Beast Gacha System: All Mine

The carriage rolled through the darkening countryside, its wheels crunching softly over the snow-dusted road. Inside, the silence was thick. Two men were trapped in a wooden box with their own thoughts, of course it’d be silent.

The only sounds were the creak of the suspension, the occasional snort of the horses, and the faint whisper of the wind outside.

Damon sat by the window, his gaze fixed on the blur of trees and fields beyond the glass. His face was unreadable, half-shadowed in the dim interior.

Across from him, Yadriel sat as straight as his spine would allow, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes darting between the Emperor and the floor, then back to the Emperor again.

He wanted to speak. He wanted to ask a hundred questions. Who was that man? No, who was Bessa, really? Who was the woman he brought into his family’s registry?

But every time he opened his mouth, the silence pressed back, and he closed it again.

Damon, for his part, seemed perfectly content to let the silence stretch. He didn’t fidget or sigh. And Yadriel, who had spent his entire life reading the moods of powerful men, could not tell whether the Emperor was angry, amused, or simply lost in thought.

It was very, very unnerving.

"To be honest, Lord Sonder, this is actually how I want my relationship with my Empress to be, whoever she was," Damon said at last, his voice cutting through the quiet.

Then, as if sensing Yadriel’s confusion, he clarified, "To me, she didn’t have to be Lady Bessa. Lady Bessa was chosen by my sister."

Yadriel’s eyes widened. So that—!

The bride was Angela’s choice, not Damon’s. Yet the Emperor was here, in this carriage, having spent the afternoon in a crooked cottage, chasing soil depths and plant thrones. How... dedicated.

"But after spending time with her," Damon continued, "I don’t think I can find anyone else in this world more ideal than her for the relationship I want with my Empress."

Confusion flickered across Yadriel’s face. He did not understand. The Emperor’s words sounded like praise, but there was something distant beneath them.

Damon smiled at him. "Angela seems to trust you."

"I am honored," Yadriel said automatically.

"Lady Bessa is an Alchemist."

"Ah, is that so—" Yadriel stopped. And froze. His hand, which had been resting on his knee, went very still. His breath caught somewhere between his chest and his throat.

Rattle... rattle... neigh...!

The carriage rattled on. The horses whinnied softly outside. For an extended moment, those were the only sounds in the space.

She was an alchemist?!

"Your daughter is an Alchemist. But she stepped away from that occupation and chose to be a farmer instead," Damon said. "She became Angel’s Baby."

Yadriel, Angel’s Kitty, felt his blood run cold. "Ah!"

"She wanted to stop that slimy, swindling work of an Alchemist, and accepted my sister’s favor to live a peaceful life as an ordinary farmer," Damon continued.

Yadriel fell silent.

So that was the story. That was where the one-legged farmer had come from...

"But how come—"

"How did she become my bride?" Damon finished, smiling. "Because that’s how she paid the favor back."

Yadriel’s eyes faltered.

She had wanted to escape the petty, miserable life of an Alchemist, only to be entangled with none other than the notorious Imperial sibl—

"That look in your eyes," Damon chuckled. "You must be thinking my bride got away from those swindlers just to be swindled by the biggest swindler in the world, hm?"

Yadriel’s face paled. "N-no, how could I, Your Majesty... Actually, it feels like a reward instead. After her hard, filthy, dark life, now she’ll be regarded as the mother of the nation."

"It’s just a different kind of unwanted life," Damon said.

The way the emperor said it sounded so melancholic that Yadriel had to rewind them in his mind, turning them over like a strange coin.

The notorious Emperor had just described his own future marriage as an unwanted life. And the way he said it... The cruel, mad Emperor was not suited for melancholy.

"That’s why I want to bring the life she wanted along with her," Damon said.

Yadriel understood now.

It wasn’t just soil, it was the life she had chosen for herself. The one she would lose when she became Empress. The soil was apparently just that important.

"But it will never be the same, will it?" Damon smiled as he looked out the window, watching the dark trees slip past.

"There must be a reason you must do this, right?" Yadriel said gently.

"For a dream, of course," Damon said. "Why else would the Emperor marry an Alchemist?"

Yadriel understood the scope of it now. The ambition, the planning. "It’s a magnificent dream, Your Majesty. Congratulations."

Damon sneered.

Not at all a kind expression.

And then another long silence descended upon them, heavier than the first. The carriage rattled on through the frozen night as Yadriel didn’t dare speak. He was beginning to understand that the Emperor was not a man to be understood easily.

"Lady Bessa truly is the woman of my dreams," Damon said at last.

The woman he didn’t have to love. The woman who was there for their shared dream, not his power. The woman who wouldn’t love him recklessly.

That kind of Empress, if he had to be the kind of Emperor he was, was the best kind. This kind of relationship, built on respect, control, and admiration, was truly the one he deserved.

Not love. Not passion. It was something far more stable. Responsible.

And Damon Iondora, Emperor of the greatest empire in the world, told himself, once again, that this was how it should be.

Because the alternative, the burning, reckless, all-consuming thing that Ivy Cassia made him feel, was a fire that would consume his crown, his duty, and his sanity.

An Emperor could not afford to burn.

So he would marry the Alchemist. He would tend her garden. He would build her a world where she could grow. And he would never, ever let himself love her.

Again, love, for a man like him, was the most dangerous thing in the world.

He had already tasted it once, that night. He would not taste it again.

His people depended on it.

His people depended on the sanity of the Mad Emperor.

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