Too Lazy to be a Villainess novel Chapter 48

Chapter 48: The Day Emperor Cassius was Born

[Theon’s Pov]

"Theon, meet my son Regis and the future emperor, Cassius."

That was the first time I saw them—under the orange-tinged sky of late autumn, framed by the courtyard of the Everhart estate.

I was fifteen.

Just a boy with calloused hands, a stiff uniform too big for me, and a heart still raw from my father’s death.

He died in a war... a war that had nothing to do with him but everything to do with honor.

My father had been a knight who gave his life protecting Grand Duke Gregor. And the Grand Duke, in return, took me in—out of gratitude, duty, or perhaps guilt. I never asked. He gave me shelter, food, an education... a new purpose.

I suppose my father’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain.

Because that was the day I became more than a forgotten orphan.

That was the day I met them.

Prince Regis smiled the moment our eyes met. "You look nervous," he said with a playful grin. "Don’t be. Cassius looks like that all the time."

’That’ meant the boy who stood behind him—golden-haired, crimson-eyed, eerily still, unreadable.

Cassius didn’t offer a word that time. He just stared at me like he was deciding where I belonged—beneath his sword or beside it.

Then I came to learn that he always looked like that. Even in the years that followed... he never changed.

He never smiled.

Not once.

As we grew up together, the three of us, under the ancient stone arches of Everhart. Regis with his easy laughter and mischief. Cassius, with his silence sharp as daggers.

I watched Cassius train alone in the dark, sparring with shadows like they owed him blood. He rarely spoke unless necessary, but I learned to read him anyway—the slight twitch of his jaw when he was angry, the narrowed eyes when he was plotting.

I always wondered: why did the future emperor of Elarion grow up here, so far from the palace? Why did the crown prince wear secondhand clothes and eat with soldiers?

And then... I saw the scars.

One night, I entered the training yard with a towel in hand, thinking he might need it. He had stripped off his shirt—chest heaving from another round of sword drills.

And I saw it.

His back.

It looked like a battlefield. Old whip marks, crisscrossed and healed poorly. Blunt bruises that spoke of fists and boots.

I stood frozen, the towel slipping from my fingers, and he sensed me.

"Don’t ask," he said coldly, still facing the target dummy.

And I never asked. But Regis did tell me that Cassius was the illegitimate child of the emperor, born of a lowborn maid.

The empress, proud and poisonous, saw him as a stain. Her sons—pampered, cruel, and spineless—treated him worse than a stray dog.

And the emperor? He let it happen.

Cassius was nine when Grand Duke Gregor found out. Ten when he was dragged out of the palace, half-dead, and brought to the Everhart estate.

I remember the first time I heard Cassius speak his dream aloud when we were sixteen.

"I will take his throne. I’ll burn his palace to the ground. And when I wear that crown, it will be on the bones of everyone who betrayed me."

That was the only time I saw fire in his eyes.

Not warmth.

Not hope.

Just pure, sharp vengeance, and that time maybe... Regis and I decided to support him in any way we could. Not because we feared him, but because he was a friend.

The nobles had already begun turning against the old emperor. Greed makes enemies, and he hoarded everything—coin, power, even the gods’ favor, or so he claimed.

With Grand Duke Gregor’s influence, Cassius gained nobles favor. But he never relied on them. He never trusted them.

He was simply... waiting.

Waiting for the perfect moment to strike. To end the man who called himself father of the Elarion empire.

And every night, no matter how late it was, no matter how bruised or bloodied his body became...

He trained.

We’d watch from the upper windows sometimes, Regis and I.

The moon would hang heavy above the field, and Cassius would move like a ghost—precise, relentless.

Regis would sigh beside me, arms crossed. "Sigh... he’s still practicing?"

I wouldn’t answer.

Because I knew.

That wasn’t just training.

It was survival.

It was war, in silence. And when Cassius turned eighteen... The silence ended.

Grand Duke Gregor made the first move. With documents, testimonies, and forged letters—all real, all damning. He exposed the emperor’s rot in front of the entire court. Secret alliances with hostile empires. Taxes squeezed from starving peasants. The disappearance of whistleblowers. The embezzlement rings of the high nobles who swore their loyalty with gilded tongues.

And the people... they erupted.

Anger spilled like wildfire in the streets. Riots bloomed across the empire. The nobles turned on each other, desperate to prove their hands were clean.

And in the eye of the storm, Cassius moved.

No warning. No announcement. Just steel drawn in the dark and an army marching on the imperial palace.

He raised his boot and crushed the emperor’s outstretched hand beneath it, bone cracking like dry twigs underfoot.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify