From one side, Orul, who had been watching, seemed increasingly tense. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves.
It was our turn next.
I walked slowly, following Princess Milliora. Holding a large box made my steps even more cautious.
I carefully placed the box on the table and opened the lid.
The servant looked inside at the numerous letters and notes and seemed perplexed as he looked at me.
‘What am I supposed to do with this?’
I began to read the crookedly-written letters one by one.
How hard I had worked to collect these letters from every orphanage!
“‘Happy birthday, Your Majesty. You are the best!’, ‘You are the greatest, Emperor. May you live long.’, ‘The bread is delicious, Your Majesty.’, ‘I also want to work in the palace when I grow up.'”
I put all the read letters back into the box, aware of the attention focused on me. The tension made me cough slightly.
I noticed that even Princess Milliora’s face had turned red with tension.
Gathering my courage, I spoke.
“Princess Milliora has auctioned off jewelry and donated all the proceeds to orphanages. She offers the congratulatory letters written by the children there. Not just from Princess Milliora, but amplifying the voices of hundreds of children from the farthest reaches of the empire, we wish Your Majesty a happy birthday.”
The rich show loyalty for profit. The commoners fear the powerful and show loyalty, yet they hate them inside.
Earning genuine goodwill from people seemed both easy and yet extremely difficult.
I did not hope for Princess Milliora to win this competition.
Even if I wanted to, it was impossible for me to arrange for gifts like the princes did.
I wanted to recover her lost honor from the ring incident and prove that she could at least have some influence on public opinion, being a worthy royal.
Now was the time for that judgment to be made.
The Empress spoke with a stiff face.
“Letters…”
Then the Emperor burst into laughter. A servant took the box when he gestured, and he took out one of the letters.
“This little one wants me to live up to a hundred. I wonder if having grandchildren will feel like this?”
Seeing the Emperor’s laughter, the Empress quickly changed her expression.
“Oh, my. Your Majesty, you are in a hurry. But I am also looking forward to it. Each and every word from the children is too adorable.”
“Indeed.”
I exhaled the breath I’d been holding, only then realizing I had been holding it in. Miliora Her Highness was equally tense.
As we returned to our seats, the Emperor spoke with a smile.
“The gifts from the princes and princesses are all wonderful. However, the one most fitting as my birthday gift is from Miliora.”
The herald stepped forward again and unrolled the scroll.
“The task for the next competition will be ‘Devise the most efficient plan for distributing the newly acquired iron ore from Amata.'”
As Emperor and Empress stood to leave, Miliora Her Highness covered her mouth to hide her excitement.
“Gasp!”
I stood there stunned.
‘A win?’
But when His Majesty declared Miliora’s victory, I saw where his gaze fell.
It looked like a natural movement, as if he were scanning the room.
But His Majesty was definitely making eye contact with Prince Greyan when he declared the winner.
It seemed he slightly nodded toward Duke Kaidel as well.
The true winner of this competition was Prince Greyan.
“Let’s go, what are you doing?”
Miliora Her Highness dragged me by the arm and half-ran down the hallway, her eyes shimmering with tears.
Lord Rond used his stature to maintain her dignity.
As he grabbed his cloak and spread his arms, it was as if a curtain had been drawn behind us.
I wanted to tell her to maintain her dignity as a lady-in-waiting, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it because it looked somewhat pathetic.
‘Your Highness. The real winner today is not us.’
A moment later, Miliora Her Highness spoke to me quite sternly.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t given you the ring? Let’s go. We have to tell the children this great news. The tea party today has to be grand!”
Ah, yes, yes.
Our royal family claimed all the credit for the good deeds. The joy was to be shared with the tea party friends.
But who cares? We won the first competition. All’s well that ends well.
I almost died in the middle of it all.
Relieved, I followed her with a sense of emptiness.
As Lord Rond glanced back at me as if asking if I was alright, I gave him a small smile.
‘Well, what’s it matter now? Haha.’
Male lead is a Love-Obsessed Merman
When he discovers she has gone, he risks everything to pursue her on land, enduring agonizing pain to transform his tail into human legs…
One-line summary: Male lead chases female lead. The male lead’s love is a bit sick, an invincible love brain.
Synopsis
During a voyage at sea, Jiang Yang accidentally captures a merman.
Servant: I heard that mermen are fierce and brutal.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman obediently rubbing her palm like a puppy: “You call this fierce and brutal?”
Servant: I heard that mermen have no human nature.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman with wet puppy eyes, obsessively calling her ‘A Yang’ like a childish infant: “You call this having no human nature?”
With great difficulty, she releases the merman back into the sea and returns to shore.
Who would have thought that in less than half a month, the merman, who should have been freely wandering in the South China Sea, would shed his scales, endure the pain of losing his tail, transform into human legs, and come ashore to find her?
He kneels at her feet, rubbing her palm, with merman tears rolling down: “A Yang, don’t abandon me.”
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