One was right next to the bed, and the other was near the entrance leading to the corridor.

Wondering which one to open first, Lina approached the door near the bed.

‘The wardrobe wouldn’t logically be right next to the bedroom door, right?’

In fact, hiding something like a secret room was not common at all.

Exhausted, Lina grabbed the handle next to the bedroom without hesitation and flung it open.

But.

“What’s this… Oh…”

Disappointed that it was not a wardrobe, but only for a moment. A whole new room appeared. And the moment she discovered a familiar figure there.

She was unable to continue speaking.

‘What…?’

An involuntary whimper escaped her slightly parted lips.

Seeing the man standing where he shouldn’t be, her mind went blank.

The man, too, appeared surprised at Lina’s sudden appearance, his body stiffening. He was in the process of unbuttoning his shirt, his body frozen in that position.

The water dripping from Lina’s hair filled the silence between them with a regular ticking sound, like the second hand of a clock.

“……Duke?”

Why was the Duke in her room? No, was the place where that man was really her room?

She stiffly turned her head to look around. A room that looked larger and more splendid than her own. And the large bed visible behind the man.

These things showed that where he was, was definitely not part of the room where Lina was staying.

‘What is this.’

Count Harlen must have been mad. Assigning a room suitable for newlyweds to the Duke and herself.

She’d heard of rooms that allowed couples to spend secret time together, unnoticed by the servants. About 50 years ago, wasn’t it?

She remembered that it had been a trend for newlyweds’ rooms at the time but had quickly disappeared because it led to frequent marital disputes.

Lina bit her lip to hold back the harsh words that almost burst from her mouth.

But to give me such a room.

She resolved to shave off half of Count Harlen’s disheveled head.

The Duke, too, seemed to be taking stock of the situation, glancing sideways at the room where she was standing. He must have been shocked, too.

Receiving a room connected to a maid. He wished that he would give the Count a good scolding on his behalf.

As the Duke and Lina looked around, their eyes met. And the man’s eyes began to move down from Lina’s face, his expression suddenly changing.

‘Why is he looking at me like that…!!!’

She remembered something she had overlooked.

‘How could I forget?’

Lina looked down at herself, her head rigid. Her body, soaked in water, barely covered with a single towel.

To anyone, she would have looked like she had just finished bathing.

‘Oh my God…’

And before she could take any action.

Bang!

Duke Valige closed the door violently, faster than her.

“Huh…?”

For a moment, Lina’s eyes widened as she stood still. Normally in this situation, she would be the first to scream.

“What was that face just now?”

A man’s frown, as if he had seen something he shouldn’t have. His eyes were full of displeasure.

It looked exactly like the expression of someone who had encountered a pervert, which you would only find in the capital.

The last image of Valige’s face seemed to flicker before Lina’s eyes like an afterimage.

Capital of the Regnator Empire, Nueberun.

A man with closely cropped hair was drinking alcohol in the pub.

“I think it’s a bluff.”

Count Philip Morris had already been in the capital for a week under the Duke’s name. The Duke had instructed him to investigate whether a maid named Lina was the Empress’s spy or not.

“No matter how I think about it, it’s strange.”

His animallike instinct was telling him so. The suspicion about the maid. But no traces were found that the Empress had sent a spy to the Ferimanence territory.

“It doesn’t seem like she’s a spy…”

At Lawrence’s words to find out the maid’s true identity, he had investigated this and that about her.

But no matter how much he searched, he could not find any traces of her. He had roughly gathered information from Lawrence.

That there was no information about one person.

Philip drank the alcohol in a gulp, frustrated.

He had been told to find out everything about the maid, but it seemed like he would have to return emptyhanded.

‘I’ll hear about this properly.’

Thinking of being scolded by Lawrence, he felt dizzy, but staying here any longer was a waste of time.

Just as Philip had decided to return to the territory around this time, he heard the voice of a middleaged man from the table behind.

“Was it 20 years ago? I met a woman so beautiful that my eyes popped out.”

“Oh! So how was that woman?!”

A common topic among men. Seeming unimportant, he was about to ignore it when the following words caught Philip’s interest.

“I think that woman was a witch.”

“A witch?”

The man looked around and lowered his voice.

“She was definitely a stunning beauty until the night, but when I opened my eyes the next day, there was an ugly girl! I was so surprised that I ran straight out of the room! I thought I was bewitched!”

A man who was speaking with great atmosphere was reprimanded by another man’s voice, who seemed to have been expecting something big.

“You liar! Weren’t you just drunk and mistaken?”

“I didn’t even touch alcohol the night before!”

“Yeah. It’s typical for a drunkard to say he wasn’t drunk. Haha!”

Philip, who had pricked up his ears expecting something significant, shook his head disapprovingly and poured the remaining beer into his mouth.

“Landlord! I’ll leave the money here!”

Philip left the pub, leaving a few coins on the table. And following him were two men, their hoods pulled up.