“Damn it, damn it, damn it!”

Bang! Lloyd slammed his desk with all his might.

Something was wrong.

Something had been going strangely awry since the day he felt he had gone back in time.

Even though he was clearly the only one who had gone back in time, why did things keep going wrong?

He thought it was wrong from the start that the point he returned to happened to be the day of Amelia’s wedding.

Amelia said she didn’t want to marry Leoprick.

As the wedding day approached, she became depressed and struggled, and even after several formal words of comfort, she couldn’t seem to let go of her feelings.

She probably hoped he would tell her to marry him instead, but unfortunately, that position was already reserved for someone else.

Someone who would surely take his side when he became the emperor.

Vermerian was also a good card to play, but the problem was her overly loyal father.

Wary of Count Vermerian, he never gave Amelia an answer until the very end.

Still, he had made good use of her in his previous life.

He realized too late that it wasn’t what he wanted.

Lloyd gritted his teeth, slamming the desk again.

If only he had returned one day earlier.

If he had crossed time the day before her wedding, things wouldn’t have gotten this twisted.

Amelia had come to him until the day before the wedding, crying and begging him to take her.

And he clearly remembered receiving a report that she had shed tears thinking of him on her wedding day.

Ridiculously, he realized the regression on the morning of the wedding day.

A time that really didn’t fit for him who had a plan to turn everything back.

At the wedding he rushed to, thinking he was a step too late, she dared to act like she didn’t know him.

The Amelia who had clung to him until the night before was not there.

Thinking he might have seen wrong, he went to see her to further solidify their relationship, just in case, but she turned away from him again.

It was the same at the Waynes, where he suddenly dropped by.

And even at Count Percy’s ball today.

At this point, even a fool could clearly understand.

She was daring to turn her back on him.

Even bringing up nonsensical relationships like “sister-in-law and cousin brother-in-law”.

Why on earth!

“Son, did something happen?”

At that moment, while he was lost in such complicated thoughts, he heard his mother’s voice behind him, not even realizing she was there.

She must have followed him all the way to his room, stomping her feet and saying his expression hadn’t been good the whole way back.

Even though he clearly told her not to worry and to leave him alone.

“It’s nothing, so please leave now.”

Lloyd said coldly without even turning his gaze.

Before and after the regression, she was an overly annoying and bothersome presence.

Clicking his tongue, he thought of his mother who only sought out her son for her own needs and whose attitude changed as she pleased.

“Why, son? It seems like something bad happened, and I’m sure there’s something this mother of yours can help with, right? So don’t just get angry like that…”

“Is there even anything you can help with, Mother?”

“What?”

That seemed to be why.

His words came out rougher than necessary as he recalled his mother, who was hopelessly useless and self-centered in his memory.

Lloyd regretted his words as soon as he spoke them.

No matter how delusional she was, indulging in past glory, she was still someone he needed to keep by his side and make use of for now.

And in the past, there had been quite a few times when she had been quite helpful in adjusting the relationship between him and Amelia.

Reminded that his mother still had some use left in her, Lloyd turned to her with a pitiful expression.

“I misspoke, Mother. I was so overwhelmed with anger that I…”

“Oh, Lloyd. My baby.”

When he made a face as if he couldn’t bear how much he regretted his own actions, his simple-minded and easygoing mother approached him with a sympathetic look and embraced him tightly.

The strong perfume she had sprayed on for the duke’s ball today stung his nose, but he gritted his teeth and endured it.

“My lovely son. Something must have really upset you for you to act like that. It’s okay. This mother of yours can understand everything.”

“Thank you for understanding.”

“Yes, yes. Who would understand you if not your mother? So, can you tell me what happened?”

She stroked Lloyd’s cheek, putting on the air of a loving mother.

She was truly a woman of unparalleled disgust no matter how much he thought about it.

He smiled bitterly at the corners of his mouth, thinking of how her attitude would change again tomorrow.

“It’s nothing much. Amelia and I had a little argument. It seems it’s not easy for her to take charge of the imperial household.”

“So Vermerian got angry at you, you mean?”

He inwardly scoffed at his mother’s sharp, pointed tone of voice.

‘Vermerian’, really.

Even though she was the crown princess, at the very least in name.

His mother’s face was hideously distorted, as if her ugly jealousy towards those better or more beautiful than her was rearing its head.

Even after living so long, sequestered away, the old woman still thought she was the most precious and beloved woman in the empire, leading to such side effects.

He barely managed to hold back his urge to snort as he looked at his mother, whose face was becoming more and more wrinkled.

“She wasn’t angry. It’s just that I couldn’t understand her being busy… It seems it’s a bit much for her, trying to do unfamiliar work.”

“Ha! I thought she was some great talent, saying she’d even take charge of the business guild…! So she was just acting high and mighty all this time?”

She scoffed, mocking Amelia.

It was just like his mother, who always nagged that no matter how much Amelia acted capable and put on airs, she was only killing the men’s spirits.

No wonder she had such a gleeful look on her face.

Lloyd kept taking deep breaths to calm himself, gently egging her on.

“That’s probably it. So how about you go and see her, Mother?”

“…Me?”

“Yes. You must have experience managing the palace during your time as an imperial princess, so wouldn’t you be of some help to Amelia, even just a little?”

Lloyd said with an angelic smile.

He didn’t really think his foolish and worldly ignorant mother had actually managed the palace.

When she was young, the head maid would have taken care of it, and after the empress entered the palace, the empress would have been in charge of managing it.

But even so, there was only one reason he was encouraging his mother.

Because Amelia had pretended not to know and listened to everything she said.

If she told her to buy jewelry, she’d buy jewelry, and if she said she wanted to travel, she’d send her on a trip.

If she said there was something she wanted, she’d do whatever it took to get it for her.

Amelia always tried to be on his mother’s good side, and that probably wouldn’t be much different in this life either.

“Please help Amelia, Mother. Then we can make up quickly too, so it’ll be good for you as well.”

He had to get Amelia back.

For the sake of his future that he wanted to make perfect, even going back in time.

It was necessary for her to be by his side.

So please.

“I’m begging you, Mother. You can do at least that much for your only son, can’t you?”

“O-Of course, Lloyd. Just trust this mother of yours.”

When he spoke gently with a smile, his mother reluctantly nodded.

She had a look on her face as if wondering how she would teach Amelia when she didn’t know anything, but she would still somehow manage it.

There was no one as stupid and easy to handle as his mother, after all.

Lloyd sent his mother, who clenched her fists saying she would definitely do it, out of the room.

It would be best if she could pull it off, but she might not be able to, so he needed to find a way to talk to Amelia somehow.

Lloyd crossed the now empty room and sat down at his desk.

To get her back, he needed to retrace the past.

He spread out paper on the desk and went over the events he remembered one by one.

When he first met Amelia.

Her wedding.

From his debut stage to the moment he ascended the throne, everything.

And on top of that, he recalled the things he had newly accomplished in this life to get her back.

The first of those was going to see Derick Valois, the leader of the noble faction who wanted to sit above the emperor’s head.

**

Derick Valois was a man of great ambition.

He always wanted more than he had, and he didn’t hesitate to use any means necessary to get what he wanted.

If needed, he didn’t hesitate to make anything other than himself a sacrifice for his desires.

What he wanted, when he wanted, as much as he wanted.

Derick Valois took pride in his concise and clear creed, and that was the same in front of anyone.

Yes, even if that someone was a green, reckless youngster.

No matter who he faces, he uses all his power to seize what he wants.

That was his lifelong creed.

“I’ve already made a deal with Duchess Flora Alois.”

Joining hands with Flora Alois, a faded flower now, was for that reason too.

The current emperor and empress weren’t as lenient or soft on Flora as the previous emperor, but how long could those two really stay in power?

Leoprick Baldini Reinhart was overly arrogant, and the gradually withering emperor and empress were annoying in their own way.

But even they were relatively lenient towards their own flesh and blood, so if the emperor and empress disappeared, there would be room for Flora Alois to take control.

The position to manipulate the highest in the empire as he pleased.

That was what the ambitious and greedy Derick Valois wanted.

Something he could never hope for from the current emperor and crown prince.

A position where not even the slightest annoyance would befall him while having the whole world under his feet.

And Flora Alois declared she would promise him that position while making Amelia Vermerian, who was several times more outstanding than her, work like a servant.

But that was a story from when he didn’t know about Lloyd Alois.

When he thought that man, buried in the skirts of two women, would only nod his head and do as he was told.

If he had known that he wasn’t a scarecrow but a beast hiding its claws, he might not have accepted that proposal.

But it wasn’t a bad thing to face a beast shining its eyes like that.

Derick Valois looked at Lloyd Alois, who had made a proposal not much different from what his mother had done.

He sank into his chair with a relaxed expression, observing his reaction.

“Isn’t that a contract you made with my mother, Duke?”

“But what Young Duke is proposing now doesn’t seem much different from what Duchess Alois did either.”

The Duke of Valois answered with a chuckle.

He wouldn’t have come all this way just to say the same thing, but Lloyd Alois had been repeating the same words since the moment he entered the room.