It wasn’t long ago that she had promised herself not to worry.

Despite her resolution, heat rushed to her eyes and her vision blurred.

Startled, Agnes waved his hand and deliberately spoke in an excited tone.

“Don’t worry. Ariel won’t die from something like that. What we need to do now is find out what that black energy actually is.”

She knows, but she can’t help worrying. Merrien tilted her head toward the ceiling.

Tears had already pooled in her eyes.

The liquid slowly trickled down from the corner of her eye across her cheek.

“……”

After hesitating for a long while, Agnes seemed to make a decision and raised his arm behind Merrien’s back.

He was about to stroke her back, just like he had done in his child form.

“Saint. A letter has arrived from His Highness Prince Forcite de Vergne.”

At that moment, the butler announced from the doorway that a letter from Forcite had arrived. It was the first letter since the imperial banquet.

Merrien jumped to her feet.

Agnes’s hand, which hadn’t managed to comfort her back, hung awkwardly in the air before slowly clenching into a fist and lowering.

[Meri. I have something urgent to discuss.]

In Forcite’s letter, the name “Meri” was boldly written.

Brief, neat, and tidy handwriting.

Tears finally dropped heavily onto Merrien’s face.

This wasn’t what she had wanted to receive.

She wanted Ariel’s letter—crooked despite his efforts to write neatly.

“This is it!”

Agnes, who had been openly scanning the letter beside her, frantically pointed at the text.

“Let’s go meet the prince together.”

His voice suddenly became energetic.

Merrien roughly wiped away the tears wetting her face and asked.

“You too, Mr. Nes?”

“Of course. If I transform…”

He, who had been confident until now, abruptly stopped speaking. Simultaneously, his body froze, and only his eyeballs rolled around.

He had intended to transform into a child, claiming to be Ariel’s younger cousin, but realized it was impossible.

For some reason, he hadn’t been able to change into other “human forms” yesterday. Even after experimenting, the result was the same.

The child form wasn’t even an option to begin with.

Merrien firmly believed that the child form wasn’t Agnes himself but his younger brother.

The mouse form wouldn’t work either, having been immediately detected by the Second Prince.

But soon he found an answer.

Agnes lifted his chin with a very confident expression.

“I have a good idea.”

***

At that time, Ariel…

“I really… want to kill them all.”

The imperial knights trembled at his ominous voice. Even those who had been on the verge of fainting stood up straight and assumed proper posture.

Magical beasts kept pouring in without pause.

Ariel now sat in a chair from somewhere, merely flicking his fingers.

Beneath the chair was a mess of sticky blood and torn flesh from magical beasts.

He had been eliminating magical beasts for nearly a full day without rest, yet remained unfazed.

Not only was his physical strength impressive, but the amount of magical power he accumulated far exceeded what he used, so no matter how much he used, it never ran out.

Instead, the imperial knights handling the cleanup were suffering terribly.

“Haa.”

Ariel leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs.

His expression as he watched more magical beasts approaching was a mix of irritation and annoyance, making him look utterly ferocious.

He spread his palm wide open. There was a distant booming sound, and the magical beasts, which had appeared smaller than toothpicks, instantly vanished without a trace.

…He could do that?

The imperial knights, in the middle of cleanup, stared blankly in a daze.

If he could completely annihilate them, couldn’t he have done that from the beginning? Those who collapsed from exhaustion were still surrounded by enormous piles of magical beast corpses.

They glared at Ariel’s back but kept their mouths shut.

Without him, they would all have been overwhelmed and killed by the continuously advancing magical beasts.

It was easier to think they were fortunate that there was nothing more to clean up now.

When daylight came, magical beasts stopped appearing, almost like a lie.

Knights who had been watching the horizon with tense faces cheered loudly.

“Tower Master, thank you for your hard work!”

They paused in their celebration to express gratitude to Ariel.

It seemed they had developed a sense of camaraderie, busy praising him as the empire’s hero.

They had completely forgotten their earlier grumbling.

But to Ariel, their voices barely registered, sounding like distant buzzing.

He was nearly at his breaking point.

His mind was completely filled with thoughts of how much Merrien must be waiting for him, how much she must be expecting him.

“Good work, everyone.”

Ariel left a very brief greeting and quickly teleported to Merrien’s room.

However…

“Where’s Merri?”

She wasn’t there when he returned.

Madness clouded his blue eyes, which had been pretending to be calm until now.

As he kept muttering Merrien’s name, about to lose his mind, the butler hurriedly handed him a newspaper and a letter.

Ariel let out a hollow laugh at the absurd newspaper, then…

[Ariel. Wait.]

He burst into laughter at the round, pretty handwriting that resembled Merrien’s face.

It was almost like he had truly become Whitey after transforming into him—the word “wait” made him feel like he should stick out his tongue and stay still.

His sunken mood lifted and became buoyant.

All because of this short letter.

The butler, after observing his repeatedly changing expressions, carefully spoke.

“Um… The Saint received a letter from His Highness the Second Prince and went to meet him with Mr. Agnes. She asked me to tell you to rest if you returned first. She added that she wanted to handle this herself this time.”

She said she would run away again if you followed her.

The butler whispered cautiously, fearing Ariel might lose his mind and follow her.

Fortunately, he hadn’t completely lost his sanity yet.

He could still reason that if he followed her to the Second Prince’s palace now, it might disrupt whatever plan Merrien had in mind.

Instead, he was puzzled by something else.

“…Agnes went too?”

It was more a question than jealousy. Since she was going to meet that damned prince, having Agnes with her was better than going alone.

However, if Agnes went in his usual form, it wouldn’t be strange if he and the prince got into a huge fight.

They had a bitter, long-standing feud that they both wanted to end.

“About that…”

The butler lifted his monocle nervously, then squeezed his eyes shut.

“He transformed into a dog and went with her.”

Ha. Ariel’s eyes darkened until they resembled the deep sea.

***

“Saint Merrien. His Highness the Prince is waiting for you.”

It had been just a moment since Merrien stepped out of the carriage. As soon as she set foot in the Second Prince’s palace, someone who appeared to be the head servant approached and urged her along.

He merely nodded his head without even greeting her properly, then turned around toward the palace—behavior that seemed inappropriate toward a Saint, but Merrien simply brushed it off.

‘Given the situation.’

Due to the suddenly published extra edition, not only Ariel’s reputation but also her own, while staying at House Hartez, had clearly plummeted.

Still, she hadn’t expected to be snubbed so quickly.

The head servant seemed to have concluded that his master, Forcite, had summoned Merrien to rescue her from House Hartez.

His conspicuously straight back and quick pace demonstrated a dismissive attitude toward Merrien.

Moving without pause, the head servant stopped in front of a door and placed his hand on the doorknob.

This was the moment he finally faced Merrien properly after ignoring her until now.

“When you enter the drawing room, show proper respect to His Highness the Prince first. But…”

As he was giving his warning, his gaze dropped suddenly.

The head servant’s eyes widened momentarily, and he unnecessarily tightened his already stiff collar.

“W-what is this dog?”

He ended up stuttering, looking at the small dog that had been quietly following on a leash.

It was Agnes, who had transformed into a dog, somewhat inspired by Whitey.

Merrien smiled sweetly and gently tugged on Agnes’s leash.

“My ‘As’ suffers from separation anxiety when I’m not around.”

As if that was a signal, Agnes planted both front paws firmly on the ground, stuck out his tongue, and panted.

T/N: In the original Korean text, Agnes’s nickname is “아스” (pronounced “ah-seu”), which would directly translate to “As” in English. But after translating the sentence “My ‘As’ suffers from separation anxiety when I’m not around,” I realized this might create some… unfortunate readings for English speakers. 😅

While I normally avoid changing character names, sometimes you have to save the English audience from accidentally reading about someone’s rear end having separation anxiety! (✦థ ｪ థ)

So I’ve changed his nickname to “Nes” throughout the translation.
Should I have missed one change from As to Nes, because finding that name throughout the text is truly challenging, I apologize. ༎ຶ‿༎ຶ