Having traversed countless realms, can you possibly be as clever as me?

“Mother... at least now I know that in your eyes I am no more important than power.”

Nero looked at his mother with a complicated expression and said softly.

She never denied that her mother had ever loved her; at least in her childhood, when Nero still had memories, her mother had shown moments of kindness.

Don't deny the past because of the present. People change. Julia has simply transformed into something she doesn't want to see right now.

"Nero..."

Julia looked at her daughter pleadingly, her voice coming from her ruptured lungs like a broken bellows, but Nero reached out to stop her from speaking further.

She calmly looked at her mother, knelt down, and hugged her, gazing at her softly as she spoke.

"Mother, at least in this moment before I leave, I hope you are the best version of myself in my memory."

Upon hearing this, Julia seemed to collapse instantly, as countless complex emotions flowed out of her body.

Perhaps it's guilt? Perhaps it's pain? Or perhaps it's regret?

It doesn't matter anymore, because she's already dead.

Nero silently watched as Julia's emerald eyes, which were just like his own, gradually lost their luster, and an indescribable feeling welled up inside him.

She took a deep breath, looked at the dark sky, and suppressed the palpitations and trembling in her heart.

Tsugumi waited until she recovered before coming over, tossing the terrified Britannicus over, and said quietly...

"You decide for yourself. Don't worry, I won't think you're wrong no matter what choice you make this time."

It's true—if this brat is let go, Tsugumi can understand. Although Nero and this brat are not related by blood, and don't even have any connection with each other, they are indeed relatives in law.

Asking a girl who has just lost her mother to kill her own brother is indeed a huge burden.

And if she were to take action? Tsugumi could understand that even more.

Because she was the emperor, it was perfectly reasonable for her to kill her brother who was plotting a rebellion.

Tsugumi chose to turn her back and walk out of sight, leaving the space to Nero.

About half a minute later, footsteps sounded from behind, heavy and dragging, scraping against the gravel and congealed blood, but Tsurugi never turned around.

The footsteps stopped a few steps behind him. Then came the harsh scraping sound of metal hitting the stone slab—the sound of the meteorite greatsword being released and discarded.

Immediately afterwards, a warm, trembling body gently pressed against his back from behind.

Very light, as light as a feather, with helplessness and caution, her forehead rested between his shoulder blades, and he could clearly feel that her whole body was trembling uncontrollably, not from the cold, but from an emptiness overflowing from the depths of her soul.

"Having murdered my mother and brother, I'm truly about to become an unprecedented tyrant," she muttered, a self-deprecating tone in her voice.

Her words were broken and her voice was so low that they were almost inaudible, and the heat from her breath clung to his skin through his soaked clothes.

"Waaah... I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..."

Large, warm drops of liquid finally soaked through the fabric of Tsurugi's back, the scalding sensation clearly felt. Nero began to sob softly and quietly, at first only her shoulders trembling, but then the crying grew louder, mixed with indistinct sobs, apologies, and murmured calls to her mother.

Tsurugi finally turned around slowly.

The movement caused Nero, who was holding him tightly, to stumble slightly, but she didn't let go. Instead, she buried her face in his chest, as if it were the only refuge that could keep her away from this hell. Her body curled up, making her appear even smaller, and her long, golden hair was disheveled and stained with blood, sticking to Tsurugi's blood-stained clothes.

Tsurugi lowered his head and could see the ahoge (cowlick) on the top of her head, and feel her warm tears quickly soaking a larger patch of her clothes. He raised a hand and gently placed it on her slightly trembling back.

"What wrong have you done?" Tsurugi said softly.

“You are the emperor, and emperors are never wrong. Even now, you cannot be wrong. You may cry and complain here, but when the sun rises, you will still be the master of Rome.”

These words, which were hardly words of comfort, seemed to open a floodgate.

Nero's sobs escalated from suppressed whimpers to a near-uncontrollable wail. She cried until she was completely exhausted in his arms, barely able to stand and relying entirely on him for support. She cried without any regard for her appearance, her face a mess of snot, tears, and blood splattered on her skin, a truly wretched sight.

But the crying will eventually stop, just as Tsurugi said, after the sun rises she will still be the emperor.

"Dong Jiangqing, will you leave me?"

She raised her red, swollen eyes, like a rabbit's, her emerald pupils glistening with tears, clear and filled with utter dependence, vulnerability, and... The undried blood and tear stains on her face, reflected in the flickering firelight, created a broken beauty.

But there is also the hidden, unfathomable darkness in the depths of their eyes.

Tsurugi grinned. At this moment, Nero had shed all the aura of imperial power and his mad obsession, revealing the lonely soul deep inside that longed for recognition and feared abandonment.

What to say?

Ugh, even Tsugumi didn't expect she had such a unique XP.

He felt immense pleasure and a sense of accomplishment in personally raising such a yandere emperor, but he never imagined what would happen if he abandoned her under these circumstances.

No, no, no, no. Although I am an evil person, I would never do such a despicable thing.

Tsugumi temporarily suppressed the joy in her mind and patted Nero's back twice with her hand.

"Who knows? Accidents always happen faster than tomorrow."

He made neither a promise nor a lie.

Nero didn't speak, but buried her face deeper into his chest, nodded vigorously, her hair brushing against his chin, her tense body gradually relaxing, but her hand still gripping his clothes wouldn't let go.

The night was deep, the firelight flickered, illuminating the two people embracing, and the boundless silence and crimson surrounding them.

Kissing, embracing, the moonlight is so beautiful.

The next day, the sun rose.

The people of Rome were shocked to discover that another coup had taken place that morning.

However, more than the coup itself, they were probably shocked by how quickly and silently it ended, and—

Shocked by the emperor's cruelty and her resounding victory!

Nero, having summoned all the senators and nobles, publicly announced the rebellion of his mother and brother, who had colluded with the Praetorian Guard and the Pantheon priests, and declared that they had been executed. The emperor did not conceal what he had done; although he did not explicitly state that he had murdered his mother and brother, he almost openly admitted it.

But no one dared to accuse the emperor of patricide at this time.

Because it wasn't just the Queen Mother and her son who died, but also half of the Roman Praetorian Guard who were slaughtered by the Emperor.

No one knows how she did it, but in Rome, where there was a tradition of Praetorian succession laws, the authority of an emperor who could personally deal with his own Praetorian Guard was unquestionable.

Nero firmly secured his throne and, moreover, forcefully stripped the Senate of most of its power.

She became the most powerful emperor in Rome since Tiberius. As a result, her reputation as a tyrant began to circulate in private.

It's hard for those wielding the pen not to portray a king who murders his family, destroys ancestral temples, and strips nobles of their power as a tyrant.

As for Dongjiang—it's obvious that every tyrant needs his courtiers and treacherous ministers.

Changing styles doesn't change anything, it's still all about killing! : 168. Pandora's Box

Tsurugi fiddled with the magic box in his hand.

Pandora's Box, the infamous box of misfortune, but what is it in the Type-Moon universe?

This thing appears in the world of Magical Girl Illya, a world that at first glance seems like a family-friendly fantasy carnival, but in reality it is still a world under the dark and cruel framework of Type-Moon.

While Pandora's Box originates from Greek mythology, considering that the Greek gods were essentially mechanical beings, it was actually a purely technological creation.

The primary function of Pandora's Box is as a wish-granting machine—well, it's basically a ubiquitous item that seems to be found in every Type-Moon universe.

But in reality, it doesn't have any wish-fulfilling function. The essence of this Pandora's box is actually a corrective branch regeneration device that is highly similar to Chaldea but has the opposite effect.

Does this still sound a bit nonsensical? Just think of it as a global cloud storage service!

It contains a completely new world—at least that's what Darius, who studied it, believed. It was a completely different new world, with laws entirely different from the present world, containing no mystery and impossible to enter normally.

Darius used his family's inherited 'displacement' magic to transfer the contents of the box to the outside world, thus granting him the ability to be reborn and immortal.

But any Pandora's box that has been opened contains countless black mud.

The essence of this malicious intelligence is the same as the stuff in the Holy Grail and even Tiamat's Sea of ​​Life—it's all 'water' that stores and integrates life and spiritual information. The reason there's no mysterious connection in the box is because almost all the mysterious monsters have been swallowed up by the black mud inside.

Once the black mud is released, it will instantly cover the ground and give birth to many mysterious monsters—which sounds like some kind of polluted thing.

However, this is not entirely true. Among all the worldviews set by Type-Moon, the only one that has not opened Pandora's box is Miyu's worldview, where the Great Source has dried up, Gaia is on the verge of death, and the overall desolation of the world is second only to the failed Steel Land.

A thing that, in theory, would bring calamity if opened, is actually a product that allows the world to continue.

This is one of the two functions of Pandora's Box. Its inner world is something highly similar to Lostbelts and Singularities, a product created by Gaia in conjunction with the Olympian Machine Gods to calculate the world.

One of the functions of Pandora's Box is computation. The life information emanating from it absorbs the life information computation device by devouring certain areas of the Earth's surface. It generates a hypothetical world inside, which is then fed back to Gaia for readjustment of the planet's environment.

The second function is to generate a relatively safe worldline internally. If an unknown collapse occurs in the normal world, the box can be opened to replace the two, thus serving as a backup and repair function.

Simply put, this box is a cloud backup save file plus an emulator. When the world goes into uncontrollable collapse, you open the box and swap the good and bad parts.

This thing wasn't entirely Gaia's creation. Before it was called Pandora's Box, Gaia had already created it, though it had a different name and its functions were incomplete. Finally, with Zeus's help, this thing was created through collaboration with the Machine Gods' technology. It was a two-pronged preparation to prevent the collapse of the world line, and also used to calculate the world after the decline of the Age of Gods.

Even the name Pandora itself is a mispronunciation by the Greeks; what this mechanical creation was actually called is anyone's guess.

In a normal world, Pandora's box will inevitably be opened once or several times to ensure that the world moves towards a normal state of pan-human history. Since the box has been opened, it means that this worldline is normal.

As for Pandora at this point in time, she was probably already dead.

Of course, none of this mattered to Tsugumi—he didn't value the so-called 'world calculation' function of this thing at all, nor was he interested in imitating Illya's 'eternal dominance' operation.

He was too lazy to even learn more about these overly complicated settings; he found them a headache, and he'd already read about this damned worldview more than a dozen times.

Settings? Are they even useful?

He has no interest in magicians' sloppy tricks like swapping worlds, saving the world, or making wishes!

What he valued more was the worth of this thing as a byproduct—the black mud, or rather, the Servant card.

The creation of Heroic Spirit Cards in the Magical Girl Illya universe involves using the black mud, a specialty of Pandora's Box, to erase the Servant's will, then storing their Spirit Origin in the card, ultimately making it usable as soon as it's taken out.

Tsugumi doesn't necessarily need the power of Servant cards—he just thinks they're pretty cool.

Which boy hasn't dreamed of pulling out a card and transforming?

What's more, as a technological creation, this thing is actually a valuable item that can be used in other worlds!

"Hmm... We have the black mud, and we can also get the method to operate it. The only thing left is the Servant."

Inside her own residence, Tsugumi toyed with Pandora's Box, watching the black mud dancing in her hands with great interest.

Tsurugi felt that he would be devoting himself to researching this thing for quite some time to come.

Besides, he doesn't really have much to do now.

After helping Nero kill her mother and successfully seize the throne, Tsugumi, although also a consul, did not manage the affairs of the city much.