“This is difficult. Do you have any hints for me?”

“Well……”

Genoa blinked slowly, as if deep in thought, carefully weighing the various ideas crossing his mind. As Mel swallowed nervously, sensing something ominous, he finally settled on a response and spoke in a subtle tone:

“I wouldn’t recommend being alone with the First Prince.”

For an unmarried lady to avoid being alone with a man was the most basic precaution in society.

But since this was too obvious for Genoa to give as genuine advice for Mel’s sake, she could tell there was another significant meaning embedded in these words.

“What if a situation arises where we must be alone?”

“I said I don’t recommend it.”

“Even though a pitiful princess from Reibritton would create such situations?”

“I’ll assign Bane to you.”

“Ugh……”

A groan escaped Mel’s lips at the unwelcome name. Startled by her own raw reaction, she quickly covered her mouth. Seeing this, Genoa gave a small laugh before clearing his throat to maintain composure. Then, as if bestowing mercy, he threw one more small hint:

“What I want is to hear one answer from the First Prince. I have suspicions, but no evidence.”

“……”

Mel finally focused intently on this fragment of his true intentions.

Thousands of thoughts appeared and disappeared in her small mind. Noticing this perhaps, Genoa continued speaking while leisurely leaning back against the cushion.

“The princess will become the question I pose to the First Prince.”

“What kind of……”

“What kind of question it becomes depends on you, princess.”

Genoa curled his lips while staring at her with deeply glinting eyes. Mel’s body stiffened at the languid atmosphere emanating from him.

“So do you understand? How much expectation I have for you.”

Mel’s mind immediately became chaotic. The thought dominating her mind was simple.

‘Ah, I’m going to die.’

Her survival instinct’s attachment to life told her this. That she would truly die by that man’s hands if she didn’t do this properly.

“……”

Sweat gathered in her palms, and Mel fought the urge to wipe them on her dress. Noticing this, Genoa retrieved a handkerchief from his chest and offered it to her. Without hesitation, Mel quickly took it.

“No need to feel pressured. Since you’ve been quite helpful to me, I plan to show minimal mercy even if things go wrong.”

“……I should thank you in advance for your generous treatment.”

Mel clutched the handkerchief tightly and smiled brightly.

Mel knew better than anyone that Genoa’s minimal mercy meant death. Of course, she, as the princess of Reibritton who didn’t know this fact, should smile cheerfully as if pleased.

“Did you sleep well last night, Duke?”

“Ah, thanks to you.”

Genoa casually played along with Mel’s natural change of subject. She looked at him with slightly accusing eyes before speaking.

“I feel somewhat hurt.”

“About what?”

“The official contract is fine, since I’m still alive so my efforts weren’t wasted, but the private contract……”

It was a complaint about how Genoa only sought her out when he needed her as a sleeping aid, but never granted what she requested. Mel criticized his attitude of testing and pressuring her to the point of causing pain in her solar plexus for what he wanted, while completely dismissing the other side.

“I haven’t received what I should.”

She deliberately blinked before quietly lowering her eyes. She knew he would generously overlook this level of complaint expression.

As she expected, Genoa nodded with a deflating laugh.

“I have been inconsiderate.”

“Yes, quite so. So may I receive thanks for your peaceful sleep in terms of work progress, Duke?”

“Of course.”

“Oh, that’s good.”

Genoa opened the carriage window and stretched out his hand as if he had been waiting. Bane, who had been following closely beside the carriage, promptly placed a single document in his hand.

‘What, was this prepared in advance?’

His attitude suggested he had been waiting for Mel to bring up this matter. While she was momentarily taken aback, Genoa examined the received document and spoke,

“Since this was urgently reported, we couldn’t translate it to the Reibritton language. But as a wise princess, you surely know the Imperial language.”

“Of course.”

Mel hurriedly took the document Genoa handed over. The single page contained more blank space than black text. However, it contained what Mel most wanted to know.

[Six people escaped from the palace during the height of the bombing. Two elderly women, three knights, and one young maid. After changing clothes in a civilian house near the palace side gate, they mixed into the refugee crowd and headed south.]

Mel read and reread this short passage. Three knights and a young maid. Probably the guard knights and Amelia. And two elderly women…….

Mel traced that sentence with her hand. Mother. It referred to the princess’s elderly nanny and her mother.

‘……She didn’t abandon them but went together.’

Mel felt relieved that her mother was alive.

Nevertheless, Mel couldn’t swallow the sigh that forced its way between her lips. She felt her heartbeat pounding loudly in her head. She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling like she might vomit it out any moment.

How fortunate that mother was alive, and also how…… suffocating it felt.

Mel wanted to writhe from guilt and relief. She wanted to escape this stifling dress, this cramped carriage, that frightening man’s grasp, and freely express her emotions.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t confirm the maid’s possessions that you mentioned.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. This alone is more than……”

Mel bit her lip hard to swallow the tears welling up. She couldn’t show tears over something like this to Genoa here. But perhaps this appeared as disappointment, as Genoa consoled her while not hiding his sympathy.

“The next report should arrive soon, so please wait.”

Mel barely managed to nod at Genoa’s words and continued staring at the document for a long time after. Even though she knew he was watching her intently, Mel couldn’t tear her eyes away.

“One question has occurred to me.”

“What is it?”

“What could that maid have stolen that makes a princess who could abandon her country unable to let go of that one thing?”

“……”

“Would a princess show such an expression even though Reibritton has fallen?”

At his words, Mel bit her lip hard. Like he said, Reibritton held no value for Mel. But it wouldn’t be the same for the princess.

Mel finally realized she had been excessively indifferent about Reibritton. She should have at least pretended to worry about the country or seek a shred of mercy in front of Duke Ivanstein.

Suppressing the urge to bite her tongue, Mel barely managed to speak:

“That’s not one but two.”

“What?”

“You said one question occurred to you, but why did you ask two?”

“Ah.”

Hearing that valid point, Genoa blinked briefly before bending over with loud laughter. While listening to Genoa’s rare burst of laughter loud enough to echo outside the carriage, Mel quietly glared at his annoying crown.

* * *

The noble First Prince of the Raon Empire, Rihast, picked up the empire’s society newsletter that arrived in the morning while lazily raising his body. While servants changed his clothes and wiped his face with a wet cloth, his gaze moved busily as he flipped through the newsletter.

“Is this how they praise cleverness in Reibritton, by thinking in such ways?”

Rihast’s lips twisted as he put down the society newsletter he was reading with a thud. At that moment, the hands of those arranging his clothing began to tremble. Some even started to slink away at the sight of their master’s apparent displeasure.

“Where is Editon?”

So when Rihast asked in a calm voice, the servant’s response came late. They had missed their chance to answer while watching each other’s reactions.

Just as Rihast’s eyebrow twitched, the oldest servant hastily answered.

“He is waiting outside the bedroom.”

“Why?”

The servant blinked momentarily, unsure how to answer Rihast’s counter-question. He became confused, wondering why there needed to be a reason for Editon, Rihast’s most favored knight, to be outside the bedroom.

“……It seems he’s waiting for Your Highness’s cough.”

“Is that so?”

Rihast rose from the bed where he had been sitting leisurely. Then he approached the servant who had answered him with measured steps, one at a time.

The servant tried his best to suppress his loudly beating heart while keeping his head deeply bowed and eyes lowered. And before he could even squeeze his eyes shut, Rihast’s fierce fist flew into his face.

“Urgh!”

With a thud, the servant rolled onto the floor. When he tried to lift his head from where it was planted on the floor, Rihast’s foot crushed down on his skull.

“Do you think I’m asking because I don’t know Editon is outside the bedroom? Huh?”

One-sided violence rained down on the old servant. While he brutally kicked at only the face with obsessive stomps, the other servants didn’t dare even think of stopping him, only turning their heads away to avoid the scene.