Chapter 68

As Adelina spoke with a bright smile, Lexion burst into laughter.  

However, there were still many eyes looking at her lips with curiosity.  

“What do you mean…”  

“Phase 2 of the Midway Operation. Aircraft carrier operation.”  

Adelina returned to her seat, picked up a black pin, and stood in front of the map.  

“He who controls the sea will gain victory.”  

She placed a black pin in front of the artificial island near Petrus’s waters.  

“Hahaha. Indeed, you are my treasure. The treasure of Ernst!”  

Lexion sprang up from his seat and embraced Adelina.  

His sharp gaze was fixed on the black pin stuck in the map.  

+++

“There’s no time!”  

Adelina, dressed in a flimsy black nightgown, ran to the bookshelf as Seyra left the room with a sly smile.  

Today, she had deliberately decided to sleep in Lexion’s room.  

No matter how much she thought about it, this was the only place she could search right now.  

“Ha… Do I have to spend the first night like this…”  

Even after taking all the books off the shelf and laying them on the floor, she found nothing.  

Adelina, in despair, placed her hands on the empty bookshelf.  

‘I haven’t even heard the words ‘I love you’!’  

Isn’t there an order to things!  

How can one do that first without a confession!  

• [Do you want to be real? A sincere confession of love.]

Recalling the voice of the god in the mirror, Adelina, filled with frustration, banged her head against the bookshelf.  

“Huh?”  

As a rectangular mark appeared on Adelina’s forehead from the bookshelf, it creaked and began to move.  

+++

Having finished his work, Lexion stepped out into the garden for a moment to ease his restless mind.  

The confusion caused by the dragon’s attack was now all sorted out.  

Only the emptiness of not seeing familiar faces and the awkwardness of not mentioning their names made the night garden’s air feel more stifling.  

As he walked alone, having sent the guard knights away, he overheard the conversations of the knights standing watch from time to time.  

“They say Edgar was taken by the dragon… newlywed too… so unfortunate…”  

“I heard he recently had a son…”  

“Really? Edgar was an only son, so that’s at least some relief…”  

Seeing that their conversation was likely to continue, Lexion moved in the opposite direction of the sound. As he moved, he found himself heading towards the bedroom without realizing it.  

“Your Highness.”  

He encountered Seyra, who had just finished her work, in the corridor.  

“The queen is in my bedroom?”  

“Yes. She is waiting for you.”  

The one sentence that Adelina was waiting for him dispelled his unease.  

+++

“What were you doing?”  

Entering the room, Lexion approached Adelina, whose forehead was beaded with sweat.  

She stood in front of the bookshelf, holding a book that she didn’t seem to have read, breathing slightly heavily.  

“I was practicing self-defense. Now I’m reading.”  

Lexion turned his body, watching Adelina as she put the book she was holding back on the shelf.  

He approached her from behind and placed his hand on the brown hardcover book next to the one she just placed.  

Gulp. He felt her quietly swallow.  

“But, did you read this book too? The founding myth of Ernst?”  

“Yes. I read that book too. It was very interesting.”  

“Really? The position has changed.”  

Lexion pressed his body closer to Adelina’s back, pulling out the book and placing it next to where it was.  

Then he placed his hand on the shelf right below, where Adelina had banged her head.  

“Lexion! Shall we… take a bath together?”  

Adelina quickly grabbed Lexion’s hand and pulled it away from the shelf, turning around.  

“Bath?”  

“Yes… I sweated, so I want to take a bath. Let’s do it together.”  

Adelina, who had sweated even more in the meantime, awkwardly smiled at Lexion.  

+++

Adelina’s wet nightgown revealed her body entirely.  

Lexion, sitting opposite her with her on his lap, frowned.

“When did you get these bruises?”  

It wasn’t just the curves of her body that showed through the nightgown.  

Dark bruises, visible even through the black fabric, colored various parts of her body.  

“I don’t know. I must have bumped into something while running away from the dragon.”  

Adelina spoke nonchalantly and splashed water onto Lexion’s forehead with her hand.  

As Lexion squinted one eye tightly, she found it amusing and burst into laughter.  

“With your body covered in bruises like this, I can’t do this or that to you.”  

Lexion searched her sides to see if there were any unbruised areas.  

Soon after, as if giving up, he gently pulled her back towards him.

“That’s unfair.”  

To provoke him like this and make him feel sorry.

To make him feel helpless with such a pretty appearance.

Carefully pressing her back, he was cautious not to touch any bruised areas or hurt her with his strength.  

“There is a part without bruises.”  

Adelina wrapped her arms around Lexion’s neck, whispering in his ear.  

Their noses brushed, and then Adelina’s lips shyly touched Lexion’s lips.  

+++

The next morning, Hailyn, who had come as an envoy from the Tiola Empire, requested a meeting with Lexion and Adelina.  

Only Lexion, Adelina, Stephan, and Hailyn were to attend this meeting.  

Adelina greeted Hailyn with a bright smile as she entered Lexion’s office.  

It was perhaps natural that Hailyn, who risked her life for her every time, didn’t feel like a stranger.  

“So, you requested a meeting as an envoy today?”  

Once the attendants had set a cup of cool black tea each and left, Lexion began speaking in earnest.  

“Yes, Your Highness. I will deliver the second letter from our Emperor.”  

“The second letter?”  

Lexion and Stephan looked at her with suspicious faces.  

Since Hailyn arrived in Ernst, no messenger pigeon from the Tiola Empire had arrived.  

Nor had she met anyone outside the palace.  

“Hai. Lyn!”  

Receiving the letter, Lexion crumpled it and glared at Hailyn.  

“Your Highness! Crumpling the letter from an allied emperor!”  

Stephan hurriedly took the letter from Lexion’s hand.  

“What on earth does it say…”  

As Stephan read the letter, his face gradually twisted, and eventually, he too crumpled the letter.  

“Our Emperor has requested Her Majesty the Queen as an envoy.”  

Hailyn shrugged, as if it were no big deal.

“Me?”  

Even in her confusion, Adelina smiled, fearing the two men might kill Hailyn, and snatched the letter from Stephan’s hand.  

“I will go as an envoy, Your Highness.”  

Having read the letter, Adelina neatly folded it in half.  

“That cannot be. Requesting a queen of a kingdom as an envoy!”  

Lexion was furious, as if ready to point a sword at Hailyn’s neck.  

“I know exactly what is needed. It is right for me to go.”  

Trying to control her emotions, Adelina continued folding the letter in half.  

Now the letter was the size of her palm.  

“Adelina.”  

“Lexion. I’ll go. I’ll bring back the aircraft carrier.”  

Adelina placed the letter in Lexion’s palm and closed his hand.  

The corners of her mouth trembled slightly as she smiled at Lexion.  

+++

The death of the dragon seemed to have been a great shock to the Petrus Empire, as the sky remained calm until that afternoon.  

The survivors, while making tombstones for the dead and mourning, tried hard to suppress their sorrow.  

“Mom, did the wyverns really defeat the dragon?”  

In front of the tombstone, children repeatedly asked, holding their mother’s hand.  

“Yes, they did. The wyvern knights defeated the dragon knights. We defeated Petrus.”  

The children looked up at the sky.  

In their eyes, searching for the soul of their deceased father, they saw black wyverns patrolling the bright blue sky.  

“Yes, mom. We’re going to win.”  

Father said so.  

The children hugged their mother’s waist.  

Though they couldn’t hug as firmly as their father, they buried their heads in their mother’s chest and tightened their arms.  

+++

Hearing that Lexion couldn’t join her for dinner, Adelina ran to his office.  

“His Highness has gone to Lady Rose’s garden.”  

Following the chief attendant’s subtle hint of Lexion’s whereabouts, she headed to a small garden deep within the palace.  

A small garden surrounded by several palaces.  

Here lay Rose’s empty grave, without even a corpse.  

Adelina approached Lexion, who was lying neatly beside the grave.  

His face was turned upward as if looking at the sky, but his red eyes seemed to reflect nothing.  

“Lexion.”  

She inserted her face into those eyes.  

“Adelina.”  

“The funeral went smoothly.”  

As focus returned to those eyes, Adelina pulled Lexion up by his arm.  

“A grown man laying here like this. You’re not a child.”  

She brushed off the grass and dirt from Lexion’s clothes, scolding him.  

“Haha. Isn’t this when you hug and comfort me? And if that doesn’t work, give me a kiss too.”  

Lexion, seemingly less gloomy now, laughed heartily and hugged Adelina.  

“I’m so glad you’re here.”  

Lexion’s voice, carried by the early autumn breeze that shook the cosmos in the garden, rustled the hair by Adelina’s ear.  

“When the war is over… you have to give me the mirror.”  

“The sunset is so beautiful. Just like you.”  

Frowning deeply, Adelina raised her eyebrows at his irrelevant answer.  

Lexion merely raised and lowered his eyebrows once and hugged Adelina again.  

+++

Knock knock. Lexion tapped beside Adelina’s plate on the dining table.  

Adelina, who had been staring blankly at one spot on the table for ten minutes with a fork in hand, was startled and looked at Lexion.  

“Oh. Lexion.”  

“The food is cold. What were you thinking so deeply about?”  

Lexion instructed an attendant to reheat Adelina’s food and then cut his bread into small pieces, placing them on her plate.  

“Tomorrow, I’m going out to the streets. I might need to wear a wig…”  

Adelina cut the bread that Lexion had already made small enough to fit in her mouth in half.  

Lexion stood up, pulled out the chair next to her, and sat down.  

He took the bread from her hand and placed it in her mouth.  

They were planning to patrol the streets together tomorrow.  

It was Lexion’s plan to reassure the anxious public due to the dragon’s appearance and naturally introduce Adelina.  

In the meantime, the chef reheated the food and placed it in front of Adelina again.  

“No need for a wig.”  

Seeing that the steak was also in its original state, Lexion picked up a fork and knife to cut it into small pieces.  

“People might feel uncomfortable seeing silver hair… I can’t change the eye color…”  

Lexion placed the steak in Adelina’s mouth and quietly looked into her eyes.  

Adelina, still worried, furrowed her brows as she chewed.  

“No need for a wig or eye color change. You’re enough as you are.”  

“Really? How am I enough?”