Ibnel couldn’t help but ask Shuher, who was sitting across from her, with a puzzled mind.

“Are you not going to your room?”

“I’m going to drink some water. I think I need to wake up a bit.”

“Ah, I’ll bring you a glass.”

She quickly brought a glass and filled it with water, then placed it in front of him. Shuher drank it all in one gulp.

“Aren’t you going to sleep right away?”

“These days, there’s a lot to take care of. We need to prepare defenses before the real winter starts.”

“Indeed, this place has high and rugged mountains, so more preparation would be needed.”

Ibnel nodded, recalling the topography of Karies she had seen in books. It would be overwhelming enough just dealing with monsters, let alone handling state affairs as well.

“You must be tired. Having to work this late every day.”

“Isn’t it the same for you, young lady?”

“How can I compare to Your Majesty? For me, this is actually the first time I’ve been this relaxed. I can sleep in if I want, and choose how to spend my day as I please.”

When she was Arang, she was so busy she didn’t even know how the days passed. Besides training as an athlete, there were many external obligations.

At least now, there was no pressure to accomplish anything. Doing only what she wanted to do, she didn’t feel particularly tired.

“Isn’t it rather that you’ve become busier? I thought you spent most of your time in the mansion in Aodin.”

“…That’s just a figure of speech. Haha.”

Realizing belatedly that she had mentioned her past as Arang, Ibnel laughed awkwardly and drank some water.

Shuher, who had been fidgeting with the empty glass in his hand, suddenly spoke up.

“Why did you say that earlier today?”

“Earlier today? …Don’t tell me you saw everything?”

She was confused at first, but then realized he was referring to the incident with the young ladies and Halan, and asked in surprise.

Shuher answered with silence.

In fact, he had witnessed the scene purely by chance. Thanks to that, he had heard everything about how she responded.

At that moment, Ibnel slammed both hands hard on the table. The sound made Shuher turn his gaze towards her.

“Were you not angry at what the young ladies said, Your Majesty? It was truly absurd.”

“Is that what you’re concerned about now?”

“What else should I be concerned about in this situation?”

Ibnel couldn’t understand his reaction. What else was there to question besides the careless talk about the knights?

After a moment of silence, Shuher opened his mouth.

“Because I… only watched that situation.”

“Why is that? There was absolutely no reason for Your Majesty to intervene.”

When Ibnel spoke as if it was so obvious, Shuher simply closed his mouth. He had actually expected her to be angry about why he didn’t appear at that moment.

It was almost the same as pretending not to know despite knowing it was troublesome.

But she didn’t think that way at all. Rather, she thought it would be strange to help. Hadn’t he always just watched silently no matter what was said to her until now?

“I see, you’re right.”

Shuher couldn’t help but laugh at his own words. He wondered why he had such thoughts when he had decided to just watch whatever happened to Ibnel.

‘Is it because of the debt?’

As he searched for the reason, he concluded it was because of what happened in the Perti territory. Otherwise, there would be no reason for him to act on Ibnel’s behalf.

As she had said with her own mouth.

“The reason I didn’t step in is that my time is too precious to deal with such people one by one. Then why are you so angry?”

“Because it’s something that shouldn’t be said even as a joke.”

Shuher still couldn’t understand. Ibnel had no reason to defend the knights to the point of causing a commotion. It’s not like they had insulted her.

“They ignore you and don’t even consider you a colleague. If it were me, I would have just ignored whatever was said.”

“That may be true, but wrong is wrong. At that moment, such things don’t matter much. Actually, you get angry too, don’t you? When people speak carelessly about your people.”

As she said, he absolutely could not tolerate anyone treating his people carelessly. But even that was something they had to overcome on their own, so he didn’t actively intervene.

They weren’t weak enough to need help from someone else.

“But judging from the atmosphere, it didn’t seem like they were willing to listen to what I said. Well, if they had readily admitted their mistake, they wouldn’t have said such things in the first place. I just hope there’s no one who gets hurt hearing those words.”

There was no resentment in her words about being insulted herself. Putting that aside, she raised her voice solely for the sake of the knights, so what more could Shuher say?

“Well, anyone else would have said the same thing in that situation.”

His thought on that statement was ‘No’.

In the current Karies, there were far more people who thought like the young ladies who had picked a fight with Ibnel. The nobility even more so.

Moreover, there was no one else who would stand up for the knights like she did.

‘Does she really not know that?’

At that moment, Ibnel moistened her throat with water once, then spoke up first about the next situation. She thought it wasn’t a matter to just pass over if he had seen everything.

“Then you must have heard the conversation I had with Duke Halan.”

Shuher nodded without much reaction. It was somewhat expected that Halan would approach her. Someone like him would have been keeping an eye on her since her appearance.

“What kind of person is he? He seemed somewhat dangerous to me.”

“A dangerous person…”

“Is he not?”

“Why did you feel that way?”

She carefully recalled Halan’s appearance from today. He was clearly hiding a dark aura behind his outward appearance. Perhaps her senses had become more sensitive from dealing with monsters.

“I just felt like I didn’t want to get close to him. He didn’t speak a single truth even for a moment.”

“Isn’t there some truth to what Duke Halan said? The families who received power will try not to let you go even more after the incident in the Perti territory. They might even compete to push you into monster lairs.”

“I suppose that could be the case.”

Despite saying this much, the response was just a calm answer as if talking about someone else’s business. The voice was even nonchalant. For a moment, Shuher’s hand holding the glass tightened.

“You still don’t understand? Duke Halan’s proposal is very persuasive.”

Ibnel rested her chin on one hand and made quite a triumphant expression at his words defending Halan.

“It seems you’ve forgotten the most important fact? I’m already bound, you see.”

“Bound?”

“To Your Majesty. I’m bound to you, aren’t I?”

Shuher, who was drinking water due to a sudden thirst, coughed roughly. Ibnel was more surprised at this and was about to get up from her seat, but he spread his hand to indicate he was fine.

“Are you alright?”

In fact, he was not alright at all. He almost ungracefully spat out the water he was drinking in front of her.

How could she say such things with such a nonchalant face?

“How can you say that?”

“No, it’s not wrong, is it? Since I made a promise with Your Majesty, I should prioritize that.”

For her, that fact alone was overwhelming enough that she had no room to worry about Halan.

“I’m busy enough taking care of myself right now, so I’ll pass on getting entangled in unnecessary interests. Besides, I saw his purpose. He was trying to use me for his own intentions.”

The reason Ibnel was so certain was because of one thing he said.

“He said I was lucky regarding the families who received power. Just from that, I could feel that he normally thinks very unfavorably of them. Perhaps his sense of inferiority is even deeper than I expected.”

Inwardly, Shuher was slightly surprised at her sharpness. To have seen through that much on their first meeting.

“That man is Duke Halan Jeyzen. He’s currently rallying and leading many nobles.”

“Rallying?”

“To check the families who received power, like the Perti Count family.”

“Ah…”

Hearing that background, she clearly understood why Halan had actively approached her.

“So he was trying to keep me in check in case I might lend strength to that side. He must be quite upset.”

“It’s not a relationship that can be defined so simply.”

Shuher too had been constantly watching. The fact that while the families who received power were away from the capital, the other nobles were moving underground centered around Halan.

Recalling what happened today, Ibnel’s thoughts from that moment came out without going through her head.

“Have we become too accustomed to this peace and forgotten something important?”

At the voice that was unclear whether it was a question or a mumble to herself, Shuher’s action of lifting his cup came to a halt. Soon his gaze turned towards her across from him.

With a colder look than before.

“What do you mean by that?”

Not noticing the change, Ibnel spoke her thoughts without hesitation. The things she felt seeing the young ladies who spoke lightly of the knights’ deaths and Halan who was busy guarding against others gaining more power.

“In the past, Karies went through difficult times, didn’t it? There must have been many innocent sacrifices too. But now that some stability has been regained, it seems like small sacrifices are taken lightly. The gratitude towards those who received power protecting the empire from monsters seems to have faded too.”

They could be dismissed as trivial things, but to her eyes, they certainly didn’t look light.

“Of course, I know we’ve come this far thanks to the efforts of many people, but somehow these things piling up, it feels like Aodin…”

Thud!

At the sound of Shuher slamming down the glass he was holding on the table, Ibnel stopped talking in surprise. Soon she belatedly noticed that the atmosphere surrounding him had sunk heavily.

Then realizing what she was about to say, she hurriedly closed her mouth.

‘What was I about to say in front of this person.’

It was natural for him, the emperor, to be displeased when she, of all people, voiced such concerns. And she was about to mention Aodin on top of that.

“I seem to have overstepped. Please just forget it. I’ll go up first.”

Ibnel watched Shuher’s reaction and hurriedly left the place.

‘It’s my mistake. No matter what, I shouldn’t have said that much.’

As she stood in front of the door, blaming herself for her actions, there was a hand that strongly turned her shoulder. Shuher was standing in front, having followed her at some point.

“Your Majesty?”

There was no answer to her call.

Due to the dim corridor with only red lights sparsely lit, shadows fell on Shuher’s face, making his expression hard to see. That made her even more nervous.

‘Could it be that he’s angry because of what I said earlier?’

As Ibnel stood there not knowing what to do, Shuher just quietly looked down at her.