‘Don’t do anything foolish and stay quiet.’

Kedilen’s mind echoed with the voice of Vex, the Speaker of the Lower House, as he quickly passed through the annexe of the imperial palace.

Before the hunting competition began, Vex had summoned him and warned him with an insultingly arrogant attitude.

Every year, the crown prince claimed the victory, and the remaining positions were filled by the notable power holders below him.

It was needless to say that those positions represented the ranking of power holders in the current empire.

After his business got on track, meeting Ludmila and rising to the position of Minister of Commerce, Kedilen was able to claim at least the lowest of those positions.

And as the years passed, his ranking rose.

Gradually, other new nobles also secured positions in the rankings that hadn’t existed before.

There was a time when they thought they would soon dominate this place.

But not this year. After Ludmila disappeared, complex interests intertwined, and Kedilen collapsed.

He despised those who ate away at him like persistent caterpillars digging in at the slightest flaw, but it was difficult to make people understand who seemed to have been waiting for his fall and now refused to listen to anything.

Vex, the Speaker of the Lower House, made that fact blatantly clear. There was no longer any place for him to step up.

Even for Kedilen, who had lived throwing away his pride, there wasn’t enough patience to endure such an insult.

Surely, if he had heard these words a few days ago, he would have been furious.

‘Now it’s all meaningless.’

But now that a solution had emerged, all of that felt like material to make him stand out.

If a press conference were held after the hunting competition, the knives that had been pointed at him would turn into soft feathers.

Those who had clawed and wounded him would also change their attitude with the shifting public opinion.

Though he wasn’t particularly fond of such worldly attitudes that were enough to make him feel disgusted, he knew well that it was precisely because of this that he could survive.

With a slanted smile on his stern face, Kedilen was eager to attend the hunting competition to gather the remaining materials.

He quickened his pace, thinking that the numerous mockeries and contempt directed at him would taste sweet just for today.

It was then that his eyes suddenly met with a veiled person coming out of a room.

The woman whose eyes met his seemed startled, froze for a moment, then quickly closed the door and turned to walk in the opposite direction.

At this sight, Kedilen’s feet stopped.

Kedilen’s brow furrowed as he stared at the back that was calmly walking away with steady steps.

The gait so proper it could be in an etiquette manual, and the straight back. The neck, so erect it seemed arrogant, looked exceptionally long, and the blonde hair flowing behind reminded him of someone.

It can’t be. Surely, she wouldn’t be here.

Kedilen thought so, but he couldn’t push away the memories that kept surfacing and the growing possibility.

“…Ludmila?”

No matter how much he had looked down on and ignored her, he had lived as her husband for years.

Though he hadn’t laid a hand on her, they had slept in the same bed for hundreds of nights. There’s no way I wouldn’t recognize her. There’s no way I saw wrong.

Unable to let go of even the slightest possibility, Kedilen finally turned and followed the veiled woman.

“You there, stop for a moment.”

He called out directly as he moved his legs, but the woman not only didn’t stop, she increased her speed.

Frowning at this, Kedilen shouted even louder.

“Can’t you hear me telling you to stop? Stop!”

Finally, when his voice neared a shout, the woman’s steps came to an abrupt halt. Kedilen approached the woman and jerked his chin.

“Remove your veil.”

“……”

“Now!”

Even at the man’s shout, urging with bulging eyes, the woman hesitated.

Finally, as the irritated Kedilen grabbed and lifted the woman’s veil, a deep joy settled in his eyes.

“Ludmila…!”

A suppressed voice flowed from Kedilen’s mouth as he reached the end of numerous imaginations and possibilities, and at the same time, deep concern settled in Ludmila’s eyes.

An unexpected reunion.

Ludmila, to whom this reunion was unwelcome, squeezed her eyes shut.

Temporary tents had already been set up at the site where the hunting competition would be held. By factions or by families.

Unlike the places where each group had set up tents, Aden was sitting under the shade of a tree, staring blankly at the place where the hunting competition would be held.

The nobles threw mockery at his appearance, but to Aden, who was now unmoved by such things, their scornful glances held no meaning.

Rather, organizing his thoughts in such a secluded place was more welcome from Aden’s perspective.

It was a hunting competition with a purpose and a goal.

Just as others competed to catch big game to score points, he too had prey he was targeting.

To catch a target more dangerous than any other prey, he needed to calmly organize his complicated thoughts.

“What are you doing here, Your Excellency?”

It was when he was staring blankly at the lush forest. At the voice from behind, Aden turned his head and gave a faint smile at the sight of Benjamin looking down at him.

“I was devising a hunting plan.”

“So, do you think today’s hunt will end successfully?”

“Of course, it must.”

Once. It was a chance that only existed for today. Because he had no intention of missing this, Aden sharpened his senses more than ever before.

Benjamin, who had been staring at Aden, honed like a knife, went to his side and took a seat next to him.

“I told you to come to the Turval tent, why are you here instead?”

“Even if I went, I’d only receive useless glares, so why bother? Although the Countess says it’s fine, your father-in-law still disapproves of me.”

“You don’t care about such things.”

Aden shrugged his shoulders lightly, an attitude that Benjamin clearly disliked, but he didn’t press further.

“More importantly, are you really not going to tell me what you’re planning to do?”

“What?”

“Don’t ‘what’ me!”

Benjamin furrowed his brow and put force in his voice.

As Aden raised his gaze diagonally, Benjamin bit his lip while looking at him. His longtime friend was about to do something unimaginable.

Aden pretended not to know, but to Benjamin, who had been by his side for over a decade, it was clear. The fact that Aden was about to do something terrible.

“Who is it? At least tell me that.”

Aden tilted his head as if he didn’t know, then grinned.

Benjamin glared at Aden, still frowning, but he turned his gaze to the meadow with a calm face.

“There won’t be any problem, Benjamin. You’ll keep your place, and I’ll live a day just like today. I can tell you that much.”

When only a vague answer came back, Benjamin, feeling frustrated, was about to continue with “You…!” but before that, he turned his gaze to the presence felt from behind.

His wife, Melena, had approached.

“Benjamin, are you alright? From afar, it looked like you were fighting…”

“…Melena.”

Benjamin bit his lip at the sight of his lovely wife worrying about him and softly uttered her name.

Meanwhile, Aden, who had risen from his seat, patted and dusted off the grass and stains on his clothes, then put his hand in his pocket.

When he pulled it out again, what emerged was a neatly folded handkerchief.

With a quick glance, Benjamin could easily tell that the handkerchief in his hand was the one Ludmila had given him.

“Go. Don’t worry.”

“…Fine, do as you please.”

At the attitude that drew the line to the end, Benjamin pretended to be angry and turned away.

Aden smiled at Melena, who was looking at him with worried eyes, signaling that there was no problem.

As he watched Melena and Benjamin retreat, Aden narrowed his brow at the sight of someone running quickly past them.

“Lo-Lord Duke!”

It was Barhan, who had gone with Ludmila. Why was this man here?

“Th-That person is now…!”

Before the wonderment could fill his head, Aden’s eyes trembled at the voice that followed.

Until the handkerchief in his hand fell to the ground with a thud and fluttered in the wind, Aden could only stand there, unable to move.

Sitting in the quiet room, Ludmila calmly removed her veil. It was meaningless to keep wearing it anyway.

As her face was revealed, a deeper desire glimmered in Kedilen’s eyes. He had finally found her.

The moment he faced this fact head-on, Kedilen felt deep joy and at the same time, a sense of emptiness.

If it was going to be this easy to find her, why did he go through all that trouble?

It felt like a divine prank or trial, but even that was okay now. Ludmila had returned.

With that alone, Kedilen could forget everything that had happened.

“If you have something to say, say it.”

Her demeanor, speaking calmly with her back straight, was no different from what he knew.

Even if there were slight changes, Ludmila was Ludmila. Her hands neatly folded on her thighs, her arrogant eyes, her clear features slightly pulled taut. Everything was just as he remembered.

“If you want to be angry, you can be as much as you want. It’s pathetic, but you do have the right to.”

Her somewhat cynical attitude was irritating, but it didn’t matter. Kedilen just silently stared at the red eyes gazing at him.

Ludmila slightly furrowed her brow at his quiet demeanor. She had thought he would say something immediately, but Kedilen was just quietly looking at her without saying a word.

What could he be thinking?

The memories of the past resurfaced again with discomfort. The past when she was beaten by him and her own death.

“Kedilen?”

Contrary to her expectation that he would grab her hair and get angry right away, her husband maintained his composure. As Ludmila was intently looking at him and about to open her mouth again, that’s when it happened.

Kedilen, who had been sitting, seemed to rise from his seat and then approached her.

Biting her lip with tension and following his movements with her eyes, Ludmila felt bewildered as her gaze suddenly turned downward.

“Now…!?”

“I’m sorry, Ludmila.”

Kedilen, in that state, seemed to bend his knees and then bowed his head.

The decision stemming from terrible selfishness concluded with begging Ludmila for forgiveness.