When Pauliana first meets Lucius in the manwha, she begs to be killed honorably; and he adheres to her wishes pretty fast. However, the soldiers don't exactly respect or obey to his order immediately and plan to r*pe her, which of course, results in pauliana savagely fighting all of the men coming her way. In the novel however, Lucius is extremely superstitious and believes killing a virg*n woman will curse/haunt his men and himself, so he orders for one handsome man to bed her before having her get killed. Basically r*pe. This left a sour taste in my mouth, but I let it slide. Further down the road, there are many other differences between the manwha and the novel, but I've only ever skipped to where the manwha ended, so I'm not exactly sure what they are. Anyway... The real problems arise after Lucius falls in love with her. Desperately.

Pauliana doesn't love him, her only feelings towards Lucius are those of respect and loyalty; nothing that could exceed what normal knights feel towards their emperor. Her reasoning is honorable, but the author somehow makes Pauliana's character inconcistent. At the age of 33 she becomes desperate for a husband, someone who could be by her side. The sudden loneliness is a surprise since not that long ago, she had rejected Donau, a man who loved her just as much as Lucius, for reasons. Of course she did not feel the same way, and I respected that. But later, something so mindblowingly annoying happens. A new character named Frau Sneke makes his appearance, and he's a gold digger who clearly doesnt love her. He makes his intentions known to Pauliana (that he wants to marry her for her money and title) and, while she was angry at first, she later on felt moved and apreciated his honesty. She seriously considered marrying a gold-digger because she was that lonely. Alright.
Unfortunately, Frau wasnt as honest as she thought and it turns out that he had a secret bastard child somewhere. a son he concieved with a maid from his household (and the main reason why he got disowned). Frau had planned to hide his existence from Pauliana, so his son could inherit her name and title, as well as her fortune. Pauliana finds out, and in her absolute fury; she forces Frau to cut off his own pen*s in front of his son.
This is where things started to look extremely shady for me. Frau, while having lied about having a son, had made his intentions clear from the beginning- that he was after her money. The fact that he wanted her money for his son's well being isn't that different. The reaction from Pauliana and, hell, everyone else was so extreme that they told her she was too soft on him, and should have done worse than force him to cut off his own dick??? What.
The author seems to strongly believe so as well, and they wrote it as an act of grace from pauliana's part. Lucius, who had witnessed the whole thing, told her she was too soft on him too. The man's only crime was to have lied about being child-less. Was it really worth traumatizing his child?

A few chapters later, Pauliana and Lucius get drunk and have s*x. (c264) Its at this point that the story becomes absolute nonesense for me. Pauliana gets pregnant from that one-night stand and, as soon as she discovers that she is carrying his child, she demands for a vacation and runs off to give birth far away from Lucius. She doesnt even tell him that she isnt barren, like he had thought. Once she gives birth to his son, Pauliana's thoughts go from hoping the child dies, to hiding his existence from Lucius completely. (A selfish and hypocritical thought because Frau had his d*ck cut off for that exact reason?! What the hell pauliana! What the absolute F!)
But Lucius ends up finding out anyway after an impromptu visit to her land. He is of course overjoyed by the news and confesses his love immediately! Which angers pauliana.

Her angry reaction was a mess. Because marrying the emperor would result in her losing her name and knight status, she makes it a big deal to practically step on his heart even further. She tells him she doesnt love him or the son she bore for him. The confession hurt her more than anything else in her life??? And she wouldve been happier if he had just married her out of obligation and not love? Author. You make pauliana fall for a gold digger who doesnt even love her, but when Lucius, the man she practically WORSHIPS tells her that he loves her, she throws a fit?

Maybe I just cannot understand her reasoning. But everything after that one night stand was absolute selfishness on Pauliana's part. Her hating her own son was the cherry on top. She even suggests marrying the emperor so their son will be a legitimate heir; then divorce him?? Lucius was thoroughly broken by his love for Pauliana in 200, agonizing chapters, but she further breaks his soul by acting like a selfish brat. Where has her noble knightly personality gone? Everything Lucius has done was selfless. He had been ready to give up on his feelings for her happiness, he had redeemed himself many times, but she keeps acting like a cold-hearted witch, something I KNOW she isnt.

After that point, Lucius tries his best to woo her. But Pauliana's character is already broken for me.

becoming a mother and hating her child for selfish reasons.

Such as, she gets "sodomized" in the beginning of the novel, but apparently a lot of the soldiers do, as well. But it didn't feel romanticized at all, which is GREAT. A lot of these romance novels have a thing where the ML has to r*pe the FL or something to make it romantic which like... no thank you.... lol....

For example, MC was sodomized by her commander during her early days as a knight. She was also almost r*ped by ML's knights when she got captured. Although she managed to keep her v**ginity intact, there were still so many knights who saw her naked state so it must be humilating for MC at that time.

MC wasn't a beauty and no, she wouldn't get any better with makeover. Don't get me wrong, I didn't look down on MC for being ugly, rather I'm glad that the author made her so full of flaws. It's getting tiring to have a beautiful and perfect woman as a lead and MC was one of the most refreshing (and realistic) main lead character so far.

ML was a beautiful man and he was also a great ruler but as a lover, he was far from perfect. When he was still at war, he often slept around with many women that was offered to him. When he came back to the capital, he married 3 wives at once for political reason even though he already fell in love with MC. And yes, he slept with them and one of them even got pregnant with his child. Although he became single again not long after due to some unfortunate events, it still didn't change the fact that he once married and had a child with another woman. MC in fact felt a bit bitter about it but she still ended up with ML anyway.