“St-stop joking around…!”

With a face that turned bright red as if about to burst, Iella pushed him away and got up. As if securing a safe distance, she covered her ear, where his breath had touched, with her palm while staying a bit away.

However, she couldn’t stop her heart from pounding rapidly. For the first time, she saw him not as a comfortable friend but as a man. It was a very unfamiliar sensation.

Meanwhile, Aster, who had raised his upper body after she moved away, inwardly sighed. Judging by her reaction, he still had a long way to go.

‘Would it have been different if she remembered?’

A momentary regret crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. Remembering the night with him would also mean remembering the night with Allen, and that wasn’t what he wanted.

Aster observed her, looking like a small animal wary of a predator with many openings, and then smiled gently.

It seemed better to take a step back for now. He didn’t want to push her too much here and risk having her avoid him.

“I know this is startling, so I’ll leave for now. But none of the words I’ve said were jokes or lies. Just know that.”

After saying this to reassure her, Aster got up and left the bed. Iella quietly watched as he gathered his coat, then hesitantly stood up as well.

Eventually, as he was about to leave through the door, she stopped, and he slightly turned his body while holding the doorknob.

“Call me anytime you need me. Even if you don’t need anything, anytime. You know I’m always waiting for you. I’ll be waiting this time too.”

“……”

“Iella. I’m always on your side. Just as you’ve always been for me.”

It was what he always said to her. Hearing it made her realize that he was still the same person she knew. The unfamiliar distance she had felt suddenly closed as if it had never existed.

Just before he completely stepped out through the open door, Iella hesitantly reached out and gently grabbed the hem of his clothes from behind.

“When I return to my original body…, let’s reschedule the meeting we had planned.”

“Okay.”

A gentle smile formed at the corners of his mouth.

* * *

Aster’s face, after leaving the secondary palace and boarding the carriage, was quite rigid, unlike earlier.

While he told Iella he would wait, taking a step back, in reality, he had no such intention. He didn’t trust Ailexia before, wouldn’t now, and never would in the future.

He had no intention of interfering with her plan and would gladly help if needed, but separate from that, he couldn’t help but consider what would happen if that plan failed.

‘I need to create another alternative.’

His mind kept spinning like the rapidly turning carriage wheels. However, no particularly good solution came to mind.

‘If Iella can’t return to her original body, what legal way is there for her to leave the secondary palace despite being in that woman’s body?’

The method Aster had initially planned to propose to Iella was escape.

It was a method he had considered as the highest priority, even at the risk of evading the eyes of the emperor and the Grand Duke to bring her out of the secondary palace.

But it was certainly high-risk. They couldn’t evade their eyes forever. Yet conversely, there was no other way to escape.

Aster’s concerns continued even until he arrived at the mansion and headed to his office.

Robert, walking from the opposite direction, spotted him pacing the corridor deep in thought.

“Your Grace! Where on earth have you been!”

Robert, who had suffered greatly the previous night due to his master’s disappearance without a trace for a day, passed all the bundles of documents he was holding into Aster’s arms with a haggard, tired face.

“These are new documents from the territory, and these are documents that need your approval by today. Ah, and this is the list of knights hoping to participate in this swordsmanship tournament……”

“Swordsmanship tournament.”

“Pardon?”

Aster, who had been listening to the rapid-fire words, suddenly brightened his eyes. He immediately entered his office, pushed aside other documents, and picked out only those related to the swordsmanship tournament to scan through.

Robert, who followed him in, rubbed his eyes, which had become stiff from reviewing documents all night, at his master’s incomprehensible behavior. After waiting a moment, Aster asked Robert first.

“Is the reward for the tournament winner the same as before?”

“Uh…, yes. It should be. The opportunity to join the Imperial Knights, a mansion in the capital and a large sum of prize money, and……”

“Not those. There was a private audience with the emperor.”

“Ah—. You mean the wish right?”

“Wish right?”

“Since the official name is long, everyone just calls it that for simplicity. It’s not wrong to say that the emperor will grant one wish for whatever you want most, as long as it’s not something unreasonable.”

After hearing Robert’s words, Aster fell into thought for a moment. The “unreasonable” mentioned here referred to inhumane acts or requests for unique positions, the throne, and other absurd demands.

‘It would be difficult to classify taking Ailexia from the secondary palace as unreasonable.’

Aster didn’t know exactly why the emperor and the Grand Duke monitored and cared about Ailexia. He wasn’t interested either.

His vague speculation was that it had something to do with the previous generation, but regarding Ailexia’s identity, even high-ranking nobles didn’t know properly, so it was just an unreliable guess.

However, he knew one thing. At least the emperor hated Ailexia more than he did.

‘If the emperor permits it, even the Grand Duke would ultimately be unable to do anything. Though the Grand Duke sponsors her, the place where Ailexia stays is effectively under the emperor’s authority. He can’t oppose if the owner wants to expel her.’

Having reached a conclusion, he scrawled his name in the empty space at the end of the list of hopeful tournament participants. Robert gasped at this action.

“Your Grace?!”

“Submit it.”

The words “What on earth are you doing, a person with a respectable position and abundant wealth?” were clearly written on Robert’s face.

Aster casually ignored this and handed the list to Robert.

* * *

“He has completely disappeared.”

A man wrapped in a black robe from head to toe bowed deeply. The sharp air was as biting as if it pierced through the cloth and into the skin.

Despite having successfully completed numerous missions until now, this moment of reporting failure for the first time was unbearably heavy. It wasn’t this bad even when they couldn’t find a girl for 13 years.

‘That was probably because you didn’t set a deadline…’

In any case, the air surrounding him was so oppressive that even breathing felt difficult. The man, with hands clenched into fists that trembled from instinctive fear regardless of his will, waited for his master’s response.

Tap, tap. The sound of fingers tapping on the desk sharply cut through the silent air.

After a long while, the sound stopped, and Helios opened his mouth.

“That’s fine.”

“Pardon?”

The man, who had never questioned his master’s words, unconsciously asked again. That’s how unexpected the answer was.

Belatedly realizing what he had done, he immediately bowed his head, but his master let out an indifferent voice as if he didn’t even care.

“He can’t hide forever. Just catch him again when he reappears. I’ve already found what’s important anyway.”

In fact, Helios no longer needed Nix.

Having found the girl he had yearned for over 13 years, trivial information like who she was, what she liked, and how she had been living could be asked directly.

Yet he still pursued Nix for one reason.

To question why, despite knowing everything, he had concealed the truth rather than reporting it earlier.

‘I knew he was somewhat mentally off, but he committed such a daring act without fear.’

Unaware of this, Helios had provided generous financial support all this time. While the money wasn’t precious as he had more than enough, the time he spent supporting him was infinitely regrettable.

It was because his mind was filled with the thought that he might have reunited with her earlier.

Helios pushed aside thoughts of Nix, which made him grind his teeth the more he recalled them, and this time asked the shadow monitoring the secondary palace.

“What is Asha doing?”

“She hasn’t left her room yet.”

Despite the easily misunderstood title, the shadow answered calmly. It wasn’t that they were stupidly unaware; they had also guessed that it was Ailexia’s nickname.

If Helios had known of their misunderstanding, he would have shown his displeasure with a snort, but he didn’t know that much.

Not only was Helios the only one who knew the true meaning, but fundamentally, they were beings who killed their emotions and thoughts to obey their master’s will.

Whatever their master called that woman was none of their concern, nor were they in a position to be concerned.

“However….”

In fact, what was making the shadow tense and nervous now was something else entirely.

He swallowed imperceptibly and continued his report.

“Duke Calver, who visited the bedroom yesterday, only left the secondary palace today.”

The air immediately sank again, filled with tension. Cold, red eyes turned toward the shadow.

In response to the gaze demanding intimate details, the shadow spoke as if reluctantly pushing the words out.

“They spent the night together.”

An intense aura, strong enough to press down on everyone in the space, instantly crushed them.