Chapter 5. A New Concubine

There is a saying on cruise ships.

Those who want to enjoy, go to the banquet hall; those who want to love, go to the bow.

The banquet hall on a cruise ship, by its nature, echoed well. Due to music or laughter, even the voice of the person next to you was not clearly audible, so how could one develop a relationship if there was someone they liked?

So if someone caught your eye, you would exchange glances in the banquet hall, then come out to the nearby bow to have a deep conversation. This was the social custom on cruise ships.

However, occasionally, even those without a partner would wander around the bow.

Enrique, too, was the latter today.

‘That’s…’

Having successfully infiltrated the ship under the cover of darkness, he briefly removed the hood he had pulled down low. Just as he took a deep breath to hide his uneasiness and lifted his head,

Someone’s back came into his view.

A woman sitting precariously on the railing, her jet-black hair fluttering.

In one way, she seemed to blend perfectly with the night, and in another way, she looked as if she were sitting at the highest point of this ship, dominating the darkness.

Enrique, his eyes narrowed, unconsciously murmured a name.

“Astaro…t.”

That couldn’t be.

Yet why did he think for a moment that she had been reborn?

Enrique moved without hesitation.

He had to see her face.

The distance was too far to make out what she was wearing in detail, but he could tell the color.

Black.

The color that suited her better than anything else.

‘If I go around, it’ll be too late.’

For some reason, he felt he had to see her right away. Growing impatient, Enrique was about to kick off the wall to leap upwards.

But just as he moved hastily, another scene entered his view.

“……”

The hot summer breeze fluttered the clothes.

It was as if the person had summoned this wind.

The young thing that always hung around the Empress. The one whose head had barely shed its childishness, whose blood had barely dried, was glaring straight at him while embracing the black-haired woman.

“Ha.”

A mirthless laugh escaped Enrique’s lips.

It was only because the Empress had accepted the troublemaker that he had no choice but to leave him be. In Nix, if a member of the Quan royal family were to fall ill or get hurt, it could become a national issue, so he hadn’t laid a hand on him.

If he, the Emperor, had wanted, that young thing’s situation would have been much worse than it was now.

But when did he grow so insolent as to bare his teeth like this?

‘Seeing how that fellow is growling and baring his teeth, that woman must be the Empress.’

It’s an absurd situation. Who would be interested in someone like the Empress?

The Emperor and Empress are symbolic figures. No one would call them a couple.

So there was no need to act so fiercely as if his female had been stolen.

‘Unless the Empress is her…’

It’s a futile thought.

He just wanted to ask the Empress.

How she communicated with her, if she had said anything about him.

In other words, to him, the Empress was just a means of communication. Nothing more, nothing less.

‘What a grand misunderstanding.’

Enrique twisted his lips.

He knew where the Empress was now, so that was enough.

The conversation could wait until after daybreak.

‘…Yes, let’s do it tomorrow.’

In fact, Enrique had been postponing like this over and over.

Perhaps… because he was afraid.

Even for someone as emotionally worn out as him, if he heard the words ‘I curse you’ twice, it would be difficult to bear without jumping into that black sea.

Although Mereum caught me, I still insisted on wearing the maid’s outfit the next day.

There was no outfit more convenient for moving around than this.

When morning came, Paivel picked out the ones I had marked and sent them off the ship. Including those who had withdrawn due to the great shock to their minds and bodies after seeing the corpse yesterday, the number of candidates was now officially 330.

‘It’s reduced a bit, but I wish it would decrease more from here.’

With only twelve actors, too many candidates were flocking to one person.

As I pondered, I called Paivel and subtly discussed it.

“What are you worried about? Since their looks are all about the same, we can weed them out based on talent or skill!”

Paivel exclaimed confidently, telling me to just trust him before quickly disappearing.

With a face that suggested he had thought of something very interesting.

Meanwhile, Mereum seemed to want to stay by my side again today, but that wasn’t possible.

He was the head of security, not my bodyguard who had boarded the ship.

And so, at noon when the sun was said to be at its highest,

I was walking alone along the promenade with light steps.

‘What Belliford sent yesterday were small fry. There will be assassinations today too. Is there a good way to find his contractor?’

The promenade was quiet thanks to many participants being cooped up in their rooms due to hangovers.

Because of this, I was able to move around leisurely.

‘I have suspicions, but evidence is important. If it’s Helene’s doing, this time I can finally drive that unsightly face out of the Imperial Palace.’

Helene’s influence had already greatly diminished.

A saint is only useful when there’s war or plague. In peaceful times like now, there’s nothing for Helene to do.

The temple knows this too, which is why they’ve been increasing events to help the extremely poor every year, putting the saint at the forefront.

Of course, to fund this, they were demanding more donations from the nobles, and the noble class, burdened by this, was grumbling.

‘The saint has made a contract with the devil. If it’s such a fatal fact, even Enrique won’t be able to cover it up. The nobles will want to bury Helene themselves.’

Even if Helene wasn’t the contractor of my beloved brother, it wouldn’t be a bad plan to make it a fact.

‘Or… how about sending Mereum back, framing Helene, and pulling Enrique down from his position all at once?’

Of course, Enrique’s support base was still solid.

But the biggest problem wasn’t that sort of thing, but the size of his holy power.

Because Enrique could kill me in an instant.

‘But Enrique’s holy power has been gradually decreasing over the past few years.’

I don’t know the reason. I’m not curious either.

I just felt good about it.

In just one more year, Enrique would no longer be threatening.

He who used to be so strong when protecting Helene like a chick in a nest, now seemed as empty as a hollow frame, having stopped visiting the Lily Palace, perhaps tired of that too.

Every time I saw Enrique’s purple eyes, I felt like he was tracing back to some distant past.

Especially when looking at me, he seemed to be trying to find the shadow of ‘Astarot’ who couldn’t possibly exist.

‘May you slowly break down, haunted by my ghost.’

These days, Enrique’s thin lips would move every time he saw me.

He seemed to have something he wanted to say, but I had no reason or obligation to listen.

Therefore, I was continuing to ignore Enrique.

“Which one do you think is the real Empress?”

“Well… at least not the one in the library.”

“Why?”

“There’s no way the Empress would be that knowledgeable.”

The maid’s outfit is really interesting. The concubine candidates pass by me like shadows, talking freely.

I stopped walking and pricked up my ears.

Since I had time, I wanted to hear more about what they thought of the Empress.

“And not the one in the gym either. The muscles on her arms were serious. How can a woman have so much muscle?”

“I know, right? It seemed like more than even me?”

Hmm, eliminated.

Not worth listening to anymore.

I secretly imbued magic on the backs of those chuckling idiots, drawing an X in the air.

“You should apologize for that comment just now.”

But that’s when it happened.

Softly.

From somewhere, a vision of a snow-white petal fluttering down and landing gently on the bridge of my nose appeared.

Startled, I quickly closed and opened my eyes, and the petal vision disappeared, replaced by a silver-haired man standing there.

“!”

Magnolia flower.

I was slightly shocked by the man’s appearance, which could only be described as elegant and refined enough to be called that.

Was there a candidate who looked so pure?

“Go and apologize to her directly.”

A calm, fine voice pleasantly caressed my ears.

It was a refreshingly clear voice, completely different from Mereum’s scratchy, husky bass tone.

The tone, which showed strength within gentleness and composure within that strength, was not arrogant but had a firmness that precisely distinguished the position between the other person and himself.

“W-who are you… to…”

The concubine candidates who had tried to confront the man boldly found their voices getting smaller as they continued speaking.

It couldn’t be helped.

Although he was smiling brightly, an aura that ordinary people would find hard to approach was emanating from this magnolia-like man.

After all, isn’t the law of the jungle applied not only to the animal ecosystem but also to the human ecosystem?

‘He must have lived as a top predator from birth. That’s the kind of dignity he has.’

His face was like a deer, but his energy was like a wolf.

A noble attitude in the appearance of a pitiful herbivore. Even a personality that values courtesy.

My mouth opened slightly as I blankly stared at the nameless magnolia flower.

‘I found it!’

Someone I could fall in love with!

I couldn’t move, feeling as if lightning had struck.

But at the same time, it was also very suspicious.

If he was that outstanding, Paivel would have told me separately, wouldn’t he?

‘Moreover, he looks like an upper-class nobleman. There’s no way such a person would be on this ship as a concubine candidate.’

As I considered each point, there was something else that didn’t add up.

If he had snuck on board, he wouldn’t be walking around so boldly in broad daylight, would he?

“Is he a bit shameless?”

As I tilted my head and looked again, his narrow eyes seemed to look fox-like.

It was then.