Two days ago. The evening of the day Grace and Millie met.

“What are you doing there?”

Startled by the Emperor’s low voice piercing above her head, Arabel lifted her chin and tilted her head back.

A handsome face filled her round eyes, blocking the darkening evening sky. The ruby-colored eyes, deeper than the sunset she had just seen, came closer and closer, then, gently, warm lips playfully kissed Arabel’s small, round nose.

Seeing the Emperor appear suddenly without a sound, her lips blossomed into a wide smile like a flower bud bursting open, with a happy heart pounding.

However, soon remembering why she was standing in front of the wall, her large eyes began to shake uncontrollably, losing their focus.

Seeing her face clearly showing her bewildered emotions, one corner of the Emperor’s mouth slightly lifted. The Emperor was on his way to Arabel’s quarters with a jewelry gift he liked from among those brought by the delegation he met in the morning.

Entering the palace through a secret passage, the Emperor planned to drop the gift on Arabel’s second-floor balcony and return, but a small figure fidgeting in a corner of the garden caught his eye.

At first, he thought Arabel was taking a solitary walk in a secluded place.

Realizing that there were no soldiers stationed in the inconspicuous corner of the garden, the Emperor frowned and was about to instruct the captain of the guard to strengthen the sentries when…

Her gait and behavior were quite suspicious.

She scurried back and forth under the wall with small steps, then even stood on tiptoe trying to peek over the wall beyond, then startled by the sound of the wind, looked around nervously, turning her head.

Her pursed lips and clenched fists looked quite serious, but laughter escaped the Emperor’s lips every time her fearful large eyes scanned the surroundings. Her small body was shouting, ‘People of the world, I have many things to hide!’

“I asked what you’re doing.”

The Emperor placed his hands on Arabel’s shoulders, turning her body to face him, and asked again. Her light brown eyes blinked incessantly as her cracked voice came out softly.

“I, I was taking a walk.”

Bowing deeply at the waist and head to meet Arabel’s eyes, the red eyes gently curved into crescents,

“It’s getting dark now, let’s go back. I’ll escort you to the front of your quarters.”

As he said this, Arabel hastily shook her head and replied.

“No, no, Your Majesty. I… I ate dinner too hastily… To, to aid digestion… I think I need to, need to walk more.”

Arabel’s face brightened a little as she finished speaking, seemingly proud of the words she had stammered out.

The Emperor, pushing back a stray lock of hair behind her ear with his long fingers, said nonchalantly.

“Is that so? Then, shall I take a walk too after a long time? It would be enjoyable to walk together under the night sky as stars begin to appear.”

“What?”

As her surprised voice came out loudly without realizing it, Arabel covered her mouth with her hand and tried to speak calmly.

“If, if people see Your Majesty…”

“Ah, I see. I didn’t think of that. I forgot I came in secretly through the secret passage.”

Unable to properly look at the Emperor’s face as he moved away, Arabel unknowingly let out a low sigh of relief.

“Since I’m uneasy, I’ll tell the captain of the guard to post sentries. Then you can walk late into the night without worry. Wait a moment. I’ll go give the order.”

Not knowing that the Emperor’s lips were twitching to hold back laughter as he turned around, Arabel grabbed the end of his sleeve.

With her head bowed, she carefully pleaded.

“Your Majesty, please don’t do that.”

The long, firm index and middle fingers lifted Arabel’s chin.

Looking into the red eyes that held her gaze without asking any questions, Arabel confessed in a small voice.

“…I’m waiting for Millie.”

Now with her eyes and the tip of her nose flushed red, Arabel hurriedly added.

“I sent her on an errand outside the palace… Since we can’t go out of the palace, I asked Millie.”

“You sent an errand…?”

“Yes…”

“Can you tell me what kind of errand it was?”

“That, that’s…”

As Arabel’s lips trembled slightly, unable to think of what to say,

“You sent her to get the condensed milk honey bread from the dessert cafe we went to together in the capital last time because you were craving it.”

Arabel looked up blankly at the Emperor who answered for her.

As the Emperor’s hand gently holding Arabel’s chin moved up and down, her head nodded along.

“Millie, your maid, received the order and had no choice but to climb over the wall to go to the cafe in the capital.”

As the Emperor finished speaking, he moved his hand again to make Arabel nod.

The Emperor raised one eyebrow and asked, trapping her wavering gaze.

“The young lady who sent her maid to climb over the wall and run an errand outside the palace to eat bread has broken the rules of the palace. Do you admit it?”

Even though the Emperor’s hand didn’t move, Arabel’s head nodded up and down on its own.

“You’ve committed a great sin… Even I, the Emperor, can’t help it. You must be punished.”

As he shook his head slightly and let out a sigh, Arabel’s round eyes drooped down even more, then she dropped her head as if in agreement.

He didn’t mean to tease her this much. The Emperor’s red eyes looking down at her round crown sparkled pleasantly. Her clumsy attempts at lying while flustered tickled warmly below his navel.

She was so lovable that he wanted to cherish her preciously, but also wanted to devour her whole, making his mouth water.

The woman before him probably didn’t know that he felt the urge dozens of times a day to lock her in the bedroom for days, teasing her thoroughly, then comforting her in his arms.

The Emperor’s fingers lifted Arabel’s chin again.

“Prepare yourself for punishment. Today won’t end with just a kiss on the lips.”

The Emperor’s smiling lips covered her soft lips, chilled by the outside air, warming them up as he began to give the sinner before him the sweetest punishment in the world.

“Wh-what happened…?”

Millie asked, looking at her siblings who had run into her arms with faces drenched in sweat.

Sneaking out of the palace, Millie had rushed frantically to Baron Barron’s mansion.

Baron Barron’s plaything.

Grace’s words wouldn’t leave her ears and made Millie’s body tremble with anger. Yet she ran without stopping, frustrated and blaming herself for being unable to do anything for her sister.

But when she arrived, the front gate of Baron Barron’s mansion was wide open, and both doors of the mansion building were thrown open, revealing empty interiors.

She had planned to hide in the hole under the back door used by cargo wagons, but now no one was stopping her from entering through the front gate.

“Adele…”

As an ominous feeling that Baron Barron had taken Adele with him somewhere crept in, Millie looked around in a panic.

“Who are you?”

A man carrying an armful of lumber, perhaps doing construction work, spotted Millie and asked.

“Here… here…”

As she stammered, unable to speak properly, the man who had observed Millie’s appearance quietly explained. As if guessing that she too was one of Baron Barron’s victims.

“If you’re looking for Baron Barron, there’s no need to worry. Not only has he lost his title, but he’ll be rotting in prison for a long time.

The Baron’s mansion and assets have all been confiscated by the Empire, and all the employees here have scattered. It’s probably good news that even the employees’ debts have all been forgiven.”

Millie bowed her head to the man and ran to the slum where her youngest sister Mary lived, without even catching her breath. Fortunately, Millie managed to catch a ride in a carriage and arrived at the slum, but her steps halted at the entrance.

The slum, with its stench of sewage and filth, and rickety warehouses pressed tightly together… had disappeared like a lie.

Construction materials were piled on the cleared ground, showing that work was in full swing during the day.

“The orphaned minors who lived here have been moved to Saint Helena Convent.”

Before the patrolling soldier could finish speaking, Millie ran to the nearby Saint Helena Convent.

Guided by a young nun, Millie entered the first-floor dining hall, where her eyes fell on several girls studying with an elderly nun.

“Sister!”

“Big sister!”

Adele and Mary simultaneously jumped into Millie’s arms, who stood frozen, hugging her tightly.

Their sunken cheeks had filled out plumply, their fearful trembling eyes now sparkled with confidence, and their chapped dry lips were smiling happily. Though they looked very unfamiliar, they were indeed her two sisters.

Millie’s dry eyes blinked repeatedly as she hugged her two sisters with all her might.

“Your, Your Majesty, if someone sees… Hnnng…!”

The large lips that had devoured her own didn’t even let her finish speaking before eliciting a strange sound.

Though her mind was anxious about being discovered by the women or soldiers in the palace, her body couldn’t come to its senses and kept making sounds she had never made before.

No, rather, while trembling all over from the breathtaking stimulation he gave, she clung to the Emperor’s neck with both arms, not letting go.

Even though she was appalled at herself for being in the Emperor’s embrace outdoors rather than indoors, gasping for breath, her body kept burrowing into his arms as if begging.

It felt like her mouth was engulfed in flames. The fire spread to her ears, making them feel muffled.

Every time the long, thick flame asserted its ownership, leaving traces in every corner of her mouth, sparks spread from the crown of her head to her little toes, tingling up and down.

When the Emperor’s Adam’s apple bobbed, Arabel’s thin shoulders also shuddered together, matching his breathing.

The lovers’ dialogue that the Emperor taught almost daily became more explicit and extensive as time went on. Not just her lips, but every corner of her delicate body blossomed with red heat flowers by the Emperor.

The lips that persistently possessed her soft lips and nape gradually moved down, spreading heat, and the large hands taught her that they didn’t just serve to embrace, as they ignited places she had never imagined.

Whenever Arabel quietly sobbed, feeling like she was going crazy from the chilling stimulation… the red lips would brush past her downy earlobe teasingly, whispering words only she could hear into her ear, comforting her with kisses.

As Arabel’s head tilted up slightly, her fingers entwined in the Emperor’s black hair, the stars of the night sky poured brilliantly into her round eyes.

Soon, as if declaring that he wouldn’t allow her to look at the sky when she was with him, his large hand cupped the back of her head and brought her into his embrace, imprisoning her.

She thought she had been sitting on the Emperor’s lap, but at some point she found herself trapped between the wall and the Emperor.

No, rather than standing, she was clinging to the Emperor with her back against the wall.

“If you’re tired already, how will we manage our wedding night? My self-control that I’ve been holding back all this time will shatter into pieces that night.”

Each of his whispers falling below her collarbone along with moist breaths was a thrilling stimulation.

Arabel shook her head, finding the Emperor who was mercilessly crumbling her cruel, yet also disgusted with herself for not knowing what to do whenever his warmth left her for even a moment.

“My fiancée’s body responds so beautifully to my touch that I can’t stop.”

At the Emperor’s blatant teasing, Arabel suddenly felt dejected and pushed against his shoulder with tears in her eyes. Laughter bubbled up in the Emperor’s throat as he gently took her small body into his arms and patted her.

“Sorry, sorry.”

The Emperor tried to cool down his own body while soothing Arabel, whose neck was deeply flushed with red flowers. If they continued like this, they might end up consummating their marriage before even finishing the competition, let alone the wedding ceremony.

The Emperor’s red eyes, which had been tenderly pressing kisses on top of her head, suddenly hardened coldly.

The Emperor placed his long fingers on Arabel’s lips and said in a low voice.

“It seems the maid who was keeping watch for you has returned.”

Arabel listened at the wall but heard nothing, so she quietly looked at the Emperor.

However, soon after, as the Emperor had said, light footsteps approached, then,

Thud, thump, thump.

Millie appeared, landing on the ground after climbing over the wall.

“Millie.”

As Arabel softly called Millie’s name, Millie turned to face Arabel. The Emperor had already hidden himself in the shadows.

“Did everything go well with your errand?”

As Arabel approached Millie with a gentle smile, plop, plop, thick teardrops began to fall from Millie’s eyes, which had always been strongly opened wide.

“What’s wrong? What happened?”

Surprised, Arabel took both of Millie’s hands, and Millie’s small sobs gradually changed into louder cries.

At thirteen, after her life had been mortgaged to Baron Barron and loan sharks due to her father’s debt, she had never cried once.

“Young lady… hic, hic… young lady…”

“Yes, what is it? What’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”

At Arabel’s worried question, Millie’s crying grew even louder.

With her shoulders shaking uncontrollably, she barely managed to insert a few words between her bursting sobs.

“Uuhuh… Adele and Mary, hic, hic… they’re my sisters… uwaaaaah…”