips.
If this crazy prophetic dream was about her inevitable fate with the Emperor of Argar.
If it was truly unavoidable.
There was only one way.
She had to fight.
She had to put everything she had on the line.
*** *** *** *** ***
Duke Klaus of Aytan, with his whiter hair, found himself facing an unexpected individual.
The person who appeared, claiming to solve his long-standing issue, was none other than someone from the continent’s most powerful guild, Chaos.
This alone wasn’t too surprising.
However, the one holding the vast wealth of this tremendous guild was not the middle-aged Gray, in his late forties.
It was a woman, merely twenty-five years old.
To prove it was no lie, Gray stood behind her like a guardian.
The Duke narrowed his dark eyes and looked at the audacious woman who claimed she could solve the heating problems of the northern territories.
“Your name is Rose, correct?”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
“You’re the daughter of a fallen Count.”
The woman with black hair and pale skin remained calm.
Her beauty drew attention, but Duke Klaus of Aytan wasn’t someone to be swayed by such things.
“You claim you can solve the issues in my territory? Many guilds have already given up on it. The north faces harsh winters for more than half the year. I’ve been disappointed too many times and don’t want to be again.”
“I’ve never claimed to do the impossible. But I have one question to ask first.”
“Speak.”
“I heard that if I solve your territory’s problem, you will fulfill any condition in return, on the honor of your name.”
The old Duke of Aytan, Klaus, nodded without hesitation.
“I did say that.”
“I believe in the promise of House Aytan, if no one else.”
Watching her for a moment, the Duke chuckled and ordered his butler to bring a contract.
As soon as the words left his mouth, the elderly butler, standing stiffly, handed Rose a piece of paper.
It briefly outlined the contract between the Chaos Guild and Duke Aytan, stating that if the guild solved the heating problem, the Duke would fulfill one condition from the guild.
“If you fail, I’ll make sure to uphold Aytan’s name and won’t let it slide. You’d better do it right.”
“I won’t disappoint you.”
Watching her smile instead of being intimidated, the Duke felt a surge of curiosity.
He had served three emperors.
He had survived countless political machinations.
He was confident that even if Terran fell, House Aytan wouldn’t.
But this young woman before him stirred an unusual sense of curiosity.
The ability to establish the Chaos Guild.
The boldness to face the Duke without flinching.
Above all, she had no hesitation in tackling an issue that many guilds had failed at, just to get what she wanted.
Unable to suppress his curiosity, Duke Klaus asked Rose a question he wouldn’t usually ask.
“Don’t you find it regrettable that you have to hide your identity as a woman to lead a guild?”
“Regrettable. That one word isn’t enough to encompass the absurdity of reality.”
Her sharp but respectful retort made it oddly difficult for Klaus to look away from her.
“I apologize.”
Her eyes glinted, and she quietly bowed her head.
They completed the contract without further words.
As she left, the Duke watched her, frowning slightly.
Recently, his heart had been beating slower than usual, making even breathing uncomfortable.
Reflecting on emotions he had never experienced in his long life, he smiled faintly.
‘Is the end finally approaching?’
Klaus rubbed his aching chest and returned to his study.
As the door closed, the thin butler finally approached the window.
Narrowing his milk-brown eyes, Jack spoke in a rough voice.
“We’ll see how capable she really is.”
He didn’t move away from the window until the carriage was completely out of sight.
Jack, known for his loyalty to his master, was a temperamental old man.
*** *** *** *** ***
Soon after, the Chaos Guild revisited Aytan.
They restructured the territory and began a large-scale project to solve the heating problem in an unbelievable way.
Even the territory’s residents, who usually turned a blind eye, began to show curiosity at the guild’s relentless efforts.
An old man, watching them demolish and rebuild dilapidated buildings without hesitation, noticed something strange.
“Excuse me, you there.”
A young manager of the Chaos Guild turned to him.
“What is it?”
“Ahem.”
Surprised by the respectful and polite demeanor, the old man cautiously asked in his shabby appearance.
“Why are you connecting the stove to that wide space over there? It looks like a room to me. If you do that, what about the smoke and other issues? Did you make a mistake?”
“No, we didn’t.”
The manager smiled proudly.
“Once installed, it will ensure that winter is no longer cold. The smoke will be dealt with without any problems, so you needn’t worry.”
“Don’t lie. I’ve lived in Aytan all my life. No guild has ever solved that problem. Do you think you can with that?”
“Yes, we can.”
The old man still looked doubtful.
The manager, smiling, looked at the plan given by the real owner of Chaos and spoke.
“If she says it will work, it definitely will. You have nothing to worry about.”
He assured while overseeing the workers installing the floor heating, and soon it became a reality.
After more than a year of large-scale construction, the Chaos Guild finally fulfilled its promise to Duke Aytan.
*** *** *** *** ***
As soon as Gray received the report on the heating project, he headed straight to the study where Rose was staying in the annex.
The middle-aged man with grayish-white hair knocked on the door, a delighted smile on his face.
“Come in.”
“Lady Rose, we have someone from Aytan.”
As Gray entered, Rose, who had been standing by the sunlit window, turned around.
Gray delivered the news she had been waiting for.
“All promises have been fulfilled.”
“Then, it’s time for me to collect.”
Rose smiled, looking at the new contract detailing the promises she would extract from the Duke.
The Duke of Aytan, a figure of dreams for all knights on the continent, was a very special person.
One she had to capture, even if it meant revealing herself.
He was a sword master who had seen the end of the blade.
Rose smiled with satisfaction.
What she wanted was none other than,
‘Finally caught you, Duke of Aytan.’
The Duke himself.
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