[This is a story that happened after your death.]
[The collapse of Rome began with your death.]
[One day after you went missing, Nero found you on the hillside full of blooming roses. You had not yet begun to decompose because of the poisonous mushroom.]
[But this was clearly not the outcome she wanted to see.]
[Almost instinctively, Nero began to deny everything she saw.]
"Teacher, you're so mean."
Nero lay directly beside Ian, holding his cold hand, and looked up at the white clouds in the Roman sky with him.
"How could you secretly come to such a nice place to enjoy yourself without taking me with you?"
"This act of enjoying yourself alone is just too much—I'm very angry right now, you know?"
After saying this, Nero looked at him, who was motionless.
"Teacher, I'm going to punish you. Did you hear me?"
"If you heard me, then answer me immediately!"
However—
The dead don't speak.
Nero's question received no response. The only sound was the cold wind constantly blowing across the hillside.
The young emperor's cheeks were getting cold from the wind.
Two lines of clear tears fell crookedly onto the ground.
"It's okay if you don't speak—Teacher, you promised that you would be my slave for your entire life."
"I... will never let you go."
[Nero picked you up and walked down the hillside, heading towards the palace.]
[That day, all the Roman citizens on the streets saw this scene.]
[They were either surprised, confused, or fearful.]
[But in the end, it was all the same question.]
["Why is His Majesty carrying Lord Seneca's body?"]
[No one knew the answer to this question, and no one could possibly know.]
[Because the love between you and Nero had never appeared under the sun; it had only taken root and sprouted in the quiet of the night.]
[And because of this, Nero once again began to reflect on whether she had done something wrong.]
"Teacher, are you mad at me?"
"Are you thinking that I didn't fulfill my duty as a wife?"
"I understand, I know—as long as I can prove to everyone that I am Teacher's wife, Teacher won't be mad anymore, right?"
"Teacher, just you wait."
[Just as Nero had promised, she began to prove that she was your wife in the most extreme way.]
[She held you in the most beautiful wedding dress at the Senate meeting and said sweet nothings as if no one else was there.]
[She took you and danced to the music she had composed herself in the liveliest square.]
[Once, twice, three times.]
[Although everyone knew that whatever the Roman emperor did was right, this bizarre sight still inevitably caused gossip among the people.]
["Is His Majesty crazy now?" "His Majesty seems to have fallen seriously ill because of Lord Seneca's death!"]
[Such words spread throughout Rome in a very short amount of time.]
[The murmurs rose and fell in the streets and alleys, impacting the streets of Rome like waves.]
[But Nero was unmoved—she was still proving that she was your wife.]
[Finally, the nobles could no longer stand to sit in the Senate with a corpse that had been dead for a long time.]
[On the seventh day after your death, they united and forcefully took you away from Nero, then cleanly cremated you and buried you on the highest mountain in Rome.]
["Your Majesty, you must prioritize Rome."]
[The nobles said such words, presumptuously advising Nero.]
[As the young emperor gradually fell silent, everyone thought that the matter would come to an end.]
[Everything would return to its original state, as if you had never appeared.]
[However—]
[They underestimated Nero's love for you.]
[Or rather... her possessiveness.]
"Teacher, this is your scent."
In the dead of night, Nero sat on the Roman throne, sniffing the clothes Ian had once worn over and over again.
"You're not dead, are you—I order you to appear in front of me immediately!"
However, that voice that could command thousands of Roman armies was now useless.
Nero looked at the incomparably silent darkness in front of her, and tears once again slid down her face uncontrollably.
At this moment, she finally realized something that was hard to accept—that her teacher had truly left.
The teacher who understood her the most and knew how to please her the most was now nothing more than a name.
Impossible... this is absolutely impossible.
Nero stood up from the throne, clutching the clothes that had once belonged to Ian, greedily trying to get the scent from them.
"I won't let you go!"
"Never!"
[Nero might really have gone mad.]
[She began to question the priest who had communicated with the Lord for her before in the most terrifying tone.]
[She wanted to find a way to bring you back from the dead.]
Inside the great cathedral.
Nero, dressed as the emperor, grabbed the priest's collar and stared at the white-haired old man with an extremely fierce gaze.
"You selfish old worm, why didn't you pass my words on to your Lord?!"
"Your Majesty, I didn't do that!" the priest said nervously. "I have already reported all of Your Majesty's requests to the Lord in the most sincere tone."
"Then why didn't He help?!" Nero roared. "Even after I did all that, my teacher still died!"
"Your Majesty, please take care of your body and don't get so agitated." The priest wiped the sweat from his forehead and tried his best to explain to Nero.
"The Lord once said, 'How can you know life if you don't know death?'"
"I think the reason He didn't intervene was probably because He felt He shouldn't interfere with Lord Seneca's experience of death."
"What are you saying!"
Nero grabbed the priest's neck. In her rage, she looked like a lion.
"My teacher doesn't need to learn anything about death. You immediately tell your Lord to bring my teacher back."
"Seven days... within three days, I want to see Teacher."
"Otherwise—"
Nero's tone became fiercer than ever before.
That was an expression she would never have had when Ian was still by her side.
"I will not give you the chance to appear in front of me again!"
[This was a command from the Roman emperor.]
[Under this extremely blunt death threat, all the Christian believers didn't dare to be careless.]
[In the three days Nero had given them, they began to pray frantically, constantly conveying the Roman emperor's wish to the omniscient and omnipotent Lord, hoping that He could bring you back.]
[It was a scene comparable to a thousand people worshipping. If a passerby who didn't understand the reason saw this, they might even feel an inexplicable sense of holiness.]
[However—]
[Just as He didn't respond to the priest's prayer before, this time, the Lord also didn't extend a helping hand to the Roman believers.]
[The already furious Nero naturally wouldn't show any mercy in this situation.]
["It seems that the Lord you believe in is useless—then you must also be useless, right?"]
["My Rome has never raised idle people."]
[With only this flimsy reason, Nero directly began to deal with the Christian believers in the imperial capital.]
[Holding the Aestus estus of the meteorite iron, she pointed her weapon at the sky and then indulged in the slaughter of these people.]
[In a short time, the Christian believers in Rome were almost completely wiped out.]
[Falsely accusing someone of being a Christian believer became the most terrifying form of harm at that time.]
[But—]
[Slaughtering did not solve the problem itself.]
[After the blood of the Christian believers dyed Rome's sewers red, the emperor still had to face the same original problem in front of the small mountain of corpses.]
[That was that her teacher still hadn't returned to her side.]
"Why? Why on earth?"
Nero breathed in the bloody air, questioning the Roman sky over and over again.
"Am I not the emperor of Rome? Everything on this land should belong to me! But why can't I make Teacher come back to my side?"
"That's right!"
"Is it because the Rome I rule is not strong enough yet?! That must be it, right?"
"Yes, that must be it!"
"Teacher, then I will make a promise with you—if I can make Rome even stronger, you must come back to my side!"
[The unending longing became Nero's obsession.]
[Because of this, she suffered from an extremely severe headache. She would often wake up in the middle of the night, cry loudly, and then suffer from insomnia until dawn.]
[This headache severely affected her thinking.]
[Some things that she would never do in the past gradually began to seem reasonable in her eyes.]
"Teacher, what did you say you loved the most..."
Walking in Ian's room from when he was alive, Nero talked to herself as if she could see him beside her.
"I remember—it was me, right?"
"Teacher, you're so naughty. How can you be so infatuated with your student? That place must have been hard a long time ago, right?"
"However—"
Nero lay on Ian's bed and took off her clothes one by one, leaving only her body, which was as white as jade, exposed to the air.
"Because it's Teacher, it's okay."
After saying this, Nero closed her eyes. Her well-maintained hands now made some corresponding movements that were absolutely not suitable for a person with the status of an emperor.
There were no mirrors in Ian's room.
After all—
If Nero saw herself masturbating alone in the mirror, she would probably smash the mirror to pieces on the spot.
She didn't need anyone to remind her of the fact that her teacher was no longer there.
Even if that person was herself.
[This method of self-comfort did not alleviate Nero's headache. Instead, it made it a permanent condition.]
[Gradually, Nero, in this state, began to govern from a completely different perspective than before.]
[Once policies are detached from the people, they will eventually turn into a castle in the air.]
[Nero tore down the original palace and built a theater called "Domus Aurea" in its place.]
[Every day, she would sing love songs written for you there.]
[She seemed to think that if she sang enough, you would one day push open the theater door and appear in front of her.]
Inside the Domus Aurea.
Nero, who was completely unaware that her singing was horribly out of tune due to her headache, was singing loudly. The almost cruel sound swept through the theater, and even the falling roses were disturbed.
"Listen to my song! It is a love song I dedicate to my husband!"
Nero, who was completely lost in her singing, slowly opened her eyes and saw a full theater and citizens clapping their hands.
This was not because her singing was good. On the contrary, no one could listen to what Nero was singing—because listening for a while would make their heads spin.
But no one left because of this.
Or rather...
They couldn't leave.
Nero had already closed all the doors and had soldiers guard them from the outside.
If anyone dared to leave before she finished singing the love songs, they would be immediately beheaded.
The so-called Domus Aurea had, in an instant, turned into a golden execution ground.
[These consecutive actions caused the image of a wise ruler that Nero had built up over a few years to collapse.]
[The supreme emperor of Rome gradually became a tyrant that everyone wanted to kill in the mouths of the citizens.]
[But Nero didn't care about this at all.]
[Or rather, what she cared about was not this.]
["How can I get Teacher to come back?"]
[The young woman's heart only had this one question from beginning to end.]
[But doing such a thing was not simple. At least, it could not be achieved with the power she had.]
[Because of this, she fell into deep pain.]
[It seemed that fate always wanted to torment the people who were deeply in it.]
[One afternoon, Nero saw a pillar of light that twisted reality—it was the light emitted by an existence called the "Holy Grail."]
"You want to get him back, right?"
"You want to see him, right?"
"You want him to stay by your side for your entire life, right?"
"Come—come over—as long as you come over—everything will be as you wish."
What a strange voice... but it completely matched what was in her heart.
She climbed, reaching the peak.
On the highest of the seven hills, Nero saw a golden, shimmering cup.
"Are you the one calling me?"
"If I... just touch you, I can fulfill that wish, right?"
There was no answer.
But Nero gave herself an answer that could answer everything—it could. It absolutely could!
She walked forward step by step, and tears also flowed down her face.
"Teacher, I will definitely find you."
"Before that, with my life as the continuation, the flames of Rome will never stop."
Saying this, the young woman stretched out her hand towards the dazzling pillar of light.
In the next moment, the flame swallowed Nero, like a blooming rose.
A beast-like roar echoed in the sky above her head.
BOOM—!
The terrifying fire rose to the sky and then fell like a meteor, smashing into the large and small streets of Rome, incinerating everything it touched.
The painful wails of the citizens filled the sky, welcoming the eternal continuation of a mad empire in the most complete way.
But in this terrifying scene, there was one person with a tall hat who was safe and sound.
"What a hassle... it took so long to create a tyrant."
"But it's not unacceptable."
"At least... I didn't lie to that person called Seneca."
[The story is not yet over.]
[The young woman holding a rose is still waiting for your return.]
[—Simulation Ended—]
[The results you obtained have been written into the Pan-Human History, and a part of the abilities has been incorporated into your body.]
[Thank you for your contribution to this!]
(End of Volume 11)