Karaf feared why she was in pain, wondering if it was not her body but her heart that was hurting. Diseases of the heart are not easy to cure, they say. Since his own mother had also succumbed to a mental illness, he couldn’t just stand by and watch this situation.

Thus, Karaf summoned Aesha to the rose garden after a long time. It was to give her some rest and perhaps get a hint as to why she was in such pain. However, his wounded pride prevented him from asking if it was because of him.

Having carved out some time from his busy schedule, Aesha, with her head bowed deeply, did not engage in a proper conversation with him. Past Karaf, frustrated and left alone by the sight of him just staring at the teacup in front of him, the current Karaf was in shock, witnessing Aesha’s various expressions.

Aesha was now terrified in his presence. Seeing her thin shoulders trembling, it seemed like she was afraid he might turn violent again at any moment.

While observing this, Karaf suddenly had a thought. Perhaps Aesha disliked being alone with him, not the rose garden…

Did he bring her here to take a break?

Now he realized that there was no dumber thought than that. She could never relax in his presence.

He only understood it now.

Meanwhile, as news of the emperor’s enlightenment did not reach the Etsuheim Empire no matter how much time passed, various rumors began to spread.

Rumors ranged from the emperor avoiding her in bed to the scandalous suggestion that another man had entered the scene. There were even whispers that the current emperor was too weak to make the flower bloom this time…

The entire empire became interested in his enlightenment, and past Karaf felt the burden as if a heavy load had descended on his shoulders.

So he began to obsess even more with his enlightenment, wanting to prove to everyone.

Your thoughts are all wrong.

Bannetza has enough power to enlighten him, and he loves her too much.

They don’t avoid each other.

He wanted to prove that fact as soon as possible, so he often consorted with her.

The problem was that, apart from consorting, he had not thought at all about how to win her heart. In other times, he did not actively seek her out…

He believed that if they were a couple, they should naturally consort, and even if there was not much conversation, the closer their bodies became, the closer the distance in their hearts would be. His parents did not do that. He thought everything would be okay as long as he did the opposite.

But the more he acted that way, the more she seemed to wither away and sink into despair, a fact he was oblivious to.
In a scene that made anyone watching involuntarily distressed, Karaf, observing it, froze coldly as color drained from his face.

The union with the butterfly he had so eagerly anticipated was completely different from what he had envisioned. He couldn’t bring himself to look at Aesha’s suffering face on the bed.

How could he act so barbarically, only thinking about himself?

Past Karaf, engrossed in pleasure, seemed oblivious to his surroundings and to her suffering. Though Aesha and he shared the same space, the atmosphere felt completely different, as if they were in separate dimensions.

While Karaf wished the man on the bed was not him, there was a contradictory feeling that if the man were someone else, he would want to tear him apart.

The scenes kept changing, bringing a sense of relief when the unpleasant ones passed, but the subsequent scenes were just as undesirable.

Was her reluctance to approach him first, to not whisper love first, due to wounded pride?

His actions, deliberately tormenting her, acting coldly, and making her shed tears, were behaviors that one wouldn’t subject even a beloved little girl to.

Yet, once a month, the cursed day of the new moon inevitably arrived, and Karaf, as always, writhed in the agony of the curse.

Unable to endure the dreadful pain, he eventually shifted the blame for the agony onto Bannetza.

[“Is this Bannetza not from a minority? Why can’t she lift the curse on me? Why can’t she enlighten me? In fact, is it not that she can but won’t? She is pretending not to do it on purpose because she doesn’t like me, right?”] [“No, Your Highness! That’s not it at all…!”]

During those moments, he yelled at her, demanding why she wouldn’t heal him when he was in so much pain, questioning if making flowers bloom wasn’t her role as a butterfly.

Each time, she vehemently denied any intention to cause his suffering and pleaded tearfully, but he dismissed her and left the room harshly.

By doing so, he thought she would cling to him more, somehow find a way to enlighten him, and seek love from him.

As his mother had done to him in his youth…

But, in reality, butterflies in nature were not beings that existed to make flowers bloom.

They merely came to suck nectar from the flowers, helped the flowers unintentionally, and left after their business was done—a symbiotic relationship.