“And… I have a request for you, knight. Be Meruem’s sparring partner.”

“Right now?”

“Yes.”

You look so eager to bring Meruem down.

But Meruem isn’t an easy opponent.

“What do you say, Meruem? I won’t force you if you dislike it.”

“I don’t care. Whatever.”

“Then?”

But, wait.

‘Why does Meruem also seem eager to give Derek a good hit?’

Clang!

The swords and dao collided, producing a sharp noise.

Derek, over 190 cm tall, wielding a bastard sword, used his brute force effectively, but Meruem, still growing, couldn’t handle it head-on.

“Ugh.”

Agilely deflecting Derek’s sword, Meruem ground his teeth and leaped up.

He elegantly curved like a crescent moon behind Derek and launched a ferocious attack. However, Derek’s skill was slightly superior to Meruem’s.

‘Almost evenly matched, though.’

For now, Derek was slightly ahead.

As expected, the outcome was as I predicted.

Crash!

The dao in Meruem’s hand shattered with a deafening metallic sound.

“Wow!”

“Both are incredibly skilled!”

“Ah, I want to join too!”

Meruem and Derek’s sparring lit a fire in the entire royal knights.

Everyone, excited by what they just saw, didn’t know how to react.
A chillingly low voice sliced through the air.

“One more time.”

It was Meruem.

Disbelievingly looking at his hand, Meruem requested a rematch.

‘Finally, he seems more alive.’

Seeing his gold eyes gleaming with a competitive spirit, I deliberately gave Derek the choice.

“What do you think, knight?”

“I will do it.”

Derek calmly adjusted his sword.

Meruem had only one dao from the desert, so for the next rounds, he used swords from Balquiere’s arsenal.

The two continued clashing swords, to the point where the watching knights’ faces turned pale with shock.

Derek might have enduring stamina, but Meruem, persistently attacking despite continuous losses, was truly tenacious.

“Cough, cough.”

The seemingly endless duel ended abruptly with my cough.

“Empress, are you alright?”

“Are you okay?”

It was a fake cough, but both stopped and rushed to me like lightning.

‘Hmm. This is good. There’s been some progress.’

Cradled in Derek’s arms, who couldn’t settle down, I reached out to pat Meruem’s head.

“Well done. I’ll soon tell you what you’re lacking.”

I had fully grasped his strengths and weaknesses.

According to my calculations… in three years, Meruem will become much stronger than his brother.

“Don’t you hurt?”

“Not really.”

That evening, I called Meruem to the living room, where a warm fire was crackling, to tend to his wounds.

“Do you push yourself to tatters because you like it? Or did your brother make you this way?”

I gently wiped his palm with a clean cotton swab soaked in antiseptic.

Despite the sting, he didn’t flinch – either too tough or forced to be.

From my experience, no human exists without pain; it’s just a matter of low or high pain threshold.

“Done.”

Handling the unfamiliar sword had burst the blood vessels in his palm.

A few days of care should suffice, given his recovery rate.

I meticulously inspected the bandage on Meruem’s hand and nodded.

“Don’t grip a sword until it’s completely healed. We can’t risk it worsening.”

Meruem awkwardly opened and closed his hand.

After a long silence, which I didn’t rush, he seemed like he wanted to say something.

“People say I’ll become your consort when I grow up.”