Reizen, wearing his nightclothes and recalling the past, walked down the corridor. The irritating Horrux was making a fuss in front of the master bedroom.

“Guard properly, properly!”

Looking at how he even spoke rudely to the knights sent by the Emperor, he was quite a piece of work. This too was probably the Emperor’s entertainment.

Deliberately sending a string of annoying bastards to grate on Reizen’s nerves, implying that if he didn’t like them running around in his territory, he should hurry up and do what needs to be done.

Horrux saw him and quietly glared. As Reizen opened the door and entered, he thought.

‘Did the Emperor really not know?’

When a woman married three times had no children, wouldn’t he have found that suspicious?

And if the Emperor truly only wanted reproduction, ‘Rael Grey’, the twin sister, would have been easier to handle than ‘Melissa Grey’ who was serving time for murder.

However, the woman sitting before his eyes was Melissa.

The heroine of the Emperor’s comedy.

A pitiful flower that would eventually be broken.

“…Melissa.”

Having deliberately come late, he found the woman already asleep. With her lack of stamina and having matched his schedule all day, it was no wonder she had fallen asleep like she’d fainted.

She seemed to have fallen asleep while reading. Since she was sleeping uncomfortably with her arms and face resting on the book, he lifted her up and laid her down properly.

Then, as he carefully tried to cover her with the cotton blanket…

“Mmm.”

Her gentle face slightly contorted. As she twisted her body slightly in discomfort, the knot of her robe came undone with a whisper, revealing her nightgown. It was white lace that faintly revealed her skin beneath.

In that moment, it felt like a white thread in his mind snapped.

Are you testing my patience right now?

Through the semi-transparent white underwear clinging to her body, he could see her plump br*asts and small, protruding n*pples.

Actually, he hadn’t expected much from her br*asts given her thin frame, but they looked tempting enough that flesh would overflow if he grabbed them with one hand. Her n*pples were just like summer peach color. He almost unconsciously brought his mouth to them, feeling like he could smell their sweetness.

Ah.

Dozens of versions of himself were fighting inside. The veins stood out on the man’s hands and arms gripping the blanket.

He knew he should stop looking but his instinct refused. He wanted to gouge out his eyes because he absolutely couldn’t look away. His heart was pumping wildly enough to make him dizzy, and the mark on his left chest shone bright enough to hurt his eyes.

Aah.

Flames ransacked his entire body. He wanted to run away outside, but the Emperor’s order-takers would be guarding there all night.

“F-f*ck… hah.”

He buried his face while gripping the blanket. Heat rose up his whole body like hives as it intensified.

Even after emptying out all the medicine he’d put in the bedside drawer, the effect was minimal.

Hah, huk…

His breathing kept getting faster. The pain boiling inside his body like heat waves made him feel like he was going crazy.

Perhaps due to the fever, his vision gradually blurred and physiological tears welled up. His breathing grew rough like a beast’s.

After that his memories are hazy. He was so short of breath he couldn’t breathe. Saliva dripped from his mouth, and the mark’s light was accompanied by hallucinations like dozens of children screaming in his ears. And in between, there was suddenly an alien moan.

“Hngh!”

Eat the woman.

A snake whispered in his ear.

Eat her. It’s fine. Just pretend you don’t know.

“Y-your High…”

The sobbing voice gradually grew louder in the darkness.

“Hah, uh.”

You can’t hear anything. Just say you lost consciousness. She’s kind so she’ll forgive you anyway.

He bound Melissa’s hands and pressed them above her head. When he grabbed and tore at the crying woman’s white nightgown, the thin lace ripped with a direct sound into tatters.

Her tempting flesh spilled out through the tattered holes. He roughly grabbed the crying and pleading woman’s br*asts until they felt like they would burst. He blocked the crying woman’s sobs with his lips as she twisted her whole body.

Sweet. It was maddeningly sweet.

Even if someone put a gun to his head and shot him now, he couldn’t stop. He forced his tongue between her soft lips.

The woman sobbed loudly and drooled. Each time she shook her head in resistance, he used his hands to spread her lips again and thrust his fingers in. Even her mouth was narrow like her small frame, making it lovely.

The snake whispered again with a smile.

Take her. She’s a feast just for you.

Hearing that joy-filled voice, Reizen pulled out his last bit of reason. Please. Please don’t do this… His body wouldn’t listen and he felt like crying helplessly. The woman twisting her waist beneath him suddenly went quiet. Just like she had died.

“Mel…”

Tears dripped from Reizen’s eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

The tearful apology echoed in the dark room. I’m sorry, really sorry… The man who kept repeatedly apologizing suddenly looked at the woman’s face with an eerie feeling.

Then the woman’s face twisted and gradually changed into his mother’s face. It was grotesque and creepy. Goosebumps ran down his spine.

His mother was exactly as she had been the day she died with a broken neck. Pinned under Reizen, she lunged like a viper and strangled his neck.

Die! Something like you should just die…!

She screamed and yelled. It became harder and harder to breathe. Kugh, huk.

The hallucinations overlapping with the snake’s voice felt horrific. His whole body felt crushed under a massive boulder. Just as he was about to lose his last breath, his eyes flew open.

“Hah…!”

Waking from sleep was instantaneous.

Though it was a dream, his heart still felt like it would burst as if it had been real.

Reizen got up from the floor in front of the drawer.

Fortunately, it seemed he had collapsed from side effects after emptying an entire bottle of medicine.

He must have desperately downed the medicine bottle, as dozens of white pills were scattered around where he had collapsed.

Melissa Grey was sleeping peacefully with the blanket well-covered. His lips twisted to one side.

“Ha…”

What kind of f*cked up dream was that.

It really feels like he’s reached his limit now.

Outside the window, a blue twilight could be seen as dawn was breaking. The man carefully drew the curtains and went out to the veranda, lighting a cigar with complicated feelings.

After deeply inhaling the filter, he exhaled smoke into the cold air. As white smoke rose up, not long after, a red sun rose in a straight line over the mountain ridge.

The sun is rising. Damn, another new sun.

The man bit his lip until it bled and covered his eyes with one arm.

***

Since Reizen’s outside activities were restricted, people came to visit from outside. One of these was a merchant from the Tavania Republic who visited to welcome spring.

Though born and raised as a commoner in Sys, he had achieved tremendous success in distribution and crossed over to the Tavania Republic where there was no class system, making it his base. He said.

“It’s incredibly convenient.”

“What is.”

“The fact that I don’t have to give bribes 12 times to nobles entangled in each of the 12 steps whenever I want to do something – it’s just so-o satisfying, you know?”

Reizen gave a small laugh at the merchant’s joke. The elegant man was having tea while working.

“That damn nobility system.”

Melissa stopped in her steps as she was about to enter the reception room. She had been planning to join them to help, but she stopped because she sensed deep resentment in the merchant’s words.

“You’re criticizing nobility in front of me, who’s both noble and royal.”

“Your Highness is different. You’re the exception to everything.”

“An exception.”

“Well, isn’t it justified? You’re the only one who worked hard for us. It pains me that you were even forced into marriage by the Emperor for getting on his bad side because of us…”

Melissa hesitated for a moment. Then, just as Reizen drew in a breath to answer something, she fled past the lobby and out the main entrance.

She was out of breath. Hah, huk. She leaned her head against the sturdy ivory-colored pillar at the main entrance and thought about why she had run away.

She must have been afraid.

Though the Emperor had forced it, Melissa had chosen to follow Reizen. And as the man said, she tried to live by his side instead of dying.

But… Come to think of it, this marriage must be nothing short of hell for that man.

She felt she couldn’t bear it if the following words mocked or disparaged this marriage. It was a truth she already knew but also didn’t want to face.

Melissa traced the relief carved into the pillar with her thin fingers.

As her breathing gradually calmed, only then did she notice the presence of an unfamiliar child who had approached. A little girl holding a cotton doll grabbed Melissa’s skirt hem and asked in a foreign language.

「Are you a princess?」