All sorts of curses mixed in my throat, but they couldn’t quite make it out of my mouth.

Niel, noticing my visibly angry demeanor, asked with a gentle smile.

“If you need money, shall I help you?”

“No, I’m fine.”

I replied in a cold voice.

“If you’re done here, please leave now.”

However, despite my efforts to send him away, Niel persisted and stubbornly stayed.

“I’m not done yet.”

“…?”

“Can’t I watch Jella working here for just a bit longer?”

“No, you can’t.”

“Then how about requesting a new commission?”

“I won’t do it.”

“Without even listening?”

“Yes.”

Hmph, you’re a problematic customer who paid a worthless item as a life price. Have you ever heard of a black consumer?

…Well, it might not be the exact term to use in this situation, but anyway, he’s now our underworld’s number-one blacklisted person, number one!

“You’re so cold. We even know each other’s names, workplace, and have exchanged a life price.”

Niel said in a seemingly upset voice.

Seeing him like that, a sudden suspicion arose.

‘Both Niel Alpenhayer and Yupheon Arne. Why are these guys so persistent?’

It was more unsettling because I knew they weren’t the type to show this much interest in others.

Could it be that they know I’m Jella Shunaibel?

No way. They couldn’t know.

If they did know…

They wouldn’t be having such normal conversations with me, or occasionally showing pleasant smiles.

“Jella Shunaibel, I will surely kill you with my own hands.”

Ugh…

I shuddered, recalling the vicious threat I had received from him in the past.

Having my life threatened by the protagonist was enough in my previous life.

“Anyway, please leave now, Your Majesty.”

I shooed Niel out.

***

Once outside, Niel found Tenes waiting for him in the hallway.

“Tenes.”

Niel called out to Tenes with a gentle smile.

“Were you alone with her just now?”

Despite his soft and gentle voice, his gaze towards Tenes was murderously fierce.

“Ah, no, absolutely not!”

“Then what was it that I saw earlier?”

Niel tilted his head at Tenes’s denial.

“I clearly saw it, are you lying? Why are you lying? What benefit is there in hiding your relationship with her…?”

Lost in thought, Niel suddenly asked with an expression as if he had just realized something.

“Don’t tell me, have you come to like her?”

“Hii, hiiik!”

Tenes shook his head vigorously in denial.

“We, we only talked about work! We only discussed work and I absolutely didn’t look at her that way!”

It was a pitiful and desperate sight.

Niel flashed a smile at such a Tenes.

“I see. That’s good, Tenes. I want to see your face for a bit longer.”

“I, I also want to live a bit longer…”

Tenes followed behind Niel, agreeing obsequiously.

In truth, Tenes felt quite wronged.

When Jella caught him secretly pocketing money from the underworld, he had planned to run away faster than anyone else.

But Niel, who had heard the news first, ordered him to quietly hand over everything he had to her and stick by her side.

So, after losing all the wealth he had been monopolizing and becoming penniless, he simply followed Niel’s orders and stayed by her side, watching for any potential dangers around her. And now he’s being misunderstood as liking her, which is ridiculous.

“By the way, Lord Niel, that woman is shutting down all the businesses we’ve been running in the underworld. What should we do?”

“Just watch.”

“Pardon?”

“I said, just watch what she does.”

 Tenes asked again, surprised by Niel’s clean answer that came without even a moment’s hesitation.

“What if we all starve to death because everything goes bankrupt?”

“Surely you won’t die.”

Niel answered with a smirk, but Tenes couldn’t hide his anxious look.

“But Lord Niel, no matter how I look at it, that woman doesn’t seem to have any talent for business.”

“Her?”

Niel tilted his head as if this was unexpected.

She, who had killed all her blood relatives and became the Emperor, had held and controlled all administrative and military powers within the empire in her own hands.

Although she gained the stigma of being a tyrant due to her autocratic governance, it also meant that she handled all those tasks by herself.

And to be honest, during her reign, the empire was more prosperous than ever before. To the extent that surrounding countries didn’t dare to covet it.

Thanks to her well-organized administrative foundation that had been in shambles, the new Alpenhayer Empire was also able to run state affairs smoothly from its founding period.

“Sigh… Don’t even mention it. I overheard that woman worrying alone earlier…”

Tenes closed his eyes tightly and opened them again as if it was terrible.

“For a new business to replace the existing ones, Jella Irene is thinking of, get this…”

And then he exclaimed as if it was an impossible thing.

“She’s planning to sell medicines she made herself!”

“Ah.”

Niel let out a short exclamation.

“A medicine she made herself……”

“She may claim to have successfully made a skin remedy by luck, but isn’t that woman’s skill obvious? She can only make poison!”

Tenes spoke with a bit of agitation.

“To distribute a self-made medicine to the public. This is worse than murder. Don’t you see it could shake the stability of the empire?”

Tenes ranted that if that’s the case, it would be better to properly make and sell poison as a way to get rich.

“……But the skin remedy she made was effective.”

At this point, Niel spoke with a slightly stiffened voice.

Their plan to ruin Lady Clarence’s debutante by creating a poison disguised as a skin remedy had failed.

This was because Jella had made a perfect skin remedy. Contrary to Tenes’ claim that she could only make poison.

“Thanks to that, my position has become a bit awkward. I should have prevented Lady Clarence from participating in the debutante, but as a result, I’ve become an ungrateful emperor who slighted the Clarence ducal family, a founding contributor to the nation.”

Niel sighed, rubbing his temples in apparent exhaustion.

“The nobles have been giving me such a hard time about it. They’re pestering me to take an Empress within this year, or they won’t sit idly by.”

“That’s……”

The words ‘That’s because you didn’t dance with the lady and ran away from the place’ rose to his throat.

However, Tenes, who valued his life above all else, didn’t bother to voice those words.

“That’s unfortunate……”

“Well, it was an expected outcome. It was our mistake for underestimating her abilities.”

Niel replied with a slight smile.

A smile that seemed rather joyful lingered on his lips, quite unfitting for someone in an awkward situation due to a failed plan.

***

On a large bed draped with red curtains, a man lay face down.

With nothing covering his upper body, his well-defined back muscles glistened temptingly in the sunlight.

Two cats, one white and one black, meowed and played on top of him.

“Jella……”

The man gathered the light pink petals scattered on the snow-white sheets with his thick palm, murmuring someone’s name.

They were petals that resembled her pink jewel-like eyes, as lovely as a spring day.

The man buried his nose in the gathered petals, savoring their scent.

“It smells like you……”

As he inhaled deeply into his lungs, his chest expanded greatly.

All over his body, which seemed as if carved by a master craftsman, there remained old scars that hadn’t faded.

These were scars from long ago when he was a slave, beaten by merchants who illegally traded slaves.

If she hadn’t saved him, perhaps he would still be wallowing in that mire, unable to escape that era.

“Hah……”

As he let out a held breath, the petals fluttered in the light breeze, flying out of his palm.

The man stared at them blankly before suddenly lowering his gaze to look at the scars on his forearm.

Later, after meeting her and escaping his slave status to become her knight, his position also changed.

As a knight close to the emperor, he could have easily called a competent healer to erase these unsightly scars.

However, these marks were intentionally left, though they could have been erased.

“You must have been in so much pain. “

He knew that with these scars, she would pity him more and take care of him.

The weak-hearted Cail Aleret even welcomed her sympathy and craved it.

“If only I could have saved you earlier. “

A regretful gaze. A sorrowful voice.

And,

Her ticklish and soft touch as she carefully caressed his wounds.

Jella Shunaibel was a woman who felt sorry even for the small scars left on the body of a mere slave.

Belying her reputation as a tyrant, she was a gentle and delicate lord.

“I miss you, Jella….. My Jella……”

It was a name he couldn’t dare to call when she was alive.

He was her faithful servant.

A good dog solely for her, to support her from the lowest place as she shone from the highest.

When she was alive, people pointed fingers at him, calling him the ‘Emperor’s dog’, but they don’t know how much that nickname delighted him.

Neither Niel Alpenhayer nor Yupheon Arne could become her possession.

Only he could be subordinate to her, a fact that even brought a thrilling pleasure.