How to Survive in the Roanoke Colony-Chapter 165: Voice-less Emperor (4)

Drake, who was always strange but suddenly became stranger, and Raleigh, who suddenly seemed devout and asked peculiar questions.

The timing overlaps; could there be a connection?

I don't know.

Anyway, Elizabeth returned to her peaceful daily life.

"Tell James. Tell him not to touch the royal property."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Ah, one more thing. Tell him not to do anything strange. The information coming to me is oddly contradictory; it must be his mischief."

"..."

She also freely gave advice to James, who must be struggling now.

"Ugh, uggh, uwaah! I-I got it!"

"Well done! Didn't I tell you? You'll improve at bowling with some practice!"

She also enjoyed leisure sports with the so-called Saint Margaret.

"Tell them to extend the room more to the left. And I'd like my emblem engraved here."

"I'll relay that exactly, Your Majesty."

She also diligently modified this cramped (by the Queen's standards) mansion in Roanoke according to her taste.

She had returned to such a quiet, comfortable, and cozy daily life.

"..."

It was something she had been longing for since her teens, after about 50 years.

A completely safe life.

Living in a house where no one within hundreds of miles wanted to kill her, with people who had no sharp ambitions or thoughts of using her, without the need to exhaustingly hide her emotions.

Such a life.

Finally... she had attained it.

Only in her old age, only after fleeing across the Atlantic, had she barely achieved it.

"..."

The result was slightly boring and empty.

Here... there was no... 'thrill.'

That feeling when someone held a knife to her neck, and she precariously reigned over everyone else, avoiding that knife as if performing acrobatics... that kind of pleasure?

In the court of London, such heart-pounding fear and euphoria always flared up like flames.

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Like breathing in and out, she inhaled all sorts of desires and conspiracies and exhaled victories filled with joy, and that sensation dominated her entire body.

...Had she always liked this?

It doesn't seem so.

Just to avoid death, as she was chased and chased others, such a life had transformed her.

Being pushed into situations where she had to kill to avoid being killed, where she had to win power struggles by any means or die, she changed herself to survive.

Perhaps... a change that began when she was very young.

Desires that now felt as comfortable and natural as skin covered her soul.

No, let's be more direct.

She enjoyed killing and being killed.

Naturally, the 'killing' part was more enjoyable. Especially crushing those insolent ones who tried to kill her under her heel brought pleasure that dominated her entire body.

"Still, well, I'd prefer any being I meet to be an angel, wouldn't I? Meeting a demon would mean hell for me."

It was a lie.

Elizabeth wished to meet nothing at all.

In a world without God, angels, heaven, or demons...

There would be no hell either.

Elizabeth suddenly wakes from drowsiness and opens her eyes. Margaret Lawrence was quietly sitting beside her, preparing nutritional supplements for her.

"...Margaret."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Do you want to meet an angel?"

"...Pardon?"

"Just as I said. No, a strange thought just occurred to me."

Elizabeth looked at Margaret with a nonchalant face and said.

"Do you 'really' want to meet an angel?"

'Really.'

Having read the implied meaning of that word, Margaret's slightly stiffened face relaxed into a small smile.

"O-of course. Don't they say that people will eventually become like angels? Surely, seeing an angel would bring joy..."

"'When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.'"

Rip.

The Queen watches as Margaret tears open a packet to extract medicine and then says.

"That's a verse from Mark 12."

"...Indeed it is."

"So you believe that you will rise from among the dead..."

The Queen's tired and languid eyes close and open, capturing Margaret's face.

"How nice."

"Pardon?"

"I... will go to hell."

The Queen thinks with a smirk.

Yes. She is someone who enjoys slaughter and has thrown hundreds, thousands of lives into flames. She would surely go to hell.

If she had only killed Catholics, perhaps it would be different. But the violence and death she bestowed were fair to all who opposed her power. Daggers, poison, gallows, and stakes were her weapons.

...But what could she have done?

"If I hadn't... I would have died..."

The father she remembered was a lustful and neurotic madman.

He changed churches to obtain a beautiful new wife, and when it seemed that new wife couldn't bear a son, he killed her.

That new wife was Elizabeth's mother.

Elizabeth was hated by the public from birth, checked by her siblings, and the target of numerous conspiracies.

After her mother died, the husband of her stepmother tried to touch her body. Because she was the heir to the throne.

Her sister tried to kill her, and she waited, holding her breath, for that hateful woman to expire.

There was no fantasy as absurd as the bond between blood relatives. Morality, law, faith, love - all were mere jokes.

Only power obtained by spilling blood was steadfast.

So she sought power.

Was that a sin? Was it wrong?

...Perhaps, it was.

So if there is a God, she would go to hell.

The Queen is already 68 years old. It won't be long.

"..."

If only she could grow old forever.

If, instead of eternal punishment awaiting after death, only this boring life continued forever.

Even if her body became weaker day by day, even if the beauty of the Virgin Queen that everyone praised disappeared.

Just one question she wanted to ask.

Is it a sin to kill in order to live?

If so, why was I thrown into such a life?

"Perhaps... I should have died long ago..."

Without being corrupted by power. Without ascending to the throne, if she had died as she was, she could have gone to heaven.

Like Jane Grey who died just 9 days after ascending the throne, or the foolish Mary of Scotland.

Like that...

Snap.

Margaret flicks her finger. The sound wakes the Queen from her contemplation.

"No one can know whether a person will be saved or not. Everyone just follows the Lord within them to be saved."

"..."

"Besides, Your Majesty going to hell? I don't know, it's beyond my realm of knowledge, but... I don't think the Lord would abandon Your Majesty."

The startled Queen stares intently at Margaret. Then, belatedly blushing, Margaret pretends to pray with her hands together and avoids eye contact.

"...If you like, I could pray for Your Majesty."

"..."

"..."

Elizabeth smiles at Margaret's demeanor and pokes her side.

"Don't act as if you really received an angel's revelation. You're too immersed in your role."

"..."

"...Well, I'll at least say thank you."

Since I'm a person with that much decency.

The Queen let out a laugh that sounded like a cough.

For a long time, such a laugh, whether bitter or otherwise, remained like a scar on the Queen's lips.

Time passed like that.

"Your Majesty, an invitation from Nemo has arrived."

"Nemo...?"

"It's the 'Emperor's' name."

The Emperor and she were ready to meet.