Keinen gazed intently at Prelia and kissed her hair.

Then he slowly lowered his head toward her face.

‘No way! Is he starting with a kiss? Not a handshake or gently holding hands first!’

Prelia’s brain began working rapidly as a red alert flashed in her mind.

She could almost hear police sirens like those chasing criminals in South Korea.

‘Man! Isn’t there an order to these things! It’s not time for kissing yet!’

Prelia rolled her lips inward as much as possible.

At this, Keinen’s mocking smile tried to wedge its way through her tightly closed lips.

“Being so stiff won’t do. Countess, starting tomorrow, study how to seduce men. How can you protect those 10 women like this?”

Keinen pulled his face back without kissing her, uttered these ridiculous words, and left the room.

“Unbelievable!”

Left alone in the empty room, Prelia burst out in anger at the absurdity.

‘Do I have nothing better to do than study how to seduce men? Instead of wasting time on that, I should be figuring out how to make my heart beat again by finding a man rich in magical power!’

She swung her fist toward the door Keinen had exited through, then collapsed onto the sofa, clutching her head.

“Anyway, since I said I’d lead the women, it looks like I’ll be dragged along no matter what. Argh! Why did I have to meddle! My own future is bleak enough!”

* * *

Two hours later, Vers went to find Keinen, who was engaged in sword practice.

The training ground was already littered with dozens of fallen knights.

“Grant, how long has it been?”

“You’re here, Vers. It’s been 50 minutes.”

As Vers approached, Mukro Knights Commander Grant turned only his brown eyes toward him before fixing them back on Keinen.

Keinen had removed his upper garments to cool his body heat.

The sweat beads on his solid muscles made them appear even more defined and detailed, as if oiled.

Every time his elastic muscles moved, sweat droplets flew off, glistening in the moonlight.

But what caught Vers’s attention wasn’t Keinen’s firm chest muscles that looked like armor, nor the clearly defined, angular abs that knights admired as if sculpted.

‘When will that pattern disappear?’

Vers’s concerned gaze lingered on Keinen’s left chest.

There, a black geometric pattern was engraved like a brand.

The pattern evoked images of swirling winds and blazing flames.

Just like Keinen’s currently raging heart.

“Wow, isn’t that pattern on His Highness’s chest always impressive?”

“Should we get chest tattoos too?”

The ignorant knights made a fuss, saying even the pattern looked cool.

“Shut your mouths. Before you hear wailing instead of words.”

“Yes, Commander!”

After hearing Grant’s fierce reprimand, the knights watched Keinen’s sparring with rigid postures.

Vers glanced at Grant’s stern face before approaching Keinen.

“Your Highness the Crown Prince, at this rate the entire Mukro Knights will collapse.”

Vers handed Keinen a thick towel, suggesting he stop tormenting the knights.

“Nonsense.”

Keinen stopped sparring and accepted the towel Vers offered.

Even after wiping away his sweat and taking a deep breath of cool air, Keinen’s heart still pounded wildly.

‘Without war to take lives, it’s going more berserk.’

Keinen looked at the pattern on his heart and smiled self-deprecatingly.
Black Reaper, Red-eyed Demon—these were the names people called him.

‘Well, perhaps not entirely wrong. My frenzied behavior must have reminded them of a demon.’

After Keinen finished wiping his sweat, a servant rushed over to take the towel.
Then Knight Commander Grant received the practice sword from Keinen and carefully opened his mouth.

“Would you like to go hunting tomorrow, Your Highness?”

Grant hoped Keinen could release some of his dark energy by hunting beasts.

“It’s fine. We’ll do it on the way back home instead. The knights could use the exercise too.”

Keinen patted Grant’s shoulder, signaling that everything was okay.

‘The color of the pattern seems to be getting darker.’

Grant tore his gaze from the pattern that moved as if alive with Keinen’s heartbeat and handed him the legendary sword Lunates.

“Dismiss them.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

As Keinen took the sword, Grant organized the knights.

“All knights, salute His Highness and dismiss!”

“Thank you, Your Highness the Crown Prince!”

The knights in the training ground bowed their heads to Keinen, placing their right fists against their left chests in military fashion.

One reason the Mukro Knights became the best on the continent was precisely this—Keinen personally trained them through sparring.

Although they couldn’t handle Keinen’s overwhelming swordsmanship, the thrill of sparring with him was enough to excite the knights.

Of course, they always lost and ended up sprawled on the ground.

“Next time, try to win at least one of you.”

“Yes, Your Highness!”

After Keinen’s usual comment, the knights headed to their quarters.

Tonight, their quarters would be noisy until late as they practiced the swordsmanship Keinen had demonstrated.

“Your Highness, have some water.”

Vers sent the servants away and handed Keinen a water bottle.

Along with it, he also gave him a small pill.

‘If it weren’t for this pill that Ominatio procured, Your Highness would have lost his head under the Emperor’s blade long ago.’

Eleven years ago, when Keinen turned 13, his stepmother the Empress poisoned him.
His magical power awakened then, barely saving his life.

However, as a side effect of the poison, a black pattern appeared on his chest, and his magical power began to rampage uncontrollably.

‘I had hoped you would immediately subdue your magical power through Prelia Transk.’

Vers had already secretly instructed the officers: whoever received Prelia’s token should choose her, and they would be compensated otherwise.

‘Thanks to Prelia Transk, things have worked out quite smoothly.’

The Grand Duke’s expression at the banquet when Prelia approached Keinen was quite a sight to behold.

When Vers signaled to the Grand Duke, “The Countess to His Highness the Crown Prince,” the Grand Duke smiled broadly as if relieved of long-standing constipation.

‘Everything was prepared and yet…’

Watching Keinen put the pill in his mouth and drink water, Vers spoke with a low sigh.

“I thought you would take her tonight.”

“Didn’t you see? With that frail body, she would die.”

At Keinen’s answer, Vers inhaled sharply with a “hup” sound.

Vers stepped closer and stared directly at Keinen’s face.

‘Who are you? Are you really the Keinen I know?’

“Move your face, Vers.”

When Keinen raised one eyebrow and spoke, Vers immediately flinched and stepped back.

“You’ll have to do it eventually, won’t you? Your Highness, this medicine will soon develop resistance. Before that…”

“I can still endure.”

“Your Highness.”

“Don’t worry. She’s already in my hands. I can take her whenever I want.”

Keinen raised one hand to signal no more discussion and moved outside the training ground.

As Vers walked beside him, servants waiting from afar rushed over to help Keinen put on his shirt.

“Your Highness, perhaps by ‘die’ you meant a different kind of—”

“Useless talk.”

When Vers narrowed his eyes and tried to speak with a lewd look, Keinen coldly dismissed him.

‘I knew it. A different meaning.’

“Remove that impudent look.”

Keinen left Vers’s questioning gaze behind and entered Fresia Palace.

* * *

When Keinen opened the bedroom door, Prelia had fallen asleep on the sofa from exhaustion.

‘She’s sleeping. How should I interpret this, Countess?’

Prelia was sleeping with her neck severely bent to the right, tightly hugging a cushion.

‘Do you know with what great patience I’m leaving you untouched?’

After briefly contemplating whether to wake her, Keinen first entered the bathroom.

He lay in a bathtub filled with ice and tried to calm his heart, which was raging like a wild beast.

‘The medicine isn’t very effective. Well, it’s natural to develop resistance after taking it for over 10 years.’

The water, initially full of ice, soon became lukewarm as the ice melted.

So Keinen left the bathroom wearing only a light shower robe.

By then, Prelia’s neck had tilted even further to the side.

“Countess, you’ll break your neck that way.”

Keinen deliberately made noise hoping she would wake, but she didn’t even flutter an eyelash.

‘She really will snap her neck completely at this rate.’

Keinen approached the sofa, making his footsteps loud.

‘I should lay her straight. Would the bed be better than the sofa?’

To lay her body straight, he placed his hands behind her neck and back.

‘Just touching her bare skin cools me down.’

His palm gently wrapped around the bare skin of her neck.

Through that palm, her body temperature transmitted a cooling sensation like having a mouth full of ice.

‘Sorry about this, Prelia, having just come back to life after a thousand days.’

Keinen closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

The air in the room was as refreshing as a mountain breeze, as if she had made even the surrounding air cool.

‘I should fatten her up first.’

Just as Keinen was carefully trying to lift Prelia—

Thud, his back hit the floor with a sound.

“Your Highness?”

At the same time, Prelia, with her eyes wide open, was straddling Keinen’s body.

While strangling his neck with both hands.

*

‘What is this!’

Prelia instinctively strangled his neck while half-asleep.

Then she couldn’t come to her senses due to Keinen’s hot energy rushing in like a tidal wave.

‘It’s warm. Like my whole body is melting!’

Her body had been without a heartbeat for a thousand days.

Her body, barely breathing, had been chilled to the bone despite Jane keeping the fireplace blazing.

Through her hands strangling Keinen’s neck, hot energy flooded into her body like a tide.

‘It was you. That guy in the carriage!’

Prelia realized immediately.

She had never felt this sensation when brushing hands with others or when maids massaged her while bathing.

Only once before—when his hand touched her in the carriage.

‘They said Keinen was a Swordmaster! He must have the magical power that matches the condition of the man in the card image!’

Prelia inwardly cheered.

Finally, she had found a way to make her heart beat again.

The prey had kindly rolled right to her.

‘Jane! Butler! I’ll soon make my heart beat, and we’ll live happily for thousands of years! And of course get all our property back!’

Excited, Prelia closed her eyes gently and smiled brightly.

A strange light momentarily flashed in the red pupils of Keinen, who was still lying on the floor with his neck being strangled by her hands.

“Have you already studied how to seduce men?”

‘What!’

Prelia looked down at him in shock at the nonsense he uttered in such a wonderful, low voice.

“Your effort is admirable.”

There was even a slight smile on Keinen’s lips.

Though she was strangling his neck, it seemed to have no effect on him.

“No, I haven’t!”

Prelia immediately denied it and removed her hands from Keinen’s neck.

Though her cells, having tasted the hot energy once, clamored for more, she felt that if she continued strangling his neck, her own neck would soon be cut off.

‘What kind of position is this?’

She realized she was straddling his waist and was suddenly overwhelmed with embarrassment.

“Oh!”

Just as she thought she was lifting herself to get away from Keinen, her back hit the sofa with a thud.

In an instant, Keinen had switched positions and now trapped her waist between his knees, looking down at her.

“I’ll give you a reward for your effort.”