Chapter 76: Chapter-76

Her gaze swept the room once.

She saw the way some of them trembled, the sheen of sweat along hairlines, the white-knuckle grips on trays and platters. She also saw something else now, tucked under the fear: awareness. Focus. The understanding that their lives were tied to the whims of the woman at the head of the table—and that this woman was, for once, ’paying attention’.

“Good,” she said. “Keep doing your jobs. Don’t be stupid.”

She paused, then added, almost as an afterthought, “And tell the kitchens to send a pot of this tea to my study later. The good one, not the cheap leaves they used to give Celeste when they thought she was too drunk to notice.”

The head steward’s eyes widened for a heartbeat, then he bowed again. “At once, Your Majesty.”

Heena turned and walked toward the doors.

Only when the sound of her footsteps faded down the corridor did the dining hall truly breathe. Shoulders slumped. Someone let out a long, shaky sigh. A young maid quietly slid down the wall until she was sitting on the floor, hand over her racing heart.

In the middle of the room, the head steward wiped a line of sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve and muttered, “Acceptable. She said ’acceptable’. We live another day.”

Heena made it three steps past the dining hall doors before her composure cracked.

The corridor ahead stretched in its usual stately perfection—red pillars, latticed windows, sunlight spilling in pale strips across polished stone. Servants still bowed as she passed, still held their breath as if one wrong exhale might get their family name added to an execution list.

She maintained her dignified Empress walk until the next bend.

Then she slipped behind the nearest thick pillar, into a narrow alcove where the shadow fell just right and no one could see her unless they were ’trying’.

The moment she was hidden, the Empress of the Empire folded in half and started to laugh.

It burst out of her in sharp, breathless little explosions. “Pfft—ha—ha—oh my god—”

She clapped a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking, trying and failing to keep the sound down.

System 427 appeared at her side in a shimmer of gold, tiny lion form hovering anxiously. “H-Host? Are you—did someone finally break you—?”

Heena slid down the cool stone until she was half-sitting, half-leaning against the pillar, one arm wrapped around her stomach.

“It’s been ’so long’,” she wheezed between laughs, “since I acted that ’properly’ righteous. Did you see their faces? The way they all walked like they were stepping on swords? Ah, my stomach…”

She wiped a corner of her eye with one thumb, still grinning.

The image played again in her mind: ministers who’d trampled Celeste’s authority for years now bowing so deeply they nearly folded in half; stewards who had once talked over the Empress now barely able to speak without stuttering. Knights who had dismissed imperial orders as “suggestions” suddenly drilling like their souls were on the line.

“They’re not ’bad’ people,” she said, tone settling slightly as the laughter ebbed. “Most of them, anyway. They’re not saints either. When war broke out and Celeste fell apart, of course they scrambled to protect themselves, their families. Who’s going to be loyal to an Empress who doesn’t even care if her people live or die?”

Her smile tilted wryly.

“So I never hated them for that,” she admitted. “Just… lukewarm. Background NPCs doing what scared humans do.”

She let her head thump lightly back against the pillar and exhaled.

“But this morning,” she said slowly, “seeing them ’actually’ respect the throne? Even if it’s just because they’re terrified?”

She laughed again, softer this time, hand pressed over the flutter in her chest.

“Kind of addictive.”

Butterflies. That was the ridiculous part—she had ’butterflies’. Not for a person, not for some handsome face, but for the pure, sharp taste of power finally sitting where it was supposed to sit.

“Damn,” she muttered. “I might be falling in love with my job.”

System 427 stared at her.

“Host,” he said cautiously, “don’t you think this is… maybe… a little too much?”

Heena turned her head to look at him.

Her eyes were still bright with leftover laughter, the corner of her mouth curled. “Come on, System. We’ve earned a little fun.”

His tail puffed. “Fun is… fine. But you ’know’ she’s going to make you pay for it.”

The laughter in Heena’s face cooled by a few degrees.

“Oh, right,” she said flatly. “That bitch.”

“Exactly,” System 427 said, seizing the opening. “The heroine. Serafina. Protagonist halo, plot protection, all that mess. Do you want to know what the Lord God sent you?”

Heena narrowed her eyes. “If you say it’s ’character development,’ I’ll throw you into a brazier.”

“Better,” he said, and suddenly his entire expression lit up. Stars practically sparkled in his eyes. “It’s a ’gift’.”

Heena gave him a dry, pitying look. “Wow. So excited. So suspicious. Fine. What is it?”

“The Lord God upgraded your protection shield!” System 427 announced, puffing out his tiny chest. “He strengthened it so that any cosmic backlash—like protagonist halo counterattacks, fate corrections, that kind of thing—gets reduced by fifty percent before it hits you.”

Heena blinked. “…Explain that in normal language.”

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.

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Five hours later, Heena discovered what “minor” meant.

It happened in the most insulting way possible.

She was walking.

That was it. Not fighting, not training, not climbing anything, not slipping on spilled tea. Just walking down a corridor with a stack of documents her overenthusiastic secretary had pressed into her hands, reading as she went.

The floor was perfectly flat. Glossy marble. Not a crack, not a drop of water, not even a stray petal.

She still managed to trip.

Her toe caught on nothing. Her body jerked forward. Her arms, full of paper, didn’t react fast enough.

All her weight slammed down on her right wrist.

There was a sharp, wet ’crack’.

White-hot pain lanced up her arm, bright enough to steal her breath. For a moment, the world went grey around the edges.

System 427 shrieked and vanished on instinct.

Then everything came rushing back: the sting, the throb, the way her fingers suddenly didn’t ’work’.

Heena hissed through her teeth, rolled onto her back, and cradled her arm against her chest.

Servants rushed from three directions, then skidded to a horrified stop when they saw her on the floor.

“Y-Your Majesty—”

“Call the physician,” she said, voice so calm it made them move faster. “And pick up my documents.”

Within minutes, the imperial physician was kneeling at her side, hands hovering nervously above her arm, afraid to touch.

Her right wrist was already swelling, an ugly, angry bulge under the skin. Turning it even slightly made nausea flicker at the base of her tongue.

He inspected it carefully, fingers as gentle as he could make them. Every time she flinched, he flinched harder.

“This is… this is…” He swallowed. “Your Majesty, I… I must apologize… but… it seems the wrist is… dislocated. And the bone—there may be a fracture.”

Heena stared down at the bandage he’d already begun to wrap, expression so flat it was almost peaceful.

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