Emperor Maxwell, uncharacteristically, fell into a brief moment of contemplation.

If it had been his usual self, he would have unhesitatingly ended the lives of the three or four rat pups rolling on the ground.

The Emperor, who had tightly gripped a black leather whip with both hands instead of the long sword at his waist, stopped his foot that was crushing the eyes of the man who had been eyeing Arabel. Then he glanced sideways at Arabel.

There was 20% gratitude in her eyes for the Emperor who had saved the girl being dragged away like a beast, 20% awe for the Emperor who had struck down the men with one lash of his whip.

And 60% fear and shock in her eyes for the Emperor who had methodically crushed the men’s eyes and mouths without missing a single one with the heel of his boot.

In that moment, the Emperor realized. Arabel had never directly seen him punish trash like this before. Even yesterday evening at the flower shop, when he swung his sword at the smuggling group, Arabel had closed her eyes at his command.

He knows there’s a clear difference between seeing bodies already fallen to the ground and witnessing with one’s own eyes the moment they are punished by the Emperor.

When he occupied the palace of the Kiran satellite state that had rebelled, the king who watched Maxwell Emperor punish the traitors had a heart attack.

The Emperor slightly moved his boot to the side from the man’s eyes, glancing at Arabel.

However, this revealed the mess of a face that had been hidden underneath. He tried to push the man’s face to the other side inconspicuously with the toe of his boot, but it only backfired as blood flowed on the ground.

The Emperor stared at the sky with cold eyes, as if lost in meditation for a moment. After a while, he slowly turned his gaze to Arabel.

Towards those clear eyes that seemed like they couldn’t get any wider… he put on the most benevolent and gentle smile he could muster on his face.

Unfortunately, in her eyes that couldn’t lie, the Emperor’s smile reflected as an utterly brutal expression with a spoonful of madness added.

“Your Majesty…!”

“Emperor, Your Majesty!”

Voices calling for the Emperor grew closer as they ran from both sides of the alley entrance. From the right came the Imperial Guards, and from the left came Baron Barron hurrying with his escort soldiers.

“Y-Your Majesty…”

Baron Barron quickly knelt on one knee before the Emperor and greeted him with proper etiquette. His faithful servants lying sprawled on the ground like dead mice came into his sweaty vision.

“It seems my servants have committed rudeness. Please forgive them.”

Baron Barron swallowed dry saliva and bowed his head. Honestly, he didn’t know what was going on, but he knew he had to prostrate himself flat at the sight of the expressionless Emperor.

Baron Barron had also been present on the day Regent Emperor Gustav was cast out by Emperor Maxwell. After that, having been in similar situations with the Emperor two or three more times, Baron Barron’s knees weakened just at the sight of the scabbard on the Emperor’s waist.

Today, when his wife had left to visit their daughter who had married in another region, the opportunity finally came. He had been eyeing that Adele girl for a while, and when he tried to take her, the wretched thing ran away.

No matter how she runs, she’s still in my hands. He leisurely took a bath after sending his servants to catch her, when the leader of his servants crawled in half-dead.

Holding in his hands a golden glove with the Emperor’s emblem of a red lion engraved on it. He had run here without even drying his body.

Unable to bear the silence, Baron Barron raised his head to look, and the Emperor’s red eyes were directed at him with a cold sneer.

With a bad feeling, the baron spoke in a trembling voice,

“I, I will immediately behead these who dared to disturb Your Majesty’s mood and offer their heads. P-Please allow me.”

As he knelt on the ground and pleaded, cries burst out from his servants who had collapsed, unable to control their bodies.

“My mood is…”

The Emperor spoke slowly, lifting the baron’s head that was touching the ground with the toe of his boot.

The Emperor became very uncomfortable at the thought that he appeared as a cruel man in Arabel’s eyes.

The Emperor’s mind started spinning rapidly, anxious that she might no longer call him ‘the most wise and benevolent Emperor in the world’.

The way to salvage his image to Arabel now is to help… the skinny girl her two hands are embracing.

Though he felt it was a waste of time on unnecessary matters, he thought it couldn’t be helped. The Emperor let out an irritated sigh and finished his words.

“is very uncomfortable because of you.”

The baron’s cloudy eyes of a dead fish trembled, and his bluish lips covered in greed parted in terror.

On the outskirts of the capital, in the slums.

“H-Here it is.”

Adele said, pointing to a corner of a warehouse tightly packed in a corner of the slums.

The foul smell of garbage and sewage assaulted the nose from all around. The slums of Athenera, the capital symbolizing the wealth and power of the continent’s strongest Helterd Empire, created a sense of dissonance.

Adele opened the door of the crumbling warehouse in front of Arabel, who had just saved her.

“Cough, cough… Second sister…?”

A weak voice flowed out from the dark, moldy warehouse interior, as if unable to believe it.

“Yes, it’s me…”

Adele nodded, swallowing the sobs that were about to burst out, in front of the warehouse door.

She prayed every night, but miracles never came. Living as if walking on thin ice while receiving the lecherous gaze of the old baron… Today, when the baroness she served day and night left for a trip, she was summoned to his bedroom.

For Adele, who had been practically sold due to her father’s gambling debts and her youngest sister’s medicine costs, there was no helping hand to save her.

Even knowing she would be caught if she ran away, she still fled. It was too unfair and humiliating to go quietly, so she wanted to struggle at least once even if it meant death.

She wanted to show that she was human, not an animal.

But now a miracle was standing before her eyes. Adele wiped away the tears flowing with the back of her hand as she looked at the woman of similar age to herself. The one person who reached out when everyone else turned away as she was being dragged away like a beast.

And even greater miracles occurred.

Upon discovering that the baron had tried to take sixteen-year-old Adele, who was not yet of age, the Emperor said,

‘One of the greatest crimes in the empire is forcibly violating men and women who have not yet come of age. It’s a decree I proclaimed, but to forget that… Tsk, my mood has become even more uncomfortable.’

The baron, being dragged to the empire’s underground prison, had to sign to nullify Adele’s employment contract, which was no different from a slave contract.

The Emperor deployed his people to root out the illegal loan shark organization holding Adele’s debt.

In a swift resolution, he rescued not only Adele but dozens of minors who were suffering miserable exploitation, trapped in their snares. Baron Barron and several nobles in the capital were jointly operating illegal loan shark organizations to increase their wealth.

The Emperor, meticulously commanding all of this from within the alley, was relentless. It was as if the place where he stood was his office inside the imperial palace.

“Why did you come? Cough, cough. I’m fine, I tell you. You’ll get in trouble again if you go back. Hurry and leave.”

Adele’s youngest sister Mary spoke with a voice full of worry.

Though her sister didn’t say it, the scars left on her back that Mary had accidentally seen showed how harshly she was treated at the baron’s house.

The eldest sister was also trying to bring the second sister back from the baron’s house, but due to the baron’s and the illegal loan sharks’ cunning tricks connected to him, the debt only snowballed.

“Now… I’m not going. I’m going to stay here.”

“What do you mean? Cough, cough.”

“I don’t have to go anymore. I can stay with you. It’s really all over… Sob, sob.”

“Really, really, sister?”

Mary, who had raised her head with difficulty, nodded and began to cry loudly upon hearing Adele’s words that “We’ve paid off all the debt.” Adele, embracing her sick sister, whispered, “Mom sent an angel from heaven,” and burst into tears.

The Emperor furrowed his brow as he watched Arabel silently wiping away tears behind Adele and Mary.

The emotion he was feeling now was… in a word, embarrassment.

Maxwell’s face, who had been confident that he was not an embarrassing emperor, flushed with shame.

The slums that came into his view were where the lower-class commoners lived, ‘abandoned for the beautification and expansion of the capital’.

Some evil lords who received large compensation for selling their territories to the empire under his urban expansion plan had driven out the people living in their domains without any compensation.

And the abandoned domain people, falling for the tricks of moneylenders associated with the nobles, tried to make a living by borrowing money, but later all that was left to them was an absurdly inflated debt.

To pay off the debt, they and their families became ‘serfs’ who were not ‘serfs’ to the lords, and in the worst cases, they were sold to brothels or foreign countries.

‘To think I didn’t know what was happening right under my nose.’

The Emperor thought as he watched Arabel distributing food with the guards.

No, he didn’t want to know. Because these people were useless for the glory and prosperity of the empire.

He didn’t care what the nobles in the capital, who paid their taxes regularly and didn’t disturb his mood, did behind the scenes. As long as they moved according to his plans, he didn’t feel the need to interfere.

The Emperor’s jaw clenched strongly as he watched the ragged children eagerly satisfying their hunger with the bread and milk received from Arabel’s hands.

‘She’s shivering like this, can’t we take her to her sister?’

If Arabel hadn’t come to the slums holding Adele’s hand, asking him for this favor, he wouldn’t have seen this sight.

The Emperor quietly ordered his aide Kyle beside him.

“As soon as we return to the palace, I will summon the nobles of the capital. Prepare for it.”

“You must deliver this.”

“Alright. In exchange, three rose soaps and vanilla oil, right?”

The skinny woman winked as she received the yellow envelope Milli held out.

She was an employee of the mill who brought flour to the imperial kitchen every other day.

Putting the thicker-than-usual money envelope in her apron pocket, the woman shook her head.

“I told you. It’s useless to keep giving this money to those loan shark bastards. It’s like pouring water into a bottomless pot. No matter how much money you save and send, the debt just keeps snowballing.”

The woman continued speaking to Milli, who stood there without answering, looking stubborn.

“Just find your own way to live. You’re in the palace, so even if you don’t pay off the debt, those loan shark guys can’t come to catch you. Honestly, all that debt is just inflated by them. They have their own crimes, so they can’t barge into the palace demanding money.”

“I can’t do that.”

As Milli shook her head, the woman patted her shoulder as if frustrated and said,

“Is it because of your younger sister at Baron Barron’s house? There’s no hope for her. Everyone in the capital knows how dirty and lecherous that baron is. Your sister can’t get out of there until that old geezer lets her go. No, he’ll probably sell her off to someone else when he gets bored of keeping her around.”

Though the woman meant it as just a thought, Milli’s face instantly contorted.

“Don’t speak so carelessly. I will definitely bring her back. Definitely.”

Milli clenched her fists, straining her reddened eyes. She had long given up on the dream of living happily with Adele and Mary in this wretched world. However, even if it means going to hell, she will save Adele.

“Milli, Head Maid Bridget is looking for you. Go quickly.”

When a maid found Milli and told her this, Milli quickly wiped her nose with the back of her hand and ran to the head maid’s office.