“Hugrey Ulpaz, I greet Your Majesty the Emperor. My knights and I have come to aid in the war to protect the territory of the Ellaion Empire. We are a bit late, but being welcomed like this makes the long journey worthwhile.”

Instantly dismounting from his horse, Duke Ulpaz spoke.

“It would have been more welcome if only you had come……”

Calcus’s gaze was fixed unmoving on Chloe, who was now dismounting with the Duke’s help.

“For welcoming a supporting knight order, you seem to be staring too intently at my woman.”

Hugrey Ulpaz, who had been acting formally according to etiquette until now, spoke blatantly with a crooked tone.

“Duke Ulpaz! First of all, I’m grateful you came as reinforcements. But what were you thinking, bringing a woman to the battlefield? Isn’t she extremely precious to you? Why on earth did you bring such a woman to the front lines……”

Calcus finally couldn’t hold back and started to burst out. However, before he could finish venting his anger,

“I didn’t bring her here of my own will.”

The Duke cut off the Emperor’s words stiffly.

“Chloe Ulpaz, I greet Your Majesty the Emperor.”

Immediately, Chloe also stepped forward between Calcus and the Duke and greeted him.

“Chloe, this is no place for you to…… What? What did you say?”

Calcus suddenly felt his mind go blank. What did he just hear, what was it…….

“Don’t call my wife like that. Chloe…… She is the Duchess Ulpaz. Please show proper respect.”

“Ulpaz……”

So I heard correctly.

When Chloe had already bitten his neck, he felt as if his heart had been bitten instead of his neck. And though he thought that heart, torn apart then, would no longer feel pain, it seemed this heart could still feel pain.

“Yes, Your Majesty. Hugrey and I held our wedding ceremony at the Duke’s residence before coming here. That’s why our departure was a bit delayed.”

Calcus tried to relax his expression, but it wasn’t easy at all. The spasms on his face would all be visible to that wolf’s sharp eyes.

“I… I see.”

He wasn’t sure what he was agreeing to, or what he was answering. But it must not have been an awkward response, as Chloe smiled slightly and bowed her head.

“So, my wife has come to meet Your Majesty.”

At the Duke’s words, Calcus finally came to his senses. Chloe had already become the wife of Duke Ulpaz, so why did she come all the way to this battlefield to see him? He silently looked at the Duke, demanding an answer.

“We need the Emperor’s approval.”

“Ah……”

He finally understood the situation. In the Ellaion Empire, for a marriage between nobles to have legal effect, it needed the Emperor’s approval. The Emperor’s approval was merely a formality, as the nobles’ power was so strong that the Emperor only ruled the imperial territory in name. That’s why there were often cases like this where they held the wedding ceremony first. But still, it was true that his approval was needed for their marriage to be legally valid.

‘I don’t want to give it. Such approval, I don’t want to give it until I die.’

“Since the approval is just a formality, I didn’t particularly need to receive it, but my wife insisted on meeting Your Majesty in person to receive approval, so we ended up coming together to this battlefield.”

Duke Hugrey Ulpaz said annoyingly, as if singing a song. Calcus felt like his stiffly frozen heart was shattering to pieces.

Why did it feel like he had already lost, when the war hadn’t even begun? Chloe…… Duchess Chloe Ulpaz.

He knew. That she was the Duke’s woman, and that she would eventually become his wife. But actually hearing that they were married was far more horrifying than he had imagined.

“It’s my first time meeting you as the Emperor.”

Charlotte Liden, who had approached at some point, also greeted him. He had only been in contact with her through letters since last seeing her in Beurgen. Just as in the letters, when faced with Charlotte’s respectful attitude towards the Emperor, clearly different from when she was treated as Chloe’s friend, his shattered heart ached to a point beyond repair.

“Yes, my lady. Have you been well?”

Calcus barely gathered his wits and replied.

“Yes, all thanks to Your Majesty. I came here as well, hoping to be of help in the war.”

At Charlotte Liden’s words, Calcus finally regained his senses completely. As he had expected, about 300 knights had come leading their horses. Of course, all the knights were men. The first problem to solve was that Charlotte Liden and Chloe Li… Ulpaz had come as well. Since it was a dangerous place, they needed to be sent back immediately.

“I appreciate you coming like this, but this is a battlefield. Battles will break out as soon as tomorrow. This is no place for women, so I request that you return immediately. If it’s difficult to leave right away, please rest for about an hour and then depart at once. That includes you, madam, and you, Duchess.”

“Your Majesty, I apologize, but we didn’t come all this long way just to turn back immediately.”

Charlotte Liden said firmly.

Calcus vividly remembered the day he first met Charlotte Liden.

That face that froze as soon as she saw him. She recognized at a glance that he was a lion beastkin. Cold and strict, she continued to treat him with coldness until she was certain that Calcus had completely severed ties with the imperial family and would not drag Chloe into the life of beastkin.

Although she herself was a beastkin, she seemed to hate the beastkin race itself, and even kept the fact that Chloe was a beastkin a secret from him. Well, it was natural since she kept it a secret from Chloe and Clyne as well. That’s why he sometimes suspected that Chloe might be a beastkin too, but he could only bury his suspicions due to Charlotte’s stubborn silence.

However, after the always cold Charlotte finally trusted and accepted him, she showed him warm affection and concern enough to substitute for the mother he had to live apart from for many years. As if trying to embrace and comfort a lion cub pushed out of the power struggle. She must have felt sympathy for him, who was in the same situation as her.

That woman who had been so warm was now standing before him with the coldest and stiffest face he had ever seen from her. Wrapped in the same chilliness as when she hated him. Only, he could tell that that icy aura was not due to hatred towards him, but because of an uncontrollable anger towards someone else.

‘Tuscan Staxton. She came because of the King of Tigrium.’

Thinking of the hatred and resentment Charlotte Liden must have felt, he seemed to understand why she had come all the way here, and even why Chloe had come.

But…….

“Duke Ulpaz, I have no intention of involving women in this war. If you came to provide support, send your mother-in-law and wife back.”

No matter how much he understood their feelings, Calcus could not put them in danger. Although they no longer had any connection to him, they were still the most precious people to him.

Moreover, aren’t they the women that Tuscan Staxton, who has set up camp on the opposite side of that plain, is persistently targeting?

“If I could send them back, I wouldn’t have come with them in the first place. If Your Majesty can send them back, please do so.”

Calcus finally realized why Duke Ulpaz had done this nonsensical thing. Because he could see the sincerity that flashed across the Duke’s face as he asked to send them back.

So that Duke dislikes this situation quite a bit too. Well, the one who loves more is the weaker one. So that Duke bastard was weak enough to have to bring his woman to the battlefield.

Strangely, the anger that had surged upon seeing Chloe appear on the battlefield subsided a little. Although Chloe could never have been his woman anyway, the fact that she wasn’t an easy woman for that wolf bastard either made him feel a little pleased. Even while knowing it was a childish feeling, what could he do, if it comforted him even a little like this.

“How long are you going to keep my knight order standing here? Please designate a place where my knights can set up their tents. They need to sleep well to kill well starting tomorrow morning, don’t they?”

Kill well, he says. It was a light tone as if they had come to play a game.

“Set up on the left rear flank. And Duke, come to my tent so we can talk.”

“Very well. I’ll set up tents for my wife and mother-in-law first, then come to Your Majesty’s tent.”

Hugrey decided the order on his own and started heading to his position. Calcus could only blankly watch his actions.

Finally, seeing Hugrey Ulpaz’s solid and large body moving away, it sank in that reinforcements, and powerful wings even stronger than the main force, had joined.

If it goes like this, the most ideal deployment becomes possible. With the infantry at the center, the imperial knights and Ulpaz knights can be placed on the left and right wings. Both wings have been secured stably.

Although it’s absurd that Chloe and Charlotte Liden came as well, since they can’t be forcibly sent back, he needed to discuss the tactics to use in tomorrow’s war with the Duke for now. Whether he had experience or not, they had to win the war no matter what, but now that Chloe and Lady Charlotte had come too, they had to achieve a stable victory even more.

As soon as Hugrey entered the Emperor’s tent, Calcus sprang to his feet.

“Why on earth did you bring Chloe?”

As expected, without eyes to see, the Emperor threw away all courtesy. Still, since it was the battlefield, I was planning to show respect to the Emperor as the Commander-in-Chief, but if he acts like that, there’s no help for it.

“I thought I explained everything earlier.”

Hugrey wasn’t at all pleased about bringing Chloe either, but why was this guy jumping around like that?