“I guarantee keeping me by your side won’t be a loss. No, you’ll actually find me quite useful.”

“Ha! A lowborn wretch with nothing but a glib tongue. How dare you try to toy with me!”

“I’ve told you several times there are watchers outside. That man’s eyes earlier looked like a beast starved for l*st—are you sure you’ll be fine?”

The slave’s behavior—now resorting to threats—left her so dumbfounded she was rendered speechless.

As Laurencia’s clenched hands trembled, the man glanced at her and let out another inexplicable sigh.

Then he proceeded to say something unbelievable.

“Those men from that time, including myself, really are slaves.”

She recalled the other two slaves she’d seen in the reception room.

Unlike them, who couldn’t even make eye contact and kept their heads bowed low, the man before her stared at her intently.

That’s why she’d impulsively chosen him—she was just thinking she’d made the wrong choice.

“Of course, it’s also true we were selected under orders from that man called the Lokan. And the mission we received was to seduce you.”

“What…?”

“But he told us to seduce you, then he went and took you himself. I was so dumbfounded. Fortunately, I caught your eye and saved my life, but those men… kkeuk?”

Suddenly making a slicing motion across his throat while producing a grotesque sound, the man physically demonstrated what had happened to the slaves who’d been with him.

His answer was so frank she was at a loss for words.

But she couldn’t believe a man who treated the deaths of what might have been his comrades so lightly.

When she looked at him with suspicious eyes, he shook his head like he’d expected that reaction.

The man’s demeanor—completely different from her first impression—gave her an even stronger sense of dissonance than before.

“If that’s true, why are you being honest with me? You must know following that man’s orders is your only way to survive.”

In an instant, his atmosphere changed.

When he wiped away his false smile, no emotion could be felt on the man’s face, just like when she’d first seen him.

Soon, a deeply lowered voice uttered strange words.

“Because sticking with you seems better than with him. My status may be lowly, but I have an eye for these things.”

Despite his light tone, the man’s dark blue eyes—like unfathomable depths where you couldn’t see the bottom—rippled intensely.

He was strange.

Even though he was spouting what amounted to nonsense, somehow his words didn’t sound empty.

Moreover, his casual behavior now felt like a mask to hide something.

It might be overthinking, but the presence he exuded wasn’t something an ordinary slave could possess.

Far from a slave, he didn’t seem to be of common status.

The fact that he showed no sign of being intimidated while facing royalty was suspicious from the start. A slave would know better than anyone what happened when they fell out of favor with royalty.

No matter how much he claimed to be there under Jedrian’s orders, an ordinary slave wouldn’t dare act this rudely before her, a princess.

Laurencia’s gaze briefly dropped downward.

His solid-looking body and rough hands suggested he’d done hard labor. But they would’ve suited a knight’s hands just as well.

Jedrian’s hands, when he was a mercenary, had been just as rough.

Thinking that way, she suspected he might be a knight from a defeated nation.

Torturing captured enemy knights, breaking them to his liking, using them where needed, and k*lling them mercilessly when they became useless—that was both Jedrian’s hobby and specialty.

Also, if he’d witnessed his comrades’ deaths, his words about betraying Jedrian and joining her might not be complete lies.

Anyone with half a brain would’ve realized they’d already become useless.

But what she still couldn’t believe was that Jedrian had failed to recognize a spy.

“I’ve been honest, so please keep your promise.”

“I never made any promise to you.”

The man’s well-defined features contorted with displeasure. Soon, letting out a scoff, he sneered fearlessly.

“You’re not much different from him, it seems. As expected, royalty is an untrustworthy lot.”

“Do you have two lives or something?”

“I only have one, which is why I’m trying to find a way to survive by betting everything on you. Though I was immediately betrayed.”

At his consistently sarcastic tone, Laurencia’s expression turned cold.

His words seemed to hide his identity, but his impudent attitude showed no intention of concealing who he really was.

Rather, he seemed to want her to realize he wasn’t an ordinary slave.

Staring at the suspicious man, Laurencia suddenly turned her gaze away, seemingly losing interest, and commanded.

“Leave.”

At her firm order to leave, cracks appeared in his previously relaxed expression.

Laurencia deliberately spoke more coldly.

“I can’t stand watching a lowborn wretch who doesn’t know his place try to climb above his station any longer. Go out and report that I’ve awakened, and preserve that pitiful life of yours.”

Laurencia threw off the blanket and turned to the opposite side from where the man stood like a statue.

As she carefully got up to drink some water, words that were beyond impudent—downright arrogant—stabbed at her wounds like a dagger.

“You pretend otherwise on the outside, but you were actually quite satisfied with your time in bed with him, weren’t you? I thought you’d been worked to exhaustion for three days and nights until you fell ill, but I must have been mistaken.”

“…!”

“Or did you act that way on purpose? Pretending to refuse, pushing him away to make him more desperate? His obsession with you seems quite intense… did you enjoy that?”

“You must have a death wish. If so, I’ll grant it.”

She headed conspicuously toward where the bell cord was. Just as she was about to pull it, an unexpected statement stopped her resolute movement.

“Let me help you.”

At the absurd words, she narrowed her brow and slowly turned around.

At the same time, the man who’d been acting impudently suddenly bent one knee and bowed his head.

The moment she saw that, Laurencia was certain.

‘So he really is a knight.’

Her eyes narrowed at the sight of the man performing the prostration posture knights used to show loyalty with perfect form.

Still, seeing him bow meant he’d finally realized his life hung by a thread.

Laurencia asked again in a stern voice.

“I’ll ask one last time. What is your identity?”

After a brief pause, he finally told the truth.

“I’m a knight from the fallen Silvarnel.”

As expected.

However, at the word ‘Silvarnel,’ her brow furrowed.

“The Kingdom of Silvarnel? You’re saying you’re a Northerner?”

“Yes.”

Unlike just moments ago when he’d been endlessly flippant, his expression and tone were truly knight-like now.

Was this his true self? She thought briefly before dismissing such useless speculation.

Only then did Laurencia’s anger subside slightly as she approached him.

“Why would a Northerner become the empire’s slave? I’ve never heard of Armazé raising a sword against Silvarnel.”

After keeping his mouth shut for a moment, he looked up at her with a cold expression.

In that instant, emotion showed in the man’s eyes for the first time.

It was unmistakably ‘rage.’

Wondering if there’d been a war she didn’t know about, she was retracing her memories when a light tone flowed from the man’s mouth.

“Wars don’t always happen after declarations. Even though there’s supposed to be chivalry and national honor, there are more rats than you’d think who don’t even follow those precedents.”

Not understanding what he meant, Laurencia frowned.

But with the brief statement that followed, she immediately understood what he meant.

“There’s one of those rats right here, isn’t there?”

‘Rat.’

Her expression instantly turned ice cold.

Watching Laurencia like that, he blatantly revealed his true intentions.

“I’m saying I’ll catch that rat for you. Unless you’re deliberately keeping that rat close because you want to raise it.”

“You…”

“Surely you don’t wish for the noble Armazé bloodline to be mixed with the blood of such a lowborn beast?”

At the man’s unexpected true colors, her golden eyes trembled finely.

Her previously calm heart began racing rapidly.

The man before her seemed to be a spy who’d infiltrated to target Jedrian.

Of course, there were always many spies targeting Jedrian. The number of nations destroyed by his hand wasn’t just one or two.

But they never got anywhere near him.

They died by the perceptive Jedrian’s hand before that.

But what about this man? How did he deceive him and make it all the way to me?

“Choose now. Will you report me and continue living trampled like this, or will you catch that rat together with me?”

Her fingertips tingled at his confident voice. She couldn’t handle the rapidly circulating blood—her insides churned.

She’d truly never even dreamed of a situation like this.

‘Eliminate Jedrian? Is that even possible?’