“My goodness…! Where on earth did you find such radiant looks?”

When Rihana brought Raiden to the Knight Order’s training grounds, Letia, who had already heard from Rihana that he would be coming, walked over making a fuss. 

Letia strode right up to Raiden, causing him to instinctively take a few steps back, but she paid no mind and stood on her tiptoes to bring her face close to his.

Though Raiden looked flustered, he didn’t retreat further. Instead, it was Rihana who flinched when their faces drew close.

“Wow! Look at that skin. What kind of slave has skin finer than Princess Melissa?! This man, did you really bring him from the black market?”

“Lower your voice, Letia.”

“He’s really handsome. Which black market? Rond? Teiron? The prices must be crazy?! I should go check it out too.”

Letia lightly ignored Rihana’s words and chattered while looking at Raiden. Raiden, who was a full head taller than Letia (who was tall for a woman), looked down at her with an expressionless face.

“Wow! He’s like a painting, a painting. How can a human look so sculpted? This is beauty that even Marquis Casian couldn’t compete with, right?”

At her fiancé’s name coming from Letia’s mouth, Rihana’s brow twitched slightly. When had he shifted his gaze? Raiden was looking at her with curious eyes. Rihana avoided his gaze and forced her expression to relax.

“So you’re going to take this man around as the captain’s escort?”

Letia reached her hand toward Raiden’s face, seemingly trying to draw his attention from Rihana to herself. Raiden, who had been looking at Rihana, couldn’t dodge Letia’s approaching hand in time and instinctively flinched at the hand that suddenly came close to his face. In an instant, with a sharp sound, Rihana’s hand quickly caught Letia’s wrist.

“Don’t try to touch people without permission, Letia.”

Though Rihana usually had a proud and cold demeanor, now she wore an expression cold enough to freeze her surroundings. Letia, Rihana’s longtime friend, immediately recognized that expression and quickly raised both hands in surrender.

“Sorry, sorry. He’s so handsome I couldn’t help myself.”

“That’s rude.”

“Got it, got it. I’ll restrain myself.”

Letia smiled sheepishly and continued.

“But he can speak, right? I want to hear his voice.”

“That’s also rude, Letia.”

Even if he was a slave, saying such things right in front of someone. When Rihana added this quietly enough for only Letia to hear, a pleasant baritone voice flowed from above Letia’s head.

“Unfortunately, I’m not mute.”

“Oh my! Oh my!”

Letia covered her mouth with both hands and exclaimed repeatedly. Right, his face was one thing, but his voice was incredible too. Rihana let out a long sigh at some inexplicable irritation.

“Really? Then our captain is your benefactor?”

Letia clapped her hands and asked. Throughout their sword practice at the training grounds, she focused all her attention on Raiden, who stood awkwardly in the corner, and when they came to the dining hall for a meal, she managed to sit directly across from Raiden and began bombarding him with questions.

“That’s correct.”

Raiden hadn’t been able to put a single bite of food in his mouth since sitting at the table, answering her waterfall of questions instead. Of course, he was spouting nothing but lies.

“I see. Losing your memory and becoming a slave, what a tragic thing. What if you had met an evil master?”

When asked how he became a slave, he answered that he lost his memory and became a slave. What a refreshingly original idea.

“Fortunately, Lady Rihana bought me, so I’m satisfied with that.”

If the Duchess who actually bought him heard this, she might cry enough to soak her handkerchief.

“What if your memory returns? You could be the son of some commoner family or an illegitimate child of a noble house, right?”

“Well, I don’t think memories that haven’t returned until now will come back so easily.”

When Raiden said this and forced a smile, sympathetic exclamations suddenly burst out from around them. Rihana, who had been cutting the meat on her plate with her knife the entire time, suddenly looked up and glanced around at the sound. 

Most of the knights’ gazes were focused in her direction. No, to be precise, on Raiden sitting beside her.

At his still gentle, sweet, yet s*xy smile that seemed capable of enchanting people, not only Letia but most of the knights in the dining hall had reddened faces. Sigh. A meaningless sigh escaped from Rihana’s lips.

Did she bring him out for nothing? She should have dressed him in regular clothes instead of a uniform. No, but he’s supposed to be her escort, so regular clothes would be a bit…

Sigh. Another sigh escaped. She hadn’t expected him to draw this much attention. Of course, since men with such dazzling looks didn’t really exist in the Empire, she had expected that everyone who saw him would look at him twice. Moreover, since this appearance belonged to a slave rather than a noble, anyone might harbor desires to possess him.

Yes, that was the problem. Status.

Though Raiden was here as the Imperial Knight Captain’s escort, he was ultimately a slave, and that status meant his master could change at any time. 

Of course, this would only happen if his current master Rihana lost interest in him and sold him to another noble, but in any case, it meant everyone here thought he would be easier to obtain than other nobles or commoners. 

No matter how much someone had become a slave after losing their memory, once someone became a slave, infinite effort and time were needed to elevate that status again in this place, the Kadelai Empire.

“Ha, really, where did our captain get blessed with such fortune?”

Letia sighed briefly and glared at Rihana. There was no malice in that gaze. It was just the friendly complaining look of a close friend.

“Having the Empire’s most handsome man as a fiancé wasn’t enough, now she goes and buys a slave even more handsome than that fiancé.”

How pointless. Rihana lowered her head again and began cutting the meat on her plate.

The Empire’s most handsome man. The nickname that followed Casian Lewandes. It was also the most fitting nickname for him. His deep ash-colored hair and mysterious green eyes. His handsome appearance, which looked both seductive and somehow decadent, possessed enough charm to captivate people.

She had fallen for him when they first met at the training grounds as children and had a one-sided crush on him for quite a long time. 

Though the tender feelings of the past had faded, she still liked him enough that her heart would race when she heard his name. Until she became the head of her family and distinguished herself in the Northern subjugation, only Casian had moved Rihana’s heart.

Even when she entered high society and rumors followed him that he wouldn’t stop women from coming and wouldn’t hold back women from leaving (supposedly to maintain his reputation), Rihana’s one-sided love never ceased. 

So when His Majesty the Emperor asked her to name what she wanted as a reward for her service in the Northern subjugation, her mouth moved before her head and she blurted out his name. To make her Casian’s fiancée.

Casian, who suddenly became engaged to Rihana by the Emperor’s command, became much colder toward her than before. She thought it was understandable since he had been forced into an unwanted engagement, and she felt sorry for him because she only learned after their engagement that Princess Melissa, the Empire’s only princess, had feelings for him. 

Well, for such reasons, though they weren’t in a relationship worse than strangers despite being engaged, they were indeed worse than strangers.

They had never been close enough to have friendly conversations from the start, had never attended social gatherings or banquets together, and even when attending separately, Casian was always surrounded by women, so Rihana sometimes forgot that he was her fiancé.

“Is Lady Rihana’s fiancé the Empire’s most handsome man?”

Rihana, who had been thinking about Casian for a moment, snapped back to attention at Raiden’s voice asking Letia.

“That’s right. You probably know him too, right? There’s no one in the Empire who doesn’t know Marquis Casian Lewandes.”

“Ah, Marquis Lewandes…”

Raiden muttered and then seemed to realize his mistake, belatedly adding the honorific.

“Our captain has passionately loved Marquis Casian since she was young…”

“Letia.”

Rihana cut off Letia’s words and looked at her. At the gaze that seemed to say not to talk nonsense, Letia pressed her lips shut. 

Raiden glanced at Rihana and then stared at her hands, which were messily cutting the meat on her plate. Whether the knife wasn’t sharp, Rihana kept cutting the meat she had stabbed with her fork multiple times.

Raiden picked up his fork and knife and began cutting the meat on his plate. At his elegant and refined hand movements, the gazes of everyone in the dining hall, including Letia, focused on Raiden’s hands. 

Having cut the meat on his plate into bite-sized pieces with movements unbelievable for a slave, Raiden lifted his plate and switched it with Rihana’s. When surprised Rihana turned to look at him, he gently took the knife from her hand, set it down beside him, and said:

“Please eat.”