“I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! Ah!”

Lisette lay on the bed, breathing heavily and pleading with desperate eyes to the man.

She was completely n*ked, disheveled and connected to him in body.

The sensation of something large and hot filling her inner walls was unfamiliar, making her feel full not only in her stomach but seemingly in her breath too. This made it impossible for Lisette to breathe properly.

“If you slowly inhale and exhale, you should be able to breathe, shouldn’t you?”

Despite his arrogant words, the man’s movements were impatient. Seeing his wild, yearning gaze made her body burn even hotter.

When Lisette continued panting without being able to breathe, the man pressed his lips to hers and breathed into her mouth, seemingly trying to share his breath with her. She desperately drew in his breath.

“Mmm…”

Once she could breathe again, their tongues intertwined as they shared a deep kiss.

He thrust his hips upward, penetrating deeper into Lisette’s body. Each time the man moved his hips, her bare chest and legs suspended in air shook relentlessly.

“Hah.”

With the breath he gave her providing some relief to her body, Lisette reflected on the situation happening to her now.

‘Why am I… having s*x with this man?’

They weren’t close enough to have shared many conversations, nor had they fallen in love at first sight. Rather, it would be more accurate to say they had almost no friendship at all.

The current situation of suddenly having s*x with him was utterly absurd. Her mind couldn’t keep up with what was happening.

But that thought was only momentary. Intoxicated by his rough movements of entering and withdrawing repeatedly while thrusting urgently, she now had no mental capacity to imagine anything other than their bodies being connected.

Every time her reason tried to return, the pleasure that felt like it would melt her body turned her mind white.

The force surging through her body was so intense that the pleasure enveloping her entire being made her feel like she would dissolve, and even her consciousness seemed to gradually blur.

After completely losing her reason, only the desire for him to enter her more intensely filled her mind.

She knew it was an insane thought, but with her self-control already completely depleted, she just wanted to surrender her body to instinct. The room filled with lewd friction sounds and Lisette’s moans.

If you asked why this incomprehensible situation occurred for Lisette herself… well, all of this was because of the mage Celia.

This ridiculous situation had come about because she had done something foolish.

* * *

The shop located in a secluded alley of the town that people rarely frequented was packed half with messy-looking merchandise and half with magic-related books filled with content that ordinary people could never read.

The owner of that place was one of the few mages in the world, and her name was Celia.

She had inherited and was operating her late father’s shop, but unlike her capable father, she was prone to causing such bizarre incidents that she had earned the nickname “troublemaker mage.”

Celia usually spent most of her time researching magic of unknown identity or useless magic.

That didn’t mean business was so bad that she starved. There was exactly one thing that the eccentric Celia excelled at. That was making recovery potions with magic that had excellent efficacy.

As a result, her recovery potions sold quite well, and thanks to that, customers often visited even though the shop was in a quiet alley.

“I need to make potions, so why isn’t she coming?”

Celia, holding a flask containing potion, looked toward the door with a displeased expression.

“I’m here. I’ll put the money I collected over here.”

Not long after, the door opened, and a young woman with golden hair, deep emerald eyes, porcelain-white skin, and a lovely smile entered the shop.

Her name was Lisette Islesford. She was the shop’s only employee, hired by Celia who had been looking for someone to mind the store while she was busy with her research.

“Good work.”

Lisette, who had returned from running an errand, placed the money pouch on the table, but Celia’s voice in response carried no emotion. She simply collected the money pouch with an attitude that suggested this was expected.

“What if you mess up the potions while I’m away?”

Lisette sighed deeply and began tidying up the shop that had become messy while she was out. Celia would make a mess experimenting with her creations, and cleaning up was Lisette’s job.

“No matter how I look at it, I feel cheated.”

Grumbling quietly, Lisette rolled up her sleeves that reached her wrists up to her elbows. Since she wasn’t yet accustomed to cleaning, she worried about the tidying ahead.

There was a reason she was clumsy at cleaning. Although she worked as a shop clerk, Lisette was actually the daughter of the emperor of the Alka Empire where she lived.

There were unfortunate circumstances that led her, originally of noble birth, to work under a mage.

If only that incident hadn’t happened, she wouldn’t be doing this kind of work… Lisette sighed deeply and recalled the past.

Lisette’s mother, who had been the eldest daughter of the humble Viscount Riford family that maintained only its name, attended a palace ball where she caught the emperor’s eye and became empress. Lisette was born as the fruit of their love.

Therefore, she grew up receiving abundant love from the emperor from birth, but Lisette’s happiness didn’t last long. When Lisette turned five, her frail mother fell ill and passed away.

Of course, Lisette’s life didn’t immediately become unhappy just because her mother died. Her misfortune began when the emperor welcomed a new empress.

When the emperor kept the empress’s position vacant for a year after the empress’s death, nobles protested vehemently. Unable to keep the position vacant indefinitely, the emperor welcomed a new empress, and Lisette’s life changed.

The fact that the emperor cherished Lisette extremely, both because he felt sorry for her losing her mother early and because she was the daughter of the woman he had loved most, irritated the new empress.

‘Your Majesty has been deceived! Imperial Princess Lisette is not Your Majesty’s child. She is another man’s child.’

When the emperor continued living, unable to forget the former empress, in Lisette’s fifth year, the new empress delivered shocking words to him. She claimed that Lisette was not the emperor’s daughter.

‘Don’t speak such nonsense!’

The emperor naturally didn’t believe the empress’s words.

‘The adulterer killed himself because of the former empress, didn’t you know?’

The empress claimed that a man who allegedly had an affair with Lisette’s mother couldn’t forget his grief over losing his beloved and took his own life, and that his family was crying out about the injustice.

The man was a gardener working in the imperial palace. Although he had only worked in the palace for six months, he had become a gardener on the former empress’s recommendation, and the empress cited as evidence of the affair that there were people who witnessed her secretly sneaking out at night to meet him.

Of course, the emperor didn’t believe the empress’s words based on this alone.

The moment the high priest revealed through paternity testing tools owned by the temple that Lisette was not his daughter, the emperor finally believed their words. His face contorted with pain, the betrayal hitting as hard as his love had been deep.

‘Mother would never do such a thing.’

Though young, Lisette could roughly understand the situation and absolutely couldn’t believe the empress’s words.

Her mother had always personally and carefully brewed tea for father, and would personally direct and prepare his favorite foods. Moreover, when she spoke to Lisette about how wonderful father was, her eyes were filled with love.

So she knew well how much her mother had loved father.

No. This can’t be happening!

‘Mother would never have behaved that way. I’m Your Majesty’s real daughter!’

Lisette believed in her mother’s innocence and cried out about the injustice, but the imperial family covered up the incident that brought dishonor, leaving her with no place to voice her grievances.

‘Lisette, I can’t believe you’re not my daughter, but all the circumstances point to you not being my daughter.’

Due to fabricated evidence and testimony, Lisette changed from a beloved daughter to evidence of adultery that people pointed fingers at, and her happiness vanished in an instant.

Since she was said not to be the emperor’s daughter, Lisette had to go to the Riford family, but the moment the Riford family learned that she was hated by the emperor, they turned their backs on her.

Surprisingly, it was the emperor who took in Lisette when she had nowhere to go.