After hearing that his precious daughter had stopped eating and drinking since receiving a letter from House Rumps, Baron Arche hurriedly went to her room.

“Open the door. What on earth is the matter?”

She was his proud daughter who had become a maid to Duke Rumps, a great nobleman of the empire.

“My lord, the young lady hasn’t eaten anything for three days.”

“What?”

“She won’t let anyone into the room. So we tried to approach through the terrace from the adjacent room, but the young lady had drawn the curtains, so we couldn’t see anything.”

“You should have broken down the door if necessary! Go and bring something!”

The baron grasped the hammer the butler had hurriedly brought with both hands. Then he began smashing the door with all his might.

Through the cracked door, Lady Arche could be seen. She was crouched on the bed, anxiously biting her nails.

“My child!”

Baron Arche reached his arm through the broken gap to open the door. Though his arm was scratched and bleeding from the wood, he was too preoccupied with checking on his daughter’s condition to notice.

“F-Father.”

Large tears fell from the young lady’s eyes as she saw the baron.

“Yes, tell me. What on earth is going on?”

“What should I do now? I did it because the duke ordered me to… But I’m so scared, Father.”

Her nails were covered in wounds from how much she had bitten them. The baron spoke slowly, forcibly suppressing his rising anger.

“Explain so I can understand. What did the duke order you to do that has you like this?”

Lady Arche looked at the baron’s face for a long while before breaking into sobs again. She bit her lip until it bled, saying their family might be ruined because of her.

“Darling, Father will solve this, so tell me. Don’t just keep crying.”

Lady Arche trembled in fear. Then, as if she had made up her mind, she opened her mouth.

“Duke Rumps… told me to send a threatening letter and a dead rat’s corpse to Black Swan. So I did.”

“Black Swan? You mean the place run by Duke Artenbach’s fiancée?”

Lady Arche slowly nodded her head.

“It’s alright. I can handle that much. So don’t worry.”

“…That’s not all.”

“What else is there? Tell me everything.”

The young lady wiped her tears with the back of her hand before speaking.

“The duke told me to find a warehouse far from the village, so I did…”

“And then?”

Lady Arche got up from the bed and staggered over to the dressing table. Then she took out a letter from the drawer and held it out.

“…Who is this letter from?”

“Duke Rumps sent it.”

Baron Arche unknowingly gripped the corner of the letter. The letter contained instructions to take Anna, an employee of Black Swan, to the warehouse they had prepared.

There was no family seal, and the letter had been written by a proxy. Everything pointed in one direction.

‘He intends to pin this on us if things go wrong.’

Baron Arche collapsed to the floor, his legs giving out.

“Surely… you haven’t already taken her to the warehouse?”

“I have. I commissioned a mercenary group, and they’re supposed to contact me if they fail.”

“Damn it!”

When Baron Arche cursed, his daughter, who had just stopped crying, began to tear up again.

“Father… I’m so scared of the duke. Our family will be alright, won’t we? He’ll leave us alone since we did everything he said, right?”

Baron Arche quietly embraced his terrified daughter.

“I’ll try to resolve this.”

“Hic, Father.”

“So stop crying now, okay?”

The young lady sobbed for a long time in the baron’s wrinkled embrace. The baron patted his daughter’s back for a while, saying everything would be alright.

I decided to politely decline the commission for Duke Rumps’ statue. There was no need to enter the tiger’s den, and since Ranson also said he wouldn’t take this commission, I could decide without pressure.

“Anna, is today the day the ship leaves?”

“Yes. It’s scheduled for a night departure.”

“It’s late, but would you like to go to the port together?”

“I’d love to!”

When the merchant ship leaves today, it will return in a week. The agave fiber will be on it too.

“Isn’t a night departure too late?”

Ranson said as he came out of the warehouse that had become a shared workspace. His hands were covered in paint.

“It is late, but since it’s the day our commissioned merchant ship is leaving, we should take a look.”

“I’ll come along.”

“Why, Ranson?”

“I’ll be by your side. I’m confident in protecting you.”

I replied with a bright smile.

“I’ll be accompanied by a knight from the Artenbach Order. So you don’t need to worry about me, Ranson.”

“Oh? Then I suppose I can be protected too.”

To him, who insisted on coming along despite my refusal, I finally told him to do as he pleased. Since he said the port was an artistically beautiful space and a dark night walk gives a lot of inspiration, I had nothing more to say.

“By the way, it looks like this year’s beast subjugation will start earlier than last year.”

Anna, who had brought the newspaper, pointed to a part while examining the articles.

“There’s already an article about recruiting for the subjugation team.”

“A recruitment notice? Isn’t that too early?”

Once they start recruiting for the subjugation team, they always depart for the subjugation within a month. It had always been that way, except in cases of natural disasters or wartime situations. The scientists of Artenbach monitor the movements of the beasts and determine the timing based on the research data they’ve gathered, and they’ve never been wrong.

‘If they’re recruiting for the subjugation team now…’

The wedding is set to be held at the mansion, and the gifts and dress are already prepared.

The most important thing is that the wedding is exactly a month away.

‘The duke will have to go on the beast subjugation.’

It’s been a week since they started recruiting for the subjugation team. After another week of recruitment from today, they will train for about two weeks and then depart for the subjugation immediately.

‘The timing is awkward.’

It’s a marriage with a purpose anyway, so it doesn’t matter when we do it.

I think I should have a calm conversation with the duke about this issue.

“Anna, I’m going to the government office for a moment.”

“Are you going to see the duke?”

“Yes, I might be late, so if you have time, go back to the mansion first.”

“Yes, my lady.”

I greeted Ranson, saying I’d go ahead, and then went outside. A knight from the Artenbach Order who had been waiting in front of the door followed behind, guarding me.

The first person I met when I arrived at the government office by carriage was Baron Tirel.

“Would you like to wait here for a moment? The duke is in a meeting with the administrators. Shall I bring you some tea?”

“No, I’ll help myself.”

The bags under his eyes were too dark to ask him to do such a trivial task. I told him not to worry and looked around his office.

‘It has the same atmosphere as the duke.’

Stacks of neatly arranged documents and pen holders grouped by similar sizes.

Inside the glass shelves hanging on the wall were spare ink and clean paper stacked up.

On the opposite side of the shelf, a large bookcase filled the entire wall, all filled with books about how to govern the territory well.

Just reading the titles was already giving me a headache.

As I was interestingly looking around the empty office, I found a familiar object on his desk.

‘As I expected.’

A pendant containing portraits of me and Rublion was neatly placed on top of a small wooden box.

I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of the duke carefully placing the pendant on the box, adjusting its angle with a fierce expression. He’s cuter than he looks.

“My lady, did you wait long?”

Right on cue, the duke came in. Seeing that he wasn’t surprised to see me, it seemed he had already heard from Baron Tirel that I had arrived.

“I hope I’m not interrupting your work?”

“Not at all. Please, sit down first.”

He put down the document with the agenda on his desk and came over to sit on the sofa.

“Would you like some tea?”

“No, thank you. I was planning to leave after saying what I came to say, since you must be busy.”

“Go ahead then.”

I carefully brought up what I had been thinking about on my way here.

“I saw the article about recruiting for the subjugation team. It seems earlier than last year.”

“That’s right.”

“So I was wondering, how about postponing our wedding until after the subjugation?”

“I’d like to hear your reason.”

“You’re busy, aren’t you?”

“If that’s the reason, I refuse.”

The duke firmly refused, when I thought he would readily agree. It was unexpected.

“The subjugation mission happens every year, and my aides are quite capable of handling things. I’m not so busy that I need to postpone our wedding.”

“But in the current situation, you might have to leave for the subjugation right after we hold the ceremony, right? Then I’d have to attend banquets alone without my husband.”

“…”

The duke didn’t answer. He had been hit right where it hurt.

“The beast subjugation schedule being moved up isn’t anyone’s fault. And even if it’s after the subjugation, we’re only talking about postponing it for about two weeks at most.”

As I was speaking, a thought suddenly occurred to me.

“When you return after it’s over, there will be plenty of beast meat, so the banquet will be even more abundant. Above all, we’ll be able to go on our honeymoon with peace of mind.”

The duke remained silent. Thinking he was almost convinced, I decided to drive in the final nail.

“The fortunate thing is, we haven’t sent out invitations yet.”

So there’s no problem with postponing the wedding.

“My lady.”

The duke called me in a serious voice. Had he made up his mind?

“What will you do if I don’t return from the beast subjugation?”

“Don’t return… What do you mean?”

The duke leaned back awkwardly against the sofa. Then, with a sad and frustrated look in his eyes, he said,

“Why do you think we give high compensation to volunteers participating in beast subjugation and even train them?”

I couldn’t give any answer to his question. The duke continued in a low voice.

“They could die. At the hands of the beasts.”