Should she inhale or exhale…

“Rud, it’s okay. I’m holding you, so relax your arms too, I’ll stay still, first breathe……”

Caleb stopped moving at the sound of Rudbeckia’s shallow panting.

He firmly supported her b*ttocks so she could feel secure.

“Hmm……”

But Rudbeckia still struggled with his pulsating c*ck inside her.

Caleb too was on the verge of losing his mind because of how tightly she gripped him without letting go.

She could feel Caleb’s c*ck trembling inside her. Even for the most virile man, enduring in this state seemed pitiful.

Rudbeckia decided to try to bear it.

Though she had the best stamina among the female knights, her arms and waist were tingling and losing sensation, and she had no mental strength left to endure this feeling any longer.

If they continued like this a bit longer, she felt she might faint even without experiencing a memory surge.

But she didn’t want to lose this moment to unconsciousness.

She wanted to remember every moment with Caleb and possess all the sensations she felt from him.

“…Cal, …I’ll try to bear it.”

Caleb found her admirable and was grateful. Cherishing her effort, he began to move his hips gently.

But rather than his own satisfaction, he focused more on Rudbeckia’s rising pleasure—watching the crease between her brows, the way her eyebrows drew together, her parting teeth, and the moans slipping from her lips.

Eventually, Rudbeckia seemed to grow accustomed to his supple movements and sought Caleb’s lips.

While he focused on her lower entrance, Rudbeckia lavished affection on his upper lip.

The rhythmic friction sounds accelerated and stopped with Caleb’s climax.

Rudbeckia, happy to have perfect memory ability, preciously stored the memory of the climax of pleasure she shared with Caleb.

When the act was over, Caleb laid her down on the bed. Then he brought a wet cloth and wiped away the sticky fluid that had flowed between her legs. Rudbeckia’s legs trembled against her will.

“Like this, I won’t be able to even stand up, let alone attend the banquet.”

“Shall we not go, Rud?”

Rudbeckia let out a soft laugh at his absurd suggestion.

His large hand moved through her tangled hair that had been rubbed against the wall. This brilliant blonde hair was so special in its luster and smoothness that even when it seemed tangled, it flowed smoothly when his hand passed through it.

After just a few strokes of his hand, her hair was somewhat tidied, and Caleb kissed her forehead and reluctantly sent her out.

‘How can I miss her so much when we’ll just change clothes and meet again?’

Caleb was a bit surprised to realize that his love for her was much greater and deeper than he had thought.

* * *

“The winner, Marquis Caleb Finis, is entering!”

Thunderous cheers filled the Knight Hall. Caleb was guided with Rudbeckia to a table set with the richest and most abundant formal dinner.

Across from them sat Greg Rufus. His smirking expression was suspicious and lewd.

“Duke Rufus, thanks to you, the lance competition seems to have been more interesting.”

Rudbeckia smiled brightly at Greg, wondering what was behind that lewd expression.

“It would be more interesting if you came as my aide.”

“Right? Shall we talk more privately after the banquet?”

“You’re always welcome.”

While conversing with Rudbeckia, Greg kept glancing at Caleb.

“With delicious wine, I’d like to talk all night, Duke.”

Even when Rudbeckia tried to provoke him with more suggestive conversation, his attention seemed focused entirely on Caleb.

While Rudbeckia was trying to figure out what he was concentrating on by following Greg’s gaze, Emperor Adam and Crown Prince Baningo entered the Knight Hall.

The suffocating formal dinner began immediately, and all the dukes of the Empire were seated at the table.

‘I heard he was promised a duke position, and my memory can’t be wrong… is he dead?’

But as Henry had said, neither a platinum-haired duke nor Rudbeckia’s biological father was present.

“So, Marquis Finis. When do you plan to leave for your territory? How much winter relief supplies do you want?”

“I plan to leave as soon as the relief supplies are ready. Shouldn’t I get there before it gets colder to make preparations?”

“That’s right. If you encounter an avalanche on the way, it would be a miserable death. Get in before the snow falls.”

It was a territory where no administrator had ever been dispatched for fear of avalanches and becoming isolated. Knowing the situation so well, he still gave that kind of territory to a victorious general.

It was clear that Adam didn’t fully trust his surrender.

“For supplies, I’ll take three wagons when I depart. For the second group, please prepare and send twenty wagons full.”

Food and winter supplies included in relief aid were all expensive and precious. To ask for twenty wagons of them! The dukes began to whisper. Caleb didn’t actually expect all of it to arrive.

He thought it would be fortunate if he could safely bring just the three wagons he would personally escort to that barren place, and his mention of the second group was just something he said carelessly.

“Are there enough residents in the territory to need twenty wagons?”

“Isn’t that what I’m going to find out? Is it too much?”

“Hahaha, rather than too much, I am an emperor who thinks of all citizens of the Europa continent. I worry that helping Finis territory might cause suffering from poverty elsewhere.”

The dukes were impressed and moved by Adam’s answer.

“Then send as much as the imperial treasury can afford with the second group.”

“Haha. How could I do that? Don’t worry, Marquis Finis, as you start anew. I’ll make sure all twenty wagons you requested will be received at your territory.”

He said with a relaxed smile. Wasn’t it Adam himself who publicly promised to give as much as he wanted? Caleb, who had nothing to lose, maintained a smile throughout.

Adam too was being generous with his words, thinking that Greg would soon kill him.

“Well, since the military hosted this competition, may I propose a toast?”

Suddenly, Greg stood up holding his glass.

For a moment, Rudbeckia tightly closed her lips and held her breath.

Even if Yuli Sanders wasn’t her birth mother, she grew up under her. And Greg had learned the same things that she and Caleb had learned.

‘My goodness, how can he be so bad at controlling his expression? Greg, it’s so obvious to anyone that you’ve done something to the wine glass.’

Yuli had taught Greg, Caleb, and Rudbeckia over forty different military tactics. Among them, the honey trap was Yuli’s specialty and her favorite strategy. She emphasized it more than other tactics because it was a method that could achieve maximum effect with minimal bloodshed.

That’s why Caleb could maintain a handsome smile at the banquet even if he might have convulsions afterward.

But Greg… was he stupid, or did he not listen to Yuli’s lessons at all because she wasn’t his birth mother? He had been grinning greedily since Caleb sat at the table.

Even while exchanging a few words with Rudbeckia, he couldn’t take his eyes off Caleb.

And now he wanted to raise a toast? As if he no longer intended to hide his scheme, Greg was staring blatantly at Caleb’s glass.

All glasses on the table were already filled, and Greg had arrived before Caleb.

‘Perhaps Greg was the first person to enter this banquet hall.’

Rudbeckia picked up her glass with a sincere congratulatory smile like the other dukes at the table.

“Congratulations once again on Marquis Caleb Finis’s victory!”

“Congratulations!”

Everyone raised their glasses and lifted them toward the center once more.

— Crash!

With a frown-inducing shattering sound, Caleb and Rudbeckia’s glasses broke.

“Oh my, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. How terrible. I’m sorry. I must have applied too much force as if I were holding a sword.”

Rudbeckia picked up the glass pieces in confusion and turned her palm over.

Wearing gloves that extended past her elbows, she had no worry about getting cut or poison seeping in.

“You might get hurt. I’ll clean this up, so everyone please take your hands off the table.”

She quickly called out, concerned that poison from the glasses might touch someone else’s hands. Since Rudbeckia held the lowest position at this table, it was very natural for her to offer to clean up until servants arrived, so no one found her exclamation strange.

“Oh my, how did glass pieces fly all the way there?”

Rudbeckia directed her hand toward Baningo sitting next to Greg. While everyone’s attention was focused on Baningo’s plate, she threw the glass piece she had picked up at Greg’s wrist.

Bull’s eye. The glass piece she threw precisely cut across the vein that appeared blue.

The hairpin dagger was designed not only for stabbing but also for throwing, so Rudbeckia had thrown hundreds and thousands of daggers under Yuli’s guidance. Until she could pierce a person’s pupil in one shot with a dagger thinner than a regular one.

“Tsk. What’s this?”

Greg looked down at the stinging, heating spot. His face immediately turned ashen.

‘So it really is poison. Looking at how pale he’s become.’

Servants rushed over. Rudbeckia took off her gloves and tossed them into the container the servants brought, then observed the situation.

“Me-medic… Medic! Call a medic quickly!”

“Greg, you’re making such a fuss over a small glass scratch.”

Baningo pulled at Greg’s collar as he shouted as if he had been stabbed by a sword in the middle of a battlefield. Since it was Baningo who had introduced Greg to Adam and requested the Minister of Military position for him, he was furious at Greg for embarrassing him with such an overreaction.

“A small scratch? Even a small scratch can be this dangerous!”

“Dangerous? Duke Rufus, was there poison on the glass?”

Rudbeckia asked, blinking her cute golden eyes looking genuinely curious. At the word ‘poison,’ the Knight Hall suddenly froze in silence.

Immediately, the table buzzed with whispers as all eyes focused on Greg’s wrist.

Whatever potent substance had been used, Greg’s wrist was already turning black.

“Duke Rufus! Your wrist!”

Duke Cyrie Seymour, sitting on the opposite side from Baningo, lifted Greg’s wrist. He was also the captain of the Imperial Guard.

“What, is it really poison?”

“We could have been in serious trouble if we had drunk it.”

The dukes threw their glasses into the container the servants were holding, without exception.

“Duke. The only person who shouted about danger here is you. So you must be the one who added the poison. Is your arm painful?”

Greg couldn’t speak and just clutched his arm, which was burning as if raw flesh had been thrown into flames.

Duke Cyrie Seymour had a sword at his waist even in the banquet hall because he was of the Imperial Guard, and Adam spoke while indifferently looking at the food the servants were clearing away.

“How could I just watch my cherished subject suffer?”

— Slash

No sooner had Adam finished speaking than Cyrie’s sword sliced through Greg’s left shoulder.

His arm thumped against the table and then the chair in sequence.

“Aaaaah!”

Greg writhed, clutching his now-empty shoulder. The table shook and chairs tumbled backward. But as if accustomed to such things, no one screamed except Greg.

Even those who frowned were only Caleb and Rudbeckia.