Thud.

Cail’s body collapsed at my feet.

Thump, thump, thump, thump!

My heart was beating wildly.

Intending to cover his mouth, I ended up knocking him out.

‘I’m sorry, Cail.’

I silently paid my respects to him, who had fallen without even a scream.

As I glanced around, I made eye contact with men dressed in black.

It was Felitz and the members of the underworld organization who had been chattering with me all morning.

‘There was definitely no one here just a moment ago, where did these guys pop up from?’

The men who had witnessed my misdeed immediately gave me a thumbs-up.

“Sis! Did you assassinate the hero?”

“As expected of you, sis!”

“I’ll take care of the aftermath! Where should we bury him?”

The men reacted enthusiastically, their eyes sparkling.

“Y-You… damn fools! Who said anything about burying?”

I shouted angrily.

“Q-Quickly, pick up this man gently and take him to a doctor!”

“Gasp! Is this what they call ‘giving the illness and the cure’ that we’ve only read about in classics?”

“Our kind-hearted sis! Guardian of world peace! Simply a light!”

“But sis, isn’t your medicine actually poison?”

“Then it’s ‘giving the illness and the poison’!”

“Shut up, you fools!”

The men who had been persistently throwing in comments finally scattered at my shout.

At last, I was left alone.

“…He’s not dead, right?”

I muttered with a slightly more serious expression.

***

It was Cail Aleret’s first visit to the empire since her death.

He deliberately passed through the capital’s square.

It was near the location mentioned in the newspaper article.

From the entrance of the square, people gathered to cheer for him.

Cail hardened his expression at the people’s cheers directed at him.

He was displeased.

Knowing that their fervent cheers were directed at none other than ‘Cail Aleret, the last hero who killed the tyrant Jella’.

As he rode his horse silently looking ahead amidst the people’s welcome, he suddenly made eye contact with red eyes in the crowd.

‘Huh…?’

But the gaze disappeared in an instant.

As he stood there dazed, the people, thinking he was looking down at them, cheered even more.

It was a deafening roar.

People liked Cail.

But this was all part of her script.

The last hero of Shunaibel, who, despite being openly despised by nobles for his lowly slave origins, ultimately eliminated the tyrant Jella and succeeded in the revolution.

It was no wonder people were enthusiastic about that story.

It was ridiculous.

When she was alive, they pointed fingers at him, calling him her dog. And now they were dancing to her script.

As he was about to turn the horse’s head, gripping the reins, he paused again.

“Ah……”

He muttered, looking back in the direction where he had felt the gaze earlier.

“…It smells like her.”

Cail leaped down from the horse.

“C-Cail sir!”

His aide called out in surprise, but he pushed through the crowd as if he couldn’t hear.

People reached out their hands to grab his.

But his gaze remained fixed on one direction ahead.

“Block them.”

At his brief command, a black dragon the size of a fist crawled out of his sword.

[You always make me do the annoying stuff.]

The black dragon grumbled as it looked at the people crowding around Cail.

In an instant, time froze. The noisy sounds of people, the movement of the cold air, everything stopped.

Cail strode towards the direction he had been watching.

And as he left the street,

Clang!

The frozen time shattered again, and voices of people confused by his disappearance could be heard from behind.

But Cail walked on without caring, heading in one direction.

And he found her at a corner of a quiet alley.

Grab!

As he seized her wrist to stop her, she turned to face him.

Seeing her red eyes widening in surprise at discovering him, Cail felt a pain so intense he thought he might stop breathing.

Though her black hair and red eyes were completely different from the appearance of the woman he had loved in the past, she was certainly…

“You……”

The moment he parted his lips.

Thud!

Her fist struck his solar plexus.

Cail hit in a vital spot and losing consciousness right there, had his memory cut off at that point.

And now he had finally opened his eyes. In the palace of the insufferable Niel Alpenhayer.

“Men who found you collapsed on the street took you to a doctor, and the doctor who recognized you brought you to the imperial palace, it seems.”

Cail, sitting up on the bed, turned his head at that voice he always hated for being annoyingly aristocratic and refined.

A platinum-haired man leaning elegantly against the doorway was explaining the situation to him.

Niel Alpenhayer.

The man who was once her fiancé.

Hence, the man who had always instilled a slight sense of inferiority in him.

“Why on earth were you collapsed in such a place… No, I’m not particularly curious about why you collapsed.”

Niel pressed his fingertips against his temples as if extremely tired.

“First the deranged priest from the Holy Kingdom, and now you. It’s one troublesome thing after another.”

“…She was here. What’s going on?”

Cail, who had been silent all along, asked Niel fiercely.

It was a tone that didn’t convey any sense of politeness.

Niel suddenly looked at Cail with cold eyes.

Even when she was alive, Cail Aleret had been this disrespectful.

He outwardly showed respect, but his eyes were always incredibly insolent.

And that was one of the reasons why Niel Alpenhayer disliked Cail Aleret.

As if he was something special.

Despite being merely her servant.

Of course, now that he had become one of the three heroes who saved the continent, it wasn’t particularly problematic for him to be disrespectful to the Emperor.

It just made his mood terribly foul.

Why were there so many dogs around him that made his mood so foul?

“This is really irritating.”

Niel muttered, frowning as he removed his hand from his temple.

Despite his foul mood, saying it was irritating was the strongest curse he could muster.

“Both you and that deranged pink-haired priest from the Holy Kingdom. Why do you both insist on interfering with me to this extent?”

“So, you did know. That she was here.”

Cail showed a cold sneer.

“……”

Niel answered with silence.

“So, now that you’ve found her again, what do you plan to do with her?”

“Well… First, I need to return everything to how it was originally.”

Niel replied, curling up the corner of his mouth crookedly, following Cail’s lead.

“This empire she gave me, our engagement, everything.”

Cail stared intently at Niel’s face, which bore a deep smile.

“…?”

Then he soon frowned and muttered as if finding it strange.

“Are you a pervert? Insisting on returning everything to how it was even though you know she disliked you.”

At the murmur filled with genuine doubt, Niel’s face hardened.

“…If you’ve recovered your strength, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t stay long. It’s unpleasant for both of us.”

Niel warned in a chilly voice and then went outside.

Click.

The door closed with a neat sound, as elegant and tidy as his gait.

Finally alone, Cail blankly stared ahead for a while.

The brief conversation he had with Niel Alpenhayer soon disappeared from his mind.

Because a single thought filled his head entirely.

Soon, his head drooped. Cail glared fiercely at the snow-white blanket covering his lower body.

“……”

His tightly closed lips swelled white as if about to burst.

“What should I do……”

Burying his face in his thick palms, he muttered in a small voice.

At that moment, he was blushing red up to his earlobes.

At that moment, he was blushing red up to his earlobes.

“I’ve ruined everything……”

He had imagined the moment of meeting her again countless times for a very long time.

When I meet you again, will I smile with joy? Will I cry with resentment? Or will I get angry and ask why you abandoned me?

However, among the options he had considered, getting knocked out by her wasn’t one of them.

‘She seemed to recognize me too.’

Cail bit his lower lip hard, recalling those surprised eyes that widened roundly as they took him in.

‘Out of all the many wonderful encounters, why this one….’

What must she have thought of me, knocked out and collapsed?

“Everything’s ruined, really……”

The corners of his eyes turned reddish.

***

“Don’t worry too much, sis. He’s not dead. I watched the doctor save him.”

“But……”

As I fretted, Felitz burst into hearty laughter and said,

“Besides, there was no one around except us at that time, so no one saw you trying to assassinate the hero! Hahaha!”

“I wasn’t trying to assassinate anyone! I wasn’t!”

I protested earnestly, but Felitz didn’t seem particularly inclined to believe me.