Raise Joan of Arc to be an empress, then discard her.

“I also know they call you a tyrant in private… I think that’s a bad word…”

“You’re right, teacher.” Joan of Arc smiled. “A tyrant is someone who won’t listen to others’ opinions and will resolutely carry out his own plans.”

“But the teacher’s resistance is making me a little unhappy…” Jeanne put down the bread in her hand and slowly walked up to Aaron. “Tell me everything here. What are your concerns, teacher?”

At extremely close range, he looked at the Queen opposite him, hoping to see an expression on her face that said something like, "I was just kidding." After all, he believed that with Joan of Arc's wisdom, which came from the Book of Omniscience, she would be able to see the implications of what was happening. But reality slapped him in the face.

"Is the teacher so reluctant because she still has feelings for him?" Joan smiled. "Please rest assured, I will definitely send the invitation to the royal family of the Kingdom of Doc no matter what. Inviting the Iron Earl of Doc to our wedding is not a particularly difficult thing to understand. Then, we can be in front of that Iron Earl, and even in front of that Miss Freya..."

"No, that's not a weird fetish at all!"

Aaron suddenly felt a sense of injustice.

Why did Joan of Arc know so much about his affairs in the Kingdom of Doc and even Birmingham, as if she had been watching him all along?

But he knew very little about Joan of Arc; he could only glean news from the newspapers.

Is this what power disparity looks like?

No, that's probably not it either, after all, the woman in front of him is the only person in the world who holds the power of omniscience.

Aaron thought, "Don't marry someone who has omniscience and authority, otherwise everything you say and do will be seen by them."

"..."

"..."

Aaron and Joan of Arc remained silent. Aaron seemed lost in thought, while Joan of Arc appeared calm. Perhaps for the Queen, such pressure was insignificant; she had experienced far more stressful situations than Aaron had.

"Joan of Arc...I think..."

Aaron hesitated for a moment before finally speaking his true feelings: "I've always... regarded you as a student..."

Finally, driven to the brink, Aaron uttered the words that could have landed him on the guillotine.

“Of course I know, teacher.” Aaron said this with great determination, but Joan’s reaction was completely unexpected, as if she had known Aaron’s thoughts beforehand.

Could the Book of Omniscience possibly see through a person's innermost thoughts? Probably not, at least not during the Mad King's time. Otherwise, if the Mad King knew his innermost thoughts, he would have beheaded him eight hundred times over.

“In the past, I was the person closest to my teacher. If I don’t even know this, what’s the difference between me and someone whose heart is clouded?”

Joan of Arc said, 'Of course I know that my teacher has always regarded me as a student. Otherwise, why would I have waited until now to express my feelings to him? If my teacher had even the slightest other thought about me, things would have turned out this way, and I would have acted much sooner.'

"After all, we are teacher and student, and in a sense, I raised you. I also promised your mother that I would take good care of you and protect you."

“Mmm.” Joan nodded, and they fell into a sentimental and nostalgic atmosphere, but Joan’s next words surprised him greatly.

"But wouldn't that be even more exciting?"

Aaron was stunned for a moment.

"What is this empress thinking? Is it really okay for someone like her to rule the country?"

"However, it seems that it's not that I didn't understand the teacher's ideas, but rather that the teacher didn't understand my ideas."

"I like you, teacher..."

"Wait, Joan of Arc..."

"I like you..."

"Joan of Arc..."

"No matter how many times I say it, it's the same: I love you, teacher." As they spoke, they drew closer and closer, and Aaron could see her face more and more clearly.

"But... are you sure that's not admiration for the teacher? Maybe it's not even love at all?"

Upon hearing this, Joan of Arc did not reply, but simply gazed at him.

"Why?" Joan of Arc asked.

"Joan of Arc..."

Aaron could no longer escape, as Joan of Arc was closing in.

"I think... perhaps neither of us has fully understood our own thoughts yet... we need to think things through..."

"What's unclear about?"

Joan of Arc gently lifted Aaron's chin with her slender, fair fingers, her deep golden eyes gazing into Aaron's eyes, where a storm raged that Aaron could not understand.

Is it because of Freya? Even now that you're in Lucerne, back in our old home, you still can't forget her? Do you still miss your fiancée, the feeling of being with her? So, are you the true love?

'It exploded...'

This was Aaron's first thought, and Joan of Arc seemed to have completely revealed her innermost thoughts.

"It's all because of Claire, the angel from the Church of Judgment. I heard that she saved you at the government building. She rescued you from the government building, and the reason she needed to save you was because you were risking your life to protect Freya..."

“I think protecting her is a normal thing, not because of that kind of relationship…” Aaron explained.

“Indeed, if it were a teacher, they would do that. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be a teacher. That’s what I like about teachers. It’s like how my teacher has taught me for so many years, and I could have easily achieved everything, but all these years, my teacher has still treated me as a student. This makes me both pained and troubled, but it’s also why I like teachers,” Joan of Arc said, gazing into his eyes.

"Joan of Arc..."

"But there's no conflict between these two things. Teacher, you would protect her out of a sense of justice, and you like him and get engaged to him. There's no conflict between these two things, right, teacher?"

"Teacher, it's not surprising that you like Claire. After all, Claire is one of the few remaining angels in the world. She is indeed beautiful and has a very noble temperament. Even I have to admit that. It's normal for you to like her, Teacher."

"We just have a normal working relationship, there's nothing between us..."

"I heard that Teacher... joined the Church of Judgment and became a judge because he liked Claire. For more than ten years before, Teacher never thought about obtaining supernatural power, but after meeting Claire, he became a superhuman in less than a month, and just happened to be a judge of the Church of Judgment."

"Moreover, I heard that the judge's exam is extremely difficult. Although it is obviously a piece of cake for the teacher, the teacher has always kept a low profile and kept a low profile. But now he suddenly passed all the tests and rushed to the top, becoming a judge in a very conspicuous way. No matter how you look at it, it is all to show someone, right?"

"Do you think this is for Claire's benefit?" Aaron asked, startled.

Joan of Arc smiled: "Could it be that you're doing this for me?"

"This one……"

“It seems not…” A cold look appeared in Joan of Arc’s golden eyes.

"Your logic is clearly flawed."

"Oh, even if we take a step back and say it's not because of Freya, nor Claire, then it seems there's only one answer left..."

"You can't just mention other women's names, can you? I haven't had any dealings with other women in the Kingdom of Dok..."

"Of course there are! Isn't there Miss Nadine? Mr. Aaron, isn't he Miss Nadine's hero?"

"You even know this?"

"Don't doubt my intelligence agency, teacher."

"But you know, what you just said was just an angry outburst; it's simply impossible."

Joan of Arc shook her head, then nodded: "Indeed, I was just eliminating the less likely possibilities first; the one after that is the most likely."

"I don't know any other women in the Kingdom of Dok anymore." Having said that, Aaron felt there was nothing to fear.

"No, there's one last one, and the most likely, Aurelia."

Aaron was startled, and for the first time, a wavering expression appeared on his face. Joan of Arc saw all of this without missing a beat, causing her expression to gradually turn cold.

"See? I knew it was because of this..."

'No, that's not it... You've misunderstood...' Aaron retorted instinctively, but to Joan of Arc, it all seemed like sophistry.

“There’s no need to explain anymore. This matter is different from those women. Although I have learned about those women in the Kingdom of Dok in detail, I didn’t see them with my own eyes, so it’s impossible for me to fully understand them. But Aurelia is different.”

Joan of Arc stared into Aaron's eyes and said, "I remember everything about that woman perfectly clearly. In this country—no, in this world—there couldn't possibly be anyone who knows the inside story better than me."

Chapter 240 Once Upon a Time

"Who exactly are you talking about?" Aaron asked.

"Oh, teacher, you really don't know? To me, that person has always been a nightmare."

"Aurelia, teacher, your favorite leader."

At some point, the smile on the emperor's face had disappeared, replaced by an indifferent expression that Aaron had only ever seen on television.

If it weren't for the fact that they were too close and their relationship was too ambiguous, Aaron would have thought he was going to be silenced.

Her eyes were cold, not hostile, but devoid of the gentleness from before; it was an extremely serious expression.

She gazed into Aaron's eyes: "Isn't Aurelia the woman you love most?"

"Wait, Joan of Arc, I think you might have misunderstood something..."

After a long pause, Aaron began to explain: "She is the one who saved me, but I don't have the kind of feelings for her that you think. You and Aurelia are different people, each with your own style. In any case, you shouldn't compare yourself to her."

Aaron believed that Joan of Arc likely had a childhood trauma related to Aurelia, which, as he said, was her nightmare, hence her words. But why did it turn out this way? Shouldn't Aurelia have treated Joan of Arc very well as children? Shouldn't their relationship have been as close as mother and child? How could their feelings have turned out this way?

“Teacher, you seem to have forgotten something,” Joan of Arc said calmly. “In a sense, isn’t the relationship between you and Aurelia just like the relationship between you and me?”

When Aaron heard this, he suddenly broke out in a cold sweat, because he realized that the statement seemed to be true.

“I’ve heard Aurelia tell you your story and hers. We were both saved by others, and at the time, we were completely unworthy of each other’s status. We only achieved our success later on. In that respect, aren’t we exactly the same?”

"The only difference is that the teacher is still alive, while Aurelia is dead. If the teacher doesn't think this way, does the teacher mean to say that I'm judging others by my own petty standards?" Joan of Arc spoke words of jealousy calmly and seriously.

Even though Aaron had never thought about it or wanted to admit it, and always subconsciously ignored the issue, there was no doubt that Joan of Arc's words had struck a nerve with him, perhaps revealing a truth that even he himself hadn't realized.

As Joan of Arc said, even if he himself was unaware, he did have a perfect image of Aurelia in his heart. At that time, Aaron himself was just a child who had just transmigrated, and in front of him was Aurelia, a great beauty whose status was unattainable and whom everyone would like. It is only natural that anyone would fall in love with her.

Didn't I expect we even have to be honest with each other about this?

For some reason, Aaron suddenly thought of the incident at the government building. It was because he had neglected Freya's feelings that he was able to repay his debts at the government building and was so easily defeated by Eclair.

Now it seems that he is paying the price for neglecting Joan of Arc's feelings for so long, but this kind of repayment feels very strange to Aaron, though it is the same in essence.

Aaron felt an unprecedented headache. He had no idea how to continue the conversation or how to answer the question. He also didn't know what answer Joan of Arc wanted or what kind of answer would satisfy her. He even felt that being thrown back to the battlefield would be ten times better than facing this problem.

After the Seven Kingdoms attacked Lusset, Joan of Arc was preoccupied with the alliance and had no time to consider such matters. She could only suppress her grief over Aaron's unknown whereabouts and possible death. But now things were different. Lusset had become the most powerful country in the world, and Joan of Arc's personality had become as unpredictable as a true ruler through the trials and tribulations of the past years. In addition, as a wise woman who possessed the Book of Omniscience, she was not only extremely shrewd, but more importantly, Aaron had no idea what she was thinking.

Is there an instruction manual for Jeanne d'Arc in the world? He used to think he had one, but it seems to be outdated. The current Jeanne d'Arc is ten times stronger than before, and Aaron feels that he no longer understands her at all.

Was it a pent-up emotion? Or jealousy towards Aurelia? Or was it all just wishful thinking on his part, and that Joan of Arc had already fully accepted reality and was only bringing these things up to get over his own conscience?

Surely it couldn't be that Joan of Arc developed sadistic tendencies after becoming empress, and that he was the object of her sadism...

The most painful thing in life is that there are some things you have to face.

This time, Aaron thought for a long time, and after much deliberation, he slowly opened his mouth, uttering words he had carefully considered.