Chapter 1549 Ambition [1]
?Damien didn't return to the palace with Horacio. He was already on his way to the next stop in his combat circuit.
But if he had, he would've had a great time.
After all, even if Damien informed people that he would come, they still couldn't believe their eyes when a Foreign Noble walked into their palace and kneeled, declaring himself a follower.
It was truly incredulity across the board. From the highest members to the lowest, the reactions of everyone in the palace were right about the same.
For the most part.
There were, of course, the people who never doubted Damien's power, those who believed that if Damien said he could do it, it was possible.
Included in that group were the four women who held more faith in Damien than anyone else.
His wives.
They'd faded into the background a bit after he came to the Heavenly World. Damien definitely made time for them whenever he could, but as he began advancing at a pace too rapid for any other person to follow, they secluded themselves to do anything possible to catch up.
They'd all made the same promise, saying that they would stand by his side, not behind him.
And they all wanted to honor that promise to the best of their abilities.
Rose and her sisters were all different people. The way they expressed and responded to love was different. However, at the most fundamental level, they all held the same emotions.
At times like this, those emotions brought them together and allowed them to form a bond beyond friendship, something none of them thought possible when they first entered the relationship.
After all, while harems weren't uncommon, it was hard to make one work.
Rose was especially experienced in this problem.
When she was young, she'd been driven by her father's experiences to try to bring perfection to Damien's harem behind the scenes.
She suffered a lot for that before realizing that it wasn't worth it. Their natural bond that developed through time and conflict was stronger than anything she could artificially fabricate.
It was back then when Rose learned to live for herself.
She was always a free-spirited and curious person. She met Damien when she was just a girl, exploring the world because she was bored of her royal atmosphere.
At that time, she was immature. She didn't know the kinds of scars and baggage she'd been carrying around with her, and only through her interactions with Damien and the wider world he showed her did she begin to unpack it.
It was a fact that was both a blessing and a curse.
The fact that he had such a huge impact on her life, the fact that he took her off of the small and boring world of Apeiron, it made her love him harder than she'd ever loved before.
Perhaps that was when she started living for him.
She wanted to gain power for his sake. She wanted to stand beside him so he would never be lonely. She wanted to see the peak only if he was there with her.
She'd never really had that ambition on her own. That just wasn't the type of person she was.
Rose didn't abhor power, but she didn't necessarily like it either. It was a necessary thing to her, and while she was well into her adulthood when she finally admitted it, she used it as a coping mechanism for a long time.
The sadistic behavior she'd exhibited on the battlefield had developed into her combat style and had influenced the way her power grew, but it actually didn't stem from a natural sadism.
It stemmed from the things she'd seen and experienced.
A weak person; a compassionate person just couldn't survive in this world.
But hundreds of years had passed.
Rose wasn't just an adult now, she was an experienced adult.
And that experience revealed to her the true heart she'd been hiding for so long.
Rose was calm. She wasn't ambitious, but she really, really liked helping others.
To do so, she didn't mind getting stronger. It was a sort of half-ambition that didn't really drive her anywhere.
But if that was her motivation, then why did she practice so hard?
Anyone who had seen her train called her a monster.
She would constantly place herself within illusions indistinguishable from reality, forcing herself to experience terrifying events.
The number of times Rose had felt real death couldn't be counted with four digits anymore.
Why would she put herself through so much if she wanted to live peacefully?
Rose wasn't afraid to admit that it was all for him anymore.
She wasn't afraid to acknowledge her dependence.
But she also wasn't going to get rid of it.
This was how she was. This was her personality, no matter how others saw it.
She missed her husband. She didn't want to spend time away from him. If she could, she'd spend every second of every day by his side for the rest of eternity.
When Damien was absent for long periods of time, she didn't complain. She was understanding of his circumstances, after all.
But she hated that she just had to accept it.
If she was stronger, wouldn't she be able to go out and experience his adventures together with him?
She didn't want Damien to leave her behind anymore.
And for that reason, she trained herself like she was her own worst enemy.
She put herself through hell and forced herself to either improve or die.
Because of the insanity she showed in training, she raised her strength rapidly.
It wasn't as rapid as some others, but it was an extreme pace that even the most talented people in the army couldn't match.
However, it wasn't enough.
The second Damien sent news that he'd somehow converted a Foreign Noble to their side, she realized that.
She was already doing everything she could.
She really didn't have a way to grow faster, but Damien was moving at a pace that she couldn't catch up to even if she did.
That was when she received word of the deployment notice.
She'd known of its existence for a while. She saw Damien working hard to create it.
However…
'...I never expected my name to be on here.'
Rose and Ruyue were paired together and assigned to take care of a group of Viscounts. Looking at the strength of their enemies, it didn't seem like a difficult task, but…
'The outside world.'
The true Heavenly World.
Truthfully, Rose hadn't even seen it once yet.
She didn't have much of an interest in it.
'But…'
She contemplated it for a moment.
'That might be the only way.'
It was an easy conclusion to come to.
Maybe if she kept herself trapped here, dreaming of peace, she would never actually be able to achieve anything.
Maybe the answer she couldn't find within the palace would be somewhere outside.
Rose liked the palace a lot.
She got along extremely well with her mother-in-law and the rest, and when she could, she would help Hestia in the operations room.
She was also a skilled commander, after all.
To Rose, this life on the backlines was far more her style than fighting directly on the frontlines.
But it was obvious that if she wanted her goal to remain the same, if she wanted to spend more time with Damien, she'd have to go and fight.
Because until there was no more fighting left to be done, Damien wouldn't have peace.
'Okay.'
It was a little funny how she and Damien calmed themselves in the same way.
Since Damien had assigned her this mission, it meant he trusted her strength and believed she'd find something on the battlefield that she'd been lacking.
He never did anything without a reason.
And if her husband was giving her this kind of push, if even he believed in her absurd dreams…
'...then maybe I can too.'
Maybe it was time for her to start living for herself a little.
Maybe she could finally find a purpose of her own, something that could ignite her passion and help her in achieving her ultimate goal.
It was a prospect like none Rose had ever considered in the past.
And honestly…
Like a gentle breeze, flowing through a mountaintop above the clouds, meeting the sun as it set through the sky.
Cold, yet refreshing, putting one's mind at ease, yet filling one's heart with a surge of indescribable wonder.
'...this might not be so bad after all.'
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