“I have a favor to ask……”

Arabel quietly opened her mouth, fidgeting with her hand held in the Emperor’s. Sitting in an embarrassing position on the Emperor’s lap, she felt her eyelids burning as she couldn’t get used to her own appearance.

“Tell me anything.”

The Emperor’s red lips, which had fully satisfied his desires even during breakfast, curved into a smile.

He used to mock men’s empty promises to bring down the stars from the sky for their beloved…… But now, feeling like he could do even more than that, the Emperor’s face reddened with a strange tingling sensation.

Arabel raised her head, looking straight at the Emperor, and spoke slowly.

“Please promise not to help me in this Empress selection competition.”

The Emperor’s eyebrow raised slightly at Arabel’s unexpected request. He had planned to abolish the useless competition as soon as they returned to the imperial palace and announce his marriage to Arabel.

“The Empress selection competition is several times more difficult than you imagine. Many noble ladies who received special education to become Empress from birth couldn’t even make it to the finals.”

Arabel lowered her head at the Emperor’s words.

He stroked her back with his large hand, intending to reassure her, ‘Don’t worry and leave everything to me.’ After a moment, her round head lifted again, meeting the Emperor’s gaze with unwavering eyes.

A slow but firm voice flowed from her lips.

“I want to win the competition with my own strength…… to earn the qualification to be by Your Majesty’s side.”

“Saving my dying self is more than enough qualification to become Empress.”

The Emperor caressed Arabel’s cheek, showing a gentle smile.

‘Who else but you, who has taken the Emperor’s heart, would be qualified to be Empress?’

He couldn’t bring himself to utter the embarrassing words lingering in his mouth.

“If Your Majesty abolishes the competition or helps me, you’ll be ridiculed as an Emperor who abandoned hundreds of years of imperial tradition and custom for a woman without any great cause.”

The Emperor frowned slightly at Arabel’s words.

He was about to open his mouth to say, ‘Don’t worry about such things.’ At that moment, Arabel’s trembling but determined voice resonated in his ears.

“I will prove that I am qualified to be by Your Majesty’s side by winning the Empress selection competition…… I will become an Empress who is not a weakness that tarnishes Your Majesty’s achievements, but one who helps at Your Majesty’s side…… the mountain girl you brought.”

Each sincere word conveyed with all her heart, her face red as a radish, stirred the Emperor’s heart.

Emperor Maxwell realized. He too was not much different from those who belittled and ignored Arabel’s qualifications to become Empress.

He had thought Arabel would naturally fail in the Empress selection competition and planned to abolish it. When he brought her to the imperial palace, it was as a key to break the curse, so the competition’s result didn’t matter to him.

But now it’s different. Watching Arabel sleep in his arms last night, the Emperor decided he would do anything to make her Empress. If there were obstacles in the way, he would simply remove them.

He had prejudged that she, being kind and without greed, couldn’t win in a competition full of intrigue, and tried to help in his own way. The Emperor bit his molar tightly with shame.

Come to think of it…… In the short time he had known her, Arabel had accomplished many great things.

She saved a dying beast, evacuated countless mountain animals from a forest fire, and restored the burned forest by uniting people. She gave peace to him when he was in agony, cleared her and her maid’s false charges, and revealed the authentication method for counterfeit Red Chaos jewel eggs that had been troubling not only the empire but the entire continent.

Until now, Arabel had been quietly achieving what she set out to do without flaunting her abilities. However, people accustomed to flashy and noisy things don’t properly recognize Arabel’s true value.

It was a moment of reflection for the Emperor, who had always believed himself to be right, realizing he had fallen into the same narrow-minded thinking as others.

Finding her so lovable for wanting to win in the fierce competition to not become his weakness, the Emperor brought his lips to her clear eyes.

“I promise. So, be sure to become the winner in the competition and become my Empress.”

With round eyes folded into crescents, Arabel smiled brightly and said,

“When I become Empress, the first thing I’ll propose to Your Majesty is to abolish the Empress selection competition. So that future emperors can marry the person they love, not through competition.”

The small girl in his arms will never realize what emotions she stirs in the Emperor. Arabel buried her head in the Emperor’s shoulder and let out a shy laugh.

“As promised, I will neither interfere with nor help you in the competition.”

The Emperor, leaning his tall body against the door, spoke to Arabel who had finished preparing to return to the imperial palace.

As Arabel nodded and smiled while putting on her gloves, the Emperor slowly walked towards her. His red eyes showed the joyful look of a carnivore with delicious prey before it.

“However, I have no intention of hiding my feelings for you. Rumors about you and me have already spread not only in the palace but throughout the empire.”

Arabel wrinkled her nose and lowered her head.

It was a rumor she had heard well. That an insignificant woman from a fallen family had presumptuously won the Emperor’s favor to become the eleventh empress candidate, but would soon be pushed out of the Emperor’s interest and expelled from the palace.

The Emperor’s long shadow covered Arabel, and his long index finger lifted her chin.

As the Emperor and Arabel’s gazes met and intertwined, he pulled up one corner of his mouth seductively.

“Until now, I’ve been careful not knowing your feelings, but now I intend to show you how the Emperor gives attention to the eleventh candidate he personally chose.”

The finger under her chin tickled down… and stopped at the collar of her coat, buttoned up to her neck.

As his finger intruded persistently inside the collar, the Emperor murmured softly.

“You will never be seen. I know you’ll cover up like this until the red marks fade.”

Realizing the Emperor was talking about the marks he had left all night, Arabel’s cheeks flushed bright red.

The Emperor brought his hand over and began leisurely unbuttoning the collar of his uniform shirt.

“I need to prove that your heart won’t change. Otherwise, I might fall into anxiety and visit the competition committee when I return to the palace.”

Stretching his neck out from inside the unbuttoned shirt collar, he whispered intimately in her ear.

“You’ve become the master of the beast, so shouldn’t you leave a mark? I hope you’ll leave it deep and pretty. It’s the Emperor’s order.”

The Emperor wrapped his arm around Arabel’s waist and pulled her body tightly against his own. After a moment’s hesitation, Arabel squeezed her eyes shut and slowly parted her pink lips.

On the outskirts of the capital.

“Catch her!”

“Won’t you stop there?”

“You won’t be let off easy if caught. Stop!”

Men’s voices grew closer from the entrance of the main street, and the sound of running footsteps and heavy breathing could be heard behind Arabel.

Suddenly, thump.

“Ah…!”

“Ouch!”

Arabel and the woman who rushed into her collided and fell in opposite directions.

“Are you alright?”

The Emperor, who had been briefly talking with his spy in an alley shop, rushed out upon hearing Arabel’s voice.

The Emperor quickly raised the fallen Arabel and began to carefully examine her for any injuries.

“I’m not hurt.”

“Not hurt? Your palm is scraped.”

On the way back to the palace, they had briefly stopped at a shop on the outskirts to hear a report from a spy planted in the capital, and Arabel had gotten hurt.

To be honest, it was too minor to be called an injury. The Emperor, making a fuss over such a small scratch, skillfully wrapped Arabel’s hand with his own handkerchief.

Meanwhile, the girl who had fallen after colliding with Arabel hurriedly got up to run away, but,

“Where do you think you’re going without apologizing?”

The Emperor, with a hardened face, stretched out his long arm and grabbed the shoulder of the fleeing girl. It was extremely annoying that she tried to run away without even asking for forgiveness.

“Please let me go.”

She was a girl as small and thin as Arabel, looking a year or two younger.

“If I’m caught here, I’ll die.”

The pale face of the girl, alternately looking at Arabel and the Emperor, was full of despair unbecoming her age.

Feeling sorry for the girl trembling like an aspen leaf, Arabel approached her,

“There she is! Catch her!”

Three or four men with fierce looks rushed into the alley.

The man who seemed to be the leader among the group standing in front of the Emperor bowed his head and spoke gruffly. Seeing that he appeared to be a nobleman, he showed respect.

“Thank you for catching her. She’s a maid from Baron Varon’s household who ran away after incurring debt.”

The man, snatching the girl from the Emperor, grabbed her by the collar and shouted.

“You little rat. Where do you think you’re running? You know you’re dead meat when we get back!”

The girl struggled to break free from his hand, but it was useless.

Surrounded by the men and being dragged away, the girl cried out in desperation.

“Help me…! Please help me! Sob, sob. Someone please……”

The Emperor, losing interest in the departing group, reached out his hand to Arabel. However, she was already chasing after the group.

“What’s going on? Even if she’s a maid who ran away after incurring debt, is it right to take away such a young girl so roughly?”

“Mind your own business and be on your way. Our Baron Varon is a prominent figure in this area.”

As the man dragging the girl answered as if annoyed, Arabel didn’t give up and blocked their way.

“Can’t you see the girl is trembling with fear? You can’t drag her away like an animal like this.”

The men sneered at Arabel, who was as small and petite as the girl in their grasp, and said,

“What do you want us to do if we can’t drag her away? Our Baron is a man who can make even a flying bird fall. Don’t meddle unnecessarily.”

“Why don’t you go to the Baron and take off your clothes instead? Looking at you, you’re much closer to the Baron’s taste, so he’d be very pleased. Thanks to that, we’d get a hefty reward too.”

“If you entertain the Baron tonight instead of this girl, we’ll escort you and this one very carefully. Hehehe.”

Suddenly, whoosh, slap.

“Argh!”

“Aah!”

The men who were eyeing Arabel’s body with lewd looks suddenly fell and rolled on the ground.

Thump, thump, the sound of precise, measured footsteps alone filled the alley with thick fear. The Emperor, holding a leather whip in his hand, placed his shoe on the eye of the leader who was lying down, groaning in pain.

“Aaaagh!”

The leader screamed at the unbearable pain as the shoe ground and stepped on him. A chilling voice was heard above his contorted face.

“If you don’t bring your Baron here before the shadow of the sun falls behind my back, not one of you will leave here alive.”

A small object fell with a dull thud beside the man crawling and trembling.

“Show this to Baron Varon. If he wants to live, he will come running.”