Mrs. Hover, who had noticed Emerson’s increasingly grave expression throughout the house call, asked anxiously.

“I was already worried because she took strong medicine. Is it a side effect from the medication?”

Emerson adjusted her crooked glasses and slowly shook her head.

“No.”

Her hand, clutching the stethoscope, dropped to the floor.

“Her condition remains unchanged. It’s not good. Though she’s slightly better than when I saw her in spring…”

“She hit her head here and suffered a concussion, and she said she’s been constantly dizzy and nauseous.”

“So that’s why no one suspected. Because she was always like that.”

Emerson wore a troubled expression. Seeing this, Mrs. Hover grew more agitated, striking her thigh with her fist in excitement.

“Can’t you do something about that roundabout way of speaking? Did you all learn it from His Highness or something, why are you all like this, honestly!”

Emerson’s eyes widened. She nearly asked why Mrs. Hover was so angry but held back to avoid confrontation.

Though Emerson felt stressed having squeezed this visit into her busy schedule, it was clear the people here had also been quite occupied, appearing on edge.

Mrs. Hover approached the bedside and examined Melissa’s gaunt, dry complexion.

Melissa seemed to have awakened from their voices, blinking her heavy eyes and feeling around the bed with her thin hand.

“Yes, my lady.”

Mrs. Hover moved closer and held her small hand.

“How could you work so hard overseeing the territory when you’re not well? That worthless doctor came to our castle making trouble, and then that incident at the beach… You must have endured so much stress.”

Mrs. Hover had a young maid bring a glass of lukewarm water.

Melissa moistened her parched lips and managed to sit up with Mrs. Hover’s support.

To Emerson, Melissa appeared to be doing quite well here. She constantly received thanks from people saying one of the sailors she saved yesterday was Mrs. Hover’s cousin’s brother, and the young maid shed tears of gratitude that she had defended her despite the doctor’s death.

Emerson murmured.

“I’m glad you’re loved here.”

However, her quiet remark went unnoticed by everyone.

Emerson waited patiently until Melissa became more alert. Only when Melissa could sit up properly and exchange eye contact did she finally address the main point.

“Your Highness, you are pregnant.”

“Oh my, what news!”

Before the words were even finished, Mrs. Hover leaped up, covering her mouth with both hands.

The young maid asked with dreamy eyes.

“Is it true?”

The maid next to her answered instead.

“Of course it’s true, silly.”

“It really is… Wow, I’m so happy! What should we do?”

Though only the older Mrs. Hover and the maids were chattering, the bedroom became noisy like a marketplace.

Oddly, Melissa, the person actually concerned, wore a blank expression, seemingly unable to believe it.

“Congratulations, my lady! This will ease your worries now, won’t it?”

The young maids approached with moved expressions and surrounded Melissa. One particularly sensitive-looking maid even burst into tears, expressing her relief.

But was this really something to be purely happy about?

Emerson waved her arms to disperse the onlookers around the bed.

“Everyone step back and listen to me. You shouldn’t be making noise. Right now, for my lady.”

The doctor removed her glasses with a troubled face, rubbed her eyes, and said seriously.

“She needs absolute rest.”

She emphasized again.

“Absolute, absolute, absolute rest. Do you understand what I mean, Your Highness?”

At Emerson’s words, the doll-like beautiful woman’s eyes grew dull.

There was no hint of joy on Melissa’s face. She wore the same despairing expression she had when first meeting Emerson, appearing forcibly dragged back to life.

That dark expression stayed etched in Emerson’s eyes for hours afterward.

* * *

The revolutionary army’s capital headquarters occupied an entire building in a massive shopping district. It was a huge mall easily three times the size of the historic Royal Library.

With a shopping center on the 5th floor above ground and the revolutionary headquarters underground, the constant flow of people meant no one would be suspicious of visitors.

A strategy meeting was in full swing in the underground headquarters.

In the sealed space, hazy with cigar smoke that obscured vision, people in various attire from nobles to commoners were engaged in heated discussion.

A middle-aged man with a scar over one eye, wearing an out-of-season military uniform and cap pulled low, roughly chewed the end of his cigar while speaking.

“Those idiots, the weapons imports have been steady for a year but now they try to catch us! What’s there to time anymore?”

He moved a red flag from the huge map on the table to the imperial palace.

“We should just charge in right now! Don’t you agree?”

Reizen remained silent at his teacher’s gaze. The man sitting askew with his arm draped over the chair maintained the silence while lighting a thin cigar.

The wide-brimmed orange lamp swayed, squeaking softly like a newborn kitten.

“You’re not wrong.”

The shadow-filled light intermittently illuminated Reizen’s whole body. The man with multiple folds in his eyelids, appearing exhausted, brushed back his eye-piercing blonde hair while speaking.

“But teacher, you should stay in the rear.”

“Why!”

The man roared like a lion. Being someone who had led the preparation for revolution more than anyone, he was a soldier with an incredible will to fight on the frontlines.

Having spent half his life on the frontlines after getting on his superior’s bad side for talking back, his practical experience and skills were undoubtedly excellent.

However, his methods were cruel and he didn’t hesitate to kill people, so putting him in front would increase the casualties of the civil war.

“Why do you think? So you’ll kill fewer people and get to heaven, teacher.”

When Reizen twisted his lips in a smile, others around also laughed and patted the teacher’s shoulder.

“Right. You should repent a bit.”

“Leave it be, I’m not the type to get to heaven even if I repent.”

The consistently tense atmosphere before the final battle eased somewhat. Reizen repositioned the flags his teacher had moved one by one.

“Though they move under imperial orders, most of the imperial army are young commoners.”

“…”

“They enlisted because their low status left them no work, enlisted after working themselves sick caring for ill parents, enlisted to feed hungry siblings – that’s most of them, so we need to minimize innocent casualties.”

Hearing this, the teacher gradually smoothed the wrinkles of his sulking face. He was truly a simple person.

“The reason we imported foreign weapons was to occupy enemy territory instantly with overwhelming force to end it quickly. So teacher, there can’t be even a moment’s error in rear weapon supply.”

Everyone nodded at Reizen’s words emphasizing the important point. Time flowed relentlessly. They were so absorbed in the meeting, not even feeling tired, that before they knew it the cigar smoke had thinned and the strategy meeting was nearly over.

Knock knock.

Reizen’s gaze, who had been sitting on the table smoking a cigar while putting pins in the map, turned to the door.

“Commander.”

The soldier guarding the door called him.

“Emerson is here saying she has important news.”

Reizen’s movements stopped abruptly. His heart, which had remained calm even before the operation, tightened. His Adam’s apple moved prominently.

“Just a moment.”

The man who left the strategy room with a smile still on his face met Emerson.

“I just came from the imperial palace, and it seems the Crown Prince’s side has noticed about today. There’s also a note from Duke Rockbell.”

Reizen received the note from the doctor’s hand with a polite nod.

“If we don’t move quickly, they’ll strike first. It seems our headquarters has been discovered.”

With those words, Reizen opened the strategy room door and ordered evacuation. Though it was a sudden order, no one hesitated and moved in perfect unison to erase their traces.

All sorts of commotion continued behind them. Even sounds of burning or breaking things to destroy evidence could be heard.

However, amid the surrounding chaos, Reizen remained unshaken, moistening his dry lips while quietly waiting for the next words.

“You have something else to say, don’t you?”

He meant to ask about Melissa’s condition.

Emerson spoke without hesitation.

“Her Highness is… pregnant.”

Reizen stood motionless like a doll. He remained unnaturally still amid the chaos.

Emerson nodded roughly, suggesting this was the expected reaction.

“Yes, yes. This probably isn’t what you wanted right now. I know, I know. Just when you were about to break free from the Emperor’s unreasonable demands, you suddenly have a child on the way – how flustered you must be. You’ll have to take responsibility with no way out of marriage!”

Her tone carried subtle mockery. But the prince’s retort that would normally fly back immediately didn’t come today. Finding this strange, Emerson pushed up her glasses with the back of her hand and looked up at Reizen’s face.

Though his dazed expression matched Melissa’s, his reaction was clearly distinct.

His glass-blue eyes were filled with the greatest joy.