“Um… Your Highness? You’re too close.”

Reniel said with a bright smile. Only then did Thanasis realize what he had just done.

By the way, she seemed to be just afraid despite him being so close.

Wanting to get closer, yet thinking that if he got any closer now he might never be able to get close again, he quietly backed away.

“…I was checking if you were listening to me properly.”

“Do I look that absentminded?”

“Yes.”

He looked into her eyes. Her clear, sparkling purple eyes were dazzling.

There was no way they could be hazy. Rather, they looked as clear as an amethyst submerged in still water.

“I see. But I’ve been hearing that a lot lately. I used to always get praised for being quick and sharp.”

That was true. When Reniel was a regular maid, that was why the head maid and deputy head maid hated her.

Unlike other servants, she was very clever and quick-witted. She never made mistakes in her maid duties.

Of course, this was possible because she was a big coward.

She was afraid of being scolded, and so scared of making mistakes that she worked with extreme caution multiple times.

Even cleaning the stairs, she put her heart and soul into it.

Perhaps that’s why it was unusual for her to hear such words.

The head maid imprisoned underground may have hated her, but the previous retired head maid had adored Reniel.

She was good at her job and perceptive, so she became a regular maid much faster than other apprentice maids.

Reniel knew she was quite good at her job. But she had a chronic problem of not paying much attention to people.

That made it difficult for her to form deep relationships with those around her.

She was somewhat indifferent to others, claiming reality was too busy, which could seem arrogant.

And in reality, it was also difficult for her to get close to others.

She wasn’t really a man, but she couldn’t hide her feminine nature either.

So she naturally chose to keep an appropriate distance from people she couldn’t get close to.

“Anyway, Your Highness needs to learn how to control your emotions.”

Reniel said this and looked towards the door. She had left it slightly open when entering earlier, so she would know right away if Ianathas came.

If he found out that Thanasis and herself were plotting something.

She knew that this time, Ianathas would kill her without hesitation. If caught, he would tell Felix without any regrets.

“How exactly should I do that?”

Thanasis thought it might be difficult to control his emotions due to his chronic side effects.

But lately, he hadn’t been feeling any pain or side effects from magic whenever she touched him.

So he thought he should try as she suggested.

And above all, he quite liked hearing her focus on him as she spoke. He hadn’t realized her voice was this sweet when she was a man.

But now that she had become a woman, her voice seemed to travel down his ears and beat together with his heart like shards of broken pottery.

“When you get angry, control your anger to some degree. Maintain the angry state but without going berserk.”

Reniel said this while recalling the original story.

However, the Thanasis in the original never managed to control his anger. In the end, to the point of burning even himself.

“I… I’m not good at that. When I get angry, it’s hard to control. From the moment I get angry, flames start in my chest, and I don’t think I can extinguish them.”

“Then how about suppressing it with sadness?”

“I don’t think there’s any sadness that can overcome anger yet.”

Thanasis tried to recall if there was anything sad enough to subdue the explosive anger that boiled up in him.

When he tried to think about it, nothing particular came to mind. There were many unpleasant things that made him angry, but…

“Then how about joy?”

“None.”

This time, Thanasis concluded quite easily.

“Hmm, then what could there be? Not joy, not sadness.”

“How about training instead?”

“Training?”

“Like how knights train. For example, making certain movements to prepare to strike an opponent. If you train until your body reacts first, it should be possible.”

Thanasis felt a bit proud when she nodded without doubting his words.

“Ah, come to think of it, I saw Sir Riaden doing that kind of training.”

“What kind of training was it?”

“When he heard a certain whistle sound, he would run at full speed, but the whistle sounds were different. The direction he ran changed depending on the sound. One short blast meant straight ahead, one long blast meant curved, two blasts meant turn around and run. That sort of thing.”

Reniel recalled what she had found interesting about the knights’ training as she spoke.

“…Who is Riaden?”

“He’s a knight I’ve become close with recently. He’s very big and has a jovial personality. And he laughs a lot. We had lunch together before and he gave me pudding.”

“What?”

Thanasis frowned involuntarily, thinking this knight he’d just learned about today seemed too close to her.

“Are you the kind of person who gives your heart away for some mere pudding?”

“Mere pudding? Pudding is a special treat that only comes out once a month.”

“If you go out with me, I’ll let you eat it all month long.”

“My goodness.”

Reniel’s eyes widened in amazement, though she wasn’t particularly enticed.

“…You don’t seem very happy?”

“Well, that’s something to think about after we get out of here first.”

She applied ointment to Thanasis’s body and put gauze on it. She had finished applying medicine to the wound on his chest as well.

“What about the bandage?”

Thanasis said this, expecting her to wrap the bandage around him as if embracing him.

Somehow, it seemed the method of controlling anger might not be too far off.

“I should wrap it for you.”

Reniel looked at Thanasis after properly attaching the gauze.

“So, Your Highness should also train to suppress your anger a bit when I make a certain gesture, right?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm, then if I do this with my hand.”

Reniel spread only her index finger as if warning a dog and wiggled it.

“Then, Your Highness shouldn’t get angry.”

Thanasis couldn’t help but laugh at her action.

“Will that be enough?”

“Of course. Like this?”

Now she spread her index and middle fingers together and wiggled them.

Then Thanasis grabbed her hand and bit her wrist.

“Ah…”

“Every time you spread your fingers, I’ll bite your hand. Then I can divert my attention elsewhere, so I should be able to control my emotions.”

“You’re not just biting because you hate me, right?”

“That could be it too.”

As Thanasis bit her wrist, he felt the murky magic in his body being purified instantly.

Perhaps because of that, he sighed contentedly and gently gnawed on her wrist.

“I think it’ll leave a mark.”

Fortunately it didn’t hurt, but Reniel was a bit worried about marks being left.

“Bear with it.”

“Does it seem to be working?”

“Very much.”

Thanasis said this and then removed his lips.

Soon after, Reniel spread two fingers again, though suspiciously. Thanasis bit her wrist again.

“Do you think you’ll get used to it if we do this every time I come?”

“Probably.”

Then she picked up the bandage as he let go of biting.

Thanasis bit her wrist several times while she treated him. In reality, what he most wanted to bite was her ear.

He was very curious what expression she would make if he bit her ear.

But he didn’t do that. He decided to be satisfied with just her treating him by his side. At least until they left this place.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Just because.”

Thanasis was planning to make her a maid in his palace as soon as they left this place.

Once you enter the imperial palace, you can’t leave freely without your master’s permission anyway.

He thought of locking her in his room, imprinting on her, and then returning her to Duke Nirnberg.

Then she would be able to escape this squalid life and return to being a noble again.

While becoming the Crown Princess and purifying him.

Thanasis smiled thinking this. Not knowing at all that Reniel was thinking something completely different.

****

“Why did you go out?”

Reniel found it strange that Ianathas was interrogating her about the fact that she had visited the bustling streets earlier today for an errand.

She wondered how he knew everything even though she had gone secretly alone.

“Do you know where I went?”

“You stopped by the bank.”

“That’s right. Because today was my payday.”

Reniel smiled brightly as she looked at Ianathas. But he looked at her with a strange expression, not hiding his suspicious gaze.

“Why did you go to the bank?”

“To make a deposit. Money tends to get spent if you leave it out. It’s right to put it in the bank as you earn it, and only take out what you need.”

When Ianathas didn’t answer and continued to look at her suspiciously with an enigmatic smile, Reniel thought it would be better to be in the Duke’s bedroom, so she quickly opened the door and waved her hand.

“Then have a good night, Sir Ianathas.”

Then she closed the door and hurried to the bed.

“You’re late.”

“Well, I was doing what the master ordered me to do.”

Reniel answered like that and approached Felix familiarly.

He roughly put the documents he had been looking at on the bedside table. Then he remained still as Reniel naturally got into the bed.

“Aren’t you being too uninhibited?”

“Are you displeased?”

“No. Not yet. But I want to test how far it’s not displeasing.”

She didn’t understand his words at first, but then remained still as he pulled her into an embrace.

And that’s when Felix realized.

That his body was already accepting Reniel as a woman.

The reaction he felt the moment he embraced her was clearly that kind of thing.

He thought this must be possessiveness.

It was strange enough to see a man and feel he was a woman, but if you consider that he keeps her by his side even though she might be an assassin, he may need her quite a bit.

And he didn’t really dislike the brazen behavior she showed every time they fell asleep together in bed.

If it had been other servants, they would have long since received a letter of recommendation and been buried somewhere.

He could still tolerate Reniel’s brazenness. And he knew that his body’s reaction to feeling a man as a woman was lust.

And mixed with that lust was…

A possessiveness that he must keep her by his side, even if he had to kill her.

From this moment on, he decided that Reniel must remain by his side even if she dies.

Because he realized that he could only fall asleep with her there.

If Reniel, who could become his weakness, left him, it would be right to kill her.

But while she remains close by his side, there’s no need to treat her badly.