It was a moment between consciousness and unconsciousness.

I opened my heavy eyelids slightly and asked,

“Did you cry?”

“…How did the conversation develop like that?”

“Why, did you cry?”

“I don’t think I said I cried.”

Rinel chuckled as he touched the corners of his eyes with his fingers.

“Ah, did you say you wanted to cry?”

“…I probably said I felt like I might tear up, maybe?”

“I’m sorry, I was half-asleep…”

“I’m the one who should be sorry. How dare an emperor wake the empress from her sleep.”

“Hehehe.”

Even as sleep washed over me again, I couldn’t help but laugh at his joke.

“But you woke me up too.”

“Hm? Did I perhaps talk in my sleep?”

“No, I mean you awakened all my senses. It was the second time I’ve felt that in my life.”

Rinel spoke solemnly, as if he had encountered a deity.

“When was the first time?”

I forced my already non-functioning eyelids open and closed as I asked him.

Though I posed the question, it felt like I would fall asleep before hearing his answer.

I didn’t know what he had done to me, but all the energy seemed to have been drained from my body.

“The first time I felt all my senses awakening was while sword fighting.”

“Ah, sword fighting…”

Even in my sleepy state, I tried my best to respond to his words.

“Climbing step by step, and then suddenly feeling like I had leaped over countless stairs at once.”

“Yes, stairs… We should be careful.”

Hearing his words, an image of Melanie tumbling down stairs flashed in my mind.

I could faintly hear Rinel’s laughter.

His laughter reached my face along with a cool breath.

“After awakening all of me, are you now falling asleep?”

“Yesss…”

“Hehe, anyway, you probably don’t know that feeling, right? A woman who can’t even lift a sword wouldn’t know.”

Sword…!

I heard a word I liked from a voice I liked.

Even as I was drifting off to sleep, the word ‘sword’ briefly brought me back to consciousness.

“So you’ll have to take responsibility for me for life. The sword that awakened my senses stays by my side forever, so you should do the same.”

I felt Rinel’s hand stroking my head.

I wanted to stroke too. The sword…

“Say you’ll do it for life. Be generous since you’re half-asleep anyway.”

“Yes, for life… use…”

“It seems you don’t know what you’re saying right now? Well, it’s fine. I’ll piece it together and understand.”

Chu-.

“I’ll cherish and use it well for life.”

I felt his lips touch my forehead and then pull away.

At that sensation, I forced my half-closed eyes open and moved my lips to try to match his conversation.

“The sword?”

“You. More preciously in bed.”

“And the sword…?”

“The sword can be used roughly in the training grounds. Heh, you don’t even know what you’re asking now, do you?”

“Where… are the training grounds here?”

“What? Why are you suddenly looking for the training grounds?”

“To go when… my body burns and I can’t endure it…”

That’s how it was when I lived in the Chateau O’Neil royal family.

When even cold water couldn’t cool the heat.

When that terrible feeling of standing alone in the flames became uncontrollable.

At those times, I would run to the empty training grounds in the middle of the night.

I would swing my sword for hours in the training grounds until the morning sun rose.

After entrusting my fiery body to the sword for a while, the heat that had engulfed my entire body would disappear.

By the way, why did I just bring up the word ‘training grounds’?

Ah, Rinel must have mentioned it first?

Yes, that must be it. So I must have responded and then asked about it.

“When I’m excited with fever, to the training grounds…”

It seems I’m blurting out something again just now?

The words would disappear from my memory as soon as they left my mouth.

“Zelda, at those times you should come find me, why look for the training grounds?”

“Because it’s worth finding…”

“Perhaps you mean you want to kiss in the training grounds, something like that?”

“…”

“Come on, let the empress’s subconscious answer. Hurry.”

My mind briefly blacked out and came back, so I didn’t properly hear his words.

Oh well, I don’t know.

When in doubt, an affirmative answer must be the right one.

“Huh? Yes… You’re right.”

“!”

I responded to him with utmost politeness until the very end.

Feeling proud of myself, all my senses once again plunged into sleep as if fainting.

Rinel spent time continuing to gaze at Zelda’s sleeping face.

Dawn was now breaking.

With each blink of his eyes, he felt new emotions towards her springing up.

He was liking her more and more.

The more he touched her, the more he trembled.

The more he looked at her, the more lovely she became.

Whether her gaze was calm and proper,

Or like now when both her eyes and mouth were closed,

Or when she talked back to him, the emperor, with eyes wide open,

Or when her pink eyes darted around in embarrassment,

Or like earlier when she was drunk with sleep and unaware of what she was saying,

Everything about Zelda was always new and fresh.

In fact, he hadn’t been attracted to her from the start.

It was right before their wedding night that he felt a bit sorry for the woman marrying an emperor she had never seen, in a foreign country.

On their first night, she acted as if she had never heard anything about the Lapione Imperial Family.

At first, he suspected she might be lying or putting on airs.

But her clear eyes seemed to truly know nothing.

An empress who entered into a royal marriage without knowing anything about the Lapione Imperial Family’s wedding night traditions.

Rinel was also bewildered.

“What if that tradition of priests observing the wedding night hadn’t changed? Hm?”

Rinel gently tapped her cute nose with his hand as he whispered.

When he realized Zelda had no information about the wedding night, Rinel felt like a scoundrel committing a bad deed.

Though it was unfair to call himself a scoundrel since it was his first experience too.

As the emperor who had to show dignity and competence in all aspects, he tried to act nonchalant in front of her.

Fortunately, she probably didn’t notice his clumsy kisses due to her own nervousness.

It’s not that he never intended to sleep with the empress for life.

But he had no intention of spending the wedding night in front of those priests who always sought divine will in everything.

That’s why he changed the long-standing tradition of the Lapione Empire in his generation, and yet…

But he ended up making a mistake, led by a strange force.

It’s odd to call it a mistake, but Rinel thought of it as an error since it wasn’t part of the plan.

Moreover, didn’t he promise the empress not to worry, and that they would pretend to act for each other!

After the priests left, Rinel and she awkwardly stared at the ceiling together for a while.

As their rough breathing sounds stabilized almost simultaneously at that moment…

He thought that was when it started.

When she became special from that moment on.

As they conversed, that specialness grew deeper and deeper.

Ever since receiving the hypothermia curse, he had always endured cold and gloomy nights alone.

But on the wedding night, he laughed a lot.

Just looking at each other was laughter.

Even the air was laughter.

That night, every moment was warm.

Rinel felt that feeling might be happiness.

After the first night, he somehow felt like he needed to see the empress every day.

Otherwise, the day felt too empty.

Perhaps he was just insisting on such emotions after setting them for himself.

But contrary to his growing feelings towards the empress, she often showed signs of discomfort when facing him.

He knew she was trying to hide something.

He couldn’t tell what she was trying to hide, but somehow her pink eyes seemed to hold an apologetic look.

Why? Why did she look at him with such eyes?

Every time Rinel made eye contact and talked with Zelda, that curiosity arose alongside.

She would firmly respond to his words, but sometimes swallow her words.

Also, several times she would raise her hand as if to touch him, then hesitate.

It must be because he’s the emperor, so his very existence is intimidating.

‘Our empress is quite shy.’

That’s what Rinel thought.

But that thought was completely shattered tonight.

It turns out she wasn’t just a shy wife.

She even stole a kiss from him first, and today she boldly laid him down on the bed.

Zelda immediately showed a regretful expression, but well… the attempt was good.

Her sudden actions made him very happy and heated.

Recalling that moment from just a few hours ago, Rinel wanted to crumple up the rising sun and shove it back somewhere.

“Should I wake her?”

He murmured while feeling Zelda’s full, soft hair with the back of his hand.

“I shouldn’t push too hard with my stamina, since my wife has such a delicate body, right?”

Ah, it’s agonizing.

Rinel closed his eyes and deeply inhaled the fragrance of her hair.

“Zelda…”

Eventually, Rinel called her name.

But he had enough conscience to keep his voice very low.

“…”

She was sleeping soundly without the slightest movement.

As expected, her frail body seemed to tire easily.

“Zelda?”

This time he slightly raised his voice, abandoning his conscience.

“Empress?”

“Mmm…”

Zelda’s eyes fluttered and showed a small reaction.

Rinel raised his body that had been lying on its side, like someone who found a glimmer of hope in despair.

“Can you hear me? Are you awake?”

Rinel carefully raised his hand, but couldn’t bring himself to shake her shoulder.

“Zelda? You should answer when the emperor calls.”

He earnestly whispered her name and waved his lost hand over her closed eyes.

After a moment, her lips parted softly.

Her mumbling lips suddenly spoke out.

“Listen…”

“Huh? What did you say?”

Rinel looked down at her face and asked.

She was clearly sleep-talking with her eyes closed, but why did our wife’s voice sound so solemn?

“Do you have something to tell me? What should I listen to?”

Rinel asked, trying to hold back his laughter at her sleep-talking command to ‘Listen.’

“The weapon…”

Zelda raised both hands as if gripping a sword and said.

“What do you mean suddenly telling me to take up a weapon?”

“Never mind. Listen, the weapon…”

Our empress is acting strange.

“…She doesn’t have a fever?”

She’s talking nonsense.

Rinel placed his hand on her forehead and tilted his head.

“Attack!”

She seemed to be fighting someone in her dream.

Is it because our last conversation before sleeping was about swords and training grounds?

“You’re having a fighting dream that really doesn’t suit you.”

Rinel chuckled with his fist against his mouth.

Her serious sleep-talking, rivaling a sword master, continued.

“Your body… weapon…”

“Hm? A weapon in my body?”

He kept trying to converse with the dream Zelda.

“I know… you’ve hidden all…”

“How did you know? That I have many things in my body that could be weapons? You’re sharp.”

Rinel crossed his arms and looked down at her sleep-talking as if watching a show.

“So take up your weapon…”

“Zelda, I already always carry my weapon. My face is a weapon, you know.”

Rinel said in a deliberately serious tone.

“And I do have another weapon, but that’s not something I can take out carelessly.”

“You talk too much. Hurry and take it out…”

“I said I can’t, but you insist?”

He flopped back onto the bed as he replied.

“Come on, attack…!”

Zelda swung her two hands clasped together in the air.

“This is unbearably cute.”

He grabbed Zelda’s two hands flailing in the air and lowered them.

Then he pulled her into his arms.

“Haa, just kill me already, kill me!”

Rinel exclaimed, summoning all his patience to exercise self-control, when at that moment,

“Ugh!”

Zelda’s delicate fist struck Rinel’s lower abdomen.