Arthe thought her gaze wouldn’t be felt by Cardi and continued to examine him thoroughly.

Then, Cardi, who had been looking in another direction, slowly turned his head and looked at Arthe.

Eyes that felt warm, unlike his mother.

Arthe tried to turn her head hurriedly, but she couldn’t turn her gaze away because Cardi’s eyes at the end of their meeting gaze somehow looked sad.

Did their eyes meet for about three seconds?

Arthe, who came to her senses, hurriedly turned her head.

His appearance was too fatally attractive to look at for long.

The body temperature felt from the hand that had unconsciously risen to her cheek was hot.

‘……With that level of appearance, even if it’s a political marriage, I think I could do it happily.’

Arthe tried to turn her body and withdrew her gaze from him.

Because she had turned her body completely, she couldn’t confirm it, but it was certain that Cardi had also turned his eyes away from her.

‘We must have met by coincidence.’

Arthe turned her body again and carefully looked at the prince’s back. The prince was walking toward his mother, Empress Mariposa.

And the moment Cardi smiled while looking at his mother, Empress Mariposa, Arthe felt her cheeks redden once again.

It was the first flutter Arthe had ever felt in her lifetime.

However, such feelings were only momentary.

The moment Cardi stood before the empress and opened his mouth.

“Mom!”

Arthe’s flutter was shattered to pieces.

“Mom! Let me join the party too!”

Very cleanly.

***

‘Mom……? No, more than that, let me join the party…… what?’

She doubted her ears and looked at Prince Cardi once more.

Perfect features like a work of art and beautiful black hair, even an atmosphere that made one’s heart flutter just by looking.

He was still unbelievably beautiful.

‘Surely, I must have heard wrong.’

However, as if mocking Arthe’s belief, Prince Cardi lifted his feet from where he stood and spun around once like a girl.

At the rather cute action taken by the large man, Arthe’s mouth opened by itself.

“I even had new clothes tailored for today!”

When the prince struck a pose with a bright smile, the decorations attached to his uniform jingled noisily.

Arthe’s heart, watching the swaying uniform decorations, also became confused.

However, regardless of her feelings, Prince Cardi’s bombshell statements continued afterward.

“I wanted to dance so I practiced dancing hard with Dante……”

“Homework is too difficult too…… The academy is really tiresome!”

“By the way, where are the strawberry tarts?”

Prince Cardi’s continued words were even more spectacular.

Social etiquette was absolutely nowhere to be found in him.

The prince was pouring out his stories like a seven-year-old child without even listening to Empress Mariposa’s answers.

‘Please, stop…… Stop talking!’

Arthe wanted to block Cardi’s mouth as he endlessly spoke toward the empress.

‘How can he say such things with such a face…… No, more than that, isn’t he the empire’s only prince?’

God-given beauty paired with disastrous intellectual level.

That was close to a disaster.

It wasn’t only Arthe who was shocked by the prince’s appearance.

The surrounding nobles were also gathering in groups of three to five, whispering about Cardi.

“Oh my, oh my oh my……”

“Don’t tell me he escaped from the academy?”

“This time too he failed to graduate from the academy, so Her Majesty the Empress issued a banquet ban……”

Even during the moment when the nobles’ conversations went back and forth, Cardi was still pouring out trivial stories to the empress.

He seemed completely unaware of the nobles’ reactions whispering about him.

‘He’s even oblivious?’

At the prince’s level that exceeded imagination, Arthe’s mouth opened by itself.

Though rumors had been rampant, she never thought it would be to that degree.

Before her regression, after Empress Mariposa murdered the emperor, she couldn’t understand why the prince couldn’t inherit the throne no matter how stupid he was.

His appearance after escaping the academy was explaining all the situations from her previous life.

Eventually, Prince Cardi stopped talking and looked at the empress innocently.

The numerous nobles in the banquet hall looked at the imperial mother and son with eyes mixed with tension and curiosity.

When everyone was watching with anxious eyes, Empress Mariposa slowly opened her mouth to speak.

“……Cardi, my child.”

‘Calling such a grown-up person a child……’

Arthe looked at Empress Mariposa with shocked eyes.

And at that moment, Arthe’s expression, which had been trying to compose itself, became sharply distorted.

“……This mother’s greed has made you suffer so much.”

Dew-like teardrops were forming in Empress Mariposa’s reddened eyes.

Soon after, the empress who approached the prince grasped Prince Cardi’s hands and let tears flow down her fair cheeks.

Unable to continue her words for a while, the empress’s appearance of just shedding tears endlessly made several nobles in the banquet hall turn their gazes away with solemn faces.

Even the so dignified empress was just a parent to her child.

At the empress’s appearance that even looked pitiful, several noble ladies were also reddening their eyes.

The nobles who returned to corners with solemn expressions whispered in low voices here and there.

“His Majesty the Emperor is also unwell. And now even His Highness the Prince is in such a state……”

“To break the nobles’ opposition and make His Highness the Prince inherit the throne, she must have hoped he would at least graduate from the academy.”

“Indeed…… For a while, Her Majesty the Empress will have to take responsibility for state affairs, won’t she?”

Eventually, the empress’s maids who had come to their senses approached to support the empress, and with their support, the empress staggered out of the banquet hall.

Cardi, who had been blankly watching his mother’s retreating figure, soon headed toward the garden outside the banquet hall with a dejected expression.

He seemed to have at least noticed that he had disappointed his mother.

“……Ha.”

At all that spectacle, a bitter laugh naturally flowed from Arthe’s mouth.

Second life, though she hadn’t expected a flower path to unfold since she had resolved on revenge, she never thought she would lose her fighting spirit from the very beginning like this.

No matter how she had decided on marriage to use that stupidity……

“……He’s going to be my husband anyway, but shouldn’t he at least be at human level?”

Arthe muttered in a serious voice.

After watching Cardi heading to the garden with absurdity for a while, Arthe took out the densely written [Practical! The Art of Romance!] cheat sheet from her bosom.

“Haah……”

Reading the contents written on the small note and sighing, Arthe filled a glass with whiskey from the table, closed her eyes tightly, and poured it into her mouth.

As the bitter taste of whiskey spread on the tip of her tongue, a self-deprecating word finally flowed from Arthe’s mouth.

“……Nothing in life is easy.”

From now on, she needed a bit of intoxication.

***

“Your Highness, you really must return to the academy!”

“I hate it. I didn’t do my homework.”

“I said I’d help you with it! At this rate, you’ll really be in big trouble!”

Prince Cardi didn’t even answer and kicked the ground with a sullen face.

Even after the unprecedented incident of the empress shedding tears, Dante, the prince’s direct attendant, was the only one bursting with frustration at the prince’s childishness in having no intention of returning.

At this rate, not only the prince but Dante would also get scolded by Her Majesty the Empress.

“Your Highness, I’ll beg you like this. Please?”

“……”

Prince Cardi pressed his lips tightly shut and stubbornly shook his head.

‘He must hate returning to the academy.’

Dante, who guessed the reason Prince Cardi was refusing like this, closed his mouth for a moment in pity.

Prince Cardi the fool.

Knowledge, martial arts, even basic etiquette—a fool under heaven who couldn’t do anything properly.

So much so that rumors circulated that he might have developed brain problems from suffering a high fever as a child.

It was obvious what kind of treatment such a person would have received at the academy.

In fact, with this level of deficiency, it would be worth hiding and concealing completely, but Her Majesty the Empress, perhaps because her love for her child was extraordinary, always introduced the prince whenever there were important occasions.

Though the psychology of high-ranking people was utterly incomprehensible, did she know that this rather lowered the prince’s dignity and made him laughable?

Dante looked at the prince pitifully for a moment, but soon decided to persuade him again for his own safety.

“Your Highness, do you know something?”

Dante, who had been thinking for a moment, made his voice subtle as if he had a good idea.

“What now?”

“Today the academy’s chefs specially made strawberry tarts that Your Highness likes.”

Cardi, who had been playing in the dirt, looked up at Dante silently.

At Cardi’s red eyes that momentarily shone coolly, Dante flinched and stiffened his posture.

No matter what, strawberry tarts—had he looked down on him too much?

Just as sweat began to form on Dante’s forehead, Cardi’s eyes softly relaxed and curved.

“With fresh cream on top?”

“Of-of course! Naturally. Very fresh cream used to make sweet and savory tarts.”

Dante answered while patting his chest.

This prince, famous for being a fool, seemed to have inherited even a speck of that noble bloodline, as he sometimes made people tense with just his gaze alone.

It was just as Dante was bustling about even more to persuade Cardi.

“Ouch!”

At a somewhat cute single scream heard nearby, both Cardi and Dante turned to look to the side.

“Ouch, it hurts.”

A young lady seemed to have twisted her foot in the garden and was sitting down with delicate gestures.

Cardi and Dante, who looked at each other with surprised faces, hurriedly walked toward where the lady was.

“What’s wrong, my lady?”

The lady slowly raised her head.

And the moment he saw the lady’s face, Dante momentarily stopped breathing.

The lady with fine silver hair and blue eyes was so beautiful that even Dante, who had lived as an imperial attendant and seen plenty of beauties, was momentarily entranced.

“Ah.”

Fine silver hair. Silver hair was practically the symbolic hair color of the Frey family.

‘Come to think of it, this year the Frey ducal house’s lady suddenly……’

Dante’s head, which had lived by reading situations, spun quickly. Having finished his calculations, Dante opened his mouth with a stiff face.

“Are you alright? By any chance, are you……?”

“Arthe thinks her ankle is completely broken……”

“What?”

“What?”