The Emperor made the Duke and Duchess of Lucenford wait in the waiting room for about an hour before summoning them to the audience chamber. By the Emperor’s usual standards, this was considered quite polite.

For an hour, Peon let Kaella rest, occasionally answering her persistent questions kindly. Though he wasn’t particularly pleased, he pretended not to notice.

He already had experience from their wedding in Krain of pretending not to see, hear, or say things he didn’t mean, so he planned to endure this time as well.

Wasn’t his wife, who now walked arm in arm beside him, urging him to be patient? He was a husband who diligently did as his wife told him.

“We behold the eternal sun of the Empire. May you enjoy a thousand years.”

“May you enjoy a thousand years, Your Majesty.”

The Duke and Duchess of Lucenford paid their respects to the Emperor, who didn’t even look their way.

“Why did you young ones come so early at dawn? Why didn’t you just come later today as usual?”

The Emperor, whom they hadn’t seen in months, seemed to have become an old man with even more spite stuck to him.

“We apologize, Your Majesty. We should have come earlier, but I miscalculated the dates.”

Peon spoke before his wife could. If nothing else, he didn’t want to let his wife start by apologizing.

“Then why didn’t you just not come at all?”

The tone of his retort was twisted. In the end, he was in a bad mood, saying, “Try to flatter me and cheer me up yourselves.”

“We apologize, Your Majesty. Due to my poor health, we had to travel slowly, which led to this situation.”

“No, the Empress and I are in worse health than you young ones. How bad could your health be!”

Should I kill him?

Peon thought very coldly and rationally. He would inevitably have to keep enduring the Emperor and constantly contemplate whether to kill him or not. Then rather than repeating this nauseating act, why not just kill him cleanly and be done with it?

The audience chamber is instantly stained with blood. The Emperor’s ankles are cut and knees crushed as he falls and rolls, and as he falls, the imperial throne shatters completely. The Emperor is dragged north and imprisoned in the darkest dungeon, subjected to all manner of torture. Beatrice is nothing compared to this.

Peon quietly takes his still unconscious mother’s body and places it in the evil dragon’s domain. His father, the evil dragon, knows how to restore his mother’s lost consciousness.

By then, Peon’s work would be done. The imperial citizens would be enraged, calling Lucenford a traitor.

“It’s a dragon! A dragon wearing human skin!”

“We must kill it!”

His wife’s Ostein would also be included among the traitors. The Crown Prince would hastily inherit full authority and set out to subdue the traitors, but of course, he would be no match for Peon.

Much blood would flow, and in Ostein and Lucenford, some would rebel against the fact that the Duke was a dragon, while others would be too shocked to know what to do.

Peon would simply protect Kaella silently. And his equally shocked father-in-law as well.

With the Crown Prince unable to fulfill his role, people would think the only remaining imperial bloodline, the Duke of Ostein, should be the next emperor. After all, he could become emperor with a dragon’s backing.

But amid the chaos, some nobles would also emerge, asserting their own factions and establishing countries. The Empire would thus be shattered into pieces, kings would proliferate, and Ostein and Lucenford would be engulfed in flames. Peon could protect the two territories as much as he wanted. He could also quickly restore law and order.

But for Kaella, all this chaos would be too much. All kinds of insults that would shock her would pour forth.

“Filthy wench who spread her legs for a dragon!”

Once again, enemies flooding into Ostein could be dealt with roughly while standing on the balcony of the Duke of Ostein’s residence without even having to go out to battle.

“Bitch who sold out the country!”

The criticism directed at him didn’t bother him at all. But Kaella, the noble Princess of Ostein, would collapse, overwhelmed by the criticism she heard for being associated with him.

Shadows would occasionally fall across her face. She would live a numb life held onto by Peon, hearing all sorts of insults she shouldn’t have to hear, seeing close people turn their backs, and watching her beloved Ostein split apart.

She would not be happy.

Peon, who had been quietly peering into the future while the Emperor barked, immediately turned his gaze to the stirring presence beside him.

“Ah…!”

With a thud, Kaella fell to the floor of the audience chamber. Peon’s reverie was broken, and the muttering Emperor finally turned to look this way.

“Rain.”

The sight of her falling when she had been standing perfectly fine was quite unnatural. Kaella knew that too. It was fortunate that the Emperor only saw her fallen on the floor and didn’t notice how unnatural it was.

“Are you alright?”

“No, what’s wrong with you?”

The Emperor asked, standing with his hands behind his back.

“I felt dizzy for a moment… I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

Kaella, who lowered her head, looked into Peon’s eyes as he helped her up. The numb killing intent that had lingered in his violet eyes had completely disappeared, and he was looking at her with concern.

“Are you very dizzy?”

“I’m fine.”

He smiled slightly as he helped Kaella up. He had noticed. The clumsy act hadn’t fooled Peon. But it was enough that she had stopped her husband from doing something to the Emperor for now.

It’s fortunate that the entire imperial family wasn’t trampled. Later, she should at least try to tell him to stop doing such heart-pounding things, no, to be a little more patient. Whether he would listen was uncertain, but still.

“Sit down, sit. Kaella, why does your face look like that?”

The Emperor, who had finally seen Kaella’s face, came closer in surprise, gesturing for them to sit down.

“No, why has the child’s face become half of what it was?”

“It’s due to the aftereffects of the incident I reported earlier and the weather in Lucenford. I apologize, Your Majesty.”

Peon played the role of a guilty husband very smoothly as he addressed the Emperor.

“But still, how did you get so thin? Kaella, are you eating properly?”

“I’m trying my best to do so.”

“Well, since you had trouble with food, eating must be difficult. But you need to eat well. You must eat well.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“Is Lucenford difficult?”

The Emperor treated Kaella very affectionately, as if he had never been in a bad mood. Seeing Kaella’s face turned pale and half-sized, he felt sorry.

“Bring some tea and refreshments. You need to eat something, this won’t do.”

“But I’ve gotten much better, Your Majesty. I should adapt well too. I’ll get better.”

Kaella, who was good at saying things she didn’t mean, knew the social world too well. Hiding her indifference and lethargy, she spoke as if nothing was wrong.

For the sake of such a wife, Peon had no choice but to take revenge in a human way. He had to crush the Emperor using all legitimate justifications. It was troublesome and annoying, but he had no choice. He had seen the future. He had seen a future where Kaella was only deeply unhappy.

“Isn’t it hard with Hyperion being so blunt?”

“He’s very kind and takes good care of me.”

“Him?”

The Emperor looked at Peon as if he had never heard such words before. Well, the sight of him carrying and seating his wife was unusual.

“Yes. He’s helped me the most to adapt well by my side.”

“Well, that’s just what he should do.”

Peon just smiled and didn’t answer.

“Well… To think I’d live to see the day when you’d hear such words from your wife.”

The Emperor examined the couple he had matched once more as a servant came to set down tea and refreshments.

“If only the Empress could have seen this.”

“How is Her Majesty the Empress’s condition, Your Majesty?”

“The same.”

That was the end of it. There was nothing more to say. No doctor had been able to restore the Empress’s consciousness. Though the Emperor couldn’t say it out loud, it was now time to try even sorcery.

“Her face has deteriorated even more since we last saw her.”

Peon spoke politely while subtly pushing the plate of refreshments towards Kaella.

“What joy could I have when the Empress has been bedridden for months?”

One might think they were a very loving couple. All the words spewed by the Emperor, who had kidnapped someone else’s bride to marry and had a string of illegitimate children, and who even now had entrusted his engagement ceremony to his mistress, were nothing but nonsense.

Kaella and Peon had to listen to his words full of self-pity about how much he was suffering, how worried and hard it was for him.

“There’s no joy, no joy at all. Things are just the same every day, and I think about stepping down, but I’m not satisfied with how the Crown Prince is doing either.”

The Emperor openly complained about his son.

“Kaella, you’re doing such a proper job as a Duchess, but what’s wrong with that guy? Aren’t you two the same age?”

“But the position of the Crown Prince, who must oversee the entire Empire, is completely different from that of a Duchess, Your Majesty.”

“I’m talking about attitude, attitude. There’s already so much talk about this engagement ceremony…”

The Emperor couldn’t not know about the rumors spreading from Krain to the surrounding areas. Even if the magical tools’ functions had decreased, the Emperor still had his minions to bring him the circulating rumors.

“We need someone to keep things centered. That’s why I called you early.”

“What would we know?”

“Adeo will come too. This time, the three of you, do something about it. It’s giving me a headache. We can’t embarrass ourselves in front of Kerujan, can we?”

The Emperor sighed deeply.

“If the Empress were here, it wouldn’t be this much of a mess. I can’t ask Gregory to prepare his own engagement ceremony, and it’s not proper for me to step in for my son’s engagement, is it? Dorothea doesn’t know anything. She just causes trouble and doesn’t know what to do.”

Complaints poured out that he had no one to rely on.

“The only ones I can trust are you two and Adeo. Hyperion, you’ve grown up to be so reliable. This time too, you managed to fend off those barbaric immigrants without much damage. Well done.”

“I only did my best with the task entrusted to me.”

Peon bowed his head respectfully and then looked up, glancing slightly at Kaella. Somehow, his expression seemed to say, “I did well, didn’t I?”

“Yes, that’s how it should be, but…”

The Emperor clicked his tongue and shook his head. While he sighed and held his head for a moment, a light silence fell over the audience chamber.

Peon didn’t care whether the Emperor was suffering or not, and Kaella could tell that the Emperor had been quite troubled for months, but she couldn’t empathize with his suffering.

“When there’s work to be done, you just do it, but why is there so much talk? Am I getting old? Where have all the good virtues of humility and silence gone, with everyone making a fuss and praising themselves for doing well? I don’t understand how the world works these days.”

So the Duke and Duchess of Lucenford just listened halfheartedly to the long speech of the stubborn Emperor. It was just spite because he should be the best, but other guys dared to act superior, offending his mood. Kaella managed not to doze off, and Peon subtly refused during a pause in the Emperor’s speech.

“I would like to help Your Majesty with this important matter in any way I can, but given my wife’s health, I’m worried it might burden Your Majesty instead. As you can see, she gets dizzy even just sitting still.”

Kaella, who hadn’t dreamed of refusing the incoming work, was surprised by Peon’s words but tried hard to manage her expression. She had to be even more careful in front of the Emperor.

“You can’t do even a little bit?”

The Emperor, seemingly unable to give up on Kaella, didn’t easily back down.

“I’ll focus on recovering my health for now.”

“That’s right. You need to be healthy to work. Still, come by every few days. There’s no one to take care of the household, it’s a mess, a mess.”

“I’m so grateful that Your Majesty trusts and entrusts this to me. But wouldn’t Marchioness Schröz, who was originally in charge of the engagement ceremony, be upset?”

“Dorothea? No way. She should be grateful to have someone like you who considers even her feelings so delicately. Don’t worry about that! I’ll make sure to tell her firmly.”

With the Emperor going so far to ask, Kaella couldn’t refuse, nor would it be right to refuse.

“Peon, you also dealt with Prince Elkanan when the Kerujan envoy came last time, didn’t you? The Crown Prince is still inexperienced. He’s just a clumsy novice in front of that snake-like Elkanan. Keep an eye on him. You’re part of our imperial family too, aren’t you?”

In the end, the couple was entrusted with important tasks. If the Emperor hadn’t slaughtered his siblings when he ascended to the throne, he wouldn’t have lamented having no one to lean on in his old age like this. The reduced imperial family was sparse with few people. Many buildings in the imperial palace were just being maintained without owners.

“We should be offering gifts to Your Majesty, but instead Your Majesty is entrusting us with important tasks. It’s an honor. Please also accept the gift we offer. We’ve brought something from Lucenford.”

Kaella found it unfamiliar to see Peon acting perfectly with extremely smooth speech and no unnecessary gestures at just one look from her. The Emperor should think so too, but he seemed not to think about Peon’s changed appearance at all, his mouth stretched from ear to ear.

“No, what have you brought again? It’s fine, it’s fine.”

Though he waved his hand as if refusing for the sake of propriety, the Emperor was already smiling with pleasure.

“No, Your Majesty. Let it be brought in.”

The servant bowed his head and went out to bring in the gift box that had passed security procedures.

“Please open it, Your Majesty. It’s a gift prepared for Your Majesty from Lucenford.”

Kaella thought hard about what that was, then gave up. It seemed Peon had told her something, but she hadn’t paid any attention, so she couldn’t remember. Most of the many things he said to her scattered meaninglessly.

“My goodness, the situation in that cold place is obvious, why do you keep sending things like this while suffering?”

Though he said that, his hands were quick to open it. The Emperor opened the box, and his already wide mouth grew uncontrollably larger.