Gilrod paced the room like a madman. The doctor said he should mind his blood pressure given his age, but he couldn’t stay still with the heat rising inside him.

“Siana, that crazy thing… That crazy thing…”

Walking around the room with hurried and irregular steps, Gilrod kept calling out his daughter’s name. It was a name he had called more times since being confined to his residence than in the twenty years before.

Because of that daughter, he had lost part of his territory. That land, which originally belonged to the House of Lerk, was confiscated after the king ordered Siana’s property to be returned to the queen.

That wasn’t the only problem that had arisen. The news that reached him while under house arrest was something he hadn’t anticipated.

“Anika Rohos has offered her land to the queen.”

And they said there was no one opposing it.

Although Rohos was one of the current king’s factions, it was surprising news because he hadn’t thought a lord would do such a crazy thing.

Gilrod realized that the king had planned all of this deliberately. Before making Siana lie, he must have agreed in advance to receive the territory.

The stupid new Rohos lord would have readily complied with the king’s demands.

Taeran Rohos wouldn’t have done such a stupid thing. Gilrod recalled the former lord who was arrogant and greedy but not stupid. While the father was annoying due to his greed, the girl who hastily took his place after his sudden death was annoying due to her stupidity.

The problem was that this stupidity was becoming an obstacle in his path.

While informing him that Anika Rohos had given half of her territory to the queen, his advisor said,

“Starting from this harvest season, there will be a surplus of grain.”

“Then we must look for other markets.”

So Gilrod racked his brain for days, but couldn’t come up with a suitable plan.

No matter where he sold the grain, it wouldn’t generate as much profit as when he had monopolized the market in northern Aglante. Other places already had lords monopolizing their markets.

Of course, the northern kingdom of Brinwell was always short on grain, but it wasn’t a good place to sell.

After the coup, with Queen Isde’s death and the dissolution of the southern Aglante’s collection rights, Brinwell’s economy temporarily stagnated. Seeking profit in such a situation would incur the hatred of the Brinwell king.

Whenever he realized how unfavorable his situation was, Gilrod recalled the face of his ungrateful daughter.

This was all because of that damned Siana. That thing dared to ignore the grace of her upbringing and stab her father in the back, leading to this situation.

If he could have his way, he would grab that girl by the hair and drag her here right now, but for now, he had to be careful with his actions. The king was so angry that it would take at least a month or two for that anger to subside.

By then, he could offer tribute to the queen and ask for the house arrest to be lifted.

The royal family would have no choice but to accept what he said. If they didn’t, he would demand a trial, claiming this punishment was unjust, so they had no choice.

According to Edegrun’s laws, if an elder family requested a trial, the royal family had to accept it unconditionally.

And if a trial were held, he would definitely have the advantage. The jury of lords were all his close associates.

Nevertheless, the reason Gilrod didn’t request a trial was simple.

Trials could only be requested every three years. In other words, once requested, there would be no opportunity for three years.

So it was better to resolve issues that didn’t require a trial through other means.

It was then that a voice was heard from outside.

“My lord, I have something to report.”

It was the voice of his advisor. Gilrod replied with a voice roughened by his intense movements and emotions.

“Come in.”

“A letter has arrived from His Highness the Second Prince of Egelbaum.”

“What?”

The Second Prince of Egelbaum was not someone he had been close to originally. They had never exchanged letters either.

To begin with, the nobles of Edegrun did not associate closely with people from Egelbaum.

While southern Aglante was adjacent to the empire, the north was between Tesendot and Brinwell. Among them, the one close to Edegrun was Brinwell to the west.

Gilrod, who had territory in the west among the Edegrun nobles, had not turned his eyes elsewhere as much as he had allied with Brinwell.

So why would the Second Prince of Egelbaum write a letter to him?

Gilrod received the letter from his advisor and used a letter opener to remove the wax seal.

The letter was written in a suitably polite and courteous manner for social correspondence. The paper simply stated that he had written while visiting Edegrun and that it would be nice to keep in touch from now on.

Gilrod frowned at the lines of text that seemed to have a hidden intention, though not clearly revealed.

“Why did they say the Second Prince came to Edegrun again?”

“He came as a guest of Her Majesty the Queen.”

“…And he wrote to me?”

Why would the queen’s friend contact him? As he pondered, the advisor continued speaking.

“There is one more thing to report. The captain was seen in Galisa.”

A small inn in the harbor reeking of the sea.

While shaving in front of the mirror placed by the window, Starlet watched the ships coming and going at the dock. Beyond the window, he could see the scenery of Galisa, the port city where he had been staying for an unusually long time.

Galisa was a good place to have a land base, but he was a man who made his living on the water. To maintain his position, he had to go out to sea for a certain period each year.

And now it was about time to board a ship.

Despite knowing this fact, the reason Starlet was staying on land was due to a strange intuition.

Like all those who chose dangerous work with their own hands, Starlet had a very strong self-confidence, and that confidence was telling him that the new queen would seek him out.

When the new queen was inaugurated as the governor of Galisa, Starlet sent her two cute gifts. Along with a letter containing words that high-class women liked.

At the end of that letter, he wrote asking her to find him again.

Starlet thought the new queen would accept that offer. Women liked adventure, and he was a man close to adventure.

Of course, apart from that assumption, there was also a desire to see the queen again.

It wasn’t because she had found out about his whereabouts in Galisa. In the first place, the reason they were able to establish a base in Galisa’s 7th district was because the king had decided to push those far from law-abiding into it.

Starlet’s desire to see the queen again was before he even knew her identity.

“Do you want to spend the most unlucky three years of your life?”

The moment he heard that threat made without even blinking an eye, something sparkled in his mind. That pretty and intense light was a kind of stimulation.

For those who wander all their lives like him, nothing was more attractive than a new stimulus, so Starlet reached out to her and begged to see her face just once. It was a request he made knowing she wouldn’t grant it, since if she had intended to, she would have entered without the robe.

“You’ll be even more unlucky if you see my face. Do you want to lose both eyes after seeing it once?”

When the woman spoke with a voice tinged with a strange coercion. The sparkling in his mind began to pour down. Like a meteor shower.

And Starlet always liked such things. Gunpowder. Fireworks. Meteor showers. Hot and shining things.

So after finding out who she was and where she came from, he sent a splendid letter. A letter that would make him look like a romantic villain rather than a thief.

But the queen did not reply.

At first, he thought it was natural since she would need time to think, but as time passed, Starlet found himself looking in the mirror often. It was out of concern that his beauty might have lost its luster.

But his face sparkled as it always had, so Starlet couldn’t help but wonder if there was a problem with the queen’s eyesight.

“…She doesn’t want to see this handsome face again?”

He couldn’t understand.

Having finished shaving, Starlet washed his face with water and turned it this way and that. Looking again, the reflection in the mirror shone as it always had.

Is it because her husband is handsome? Such a thought suddenly occurred to him.

The king consort was a neat and handsome man. Starlet knew he exuded a different feeling from himself. The man, who looked like he had good posture and could use his body well even from afar, had eyes as pretty as gold coins.

He actually had a lot of gold coins too.

But isn’t she too young to live with just one handsome husband?

Women liked to keep several men by their side. It was natural since one could love one person but play with many.

The land to return to and the sea to navigate were different after all.

As he was scrutinizing his own face reflected in the mirror, trying to gauge the new queen’s taste, someone knocked on his door.

“Brother. A letter has arrived.”

“Come in.”

A large man entered the room. It was Dory, who was just starting to grow his beard again. Although he looked better without a beard, Dory couldn’t give it up, perhaps because it was more to his taste.

Wiping the moisture from his face and hands, Starlet took the letter from Dory. The feel of the paper against his fingertips was smooth, seeming to be of fairly high quality.

After casually opening it and slowly reading it, Starlet raised an eyebrow.

– Two days later, 4 PM. Disguise yourself as a laborer and ride the prepared carriage.

Although the letter, written in simple and neat handwriting, didn’t even have a seal stamped on it, Starlet recognized at first glance who it was from.

The queen had sent a letter.

“…Indeed, there’s no place where beauty doesn’t work.”

Dory, the vice-captain of the Black Foam pirate crew, pretended not to see the sight of his brother stroking his chin with a pleased expression.