“So the Magic Tower will probably not get involved in this war either. Damn, I can’t believe they suddenly drafted you. They must have been in a real hurry. I was so shocked when I heard about the surprise attack.”

After their brief meeting at the last banquet, Nocturne was catching up with Dietrich whom he hadn’t seen in a long time.

Nocturne smiled as he mocked the emperor’s incompetence.

“How long will he keep giving in to threats over the succession of the duke title? The emperor won’t be able to refuse if the Delgado family pushes strongly anyway. He’s just delaying the inevitable.”

It was a dangerous conversation to have at a hunting tournament. But Nocturne was confident.

There were no nobles who didn’t know that the current emperor was a fool obsessed only with war.

What’s even more terrible is that the emperor’s son and first in line for succession, Crown Prince Damian, is a pathetic idiot who only cares about money and women.

It was an open secret that his daughter, Princess Ariana, was more compassionate and wise than the crown prince.

There were whispers that Princess Ariana should be enthroned as empress, but everyone was keeping quiet about it.

If the power-hungry emperor found out, it would weaken the princess’s position.

The emperor hoped that the aggressive and reckless crown prince who took after him would become the next emperor, rather than the intelligent and beautiful princess.

The more he did so, the more people’s faith in the emperor plummeted.

This hunting tournament was nothing more than a formal festival slathered with money to curry favor with the nobles.

It was a kind of political unity rally to show the nobles who swear allegiance to the imperial family every year that the emperor was still going strong.

Nocturne looked with contempt at the emperor sitting cross-legged on the golden throne under a golden tent adorned with an eagle emblem.

He clicked his tongue at the sight of foolish nobles fawning around him.

To Nocturne, who had no interest in power whatsoever, there was nothing more pathetic than this.

“Do they know that rope is rotten?”

“……”

Nocturne glanced at Dietrich, who had been silent for a while.

Dietrich was staring intently at something, which was unlike his personality to space out.

Following his gaze, Nocturne saw a woman tapping her leg under a large tree.

Jet-black hair and green eyes like a lush summer forest, rare to see in the empire.

‘Who is that woman?’

She was the woman he had met when he secretly went to Dietrich’s room while Dietrich was on a northern expedition.

What was her name again?

Ha…

Hai…

As Nocturne pondered, trying to recall the memory, he snapped his fingers.

“Heidi!”

At that, Dietrich whipped his head around to look at Nocturne.

Dietrich’s straight eyes narrowed.

“How do you know Heidi?”

He seemed surprised that Nocturne would mention Heidi’s name.

Nocturne hummed nonchalantly.

“I met her when I went to the Delgado mansion last time.”

“You came to the Delgado mansion without contacting me?”

“Hahaha. Since when did we need to contact each other to meet?”

“Nocturne Frey.”

Hearing the voice dripping with murderous intent, Nocturne awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

He had tried to brush it off with a joke, but it didn’t seem to be that kind of atmosphere.

Realizing that Dietrich was in a very unpleasant mood, he quickly revealed the truth.

“Actually, I went to tell you the results of looking into whether there was magic in the Delgado family’s treasured sword that you mentioned before. But you disappeared without a word!”

Nocturne pounded his chest and pouted exaggeratedly, feigning indignation.

However, Dietrich didn’t seem interested in the information about the sword he had asked about.

“So you met Heidi at the mansion then?”

“She came to your room? It was quite a fateful encounter.”

“Fate my ass.”

Dietrich gripped Harpe’s handle tightly.

Nocturne looked surprised at Dietrich’s rather intense expression.

Nocturne rubbed his arms as he eyed the man before him suspiciously, wondering if this really was Dietrich.

“What’s with this intense reaction? Are you really Dietrich Delgado?”

“If you’re going to talk nonsense, just leave. I’m bored to death as it is.”

The ice-cold tone and bored expression of utter tedium.

The beautiful face with an impassive expression – it was definitely Dietrich.

“Are you interested in that maid?”

Dietrich, who hadn’t even looked at Nocturne until now, turned his head to look at him.

He let out a scoffing laugh, as if he found it absurd.

“Don’t say such stupid things. Heidi is just…”

Dietrich trailed off and frowned.

‘Heidi is just what?’

The spirit that came from the family’s treasured sword he had finally discovered?

An assistant who could help him claim the duke title?

Or just a maid of the Delgado mansion?

Dietrich was confused. He had no idea how to explain it appropriately.

In the end, Dietrich decided to remain silent.

Nocturne, who had been waiting for an answer, fumed at Dietrich who had left his sentence unfinished.

“Speak up, speak up.”

“Never mind. It’s not like that anyway. She’s just a maid I know.”

He lightly ignored Nocturne’s muttering of ‘It doesn’t seem that way.’

Nocturne was always interested even in fleeting rumors from back-alley taverns.

Dietrich turned his gaze back to Heidi, who was standing under the shade with an extremely bored expression.

He didn’t realize it, but his eyes had been fixed on Heidi, refusing to look away.

She wiped the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead, perhaps from the heat, and fanned herself. Then she yawned widely and rubbed her eyes.

Fatigue was evident all over her pale face, as if she hadn’t gotten much sleep.

Although she didn’t show it due to her bright personality, it was clear that the job of a kitchen maid was not easy.

If only she had accepted the lady’s maid position, she would have been a bit more comfortable.

She had firmly refused, saying she couldn’t make things difficult for him.

[If I, who has no connections, become a lady’s maid thanks to you, your already bad reputation will get even worse!]

She always had something to say.

Saying his already bad reputation would get even worse.

Heidi fearlessly blurted out words that others wouldn’t dare utter.

‘Well, it’s not exactly wrong.’

He was well aware that the people of the Delgado mansion feared and avoided him.

But such things weren’t important to him.

In fact, he was half resigned to it. He knew himself well.

He had been that way since birth. He didn’t have the personality to flatter others to make a good impression, nor did he know how to speak warmly.

So he didn’t even try to fix the fierce reputation that had started from misunderstandings and grown out of control.

But Heidi was different.

She often nagged him, saying wouldn’t it be nice if he spoke warmly, and she even took the lead in trying to correct rumors, insisting that Young Master Dietrich wasn’t a scary person.

No one had ever asked her to do so.

Of course, she had made a contract to help him become duke. But as always, he didn’t have high expectations of others.

Great expectations are always followed by even greater disappointments.

“Oh? But is Young Master Yurian that close with Heidi too?”

Dietrich snapped out of his thoughts at Nocturne’s puzzled words.

He looked back in Heidi’s direction at Nocturne’s words and sighed in displeasure.

“Well, they seem somewhat close.”

“She even won over Young Master Yurian. That maid must have some devilish charm, huh?”

“She does tend to be quite sociable.”

“Well, when I met her last time, she did seem to have a very bright personality. She was a bit quirky too. Is it because she’s a maid?”

Heidi, who had smiled brightly at Yurian, could be seen saying something to the child.

Then she bowed her head in greeting to the girl standing where Yurian had run from.

Dietrich recognized the girl at a glance.

‘The young lady of Count Everett.’

Charlotte Everett, the youngest daughter of the Everett family, whom the duchess had recently picked as a match for Yurian.

News had spread that diamonds had been discovered in the large mine in the west belonging to the Everett family a few years ago.

The duchess had moved quickly to make an implicit deal.

That’s how noble marriages are.

Even the young Yurian couldn’t escape this rule unique to noble society.

Especially since the duchess wouldn’t let Yurian make a useless engagement.

But Yurian didn’t seem to have opened his heart to the Everett young lady yet.

That fact was quite fortunate for Dietrich.

Since Yurian and Charlotte hadn’t made their debut in society yet, the official engagement announcement was being delayed.

However, if the Delgado family and Everett family were to join forces.

If the ancient swordsman family Delgado were to unite with the nouveau riche Everett family, it would become very troublesome for Dietrich to become duke.

It was obvious that the elder council members of the branch family, who were sucking money like fleas relying on the Delgado name, would insist that Yurian, who had made allies of a family that would pour money into the Delgado family, should be given the duke title.

The Everett family would be desperate to form an alliance through marriage with the Delgado family, which had the power to overturn the empire.

If that happened, establishing a foothold within the empire would become a very easy task.

Dietrich stared intently at the Everett family’s young lady.

Affection for Yurian was flowing from the girl’s eyes.

However, Yurian didn’t even glance at Charlotte Everett, and was just holding Heidi’s hand tightly.

It was clear that Yurian was leaning on Heidi.

If it were the usual Dietrich, he might have thought to keep Heidi as an element to interfere with Yurian and Charlotte’s relationship.

However, he found Heidi’s brightly smiling face at Yurian irritating to the point of annoyance.