As if drawing a line that he should not care for her.

It hurt Adrian.

Those knife-like words and what he heard before kept piercing his heart.

“My first love died.”

It was something that Adrian Raines could never have heard, so it was more truthful.

So to Adrian, it was like a death sentence.

He felt as if he was deprived of even the right to love Layla.

Her current attitude was exactly like that. Layla was treating him as if he was someone who could not love her.

Do you understand the sense of helplessness I’m feeling now?

Adrian swallowed his dry saliva to open his constricted throat. After his prominent Adam’s apple moved up and down once, his voice flowed out, barely suppressing his emotions.

“Otherwise, why would I bother to let you into this room?”

“I really don’t understand why Your Highness is being so considerate to me.”

“……”

“Why did you help with the annulment, and why did you try to send me to Wessex……”

Layla muttered, mulling over the previous situations.

In fact, they were meaningless at this point.

Layla was no longer a princess. Now, there was a heaven and earth gap between her and him, and the Crown Prince of Hakin became someone she could not even dare to look up to due to their status difference.

Still, it was true that he had helped her in his own way before, so Layla wanted to know the reason.

Especially if she had stayed in Filmer without the annulment, the situation would have become more complicated. Perhaps she might have become Reynold’s slave as it was……

Then she would have faced the worst case scenario.

But was it really because of ‘goodwill’ towards her? She didn’t think so. The man in front of her was not someone who could have such feelings for her.

After that last meeting that led to everyone’s downfall, Hakin branded Wessex as a traitor.

In fact, after Wessex became independent, Hakin and Wessex only refrained from waging war, but they did not hesitate to criticize each other.

That’s how strained the relationship was.

Among them, Adrian, who suffered the most damage, must have had resentment towards Wessex.

“Do you want to know the answer?”

At Adrian’s question, Layla only nodded slightly. Adrian, who had turned around, probably did not see it. Still, Layla waited nervously.

She thought the answer would come quickly, but a longer silence than expected passed.

Swoosh, splash splash……

An unknown amount of time passed, with the sound of waves crashing against the ship echoing countless times.

During that time, she felt Adrian’s steady gaze on her again, but Layla did not raise her bowed head.

Because of that, she failed to notice Adrian’s sad expression, his longing expression as he looked at her.

In the end, seeing her not looking at him, Adrian suppressed his desire to confess his love.

“…..I need the Wessex bloodline.”

Another lie flowed out from between Adrian’s lips.

This time, it was a lie that Layla would never see through.

That fact made Adrian feel beyond sad, beyond irritated, and beyond miserable.

“In other words, a Tuner.”

Ah.

And now, an exclamation of understanding came out of his foolish lover’s mouth, who had been deceived. Layla recalled what he had said before.

“If you overdo it a bit, you will experience extreme pain in your body, and you will not be able to control your body as you wish, such as your hands or feet trembling. It’s a more terrible disease than you think.”

Why did she only realize it now? The symptoms of the ‘incurable disease’ he described were the same as the common rebound symptoms experienced by ability users.

“Then the incurable disease you mentioned before……”

“Yes. It’s a side effect of using too much of the ability.”

Only then could Layla understand everything.

Just before boarding the ship from Filmer to Wessex, Lilburn had questioned what was the point of sending back a princess of another country to her homeland, but that wasn’t really the case.

Adrian had wanted to quickly send Layla back to Wessex to easily prevent Isabella Fitzroy from fully executing her plan. But she moved too quickly, resulting in failure.

And as for saving the siblings, this part could also be sufficiently understood why he volunteered for such a troublesome task when considering Adrian’s remark.

It’s not for her sake.

He only needed the Tuning ability.

‘Is it fortunate?’

Cedric, who is currently detained in Fitzroy, has the most outstanding Tuning ability in this generation. Since Adrian also knew that fact, there seemed to be a high possibility that he would save that child first, who had the highest value.

Thinking like that made her feel relieved, but on the other hand, she couldn’t help but smile bitterly at how pathetic her own misunderstanding was.

‘That man had calculated everything.’

Of course.

There was no way he would have turned Fitzroy into an enemy with pure intentions, for her sake.

It was like he drove a wedge, concluding that she had been foolishly deceived.

Although he had put on the mask of Millay, his kind tone and actions made her mistakenly think for a moment that he might like her, which made her feel embarrassed.

“Will you accept my proposal?”

Hearing those words made her flustered but also made her heart flutter.

At the same time, she felt guilty.

Wondering if it was okay to like him when she still couldn’t forget Adrian.

But it was all just empty talk.

How ridiculous must she have looked to him?

However, Adrian had the right to use her feelings. Since he also had his feelings used by her, she thought it was an appropriate price to pay.

No problem.

It would be trivial to Adrian as well. Cold words flowed out from him.

“Even if you’re just a half, I judged that it was meaningful enough that not all of Wessex was taken from you.”

He was talking about political symbolism. They were words that objectified Layla, but it was an insult she would have to endure routinely from now on.

Therefore, Layla tried to brush it off as if it was nothing and asked about what she was curious about.

“How serious is your current condition?”

For a moment, the supply-type Tuning artifact she had bought before came to mind, but she soon realized that it wasn’t a very realistic alternative.

Before boarding the Fitzroy ship, her luggage was taken by the Ottilie side. According to Adrian’s orders, all the items on that ship were seized, so it might be somewhere inside this ship, but Layla was in no shape to look for it now.

And in fact, for an ability user of Adrian’s level, if the rebound had already started, a supply-type artifact would be completely useless.

Although she didn’t know exactly what his condition was before boarding the ship, it was inferred that he was to the extent of being unable to move freely, so all the more so.

Fortunately, Adrian didn’t seem to be in a hurry.

“I still have some leeway. It’s getting better when I rest, so it might naturally recover someday.”

Of course, from Adrian’s perspective, this was also a lie.

Adrian was currently in a state where recovery was impossible with the power of nature. The two instances of fainting were like warnings from his body.

However, even Adrian himself did not know why he was telling such a lie.

‘She probably won’t care much.’

Because she no longer had any feelings for him.

‘Or is it because I don’t want to confirm the fact that she doesn’t care?’

In fact, he didn’t want her half-hearted sympathy either.

“But you never know when it might be needed. I have quite a lot of things to do.”

When he returned to Hakin, his father would try to send him here and there again. Since Layla would be accompanying him, it might become even worse than before.

Moreover, since the process of saving Layla was quite intense, there was a high probability that Isabella would start a serious fight.

However, Isabella was not an easy opponent to ignore.

As Adrian unconsciously hardened his expression, foreseeing that protecting Layla would become increasingly difficult in the future, Layla’s answer annoyed him again.

“Yes, I understand.”

“…..What do you understand?”

When he asked anxiously, Layla rambled on with her own story as expected.

“I was wondering why Your Highness tried to save me, but it has been explained.”

“……”

Why does he feel so bad when he hears such words after making her misunderstand?

That’s why.

“But there is no part where I can directly help you. Because I don’t have Tuning ability.”

It was when Adrian began to change his mind.