The World Is Mine For The Taking-Chapter 1139: Epilogue 21 - The United Republic Of Viritoginy (4)

James’s POV

The Emperor had been exactly as easy to manipulate as I predicted—no, easier. It was almost insulting how little effort it took. Laughably easy. I hadn’t needed clever traps, layered lies, or even a well-constructed narrative. I barely nudged him, and he marched forward on his own, eager and obedient, like a dog chasing a treat it didn’t even understand.

There was something genuinely wrong with how his mind worked. Or rather, how it didn’t.

His thinking was shallow to the point of absurdity. Childish. Crude. Blunt. There were only three things that occupied space inside that hollow skull of his, and he had proudly announced them himself without the slightest hint of shame: land, money, and women. That was it. Nothing else. No legacy, no ideology, no long-term vision. Just accumulation. Ownership. Indulgence.

Typical of an emperor like him, really. Almost stereotypical.

And yet, that was precisely what made it so frustrating. He could have wanted more. He should have wanted more. With the power he held, with the influence at his fingertips, he could have aimed higher than any ruler before him. He could have reshaped history, rewritten borders, forced the world to bend in ways no one had ever dared to imagine.

But he didn’t.

Because that stupid brain of his simply couldn’t reach that far. His ambitions were stunted, trapped in the shallow mud of his own desires. He didn’t think beyond tomorrow, beyond the next conquest, the next payout, the next woman warming his bed. It made him predictable. Manageable. Disposable.

"You seem a little down, James," Leonora said.

Her voice pulled me out of my thoughts.

She stepped out of the bathroom then, the door creaking softly behind her. Steam rolled off her skin in slow, lazy waves, clinging to her like a second layer. Droplets of water slid down her body, tracing curves that were, objectively speaking, very well-shaped. Balanced. Deliberate. Almost sculpted.

If I weren’t a woman myself, if my interests lay elsewhere, I would have jumped at the opportunity without hesitation. Her body alone was enough to make most people lose their composure.

"You’re staring pretty intensely," she added, tilting her head slightly. Her lips curled into something teasing, something deliberately provocative. "Don’t tell me you finally see me as a woman?"

"I don’t," I said immediately.

Flat. Unmoved.

Leonora sighed, not surprised in the slightest. "Well, that’s just like you," she said, rolling her shoulders slightly. "I know you’re not interested in women at all. You’ve never been subtle about that. But why not try it anyway? Just once. A taste. I think both of us could benefit from the experience, don’t you think?"

She paused, then continued, her tone turning just a bit more honest. "I mean, neither of us has had our first time yet, right? And I can tell you this much—I absolutely do not want my first time to be with that emperor."

"I don’t want my first time to be with someone I don’t love," I replied calmly. "And more than that, I don’t feel anything from you. No arousal. No pull. Nothing. I wouldn’t be able to do it with someone I feel absolutely nothing toward."

Leonora clicked her tongue in annoyance. "You really are an old thinker," she muttered. "That traditional mindset of yours is honestly making me sick. Love, first time, emotional connection—don’t you think you’re taking it all way too seriously?"

"Then why don’t you have sex with the male fragment of Lilith?" I asked, my tone sharp but controlled. "I’m sure he’d be more than willing. And if you did that, we might finally be able to get rid of him once and for all."

That name alone made something inside me tighten.

He had been a thorn in my side from the very beginning.

Every plan I had laid out, every subtle adjustment I made to the flow of events, every careful manipulation designed to let the butterfly effect guide everything into place—he ruined them. Again and again. It was almost uncanny. As if the world itself bent to keep him in my way.

I had accounted for chaos. For resistance. For unexpected variables.

I hadn’t accounted for him.

Because of that, everything I had built from the start had begun to crumble. Slowly at first. Then all at once. The strain of constantly adjusting, constantly compensating, had started to weigh on me. It was becoming exhausting. Demanding.

I had to succeed.

If I didn’t... I wouldn’t be able to make it.

"Well," Leonora said after a moment, her expression turning more thoughtful, "Leon seems wary of me. I can’t exactly tell what’s going on inside his head. He’s insane when it comes to people with vaginas, sure, but that doesn’t automatically mean he’ll stick it into anything that moves."

"You sure seem to know a lot about him," I said, narrowing my eyes slightly, "for someone who’s only met him briefly."

Leonora shrugged. "Even if we’re far apart, I think I can understand him to some degree. We were born from the same source, after all. Doesn’t that mean I’d naturally have some insight into who he is?"

She wasn’t wrong.

Leonora was a fragment of Lilith. Just like Elise. And just like the one I referred to as the Faceless Playwright.

There were five fragments in total. Five pieces of a whole. I only knew of four. The fifth remained unaccounted for, slipping through the cracks no matter how carefully I searched. Leonora claimed the fifth was close to the Playwright, always near but never fully revealed. That narrowed things down somewhat. Either the academy, or somewhere within the Milham Kingdom.

Regardless of where they were, all five fragments were fascinating in their own way.

But the Faceless Playwright stood above the rest.

There was something about him that unsettled me. Something familiar. Not in the sense of recognition, but in the way a half-forgotten memory scratches at the back of your mind. I couldn’t place it, no matter how hard I tried, and that bothered me more than I cared to admit.

"Either way," I said finally, breaking the silence, "something has to be done about him. If not, then all of our plans—everything we’ve worked toward—will be for nothing."

Leonora let out a slow breath. "I suppose you’re right," she said. "I still can’t believe he managed to unite all the kingdoms within the Great Forest and establish a republic. The United Republic of Viritoginy."

She shook her head slightly, almost in disbelief. "This might be the first time the world has truly seen what kind of change is possible when someone actually has the ability to follow through. Leon is terrifying. If nothing is done about him, I honestly believe he could achieve world domination without people even realizing it’s happening."