“Hugrey, let’s go out.”

It was a song he knew at least. He still wasn’t confident, but if the young boy Hugrey Ulpaz couldn’t show the old man that he had become a mature adult alpha male dancing with his partner, he might have felt heavy-hearted for a while. Actually, seeing the old man’s face wrinkled with satisfaction made his heavy heart feel a little lighter.

“Will it be okay? You don’t have to dance.”

The duke looked at her face with concern.

“If I keep stepping on your feet, lift me up and dance with me.”

Thinking about stepping on the duke’s feet with these high heels made her dizzy. It would be better to utilize the duke’s well-developed arm muscles.

“To just cling to me, this dance keeps changing partners.”

“……”

It was an unexpected surprise. In an instant, the light heart became heavy enough to drag.

“If it’s good news for you, this song has quite a lot of sets.”

A lot! How is that good! Whatever it was, a lot was not good!

“Ah, no! Let’s go out for the next song.”

Chloe abruptly stopped, her confidence plummeting.

“This is the easiest song, though?”

The duke tilted his head to one side and looked at Chloe as if surprised.

“You said there are many, so doesn’t that mean there’s a lot to memorize?”

“No, if it’s one set until a song ends, that’s the most difficult. Since moves are gathered to make a set, the more sets there are, the more the same moves are repeated within one song.”

“Ah……”

She finally remembered the explanation she had heard from her mother.

“Let’s go!”

Before meeting the next partner after parting with the duke, she had to either remember or learn a full set.

“You’re good.”

The duke said, standing with both hands outstretched and clasped together. Since it was a position where a man and a woman were facing each other, the duke’s very small voice would only be heard by Chloe.

“I’ll add dancing. To the things I’m good at.”

Chloe also mumbled in a voice that only the duke could hear.

“Not ‘add dancing’ but ‘dancing is’.”

The duke said with a chuckle.

‘He’s saying that because he hasn’t seen me climb trees yet. Just wait until I become a tiger.’

Chloe glared at the duke, but he just shrugged his shoulders brazenly.

“See you later, Chloe.”

At the duke’s words, Chloe came to her senses. The duke was moving forward. It was time to change partners.

The partners changed several times. Chloe, who gave a slight nod to the man in front of her, began to take steps that became familiar after repeating the dance many times.

Huh? Suddenly she realized that the duke was nowhere to be seen. He should have been visible right away, being a head taller than others, but strangely, he was not seen at the front end where he should have been.

It was a rule not to leave the line in the middle of the dance because the total number of partners would not match if you dropped out in the middle of the song. But now there was no problem with the number of partners. So if the duke was gone, it meant that the woman who was the duke’s partner had also disappeared.

Thinking it was strange that the duke had disappeared, it was the moment when she went under the man’s raised arm to make a turn and moved to a position where the man and woman stood side by side.

“Ah!”

Chloe let out a small scream. Somehow, Chloe’s knee buckled and at the same time, her ankle in high heels twisted.

“Are you alright?”

Chloe was surprised once more, even in the midst of her aching ankle. Because the man had asked in Tigrian. She had no idea he was Tigrian as there was no need to talk even when dancing together…

The thought that she had unusually encountered many Tigrians today flashed by.

Well, there were people from Elion, Tigris, and even the surrounding small kingdoms at this banquet hall. It was understandable that many aristocrats from Tigris, the second strongest and largest country after Elion, had come.

“Come this way.”

The man supported Chloe and left the dance hall.

“Would you like to go over there and rest for a bit?”

In the direction the man pointed, there was a long couch. Other couches already had people sitting on them. Perhaps only that couch next to the balcony was empty.

“Yes.”

Chloe limped, placing one hand on the man’s arm as she moved. But her gaze was still looking around the dance hall and banquet hall. She was concerned about why the duke was still nowhere to be seen.

With her ankle injured, she wanted to go to the duke if she saw him.

It seemed difficult to find him easily with so many people.

Sitting on the couch seemed to make her ankle hurt more. She didn’t understand why her knee had buckled at that moment. It felt like someone had hit her from behind for a moment. But at the moment her knee buckled, she was distracted looking for the duke and had no time to properly look around.

“May I take a look at your ankle for a moment?”

The man asked.

“Ah…! No, it’s alright.”

“Then how about taking off your shoes for a bit?”

“Ah, yes. I should do that.”

Chloe bent her body, slightly lifted her dress, and grabbed the back of the shoe.

‘……’

Chloe, who was about to take off her shoe, suddenly felt strange.

‘Come to think of it, this man thinks it’s very natural for me to speak Tigrian?’

She had been surprised when the man spoke in Tigrian. After all, this was the Elion Empire and Tigrian was a foreign language.

Perhaps he naturally thought I was from his country since it was a banquet where various people gathered?

At the sudden question that arose, she took off her shoes, put them on the floor, and was about to lift her upper body.

“Hmm.”

A damp cloth covered her face.

‘What? This is……’

She thought there was a strange smell, and soon after, she lost consciousness.

From the moment Hugrey sent Chloe to another male partner, he regretted being pushed by Viscount Watts’ stubbornness to go out and dance with Chloe. Vowing never to dance this damn waltz again, he kept following Chloe with his eyes.

But she was so immersed in the dance that it was hard to believe she was the one who said she wouldn’t dance. Without even giving Hugrey a glance, she smiled so prettily at the men. Every time the man’s hand wrapped around her waist, it felt like his throat was being strangled.

Now four. Just four more partner changes and this damn waltz would be over. Then he vowed to take that woman out of this imperial palace immediately, when the female partner said something to him.

“……?”

Hugrey looked at the woman’s face for the first time.

He had seen this woman somewhere before, but where.

“Ulpaz ÆÖæöñ.”

The woman’s pronunciation of his name was strange.

Ah! She seemed to be the Tigrian woman who had come to him earlier and asked him to dance.

This woman had been dancing all along too.

“ÑúſtÛÊû.”

The woman kept saying something, something. It was Tigrian, so he couldn’t understand.

“Æææçýþÿ Staxton ÎîëüÐfffflst Chloe Þþÿ¿øó.”

Hugrey’s brow furrowed. It was Tigrian that he couldn’t understand, but he heard people’s names clearly.

What was this woman saying now? Staxton was the Tigrian king, and Chloe?

Why were those two names coming out of this woman’s mouth? He was puzzled, and for a moment, his chest felt chilly. His eyes instinctively turned to Chloe, who was now far away from him, dancing.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Chloe was still holding someone’s hand and dancing enthusiastically. She was dancing so hard that even her face was flushed.

The uneasiness that had suddenly struck him due to the uncanny correlation of the two names that came out of the dancing woman’s mouth disappeared as he saw Chloe’s face. Instead, suspicion and anger surged towards the woman in front of him who kept talking to him.

‘What the hell is this woman!’

This woman, who mentioned the names of Staxton and Chloe together, was definitely suspicious.

Moreover, this woman was using Tigrian. She was a woman who was suspicious in every way. The moment their palms met, he snatched the woman’s wrist and left the line.

It seemed better for Chloe not to see him dragging this woman away. He took the woman behind a pillar at the edge of the hall.

“Who are you! Who are you? What’s your relationship with Staxton? Why did you talk about Chloe Liden!”

He growled at the woman who was already trembling.

“óÃstÜÝßÿ¿Ð.”

The woman was still only speaking in Tigrian.

No matter how he thought about it, it was suspicious. What should he do?

He thought of Reina Tilbeth, who could speak Tigrian. It was because he couldn’t have the woman’s words about Staxton translated to Chloe. He looked around the hall again to find Reina Tilbeth, still holding the woman’s wrist in case she tried to run away somewhere.

The woman who had come to him without being called earlier was nowhere to be seen now. Remembering that she had also gone out to dance, he threw his gaze back to the dance hall, but Reina Tilbeth wasn’t there either.

‘……!’

Suddenly his eyes widened. Chloe was not in the dance hall that he had looked around to find Reina Tilbeth.

“Chloe.”

Chloe’s name flowed from his mouth without him realizing it, and at that moment, he let go of the Tigrian woman’s hand and ran to the dance hall. But Chloe was nowhere to be seen.