“P-p-please spare me, Your Majesty.”

“……”

I’m going to choke on my food.

“Wow, it’s delicious. Really delicious.”

The food Charlie had stabbed with her fork entered her mouth.

Chew chew.

Only after she had swallowed did Kaisis take his eyes off the chef.

“See that he’s rewarded.”

Miller bowed his head deeply towards Kaisis, who was lightly wiping his lips with a napkin.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“……”

The raised corners of Charlie’s mouth fell weakly.

Was this a new form of torture?

Imprisonment, r*pe…. Those were too cliché now, so perhaps he enjoyed watching her suffer by making her sick.

‘He’s different from Hector, yet similar.’

This was a thought she had even while reading the novel.

Kaisis and Hector were different, but somehow similar.

Lacking emotions. Lacking a world.

They were the only ones who could understand each other, yet also couldn’t coexist.

Charlie quietly looked at Kaisis, who was shining brilliantly in the morning sunlight, almost blinding.

‘It was suicide, probably.’

Kaisis definitely smiled when he was killed by Hector.

It was barely a line in the text, and because he was a villain, many people didn’t pay attention to his death, but Charlie thought so.

That he had let himself die.

Perhaps he had been waiting for Hector to fight him with all his might.

It was said that for a fleeting moment, Kaisis’s golden light had stopped.

Charlie felt as if he had intentionally left an opening and allowed Hector to kill him.

Why.

Why on earth would he do that?

“Does the taste make you sad?”

“What?!”

Charlie’s eyes widened at Kaisis’s question.

“You’re looking sad right now.”

Kaisis’s image wavered in Charlie’s trembling eyes.

Kaisis couldn’t read her thoughts.

That was something she had realized clearly yesterday.

But how…

“Or…”

Kaisis calmly picked up a glass of water and twirled it in his fingertips.

“Am I the one who’s sad?”

In that moment, Charlie turned her face away as a scene from the original story flashed through her mind.

Kaisis was someone who had lived his entire life reading others’ thoughts to the point of boredom.

Even without using his ability, he could roughly gauge emotions from just a single movement of their facial muscle.

‘I need to be careful.’

“I’m sad about my situation.”

It might be better to just be honest.

To make it uninteresting, too obvious to even pique his curiosity.

Kaisis had been obsessed with Hector because he couldn’t read his thoughts. It would be the same with her now.

‘I need to change my approach.’

Charlie relaxed her expression, lowering the corners of her mouth that she had forcibly raised.

“Why?”

“I’m eating in a place where I feel like I might choke.”

At that moment, Kaisis’s eyes hardened.

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Then what would you like to do?”

“I’d like to get up and go to bed right now.”

“……”

Kaisis ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek.

The meal had long since stopped.

Miller and others in the dining room were shocked, but Charlie even let out a deep sigh.

“……”

* * *

‘Oh, damn. Why don’t you two just date already.’

From macarons to forced walks. Seeing a development she’d seen many times before, Charlie irritably tapped her toes as she walked.

“Didn’t you say you felt like you’d choke?”

Kaisis, walking a step behind Charlie, said.

“That’s why.”

What, are you saying I should walk faster to digest?

At least he’s not walking with his arm around my waist like Hector did at first, I guess that’s something to be thankful for.

‘But why is he walking behind me? It’s scary.’

Surely he’s not going to suddenly stab me with a knife or something?

Charlie shuddered at the thought that crossed her mind.

“Yes, yes.”

Charlie answered halfheartedly. Kaisis’s lips curled as he sensed Charlie’s pheromones carried by the wind.

Temporary imprinting. It fades gradually over time.

Not to mention, Kaisis was a Grand Master.

Sensing Charlie’s pheromones hidden beneath Hector’s was as easy as taking a step.

‘It changes moment by moment, right.’

To Kaisis, Charlie was like a three-year-old child. Her emotions were so transparent.

Anger, irritation. Even sadness.

Without reading her thoughts or observing her expressions, he could feel her emotions.

But why did she look at him with sadness earlier?

It was clearly sympathy.

For Kaisis, an emotion that wasn’t fear or terror was rare.

[My child, Mom hopes you won’t be in pain. Neither in body nor in mind…]

No, since his mother’s death. Kaisis had never received sympathy filled with worry and sadness without any ulterior motive.

‘Interesting.’

Just like Hector.

“You don’t seem to like it.”

Charlie’s pheromones became noticeably turbid at Kaisis’s words.

Kaisis furrowed his brow as if he had smelled something unpleasant.

“It’s not great.”

“Why?”

“I don’t like walking in the first place.”

Thump thump-

Even just looking at her footsteps, it seemed that way.

“But you need to digest.”

It would be better to just take medicine, this is beyond giving the disease and then the cure.

Waking her up at the crack of dawn to feed her, and now making her take a walk.

Charlie wrinkled her nose in displeasure.

“Or would you prefer to have s*x?”

“Eh?!”

Startled, Charlie turned around. As a result, she ended up falling into Kaisis’s arms, who had been following a step behind.

In Charlie’s surprised vision, his golden hair swayed gently in the breeze.

“How about it?”

Kaisis reached out and pulled Charlie’s waist, embracing her.

Charlie, coming to her senses, tried to break free, but she was no match for Kaisis’s strength.

“Wh-wh-what…”

What is this crazy person saying now?

Charlie was so dumbfounded she couldn’t even speak.

“Or a kiss?”

Kaisis’s blue eyes, identical to the sky behind him, looked down at Charlie.

“Huh…”

Charlie’s mouth fell open. In contrast, Kaisis’s gaze was deadly serious.

“Don’t you like it?”

“N-no, I don’t.”

“You’re lying again.”

“Me?!”

“Yes.”

“I’m not lying.”

“That can’t be.”

Kaisis pulled Charlie closer.

His raised hand brushed Charlie’s disheveled hair aside, lightly grazing her earlobe.

“Just touching you makes me feel good.”

“……!”

Suddenly, it felt as if Kaisis’s pheromones were engulfing her entire body.

“Look at your pheromones.”

Between their close faces, they could feel each other’s breath.

“You’re enjoying my scent this much.”

Kaisis cradled Charlie’s head.

Though he wasn’t gripping tightly, she couldn’t step back either.

No, her body wouldn’t move, as if drawn to something.

“It’ll be delicious.”

A sweet and seductive voice penetrated Charlie’s ear, hypnotizing her.

Kaisis’s long eyelashes, slowly lowering, sparkled like stars.

“To the point of madness.”

Just as their lips were about to meet.

‘No!’

Bang-!

With a huge sound, a gust of wind blew in.

* * *

After finishing his meeting with Charlie and leaving the temple, Kaisis’s face was coldly set.

It was clearly a powerful holy power.

But it wasn’t Charlie who had pushed him away.

[Ah, ah… Are you okay?]

She seemed more surprised than him, looking at him.

Kaisis looked down at his injured hand.

There was a deep scratch from falling in an unguarded state.

Although he could easily heal such a wound with magic, Kaisis didn’t do so.

[You’re bleeding.]

When he received Charlie’s worried gaze, for some reason, he didn’t want to heal it.

‘Does she pity me?’

Why would she sympathize and worry about him?

Charlie knows that he tried to kill her.

She caught the spy Josh with her own hands. Even if she didn’t know, it was he who had separated her from Hector.

[I’m eating in a place where I feel like I might choke.]

Charlie’s words weren’t a lie. But they weren’t the whole truth either.

Clearly, there was understanding underlying Charlie’s gaze at him.

She acted as if she expected it. And she even knew how to avoid his attention.

‘Because she’s the Saintess?’

Is it because she’s the Saintess that she understands him, sympathizes with him, and pushed him away with God’s power?

“Ha…”

Kaisis let out a low, mocking laugh.

Not a single part of it made sense.

No, the Saintess’s very existence didn’t make sense.

“Keep a close watch.”

Kaisis turned around. A priest with a lowered hood quietly bowed his head.

Following that, a golden light flashed, and the Emperor and his entourage disappeared.

At that moment,

“Your Grace…”

The meeting between Kaisis and Charlie at the Grand Temple was also reported to Hector.

Tanner looked at Hector’s back with a dark expression.

But Hector just stared out the window at the empty garden where Charlie wasn’t, without saying a word.

* * *

At the Espenon Grand Temple.

Charlie blankly stared at the ceiling.

The time she had lightly considered to be just a week felt as long as a year for each day.

“But really, why isn’t he coming…”

Charlie hugged her pillow and turned to her side.

“Is he hurt?”

She felt disappointed that Hector wasn’t visiting, then she got angry. And now she was worried.

Her thoughts, chasing one after another, even led to a vague fear that this might be the end forever.

“If he comes tomorrow, I’ll forgive him for not coming all this time.”

She left for the Grand Temple without a proper explanation, so she thought that much would be okay.

“He did the same thing.”

Suddenly telling her to be a maid for a hundred million, and then they ended up going on an expedition together.

“He gave me this too.”

Charlie looked down at the red magic stone that Leon had given her.

“And this.”

Charlie’s hand fiddled with the manastone around her neck.

“But why isn’t he coming?”

When Kaisis tried to kiss her today, Charlie momentarily thought the force that pushed him away was Hector.

She unconsciously turned her head, looking for him.

[I took care of it.]