Letia turned her head sharply to look at Raiden and asked. Raiden stared back at her intently.

Objectively, Letia belonged to the quite pretty category. Her ash-brown hair and deep gray eyes created a very well-matched appearance. Even in her uniform, her voluptuous chest, narrow waist, and smooth legs hidden beneath her pants gave off a s*xy feeling. 

Of course, regardless of appearance, it would be impossible for Raiden, currently in slave status, to refuse a noble lady. Being a slave meant having to serve when the master ordered nighttime service, and being in a position where he’d have to strip n*ked right here if ordered.

“How could someone in my position dare to dislike it?”

However, despite his words about how he couldn’t possibly dislike it, Raiden had no intention of eagerly grabbing Letia’s hand while leaving Rihana, whose face had turned deathly pale at his response. 

While he didn’t deny the pleasure of the act itself, a night’s entertainment wouldn’t bring him even a bit of joy. And for now, wasn’t Rihana his master? A dog couldn’t lick another master while having an owner, in many senses.

“Then will you serve me tonight? Ah, you’ve never done nighttime service before, right? What that means is…”

“I’m aware of it.”

Raiden cut off Letia’s words while looking at Rihana.

“But first, I think Rihana-nim’s permission comes first.”

At Raiden’s words, Rihana’s gaze turned to him. When that sculpted, refined face stared at her intently, her heart stirred restlessly. 

Come to think of it, this man had been the Duchess’s bedroom slave. Serving someone at night would be very natural for him, and he too might need someone every night.

When she thought that Raiden might feel disappointed if she said no here, she felt something inside her chest painfully scratch at her heart. But with his additional words, Rihana had to face a wave of mixed emotions—relief and confusion, pity and regret.

“But separately from that, I’m not sure if my c*ck will get hard.”

* * *

Raiden, who had responded to Letia’s proposal for a night of service by saying he wasn’t sure if his c*ck would get hard, ended up earning the nickname “pretty but useless” among the Imperial Knight Order members. 

Since he had lived as the Duchess’s bedroom slave, that was surely a lie, but to say he was impotent to avoid that situation—Rihana found such a Raiden quite pitiful.

“Why are you so good at lying?”

After glancing repeatedly at Raiden, who silently focused on his book, Rihana eventually closed the book she was reading and asked him. 

After dinner, going straight to the bedroom felt uncomfortable and awkward somehow, so they were sitting side by side on the study sofa under the pretense of reading. Raiden, who had been focusing on his book with a remarkably natural appearance, looked up at her.

“I grew up in an environment where I had to be good at it.”

An environment where he had to be good at it. Since he was a slave, he could naturally have grown up in such an environment. Slaves in the Empire were a status that even commoners who could never employ them looked down upon.

“That… it doesn’t really not work, does it?”

Raiden’s eyes widened considerably at her question, seemingly not expecting Rihana to ask so directly. His surprised face was cute. So he was handsome yet s*xy, cute yet cool. 

Thinking anew that he was a man with remarkable looks, she thought it would be unfortunate for the Empire’s ladies if such a man couldn’t get it up.

“The Duchess’s… I mean, surely it wouldn’t not work for…”

“That?”

“Bed…room slave… I mean.”

Embarrassed by her own words, Rihana reopened the book she had closed and trailed off. Raiden let out a small chuckle.

“Ah. So I was Lady Pellentes’s ‘that.’ I didn’t know.”

Raiden said, turning his gaze back to his book.

What… He didn’t know…? So it’s not true? What? Why is he being so vague…

“But are you curious about that? Whether I get hard or not?”

Raiden looked up at Rihana again and asked. Meeting his eyes, she felt her face burning red. When she had said the word “hard” herself, it was fine, but hearing it from Raiden’s mouth made her unbearably embarrassed.

“No, I was just saying you were lying…”

“It’s not exactly a lie though.”

It’s not a lie…? Then…

“…It doesn’t work?”

“It depends on the situation.”

“…Depends on the situation?”

Rihana tilted her head once and asked. Though she had studied quite a bit about such things through Letia, she had never heard that a man’s thing gets hard or doesn’t depending on the situation. She had learned that normal males always get erections in the morning, sometimes get erections, and also sometimes get erections.

“Yes, it differs.”

“Could you explain in detail? What kind of situations do you mean?”

Though she had no great academic passion regarding s*x, she prided herself on being as theoretically knowledgeable as Letia despite never knowing a man, so she became curious about this “situation” she didn’t know about. At her question, Raiden closed his book and placed it on the table.

“It doesn’t work when I’m with someone not worth getting hard for.”

Because Raiden leaned back comfortably against the sofa and spread his legs, Rihana’s gaze instinctively moved to Raiden’s center.

“But it works when I’m with someone worth getting hard for.”

And she had to doubt her own eyes.

“Like now.”

Raiden’s lower area—his center—was thicker than she had imagined. Like he had stuffed a large water bottle inside his clothes.

“Ah…”

“If you’re curious, I could show you…”

Before Raiden could finish his words, Rihana bolted upright.

“I should sleep.”

With a deathly pale face, she walked quickly toward the door and fled outside. Just as Raiden was about to lower his head while looking at the quickly closed door, the door suddenly burst open and Rihana poked her head out.

“Good night.”

With a bright red face, she looked somewhere in the air rather than at Raiden, gave a perfunctory greeting, and disappeared. She always gave such nighttime greetings like someone who would be in big trouble if she forgot to say good night. 

Even though they would see each other again soon since they slept in the same room. Though there was a slight gap between the bed and sofa.

“Heh.”

The corners of Raiden’s mouth rose pleasantly. She seemed innocent to anyone’s eyes, but he couldn’t tell if she was overly curious, or if unlike her innocent appearance, she did everything behind the scenes like her knight order member who had proposed spending a night with her. 

But based on her behavior so far, she seemed closer to the former than the latter. She didn’t seem to have gotten intimate with her fiancé, supposedly the Empire’s greatest beauty.

Come to think of it, how strange that her fiancé had never come to see her. If anyone had a young family head who became alone after losing her parents early as their fiancée, they would worry about their fiancée’s well-being every other day. 

Even if it was an engagement aimed at uniting families, not visiting such a pretty woman—Raiden found it hard to understand. He would be too busy to waste time meeting other women.

Raiden became curious about what her fiancé could possibly be thinking, imagining Rihana who had clearly never been touched by a man.

Exactly two days after Raiden became curious about Casian, Casian Lewandes appeared at the Ariella County. Under the pretext of having something to discuss with Rihana about accompanying her to an upcoming Imperial party.

Upon hearing from the butler that Casian had come, Rihana had him shown to the reception room and quickly headed to the dressing room with the woman who attended her. 

Seeing Rihana’s face looking more excited than usual, Raiden became somewhat curious and looked forward to seeing how pretty she would look when she came out. 

However, when Rihana, who had gone to dress up with her attendant, came out wearing a shirt and pants no different from her usual uniform, he felt somewhat deflated.

Of course, it was more comfortable attire than her uniform, and with two buttons undone showing her slender neckline, she looked quite seductive, but even if she was a knight, wearing pants to meet her fiancé—and after going to prepare with such a flushed face. 

She was a woman he could hardly understand. Even if not a frilly dress, he had expected her to at least wear a skirt and let down her hair that she always kept tied up.