“C-Casian Marquis ordered it!”

The man shouted desperately. When Raiden’s brow furrowed slightly at those words, the man began confessing everything about who was behind the kidnapping.

“That Casian Marquis gave the commission house enormous territorial ownership and told them to kidnap you! He said to hide you well, then send you straight to the Princess’s palace once Countess Ariella left for the frontier!”

Raiden’s eyes narrowed. Though this was certainly infuriating and annoying, somehow he found himself thinking it was fortunate that the Empire’s Princess and Casian made quite a well-matched pair. Suddenly, he thought it wouldn’t be difficult to find a way to bind that well-matched pair together, and his lips curved up unconsciously.

There was quite a gap between the Casian Marquis he’d heard about from Duchess Pellentes and the Marquis he’d observed himself. The man he’d thought would be extremely difficult to deal with was actually someone who would casually commit such petty, trivial acts out of jealousy.

He already knew Casian liked Rihana. His gaze that visibly followed only her showed it, and the way he forced himself to accommodate the Princess showed it too. Probably he was using the Princess in his own way to keep Rihana safe.

Even though there were plenty of other ways to protect Rihana without resorting to such methods, a man whose lower half wasn’t reliable ultimately tried to protect his fiancée by playing around with that lower half. And he seemed completely unaware that this behavior would actually cause him to lose Rihana’s heart – what a foolish, stupid thing to do.

Well, it was stupidity that helped him quite a bit, so he rather liked it. Anyway, just days ago he’d been worrying about how to take Rihana, another man’s fiancée, to his kingdom, but it seemed things might work out more easily than expected. If he could just remove Rihana’s title of being Casian’s fiancée, everything after that could flow quite smoothly.

Raiden began plotting how to break up Rihana and Casian while slashing the eyes of the man who’d finished speaking with the sword he held.

“Gah, gaaahhh!”

Then he cut out his tongue as well. The man whose tongue was severed covered his mouth with both hands, writhing in pain, and Raiden used magic to make the wounds on the man’s eyes and tongue disappear cleanly. 

The bleeding from his eyes and tongue stopped quickly, but the man couldn’t see ahead and couldn’t speak due to his severed tongue.

The magic Raiden used was the same as the healing potions used by the Empire’s knights. The Kadelai Empire had fewer people who could use magic compared to the Tarecus Kingdom, so they utilized magic’s power by containing it in potions. Since the Tarecus Kingdom sometimes exported magical potions, the Empire always wanted to steal Tarecus Kingdom’s magic.

Only royalty could use magic from birth, and the common nobles or commoners who could use magic despite not being royal were those who had inherited even a little royal blood. 

The Empire constantly reached out to ordinary people who could use magic, urging them to naturalize, and some fell for the Empire’s sweet talk, naturalizing to the Empire and living lives where their magic was sucked dry by them.

The Tarecus Kingdom’s view of the Kadelai Empire had certainly begun to sour for reasons beyond just that, but their relationship had deteriorated enough to help rebels definitely because of it. The Empire that had taken their country’s magicians used them directly as test subjects to discover the roots of magic, and afterward began interfering with Tarecus’s every move using the magical weaknesses discovered through those experiments.

Though the weaknesses weren’t particularly significant, those born with magical power itself were royalty, and Raiden was the only prince to continue that royal line, so they had no choice but to be cautious in dealing with the Empire for his sake. Of course, Raiden himself didn’t think that way at all.

Anyway, taking this opportunity, the Tarecus Kingdom had risked danger and joined hands with the rebels to live as an independent country without Kadelai’s interference like before. Things were going more smoothly than expected, and soon this age of rebellion would end.

“Well, I kept my promise to spare your life. Now it’s time to report to your master that you lost me.”

Raiden spoke to the man who was lying face down, groping at the darkness where he could see nothing. The man began flailing and running away like he’d heard a ghost’s voice. 

After stumbling briefly because he couldn’t see ahead, he began running like someone who’d never been injured. This was because Raiden’s healing magic had the ability to restore even stamina to what it was before the injury.

Raiden stood there until the man he’d spared disappeared from sight, then let out a long sigh and looked up at the sky. Countless stars were positioned in the black night sky.

“I miss her.”

A low, deep voice flowed from Raiden’s mouth. Though it didn’t seem like they’d been apart very long, he already missed Rihana. Imagining her pale face as she desperately tried to find him after discovering his disappearance made his chest ache heavily below his heart.

He wanted to return and reassure her, but he couldn’t. If Casian, who had ordered the kidnapping, learned he’d returned, he might escalate things further, and anyway, he had to return to his homeland now.

Raiden decided to suppress this longing and return to the kingdom for now. The first thing he’d do there was meet with Bran del Kadelai, who would become the next Emperor.

Raiden began walking toward the forest shrouded in deep darkness.

* * *

Rihana’s face hardened at the Emperor’s sudden command.

“The Tarecus Kingdom, Your Majesty?”

“Yes. Go and capture the Tarecus Kingdom’s prince alive.”

Her cracked lips trembled precariously from not sleeping or eating properly while focusing on finding the kidnapped Raiden.

Suddenly ordering her to capture Tarecus’s prince alive. She needed to find Raiden before leaving for the frontier, but she never imagined she’d hear such a bolt from the blue.

She’d already pushed herself to delegate duties to Letia, and just when she finally had time to go looking for Raiden, the Emperor had grabbed her ankle with this absurd command. 

Ordering her to capture the Tarecus Kingdom’s prince alive – was he planning to start a war between nations? 

Though she’d thought the thoroughly corrupt Emperor wasn’t someone who would endanger the Empire itself, his bottomless corruption seemed to have turned him into a monster.

But it was the Emperor’s command. An order she couldn’t disobey.

“I’ll depart immediately.”

Even though they were only giving her six knights for the tremendous task of capturing the neighboring country’s only prince. Rihana bowed to the Emperor and turned around.

“What?! He told you to capture the Tarecus prince?!”

“Lower your voice, Letia.”

Rihana licked her bleeding lower lip with her tongue as she spoke to Letia.

“No, what did His Majesty the Emperor eat wrong? No, setting aside what he ate wrong, why give that mission to the captain?”

Letia immediately lowered her voice and whispered to Rihana.

“…”

“Don’t tell me he wants you to go die? Why, isn’t this that d*mn Princess’s scheme? To kill the captain outright and take the Marquis?”

At Letia’s sharp whisper, Rihana stretched her lips long and laughed, “Pfft.” But she immediately frowned as her cracked, bleeding lips hurt.

“No. It’s His Majesty the Emperor’s command. And Her Highness the Princess can have Casian Marquis without needing to kill me. And if she wanted me dead, it would be much easier to kill me at the frontier.”

At Rihana’s calm words, Letia nodded, saying that was true.

“Anyway, select six people for me.”

“I’ll come with you…”

“You can’t. You need to guard His Majesty the Emperor’s side.”

“…Alright. I’ll pick the most capable ones.”

“Thank you. And…”

“Don’t worry about finding Rai. The guys are still looking now, and I’ve commissioned the agency too.”

“Thank you.”

Tears quickly welled up in Rihana’s eyes. Ever since losing Raiden, her tear ducts had broken down like this at the slightest thing. Where was he, what was he doing, was he dead, was he suffering enough to die? 

The worries from not being able to see him were tearing her heart to shreds. She didn’t know how many times she’d prayed to sell her soul to the devil just to confirm whether he was alive.

Rihana pressed down the rising tears with her palm. Persistent dizziness washed over her, but she endured it by biting her lower lip hard. There wasn’t much time to plan and depart for capturing the Tarecus prince.

“Then I’m counting on you.”

Rihana forced a smile for Letia and turned around. Letia watched Rihana, who was growing thinner after losing Raiden, with a worried expression.