“But I’m worried—what should I do? I’ll crouch in a corner as inconspicuously as possible.”

“Is Your Majesty’s body one that can be hidden by crouching? What’s the point of building all that muscle for nothing? You should just stay comfortably on the Emperor’s throne.”

“I didn’t build my body because I wanted to. I kept moving my body because stray thoughts kept coming, and it ended up like this. And do you know how active rock dragons are? You need considerable strength to drain their energy.”

“Hah…… Just don’t say anything and stay quiet. Understand? Berche! What are you doing?”

Berche was comparing various veils against Dion’s unveiled face.

“This seems better. Since it’s a yellow veil, gold decorations will actually be less noticeable.”

“Ah, really? How is it, Berche? Do I look okay?”

“Yes, you’re really pretty. But will being pretty help?”

“Clementina is weak to pretty women.”

“But Your Majesty isn’t a woman, are you?”

“Still, it’s not bad to subtly approach that way, right?”

“Look at this, look. You have no intention of watching secretly at all. Did you wear this bizarre outfit because you want to be caught? Why is there a dancer among the Gold Dragon Order, the Emperor’s closest knights, in the first place? Why? You should have said you were a minstrel.”

“Minstrels are too boring. They make up songs with lies, and they’re all unmanly.”

“What’s manly?”

“Being honest! Instead of making strange songs with lies, they should sing the truth!”

“Then a minstrel seems like the perfect disguise for Your Majesty.”

“Not me. I’ve never lied.”

“Not honestly revealing your heart is also a lie.”

“Lillian, isn’t it too pitiful if you go that far? I’m already on the verge of becoming a wreck because Clementina won’t come back.”

“Ha! Your Majesty says that because you haven’t seen a real wreck.”

Dion wore the veil with small gold coins that Berche handed him, revealing only his eyes. The top exposing shoulders, arms, and stomach, and the baggy bottom narrowly tied at the ankles was typical dancer’s attire.

However, what differed from an ordinary dancer was the massive shoulders and firm arm muscles showing bare skin. Berche draped a large cloth with gold coins hanging from it over Dion’s shoulders. Though covered with cloth, it was insufficient to hide Dion’s tall height and body.

When Lillian glared at that appearance, Dion hunched his shoulders and neck. Then his height decreased by about a span, and it seemed he could forcibly hide among the knights.

Lillian sighed and knocked on the teahouse door she’d never knocked on before.

“I’m here.”

“You came back quickly this time? You usually come back after several days.”

The teahouse was still empty without a single customer. Custus was stirring a large pot in the middle of the teahouse with a wooden ladle. Black smoke rose from the pot. Curious about what he was boiling, Lillian approached the pot and looked inside.

Only then did Custus look up and notice the large men entering behind Lillian.

“Who are they?”

“Ah, just, well. People I know.”

When Lillian spoke with her lips pouting, Berche from behind approached Custus with a gentle smile and nodded lightly.

“Anyone can see they’re not just people you know—who are they?”

Custus tapped Lillian’s arm and urged an answer.

“This is the commander of the Gold Dragon Order.”

“Oh! So you’re Lillian’s husband. I’ve heard a lot about you. That unlike your wife, you’re extremely courteous and a good person.”

“Huh? Dame Lillian Hunts isn’t someone who’d say such things! Did Lillian really say that? That I’m her husband? She said I’m too embarrassing to boast about anywhere, but it seems she bragged about me a little here?”

Berche’s mouth stretched so wide it looked ready to split as he grinned foolishly. His eyes were already half-closed as he chuckled like an idiot.

“No, someone else said that. Lillian said something different, but it seems your wife was more accurate.”

Custus smiled.

“But what brings you here?”

Custus looked sharply between Berche and Lillian. Lillian scratched the side of her head with her thumb while grinning awkwardly.

“Dame Lillian Hunts said the tea here is so fantastic we couldn’t pass it up, so we stopped by briefly. The atmosphere is quite unique too. If it’s not rude, could we have some tea?”

“It’s a teahouse, so of course you can have tea. Sit down.”

Custus gestured to the surrounding tables. The knights quickly caught Custus’s signal and crowded over to sit at the tables.

But one spot in particular gave off a stiff atmosphere. It was a table where a beautiful, glamorous dancer sat. If a dancer and knights sat at the same table, naturally there would have been teasing directed at her, but instead the knights were acting awkward.

The stiff faces of the knights surrounding the dancer, their unnaturally moving arms that only moved at right angles, and their awkwardly smiling mouths were utterly ridiculous.

The dancer was strange too. The burly body couldn’t be fully covered even by silk cloth. Rather than a dancer performing soft dances, it seemed more like someone who would perform the disciplined, powerful dances of men.

Only the eyes visible between the veil covering the face were truly beautiful. Captivating eyes reminiscent of the blue sea.

“Oh my!”

The door inside the teahouse opened and Clementina entered, her lemon-gold hair flowing abundantly down to her waist. Nearly twenty knights rose from their seats in unison the moment they saw her, raising their hands to their foreheads and lowering them.

Only the dancer remained seated.

“Duchess.”

To Berche Ritzberry, she was still the Duchess of Drasia. He slowly approached Clementina. It was a greeting he couldn’t quite finish.

Clementina’s appearance after so long had changed greatly from what he knew. Her gaunt cheeks, skeletal limbs, and waist that looked ready to break at any moment seemed to say the healthy, beautiful duchess of before was gone.

“Duchess? Please don’t say that. Berche, it’s been a while.”

Clementina greeted him with a bright smile. Her smile at least was still beautiful. That shocked Berche even more.

“What’s happened? Why have you gotten so thin? Aren’t you eating? Don’t they feed you here?”

Berche looked back at Custus for no reason, and she glared at the commander without backing down.

“I’ve never starved her. I feed her better than I feed myself.”

At Custus’s firm answer, Berche’s shoulders flinched. Then he quickly asked Clementina.

“Where exactly are you sick? No, what have you been doing to get like this?”

Clementina only smiled at Berche’s question. She had nothing particular to say to him either. Her silence became everyone’s silence. As the teahouse grew quiet, she moved her steps and passed between the knights.

Clementina approached the dancer sitting alone. The knights sitting with the dancer all moved aside in unison.

Clementina sat across from the dancer and handed over a handkerchief.

“It’s been a while.”

Only after receiving the handkerchief from the brightly smiling Clementina did the dancer realize.

The sea overflowed in those blue eyes.

“I didn’t know you’d become such a beautiful woman while I wasn’t looking. Lillian didn’t mention that.”

“That’s cowardly.”

“What? Me?”

Clementina pointed at her own face with her index finger. It was the most absurd thing anyone could say about Clementina.

“Lillian seems to have well reported about me, doesn’t she? When you wanted, when you were curious, when you needed? No one told me stories about you.”

“Not often. Just, occasionally she tells me. But I don’t ask first. I didn’t ask out of curiosity. How could I? You’re His Majesty the Emperor. You’re no longer my husband.”

At Clementina’s troubled face as she lowered her head glumly, Dion closed his mouth. He wore ridiculous dancer’s clothes, but he was the Empire’s Emperor.

That’s why he’d deliberately worn this absurd disguise. To shed the burden of being Emperor when meeting her.

Clementina was someone who’d sincerely congratulated him on becoming Emperor, but she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life with an Emperor.

Anger suddenly surged in Dion.

Becoming Emperor hadn’t been his will. It wasn’t Dion’s fault. Yet why did it keep feeling like his fault? She didn’t even blame or resent him.

“I’ve been well. Custus, ah, the teahouse owner here. Haha. I learned about herbs from Custus. Dion, I can make five of the herbs that Sue created exactly the same. Most of them stimulate the nerves. That’s probably why the dragons and demonic beasts went strange. Did Lillian tell you? Lillian said if she told you that, she’d have to reveal where I am, so she refused……”

“Lillian was perfectly loyal about anything concerning you. Annoyingly so. I don’t know who the master is.”

Dion seriously blamed Lillian, but Clementina knew how much he cherished Lillian, so only a smile flowed out.

Before they knew it, in the teahouse with only the two of them remaining, Clementina talked endlessly. Even without Dion answering separately, Clementina didn’t stop.

She was as bright as always. If not for her gaunt appearance, one wouldn’t notice anything wrong with her body.

When he’d found Clementina here, his heart felt torn at her visibly gaunt appearance. He’d thought he’d tried hard to find her, but he was angry that his failure to find her until now was purely due to his own incompetence.

But Dion couldn’t stay angry. Clementina continued talking without caring about Dion’s obviously displeased mood, and she was too lovely.

Besides, this was the woman he’d wanted to see so badly—how could he stay angry?

“There’s no animal as pure as dragons. But to conduct such ruthless experiments on such creatures—the more time passes, the angrier I get. I don’t think I can ever forgive her.”

Dion glanced at her. She couldn’t know about the trap he’d set. Only three people knew—Dion, Berche, and Arthur.

If he wasn’t the driving force keeping her alive, he’d use something else. He wanted to keep her by his side even by doing that. No, even if not by his side, he wanted to see her from nearby.

He absolutely couldn’t tolerate her disappearing like this, unable to see her for so long, not even knowing where she was.