“Ah, it’s been a while. Let me first introduce my fiancée.”

“Hello, I’m Arinel Mylar.”

As I introduced myself, the gray eyes turned towards me.

However, the gaze didn’t seem particularly friendly. I’m not sure if it’s just his naturally cold impression.

“…Miss Mylar… I see. I’m Eden Siegfried. It’s an honor to meet you.”

The voice that escaped through his moving lips, and also…

“But what brings the young master Siegfried to the imperial hunting grounds?”

Briton asked Eden about his business here.

Eden then showed a small container he was holding.

The transparent container held some soil.

“My father ordered me to collect a small sample of the soil here for research, so I was in the process of collecting it. But here…”

Eden’s cold eyes turned to me again.

“…I didn’t expect to meet Marquis Mylar’s daughter for the first time.”

***

“…What’s with that expression.”

As I was returning home in the carriage, I tilted my head, thinking about Eden Siegfried.

“Is Eden Siegfried also from the prickly Matzert family?”

But I had never heard rumors of the Siegfried ducal family being close to the Matzert ducal family.

Then is it just that he doesn’t like me?

Or is he just a child with a naturally unfriendly impression?

‘…Let’s not worry about it.’

There are children who harbor baseless ill will everywhere.

And paying attention to each of them is just tiring.

“My lady.”

As soon as I arrived home, Adam came out hurriedly.

“There’s incredible news.”

“Incredible news?”

If Adam had such an expression, it must be related to Parmes.

Just as anxiety was about to creep up…

“His Majesty the Emperor says he will hold a birthday ball for you at the imperial palace.”

“What?”

My birthday was about two weeks away.

Until now, I always celebrated my birthday in Galnem, making sugar beet cake and having a celebration party with the villagers…

Last birthday, I spent it alone with Mas.

But… a birthday ball for me at the imperial palace?

“It’s His Majesty’s decision. Lady Alens will be in charge.”

Adam spoke with excitement and joy in his smile.

In <I will no longer be the Tyrant’s lover>, there was no particular mention of a debutante.

Instead, there was a passage about making her face and presence known to high society through the ‘birthday ball’ she hosted.

Last time, I attended Lariel Matzert’s birthday ball.

‘Lady Alens said that not just anyone can hold a birthday ball.’

You needed a large space to invite guests, like the Matzert ducal family had, and the cost was not insignificant.

So I hadn’t been thinking about holding a birthday ball myself.

“Probably all the young ladies in the capital will envy you. A birthday ball hosted at the imperial palace, what could be more grand than that?”

I could imagine how distorted Lariel Matzert’s face would be when she heard the news.

“Here, this is the card His Majesty gave.”

I opened the card Adam handed me and read it.

It was Parmes’ handwriting.

[Let me make up for the lonely birthday you had last time.]

***

Parmes Aslet, who was the 4th prince of the Aslet imperial family, ascends to the throne after eliminating his three older brothers.

It’s unknown how Parmes, who had disappeared for over 10 years, managed to gain the support of the empire’s top noble families and succeed in his rebellion with a hidden powerful army.

That would be an incident known only to the high nobles involved in the rebellion.

Anyway, to the commoners, Parmes Aslet was an existence they dared not even look up to, a merciless rebel and an iron-blooded emperor.

Over the past year, as purges progressed, many nobles who had been wielding power disappeared like dew on the execution ground, and there was no one who didn’t tremble in fear seeing that tragedy.

So, the incident at the imperial palace was the most thrilling and surprising moment Felix Taylor had ever experienced in his life.

When he was kidnapped, blindfolded, and taken somewhere, and when the blindfold was removed and he realized the emperor was standing in front of him, Felix thought he was going to faint.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to urinate. If he had felt the urge, he might have just done it right there…

“I have a question for you.”

‘He… he’s going to question me…?’

He’s going to bury me as soon as we meet.

When the emperor, whose mere sight made him dizzy, spoke with his piercing red eyes glowing, Felix barely held onto his fading consciousness.

“…Your… Your Majesty…”

And he recalled. Had he ever spoken ill of this merciless emperor to others? Or his parents living in the countryside far from the capital… they couldn’t have incurred the emperor’s wrath.

“Please… please spare my life, Your Majesty…”

In the end, all he could do was kneel and beg, though he didn’t know what for.

Parmes slightly frowned at the end of his eyebrows, and to the timid Felix, even that felt like a knife pressed against his heart.

Finally, the noble and cold red lips moved.

“Your usefulness after death would be… only as fertilizer for that flower bed, but she probably wouldn’t like it if we made fertilizer out of people.”

Felix couldn’t tell if he meant he was going to kill him or not.

Parmes continued.

“The reason I called you here is because of what happened at ‘The Goddess’s Breath’.”

“The, The Goddess’s Breath, you say?”

Recalling the memory of that incredible day, Felix looked at Parmes, still terrified.

Parmes nodded, twisting the corner of his mouth cruelly.

“Yes. You need to tell me about the child you were with there.”

At Parmes’ words, Felix’s shoulders flinched.

Felix had entered the artificial cave with a child that day.

The blinding light that erupted forth, the earth-shaking vibration, and the cave entrance’s sudden collapse.

Even the hot spring water that had burst unexpectedly from the ground.

It all seemed unreal, even now.

And what was even more unbelievable was… the child’s name, ‘Arinel Mylar’.

He had heard rumors that the late Marquis Mylar’s daughter had come to the capital, but he had never heard anywhere that the child had the power of elementals.

The talent for elementals didn’t necessarily follow bloodlines.

Still, just in case, two employees from the Elementalist Association had once visited the Mylar mansion, but he heard they were checked by people from other institutions like the Economic Academy, Military Department, and Ministry of Justice, and just returned.

But for that child to come to the test site herself and prove such an incredible, historic talent… Felix couldn’t sleep at night, excited by the thought that a new history in the field of spirit studies might be beginning.

“…Why aren’t you answering?”

At the emperor’s gaze, Felix felt his hands trembling.

“May… may I ask just one thing…”

“….”

“The reason Your Majesty is asking me who that child is…”

Felix recalled when he left his hometown.

Although Elementalist arts had lost popularity, he loved elementals and had a talent for Elementalist arts, and wanted to spread Elementalist arts to the world.

His father patting his shoulder saying he believed in him, his mother crying, and everything he thought and felt when he first arrived at the declining Elementalist Association flashed through his mind like a kaleidoscope.

“…If it’s for a pu, pu, purge… I, I…”

I’m going to die. I’ll surely die.

For saying such things to this merciless emperor.

But if he were to sell out a child who could become a part of Elementalist study history to the tyrant emperor, it would be no different from betraying the pride of an Elementalist he had held dear.

He couldn’t become a traitor to the Elementalist studies he loved.

“…I cannot speak!”

Felix prostrated himself flat on the ground.