Anyway, both he and she knew that the reason she had come was just an excuse. But since she had no intention of doing anything else either, Lysith quickly prepared for embroidery.

As is typical in conventional romance fantasy worlds, in this game’s world too, embroidery was generally done by women. Therefore, she naturally expected that this would be Dietrich’s first time doing embroidery, but surprisingly, it was the opposite of Lysith’s expectation.

“You’ve done this before?”

“Somehow.”

“Why this……”

Lysith’s question was valid. It wasn’t something people usually did. Moreover, this man had been raised as the child of a grand duke from a young age, so he wouldn’t have had any reason to try this.

And such a question from Lysith was simply answered by Dietrich, who had heard her small mutter.

“I wanted to find something I was exceptionally good at. I tried it briefly when I was young.”

“You? I mean, Your Highness?”

At the title “you,” the rough fingertips that had been fiddling with the embroidery Lysith had done paused for a moment. But it was only for a moment, and they started moving again as if the pause had been an illusion.

“……Is it that surprising?”

“No, you’re already good at most things.”

The two people sitting across from each other had moved—half-forcibly by Dietrich—so that Lysith was now sitting in the main seat for efficiency.

After showing him a sample, she handed over a blank embroidery cloth.

“Anyway, if you’ve done it before, I guess I don’t have to worry as much as I thought.”

“……”

Why isn’t he answering? Lysith tilted her head in confusion, but the reason was revealed faster than expected.

“……”

“……”

“I don’t think I asked you to do something difficult.”

“……Guess why I only did it briefly and never again after that.”

What Lysith had given him to try was a simple straight line.

But what she received was……

“It looks like you’ve depicted a snake.”

Lysith thought without prejudice that he might have some hidden delicacy, but delicacy was absolutely bullshit. Well, if he had been delicate, he wouldn’t have acted that way during their marriage, and he wouldn’t have asked if this was her first time seeing the reception room earlier!

She expected too much.

Still, Lysith decided not to give up. She might need to come to this residence again in the future, so she wanted to make the most of today.

“Don’t try to do it all at once. You need to get a feel for it. If you pierce from the back here, where it will come out……”

“That’s not there but……”

“……What happened while I wasn’t looking?”

After much trial and error, what emerged from his hands was a kind of monstrosity. Receiving the embroidery cloth that Dietrich silently handed over like a student submitting homework to a teacher, Lysith put her hand to her forehead at the birth of this monstrosity.

‘He’s worse than I thought……’

Was what she gave him too difficult? She finally handed him something easier. It was truly a design for beginners among beginners—an apple.

Taking it without a word, he began embroidering stitch by stitch again like before. And Lysith, who had been watching his hands with anxious eyes, turned her gaze away and picked up the embroidery she had been working on.

Around the time when the Gronevelt ducal family crest she was embroidering was about half complete, Lysith spoke in a calm tone to the man sitting diagonally across from her.

“May I ask why you don’t get along with His Majesty the Emperor?”

“……”

“You don’t have to answer if it makes you uncomfortable.”

She could state with certainty right here and now.

That she was definitely the first person to ask Dietrich such a question. How could other nobles possibly ask him such a question? There might have been those who asked indirectly.

In any case, after momentarily freezing with his hands stopped, he slowly began moving his hands again and answered in a stiff tone, as if fumbling for words.

“I don’t know why he dislikes me.”

“Didn’t you two fight?”

“There were similar incidents… but we never fought.”

What’s that about then? They hate each other without ever having fought? It couldn’t be something like self-loathing. The two men she had encountered seemed like people standing at opposite ends of a spectrum.

Seeing her tilt her head slightly to one side as if puzzled, Dietrich hesitated but carefully chose his words and tried to speak as gently as possible.

“Have you ever wanted to surpass someone, my lady?”

“Hmm……”

At Dietrich’s question, she lowered her gaze and stared at the Gronevelt ducal family crest she was embroidering.

From her memories in the Faeous Empire, well, since her transmigration, she had been so preoccupied with quests that she hadn’t had the chance to think about wanting to surpass anyone. There hadn’t been any suitable opponents either.

From Lysith’s memories, perhaps it was wanting to beat her brother Sylvian when she was young. It was a rather absurd competitive spirit, but……

“I did think about wanting to beat my brother when I was young.”

“Duke Gronevelt?”

“Yes. It was probably in studies. Of course, we were different ages and genders, so what we learned was slightly different.”

“……”

“But there was one thing that overlapped at that time. There was something my brother started a bit late.”

The age difference between Sylvian and Lysith was only about two years.

Lysith both admired and feared her brother. For good reason—her brother, who was about the same age, never showed her a smiling face.

In fact, now she could barely remember what subject she had wanted to win at so badly.

But at that time, Lysith really wanted to beat that expressionless brother of hers and see his surprised face, or hear him say something like “well done” for beating him.

“The result was… a failure, of course. My brother was just too smart from the start.”

“I’ve heard he was smart from a young age.”

“Exactly. It was ridiculous for me to think I could win. ……Well, maybe I could win in embroidery?”

At Lysith’s half-serious, half-joking remark, Dietrich let out a small laugh, his face considerably lighter than before.

“It’s similar to that.”

“What is… you wanted to beat His Majesty? At what?”

“I’m not sure. At first, it might have been swordsmanship, or studies, or perhaps political skills that I had been good at since childhood.”

“……”

Lysith quietly closed her mouth. She still couldn’t understand what connection this had with the way he had spoken to her at the imperial palace last time. There might be something more.

“That’s how it started. At first, I thought it would be fine to consider him just my own private rival. But from some point on, when I started comparing myself, there was no end to it.”

“……”

“After that, His Majesty also made no effort to hide his dislike for me. That’s the story. As I said earlier, I don’t know why he dislikes me.”

“I see.”

Even Lysith, who had been with Verheigen for about a month, couldn’t quite grasp that reason. In all that time, Dietrich’s name had only come up twice.

Once when he met her after she had met Dietrich and was holding back tears, and again when he discovered the letter Dietrich had sent.

Judging by his attitude, there was a higher probability that he would have told her the story if she had asked than not, but Lysith didn’t want to pry and create friction.

On the other hand, what she had just asked Dietrich, well.

To be honest, being in this situation with him right now was half uncomfortable, half comfortable.

In fact, throughout the game, she had been consciously or unconsciously reading the male protagonists’ moods.

It was natural, if you thought about it. The most important metric—affection—was invisible, and she couldn’t tell when it went up or down. So naturally, she had to be sensitive to every expression and action they made.

Compared to that, the time she spent with this man was, how should she put it? Rather than knowing her past self, he was closer to not knowing her, but at the same time, he was also the person she had lived under the same roof with for the longest time. Additionally, there wasn’t much need to read his mood because of affection points.

If with the other male protagonists she felt anxious about offending them, with him, she felt like he wouldn’t be particularly bothered no matter what she did.

‘It might be my imagination, but……’

People have intuition, don’t they? And Lysith had been helped by this intuition quite a few times on her journey so far.

On the other hand, it was also frustrating. Why on earth would someone put an ex-husband who regrets the past into a reverse harem pool? It was immoral! She had no idea how to handle her attitude toward him.

When Lysith suddenly sighed lightly, “Haah,” feeling overwhelmed, Dietrich, who had been quietly fumbling with his embroidery, flinched slightly.

Wondering what she might say, he carefully examined her profile, but she had closed her mouth tightly and resumed the embroidery she had been working on. Lowering his gaze to what he was holding, he felt the rough texture of the embroidery cloth and the slightly raised texture of the embroidery he had done against his fingertips.