Lucas glared at Retrochika’s hideous face.

“So you won’t do it?”

“I cannot. Our contract was until the fall of Kanta, wasn’t it? Heheheh. Heh. Now there’s nothing left between His Highness the Crown Prince and me. Ah, there is one thing. I won’t do anything to harm the Crown Prince. I’m being very careful about that, so rest assured.”

The strange laughter was grating. But since this wasn’t someone he could treat carelessly, Lucas suppressed his displeasure and spoke soothingly.

“Don’t say that, think about it again. I’m telling you I’ll give you the territory surrounding your tower right now.”

“Hehe. Heh. Even if you gave me Gania, I wouldn’t change my mind. To go against Grand Duke Ratean… I don’t want to fight that man.”

“Didn’t you say you were the greatest black magician? And you’re saying you can’t kill one Grand Duke Ratean?”

“If I had to kill him, I could. If I only had to face Grand Duke Ratean alone, I might be able to win if I was prepared to lose an arm. But Grand Duke Ratean has five wings, doesn’t he? I can’t face all of them alone.”

“I’ll have my knights deal with the five wings…”

“Heheheh. Heh! Hahaha!”

Retrochika laughed, holding his stomach. Ignoring Lucas’s increasingly distorted face, Retrochika suddenly stopped laughing and said.

“Your Highness. Surely you don’t seriously believe your knights would be a match for the five wings? Hahaha. That’s too foolish a joke. Heheheh.”

“Are you mocking me and my knights now!”

“I’m not mocking, I’m telling you the reality. If he was someone who could be killed with the flick of a finger, why would the Empire have overlooked his arrogant behavior until now? He’s someone even the Empire can’t touch carelessly. Do you understand?”

Lucas gritted his teeth.

Floyd, once treated as a nuisance in this Robua palace, was now out of reach. Realizing the truth he had tried to ignore and dismiss, he could not contain his boiling anger.

But even the black magician he had trusted was being cautious, so there was no way. It seemed he would have to find another way to deal with Floyd, who was a thorn in his side.

“Then at least solve the Crown Princess issue. You should be able to find out whose child is in that belly, right?”

“Hehe. Heheheh. I’m grateful that you think so highly of me, but it’s impossible. What’s in there is a new life, and my power is incompatible with life that’s about to see the light.”

“Then what on earth can you do!”

Lucas could no longer hold back and shouted. Watching Lucas with strange eyes, Retrochika said.

“I wonder why? Why is Your Highness being so rude to me? I received the tower as per our contract and that settled our account. Is it because you believe in the soul contract we made, that you’re being so rude to me?”

Only after hearing the eerie voice did Lucas come to his senses. Retrochika was not Lucas’s subordinate.

Shouting when he should be coaxing and pleading. Lucas clenched his fist, then relaxed it and asked in a much softer voice.

“Then what should I do for you to grant my request? What do you need?”

“Well.”

Retrochika looked Lucas up and down, laughing unpleasantly, hehe, heheheh. Wherever Retrochika’s gaze touched, it felt like spiders were crawling.

For a moment, Retrochika’s eyes seemed to glow red, sending a chill down Lucas’s spine.

“Right now, there’s nothing the Crown Prince can do for me. Solve it yourself. You are the Crown Prince of a country after all.”

Leaving those words, Retrochika disappeared. Lucas called out for a while, asking where he went and to come back, but Retrochika did not reappear.

Realizing he had completely left, Lucas sank onto the bed in despair.

It was a complete mess. Everything was imperfect.

‘Why did it turn out like this?’

Just a year ago, everything was perfect. Though news of Floyd’s achievements occasionally made him sick, Floyd was far away in the south and couldn’t have much influence.

As the Crown Prince of Gania Kingdom, he spent elegant and peaceful times being invited to various parties and occasionally visiting salons. Elise was beautiful and lovely, and the King and Queen were affectionate.

The daily life that flowed as gently as a river on a good day suddenly shattered and collapsed completely.

When did it start?

‘From Kanta.’

Everything changed from the moment he saw Roxiana alive in front of the well at Ider Palace.

People blamed Lucas, even Kasar who had shown some respect now openly showed contempt, and the King raised his voice and got angry at Lucas every day.

At least when he found out Elise was pregnant with his child, he thought he should endure the world’s criticism well for the child’s sake.

‘It might not be my child?’

Elise looked wronged, but once doubt sprouted, it didn’t go away. Elise’s tears, which would have seemed pitiful and sad at other times, were no longer pitiable. They were detestable and annoying.

This is all because of Floyd. All this misfortune happened because Floyd saved Roxiana.

−”Ah, it might have been too big for the Crown Prince.”

As he remembered Floyd’s mocking words while holding Roxiana’s slender waist, Lucas grabbed the flower vase next to him and threw it at the wall. The vase broke with a loud noise, but it didn’t make him feel any better.

Roxiana in Floyd’s arms looked truly small and lovely. Her flowing light blonde hair, round forehead, and fair, fine skin were beautiful.

Her understated dress made Roxiana’s face look even more radiant, and her consistently quiet and slow movements were graceful, befitting someone who had learned royal etiquette from childhood.

She was different from Elise. Her behavior, the smile on her lips, even the way she handled her gaze, everything was different.

Why didn’t he realize it then?

When he was her fiancé, her quietness only seemed boring. He found her elegant attitude and quiet way of speaking frustrating. Sometimes when there were conflicts of opinion, her stubborn refusal to yield her views made him angry.

That’s why he was drawn to Elise.

Her soft-spoken manner and cute behavior, her attitude of following Lucas’s words as if they were divine commands. All of that was lovely and wondrous.

He didn’t know he would regret that choice so much now.

If he had known this would happen, he should have just married when Engis Brisa became a candidate for Crown Princess. If he had married her, things wouldn’t have gotten this bad. If he had added the power of the Brisa marquis family, he could have quickly restored the fallen honor of the Pelur royal family.

No, if he had just married Roxiana from the beginning without betraying the Kingdom of Kanta.

‘We would have been happy without any problems.’

The honor of the Pelur royal family falling to the ground.

Being shunned even by his close associates for making the daughter of an annihilated family the Crown Princess.

Rumors circulating that the child the Crown Princess is pregnant with is not his child.

Feeling jealous of Floyd who has Roxiana.

None of it would have happened.

But things had already happened and there was no way to turn back time. The black magician who had helped was not on his side, and Elise, whom he thought was on his side, had become a headache.

He was at his wit’s end.

+++

Elise desperately stared at Retrochika. His toad-like face and dark lips were disgusting, but without showing such feelings, she just looked at him as if he was the only one she could trust.

“There is a way… Heheh. Hehehe.”

Elise’s face brightened.

“Then…? Can you do it? Can you protect this child?”

“I can save Your Highness and the child’s lives. But Your Highness won’t be able to be the child’s mother.”

“I can’t be this child’s mother… Why…? Ca-can’t you just change this child’s appearance with magic?”

“I could change it. But using black magic on a young child causes them to be affected by magical energy and their actual appearance changes. They become distorted and hideous. Like me.”

Elise swallowed hard.

“Of course, even that hideous face can be made beautiful with black magic… But as time passes, the body becomes immune to black magic, so magic will need to be cast more frequently. Let’s see…”

Retrochika moved his fingers to count and continued.

“Around 18 years old, a black magician would need to stay with them all day, constantly injecting magical energy to maintain their appearance. Heheheh. Heh. Heh.”

She didn’t want that.

She couldn’t let her child worry about a hideous appearance at an age when they should be most beautiful. She didn’t want them to live with a face like Retrochika’s.

“Let’s go with the original plan. If the child doesn’t resemble the Crown Prince after birth, you can get rid of it. If you prepare a newborn’s corpse in advance, Bucks will use black magic to change that child’s hair to blonde.”

Originally, the plan was to give birth through a pre-bribed doctor, and if the child didn’t resemble Lucas at all, switch it with another child. Sending away her own child would be heartbreaking, but it was the only way to save both the child and herself.

She had already identified several women who were pregnant around the same time. Ranian would steal a child born on the same day as Elise, or a day or two earlier.

But that plan fell apart when the royal doctors intervened. The royal doctors would never be co-opted by Elise no matter what.