Through the loosely parted clothing, the chest bearing the marks her hands had left earlier was visible.

“It really does seem bigger than mine.”

“Hng!”

She laughed watching him convulse.

“Theodore. You are, frankly, far too loud. I do not care for noise. If I am to keep you around, should I fit you with a muzzle?”

While she was speaking, she slowly lowered her hand and suddenly struck one of his swollen, taut n*pples with a sharp slap.

“……!”

“Satisfying to hit.”

The flesh quivered. His body, clenching its teeth against unbearable sharp pain and pleasure, swelled, ready to burst in an instant.

The bright red skin and vivid pain were very pleasing. Iberis licked her lips at the subtle heat.

“Not bad……”

“Hh, ngh, ugh, Your Majesty.”

A loyal slave.

At least one who intended to be so for a while.

The cruel ruler, having completed her final assessment, gripped the hair of the slave who was still desperately plugging his own hole and holding back, and whispered.

“Spend yourself.”

“……!”

At those words, the large body convulsed like a shaking aspen. The boulder-like muscles clenched viciously. The veins stood out and the hand that had been pressing down and crushing the tip was removed.

Splatter. Gush.

“……Hng!”

The sound of fl*id spurting rang out in stark clarity.

He spent and spent again, as though the release stored in those large, heavy sacs was considerable, Theodore spending himself like a beast. The man who had wrung out the last drop with a final roll of his hips at last let the tension leave his member and panted.

“The contract is established. Theodore.”

She declared it, staring intently at the face of her enemy filling with rapture.

“Before I summon you formally, remain confined in the tower like a good boy.”

That much was enough. The emperor moved to leave, intending to put the criminal reeking of release behind her, when a hand grabbed her ankle.

This creature dared.

Just as anger was seeping into the emperor’s face at the unauthorized contact.

“Please make a promise to me as well, Your Majesty.”

A sigh rose in her.

Yes, a deal was a deal.

If something was received, something had to be given in return.

She could not think that releasing him from confinement, giving him a different standing, and keeping him at her side was enough to call his wish granted.

All the more so because, unlike the others, she intended to treat him thoroughly as the lesser party, as a s*x slave.

“What do you want?”

She loaded the words with a threat that he would not like what came if he dared wish for something presumptuous, and the man, making strange sounds in his excitement, blinked docilely. Not that it was remotely amusing, given that the shape of his member, already half-*rect again, was plain to see.

“Speak, slave.”

“Me! You said you would be fond of me, but that, that’s not e, enough……”

What?

She raised an eyebrow, and he clung to her feet in a rush and whispered urgently.

“The most! Be fond of me the most. Even after the curse is broken and everything is over, if you will be fondest of me, then breaking the curse or anything else……”

“……”

“You know. I can do anything. Keep me at your side always and let me touch you like this. Use me as a s*x slave forever.”

Be fondest of him. Forever, use him as a s*x slave.

Both the one making the request and the one hearing it knew how impossible those words were.

Greedy creature. This rat of a man.

Her red lips twisted with anger. But she did not lose her smile.

“Then you will follow only my commands, wholly as a slave?”

“Yes. On my name.”

She could feel it more completely than with the ones before. At this moment, a promise made with one who staked their name on it would itself become a binding constraint.

Just as the words of the dragon could not be made hollow, the blood flowing through that man’s body was also of a kind that could not help but hold a promise sacred.

If so, she would be forced to trust him, truly and without choice.

“You mean for us to stake our names on each other.”

“Then Your Majesty can tr, trust me.”

Yes, there was no other way.

To Lionel, she had given her first experience and one wish of his choosing.

To Kaian, full freedom and the treatment of a lover.

To the enemy before her who had willingly asked to become a s*x slave, a promise to cherish him most of all.

“Very well.”

Iberis whispered, biting the words out.

“On my name, I will become your master and keep you at my side forever, tormenting you and using you. I will pet you prettily and make that monstrous member of yours spend itself in streams. Are you satisfied?”

“On this name, the mage Theodore will from this moment follow the commands of Emperor Iberis as her slave…… I, I will.”

“……”

“I will be your most beloved slave.”

The cunning mage who knew the dragon’s promise was not a hollow thing could not hide his joy and let his eyes shine.

As though he had been waiting for this moment alone.

* * *

“I will kill him.”

The man had dragged the criminal away and confined him in the tower again, and now he returned and spoke those words with cold composure. Watching him, Iberis burst out laughing.

Did that loyal knight know? That the sight of his face had made her forget the lingering unease and filth, and the sticky sensation that had stayed with her despite everything.

To Iberis, Sirak was that kind of presence. A connection so precious and dear that she had no wish to drag any particular emotion into it and let it change this tenacious bond.

“If you kill him, I die too.”

“As Maria said, cut off his limbs and take only what is below.”

“I have made a sworn oath on names. You are too late.”

“There will be a solution.”

Knowing it was close to a sulk made her laugh all the more. Damned curse, wretched life. The experience of having pain subside from an enemy’s release was not good for one’s mental health.

“Your Majesty.”

The loyal knight knelt before her as she sat quietly. The grey-eyed man of wolf bloodline, who had gone to the threshold of death to save a helpless princess, was simply and utterly loyal.

Feelings that ran a little deeper, he did not show, because his lord did not want them. He never would.

“Were you not in pain?”

The knight’s eyes, knowing how much she had despised that mage, were full of worry.

“There was a fair amount of satisfaction in tormenting him.”

“……”

“The man knows how to cry with cunning.”

He produced a handkerchief embroidered with a flower pattern, incongruously delicate, and reached out carefully.

Iberis extended her foot, which she had left unwiped. He wetted the handkerchief in a basin of water he had prepared at some point and began carefully wiping her foot, which he had placed on his thigh.

Splash, splash. The sound of water was quiet.

Iberis reached out and rested her hand on the head of the one focused on wiping her foot.

She noticed him flinch and stop for a moment, but a quiet laugh escaped her.

“You endured well, Sirak. Now there is only one more to find.”

“When that is done.”

When that one last person was found, after that, within the secret inner chambers of the imperial palace, something like a beast’s coupling would take place.

Moments of being held and holding, like animals in heat.

When that unimaginable process was over, the curse would vanish completely, and she would track down the one who had fled and take her head.

True peace would come.

But would things be as they were now?

At that moment, the honest knight thought of it. The moment he had stood helplessly outside the door, listening to the groaning of a beast panting within, holding back his rage.

When everything was over, would the ones closest to his lord still be himself and Maria.

And that feeling.

‘Surely this isn’t.’

Jealousy. The moment he recognized it, the knight ground his teeth. He concealed the emotion out of habit.

He struggled alone, unaware that the dragon’s eyes were quietly watching all of it.

“Sirak.”

“Yes.”

“I will go and receive the final Oracle myself.”

Even watching the knight’s look of shock, Iberis curved the corner of her mouth. The words the mage had babbled in a frenzy came back to her.

‘To undo the curse, you set the power of a special blood as the pillar at the core, lay down the sturdiest energy as the foundation, fill the surroundings with black mana similar to the curse, and then protect the mind with the presence of one who can sustain the emotions.’

Protect the mind.

One who can protect it.

That was……

“But Your Majesty, moving yourself is dangerous in many ways……”

She bowed her head. She reached out and raised a finger to the knight’s lips.

“Hush.”

She laughed hollowly at the sight of the loyal man frozen stiff and unable to move a muscle.

“There is something I must confirm myself.”

That was why, this time, she could not send her most loyal sword. She looked into the eyes of the one who had not the slightest inkling of the fierce storm that might be coming, and thought it again.

She would confirm it herself.

Who the subject of the final Oracle was.

“But first, I need to sleep a little.”

“Then I will call a lady-in-waiting to prepare the bedchamber.”

“No.”

Iberis patted the space beside her. The knight approached with an awkward expression, and she unhesitatingly used his stiff thigh as a pillow.

“Not very comfortable, as expected.”

“If you would move to the bed even now.”

“You talk too much. Be quiet.”

“……Haa, Your Majesty.”

She smiled. Even a ruler seated on the imperial throne had things she did not want to lose. They still existed.