This was not the time to be distracted by a woman’s n*ked body.

Last evening, he had received an urgent message from the king.

The first concerned the unsettling movements of the Mrangel tribe who had settled in the northern region, and the second mentioned someone who had escaped from the monastery in the royal palace. It confirmed that the Pope’s agent had crossed Tudra’s borders.

Aaron easily grasped the king’s intentions. National defense was a natural duty for a king, and tipping him off about information related to the Pope was a kind of goodwill stemming from the king’s ambition.

His brief appearance at the temple today before returning was a deliberate act.

Since they mentioned the Pope’s agent, he expected they would certainly have infiltrated the temple.

“The Pope versus the Marquis… and the king looking for opportunities in between.”

The Pope would try to sweep away Marquis Teneri from the Kingdom of Caldman like dust. The Marquis’s daughter, who had gone from saint to witch, was an excellent card to play.

The intention was to use Lucilia to bring down the Marquis’s house. Perhaps the Baron’s house would be buried along with it.

For the king, who viewed the increasingly powerful Pope as a thorn in his side, this was also a golden opportunity to crush the old church.

Of course, in a way that wouldn’t get blood directly on his hands.

It was truly a time of chaos.

The king had urged him to keep a close watch on the Pope’s movements. So he was planning to open the door from this side first.

A witch under her husband’s surveillance. A mistress who couldn’t be treated as a wife and had become the estate’s outcast.

It was important to make it known that Aaron clearly recognized Lucilia as a witch. If such rumors spread, the Pope would not hesitate to pour oil on the fire.

When the Pope took action, Aaron’s duty was to catch the tail and present it to the king.

Knock knock—

“Come in.”

As soon as Rombon entered, he assessed his master’s mood.

“About what you asked me to find out?”

“It’s confirmed that Demre was also raided.”

“Ah, really.”

Tudra had been able to prosper like this because they dispatched well-trained guards to other territories. They had essentially protected their safety while receiving a kind of rental fee.

The king’s messenger had conveyed that a surprise attack had occurred in Echorn, a region in the southwest border.

Since it wasn’t Aaron’s jurisdiction, he hadn’t fully grasped the situation, but from now on, according to the king’s orders, he needed to extend his attention there.

But today, he received a report that the same thing had happened near Echorn, in Demre. Demre was where Tudra’s guards were stationed.

Aaron put down the military expenditure statement on the desk as if plastering it there and raised his head.

“Setting aside Echorn, why was Demre attacked?”

He wasn’t asking because he didn’t know. Betrayal set like a blade on Aaron’s face.

“What do you think about the possibility of a rat among the dispatched guards?”

“We should consider various aspects… but I know well that the commander’s intuition precedes any evidence or circumstance.”

Rombon, answering with infinite trust, stroked the pommel of the sword at his waist with a determined face.

At the end of Rombon’s sword handle was an orange sunstone, roundly crafted.

Aaron’s reason unconsciously ran to Lucilia.

Orange… Lucilia’s eyes…

Like an untamed beast, his imagination once again darted in an unexpected direction.

His memory regressed to when an orange glow had spread across the pond. It was a vivid memory from less than half a day ago.

After arriving at the temple and exchanging greetings with the priest, Aaron left before the mass even began, under the pretext of needing to monitor the witch.

The priest would certainly have contacted the person sent by the Pope, so he had to act falsely from then on. That was also why he hadn’t brought Lucilia, whom he had determined to be the root cause, to the temple.

Contrary to his expectation that she would be locked up in her room, Lucilia was wandering in the front yard.

The scene he observed while skillfully concealing his presence wasn’t pleasant.

It was because subtle fear and rejection appeared on the faces of the servants who encountered Lucilia.

Even though it was natural that she wouldn’t be well-received since they had brought a witch to the castle, he strangely felt upset.

The way she was constantly watching others’ reactions, the way she limped—everything was displeasing.

Lucilia’s timid behavior made Aaron himself feel smaller and lower.

What had she been like in her childhood?

As if proving her noble existence, she always displayed a dignified presence. After receiving the oracle, she truly received the respect and reverence of the entire kingdom’s people.

That she now walked through his home in such a pitiful state didn’t sit well with him at all.

Despite having ignored her until now.

In a way, even though he had been at the forefront of disregarding her.

And that wasn’t all.

Now he had to brand her as a witch and treat her coldly.

He should have shaken off these contradictory feelings and turned away cleanly, but…

Lucilia’s pure eyes and innocent expression uncovered the guilt lying in the depths. He felt an impulse to watch whether she would be hurt by the servants’ contemptuous attitudes.

So he followed her, and it led to this state.

“Hoo…”

As he sighed deeply, unlike himself, Rombon narrowed his eyes.

Unaware that he was being keenly observed, the branches of thought in Aaron’s mind extended even further.

What had it been like in the greenhouse…

Intending to leave her be, he had followed very slowly behind her.

Taking considerable care not to make footsteps.

She must have been quite upset about not being able to go to the temple, as she headed to the greenhouse instead of returning to her stuffy bedroom.

Crouching to admire flowers, then walking to the pond as if drawn to it.

Lucilia was like a girl full of curiosity.

As he secretly followed her like that, he encountered the magnificent scene of the evening sun’s light rippling on the midday pond.

Just her eyes reflecting on the water’s surface made it seem as if all the sunset in the sky had been released into the pond.

His interest, which had begun to pulse, helplessly swelled in size.

Thump-thump, not long after being enveloped in this strange sensation that constricted his chest, her small body had staggered.

He had saved her just before her head would have hit the large stone, and then…

In her bedroom…

His lower region began to throb again.

“Haah… This madness again.”

The sudden surge of irritation inevitably triggered Rombon’s curiosity.

It was too strange to see his master using such vulgar language.

Could a problem that erupted at the border make his master so sensitive?

For someone who received harsh criticism for being too cold-blooded to have any humanity?

“Commander, why are you suddenly like this?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Don’t just worry alone, try confiding in me, Rombon Penia. Who knows, your worries might be halved.”

Rombon, about half a span taller than Aaron, gave a massive impression with his trunk-like thick body.

As Rombon thumped his vast chest, Aaron felt even more stifled.

Everything irritated him—both his subordinate’s size filling his vision and his persistence in trying to dig out what was inside him with brightly shining eyes.

Aaron didn’t even give him a glance.

“I told you it’s nothing. You don’t need to know.”

“Huh? Come to think of it, you don’t look well.”

His straight posture immediately bent forward. Rombon meticulously examined Aaron’s face with a horrified expression.

Looking at him as if he had a terminal illness made Aaron flinch as well. He must have appeared different from usual, as his firm resolve, which had been as solid as a rock, wavered.

Only then becoming conscious of how miserable he might have appeared to others, Aaron rested his elbow on the desk and rubbed his face.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“What exactly seems strange about me?”

“Your eyes lack clarity, and your breathing is unstable.”

“That’s because I have concerns.”

“When have we ever been peaceful? Just when disturbances seem to subside, this one invades, and just when we think we’ve settled things, that one invades. If we stacked the plates of bread we’ve eaten in the middle of the battlefield, they would reach the top of a pine pillar.”

The saying that large people are taciturn didn’t apply to Rombon. He meddled, chattering like a sparrow.

‘I’m the fool for engaging with him.’

Just as he turned his head to the opposite side, the large face suddenly appeared right in front of him.

“Wait a moment! Your face, Commander…”

“My… face? What about my face?”

“It’s extremely, extremely red.”

Rombon spread his large hand in the air and fluttered it as if erasing heat.

After fanning a few times, seemingly deciding it wasn’t enough, he stiffened his expression seriously and raised his voice.

“Gasp! Could you have contracted an epidemic? It must be because you visited the slums in the capital. You know the plague that raged a few years ago? If it’s that disease, they say paralysis starts from the legs… Don’t just sit there, q-q-quick, stand up!”