The door slammed shut loudly.

‘You did well passing by…’

Melissa sluggishly pulled the blanket up over her head. At first, she felt annoyed wondering who Rael was to give advice, but thinking about it quietly, it wasn’t entirely wrong.

Melissa did often avoid problems.

Living that way meant her life rarely got complicated by her own choices. She would let things around her flow as they would, turning a blind eye even when she saw problems.

Hadn’t the Countess who was her tutor constantly emphasized it? That even after marriage, she shouldn’t pay much attention to what men do.

Whether it was affairs of state or affairs of the heart, they wouldn’t be of any help to Melissa.

But was this really okay?

While some women were developing territories and running hotels for him, was it really best for others to just stay locked up in hotels mixing bodies to conceive children?

Melissa felt another pang in her chest.

Curled up under the blanket, she muttered to herself in frustration.

You think I want to be like this?

“I don’t want to be like this either…”

Along with a hot sigh, heat rose to her face and eyes. Melissa wanted to be someone who truly belonged by his side too.

But she knew well that she couldn’t be the same as the people from the military academy who were mostly commoners.

Just as Arthur seemed uncomfortable with her, Reizen might have treated her coldly too if it weren’t for the brand.

His identity, shaped by living among commoners, seemed closer to them than to nobles…

‘Am I really that oblivious?’

I know.

I know everything.

That’s why it’s even more frustrating.

She wanted to stay here and get closer, but the surname ‘Grey’ following her name stuck like a tag, building a massive wall between them.

Reizen and the people around him existed beyond that wall, while Melissa was left alone on this side.

Melissa touched the now-quiet brand on her left arm as she thought.

‘Just until the brand’s effect weakens.’

She wanted to stay here at least until that man needed her, to repay his kindness. And when she was no longer useful, then…

Originally she had thought about dying.

‘Could I go to where Rael is?’

Since she even suggested running away together, no matter how bad their relationship was, she wouldn’t turn Melissa away if she came.

Though she would probably grumble about it.

Melissa could already clearly picture Rael boasting “See, that’s why I told you we should run away together!” in a loud voice, acting like she had been right all along.

‘She’ll be really annoying about it.’

But it’s nice to have somewhere to run to.

Melissa smiled despite her stinging skin. Though she hadn’t readily agreed to Rael’s words, she was glad that she had suggested running away together.

It was a hundred, thousand times better than suggesting they stay here forever bound to Marita’s establishment and be miserable together.

Melissa felt somewhat lighter. Is this how it feels to finish homework that’s been put off for a long time?

She wouldn’t know since she’d never fallen behind on homework, but it was probably like this. And this was enough. Just having this much resolve was sufficient will to live on.

Now she…

Wanted to go beyond that wall where Reizen was.

Wanted to see the truth beyond the wall.

Wanted to know what he was hiding, to know the true face of the man who only showed half of himself.

Swoosh.

Rain began pouring outside the window Rael had left open. It was spring rain that fell once before summer arrived.

“Erich.”

When Melissa called, Erich, who was soaked from the rain, approached with a robe over his head. He had been quietly waiting in the corner all this time, but Rael hadn’t noticed him.

It seemed he had been waiting because he had something to say.

“I think you need to move to different quarters.”

Melissa nodded silently as if she had already expected this.

* * *

“Running away?”

Reizen laughed coldly upon hearing the story. Brushing back his thin blonde hair with his hand, he glared at the bed in Melissa’s hotel room.

His daily routine had been to come back every night and immediately kiss her and undress her, but today the bed’s owner was absent.

“She absolutely can’t run away, even with the brand.”

Reizen spoke with certainty.

“The pain would be unbearable beyond imagination.”

“Not at the moment, anyway.”

Erich added as if in agreement. Rationally, he knew that wasn’t meant to imply anything.

But emotionally, the words “at the moment” bothered him because they suggested she might be able to run away someday.

Why did he feel so awful whenever he thought about Melissa? Even when their bodies mixed, he clung to her like a beast…

Really, he would pounce on her like a starved animal and embrace her roughly, feeling compelled to leave marks all over her body as if stamping her as his possession.

Even after taking her in the morning, when evening came, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he had filled her multiple times with his seed that had been deeply planted inside.

Damn it.

Why did he feel this way?

Never in his life had he experienced such constant waves of anger. Was he going through delayed puberty?

Reizen covered his eyes with his hand, looking troubled.

Seeing Reizen like this, Erich spoke in a heavy voice.

“…Do you really think they’ll show up today?”

“It’s perfect weather for killing someone.”

Reizen smiled, gesturing toward the window with his chin. Though he only pulled his lips into a straight line while covering his eyes, it wasn’t a smile of genuine amusement.

‘A spy.’

There was a spy inside.

He had suspected this since the moment he determined Melissa hadn’t killed Moore. He just needed definitive proof, and meanwhile had Erich secretly investigate the spy’s identity.

Erich, Whilton, Sion, Florence, Moore, and others.

They were all comrades who had survived difficult times together since military school.

Five years ago, there had been endless conflicts in the regions bordering the Kingdom of Altania. While Altania’s king had yielded the border regions out of caution toward the empire, the kingdom’s people living in those lands were the problem.

They would attack military quarters in the border regions or raid food supplies like bandits.

So military school cadets were dispatched to that dangerous area that no one wanted to go to, under the pretext of field training.

Some days bombs would explode, other days the barracks would catch fire.

As time passed, the Altanian bandits who had developed a taste for plunder would even capture young cadets and torture them to death before others’ eyes.

“Reizen!”

Reizen remembers clearly.

The burning barracks, when breath caught in his throat from the black smoke.

Those moments when he thought he was going to die.

We saved each other’s lives.

That’s why they were comrades. Because bonds forged in life-or-death situations were fundamentally different from relationships formed in ordinary life, making them special.

Reizen still dreams sometimes.

Of our moments when we were young and reckless, poor but full of laughter.

Those moments came together to give meaning to Reizen’s miserable life, and he finally became a prince and rose to this position. But now was the time for those moments to shatter.

“Ha…”

The window rattled as if foretelling misfortune.

Left alone in the room, Reizen lay with his head stretched back on the sofa headrest. How much time had passed?

The rain outside showed no signs of stopping. As he lay thinking while staring at the ceiling, a human shadow fell across his face.

Someone had silently infiltrated the previously empty room. Reizen smiled bitterly.

“You know what?”

He spoke while looking at the shadow from his lying position.

“This hotel was built only 3 months ago. Arthur had it built solely for the capital’s security.”

Click.

The intruder silently loaded their gun and pressed it vertically against Reizen’s forehead. Immediately putting the gun to his head suggested they wouldn’t even allow final words.

Reizen’s blue eyes grew empty. In them, he saw the face of a young man who had come running with black soot all over him.

“Reizen! Wake up, you bastard!”

The man who had come to save Reizen when he was imprisoned and unconscious after severe torture in the border region.

One of the troublemakers who would secretly steal potatoes to roast and eat away from the seniors’ eyes while doing railroad labor in their vagrant days.

The boy with the young face full of smiles had become a hardened adult now pointing a gun at him.

“I actually knew it was you.”

A moment of silence followed Reizen’s locked voice. The window rattled violently.

The wind and rain raged as the hotel window curtains fluttered. As the curtains shook noisily, the shadow spoke.