While Rosie was bathing, the baby wyvern who had successfully escaped was humming to itself.

“You think I can’t find our master without you telling me? Hmph.”

Lulling a tune, it flapped its wings and flew around the center of the garden in the West Palace where the concubines’ quarters were gathered.

But before long, it flew to the wall of the nearest building and pressed its body close.

Suddenly, Rosie’s nagging came to mind.

To meet Zelda without being discovered, it needed a target to doppelgang.

“As the ugly one said, I’ll be caught by humans like this. I’d better transform.”

The baby wyvern looked around, rolling its ruby-like red eyes this way and that.

“Oh? That one looks good!”

Just then, a suitable person to borrow a body from caught its eye.

A red-haired maid with her hair in two braids was walking towards the building where the baby wyvern was hiding, carrying a large basket.

“I’ll just borrow you for a bit while I go find our master.”

The baby wyvern flew behind the red-haired maid.

As the maid turned around sensing something strange, the baby wyvern’s form changed into black smoke and was absorbed into her body.

After the maid’s body shuddered once, her brown eyes also changed to ruby color.

“But whose palace is this?”

The baby wyvern, having succeeded in its first doppelganger, looked up at the building the maid had been heading towards.

Just then, irritating voices of a man and woman were heard from somewhere.

“I’ve been waiting so long for today.”

“Then let me have you to your heart’s content tonight.”

The baby wyvern hugged the basket the maid had been carrying and moved towards the direction of the voices.

“Ah! If you do this already, how will I… it tickles… tickles! Hohoho!”

As it turned the corner of the building, the voices became clearer.

“They’re playing around.”

The baby wyvern looked up to where the voices were coming from.

On the largest terrace in the middle of the third floor.

The terrace doors were closed, but due to the wyvern’s developed hearing, it could easily hear the conversation from this distance if it focused a little.

Inside the glass doors of the terrace with the curtains half-drawn, a man and woman were kissing.

But it looked strange to the baby wyvern’s eyes.

“Ooh? Why are they tormenting their lips like that? They can’t breathe fire from their mouths like Rosie either?”

But Rosie was the possessor of the terrifying ability to spew curses like fire instead of actual fire.

“Should I go up and take a closer look?”

The baby wyvern walked steadily towards a large willow tree directly opposite the palace’s third-floor terrace.

Although transformed into a maid, climbing up to a branch about three stories high was no big deal.

“Is there something tasty in their mouths? Aha, those guys… They must be fighting over food in each other’s mouths!”

The baby wyvern jumped up onto a tree branch with the basket in its arms and watched the two people fighting with their lips with curious eyes.

[This is the timeline separator]

Prince Tessler, who had been engrossed in kissing, suddenly felt an eerie gaze at some point.

He carelessly turned his gaze outside the terrace.

“!”

He was shocked to see a maid sitting on a branch of the willow tree across from him.

At first, he thought it might be a ghost, but even after rubbing his eyes and looking again, it was definitely a person.

The woman who had been kissing the prince also hurriedly hid behind the curtain, unable to stay still.

Meanwhile, the maid sitting on the tree branch called out to him.

Prince Tessler, knowing it was dangerous but feeling more bewildered, opened the terrace door slightly as if entranced.

He had to hear what this fearless, crazy maid was trying to say to him.

Moreover, absurdly enough, the maid’s expression was so nonchalant that it piqued his curiosity.

Since she had seen his face, he would have to kill her anyway. But before that, he had time to listen to what she was babbling about.

The maid’s cheerful voice drifted through the open terrace door on the wind.

“Was it delicious?”

“!”

“Did you eat it all?”

“?”

“Whose mouth had more tasty stuff in it?”

‘What on earth is this……?!’

Prince Tessler blinked for a moment, dumbfounded by the maid’s bizarre questions that he couldn’t understand.

“You only know how to rub lips, can’t you talk? Is your throat blocked? Are your ears blocked?”

The prince’s breath caught at the shock of the maid’s fundamentally disrespectful informal speech.

It was the rudest language he had heard in his 25 years of life as a prince.

The woman hiding behind the curtain also looked at him with an expression that said “What on earth is this situation?” after hearing the words coming through the terrace door.

He shook his head with a deeply furrowed brow, indicating that he didn’t know what was going on either.

Prince Tessler turned his gaze back to the crazy maid sitting on the tree branch.

“What! Where did she go?”

It really happened in the blink of an eye.

In the moment he had turned his gaze away, the maid had disappeared.

Prince Tessler flung open the terrace door and went outside to look around.

Not even a small rustling could be heard, but how could she have disappeared in the blink of an eye?

Even if she had quickly climbed down from the tree branch to the ground, there should normally have been at least the sound of rustling.

‘Unless she had wings, how could this be possible?’

Confusion and bewilderment rushed in, competing with each other.

Forcibly regaining his composure, he put two fingers in his mouth and blew a short whistle.

Shortly after, his guard knight, Sir Ken, appeared on the third-floor terrace.

“What’s the matter, Your Highness?”

“Someone was there!”

He pointed to where the maid had been sitting.

“Where… Surely not that tree branch you’re pointing at?”

“Yes! She was definitely there until just now. Sitting on that tree branch!”

“Did you see her face?”

Sir Ken asked with a dubious look.

He was just asking questions because his master was insisting on it.

“I couldn’t see her face clearly, but it was a woman. She was dressed as a maid with her hair braided on both sides.”

He recalled the maid’s appearance as he spoke.

“…A woman? Are you saying a woman climbed up to a tree branch three stories high and was spying on this place?”

“That’s what I’m telling you! She made eye contact with me, spouted some strange questions, and then disappeared in the blink of an eye!”

There was nothing in Prince Tessler’s words that Sir Ken could understand.

But seeing him so agitated, with veins popping on his neck, it seemed he had definitely seen something.

“Perhaps you mistook a large bird for… something else?”

“This is driving me crazy.”

Prince Tessler spun around in place, placing both hands on top of his head with a frustrated expression.

“Look at the basket under that tree! Look at what that maid left behind when she ran away!”

Sir Ken stared at where the prince was pointing.

“Judging by the white sheets inside, it does seem to be something maids carry around…”

A fairly large basket was lying half-overturned under the willow tree.

“Um… Your Highness, was that braided-hair maid perhaps a redhead?”

At that moment, the woman who had been listening tensely to the two men’s conversation carefully interjected.

“Yes, red hair! Why, do you know her?”

“She seems like a girl from my quarters. I overheard some maids talking on the stairs earlier as I was passing through the corridor.”

“What did they say?”

“I think I heard a maid saying she was going to the main palace’s linen storage room to get bed sheets. And that girl always wears her hair braided on both sides. Her name is Anne…”

The woman spoke with a worried expression.

If rumors spread that she was enjoying a tryst with Prince Tessler, she would not be safe either.

Not only that, but her entire family would face great hardship.

So they needed to find that maid quickly and silence her, either through threats or persuasion, before she could tell anyone.

“Damn it.”

Prince Tessler punched the wall.

“Ken, catch that wench immediately! We absolutely cannot let her escape. She even talked to me, so she couldn’t have entered this palace.”

“Then there’s a high chance she fled towards the main palace in the opposite direction. Shall I catch her and bring her back?”

“Why bother. Kill her as soon as you catch her.”

Prince Tessler ordered, grinding his teeth.

If the fact that he came here in the middle of the night became known, everything would be over.

“She can’t have gone far yet. You should be able to catch up to that wench quickly no matter which way she ran, right?”

“Yes, don’t worry. I’ll be back soon.”

After Sir Ken disappeared, the woman anxiously grabbed Prince Tessler’s arm.

“Do, do we really need to kill her? Couldn’t we just send her far away…?”

“My love, if you don’t want to get into trouble yourself because of such an insignificant maid, stop saying stupid things with that pretty mouth of yours.”

Prince Tessler whispered as he wrapped his arm around the woman’s waist and roughly pushed her onto the bed.

“Sir Ken will take care of it. Until then, let’s continue what we were doing.”

“Alright…”

The woman’s face, which had been full of worry, quickly turned shy.

“Before becoming Emperor Rinel’s concubine, whose woman were you originally? Say it with your own mouth.”

Prince Tessler quickly climbed onto the bed and grabbed the woman’s chin as he asked.

“I was yours from the beginning, Your Highness. I can do anything for you. Just like how I deliberately became His Majesty’s concubine.”

The woman answered what Prince Tessler wanted to hear with a coquettish smile.

[This is the timeline separator]

The baby wyvern, having come down from the willow tree and left the West Palace, walked quickly in the direction where it sensed Zelda’s energy.

It would be much easier to just fly, but as Rosie said, roaming around in its true form was truly dangerous behavior.

“Why do they wear such uncomfortable things?”

The baby wyvern found the transformed maid’s clothing very cumbersome.

Since it couldn’t take them off, it lifted the dress skirt up to its knees and entered the path to the main palace’s back garden connected to the Empress’s palace.

“Aish, Rosie said I absolutely must not be seen by other people! But seeing them torment their lips so much, I couldn’t help but…”

The baby wyvern recalled the man whose eyes had met its own.

The man’s gaze was somehow unpleasant.

It wanted to return to its original form and breathe fire at the man, but chose to speak to him in a friendly manner instead.

However, as they conversed, a sense of threat was felt from the man’s face.

Although it didn’t know what wrong it had done, something felt ominous, so it left that place while the man briefly turned his gaze away.

“Ah, who’s that guy who’s been chasing after me?”

The baby wyvern made an annoyed expression as it sensed a man following far behind, then started running.

“Come on, try to follow me.”

After running without stopping, it wasn’t too far to the Empress’s palace’s back garden.

The baby wyvern stopped where Zelda’s energy was strongly felt.

It was a much larger and more splendid building than Rosie’s palace.

“If I stay in this form, I’ll be caught by that guy who was following me.”

The baby wyvern looked around to see if there was a new target for doppelganging.

“Meow~”

Just then, a fluffy white kitten popped out of the yellow rose garden.

“Hello? Nice to meet you, little one.”

The baby wyvern waved and approached the white cat.

“Meow! (Go away!)”

The cat recognized the wyvern in human form and bristled its fur in alarm.

[This is the timeline separator]

I had been awake for a while.

There was a sensation of heat from the burn scar on the right side of my face.

It wasn’t as painful as other times, but I couldn’t ignore it and go back to sleep either.

It was strange that the burn scar had felt hot for so long after taking the magic potion.

The heat sensation had been gradually intensifying over time.

And for a little while now, the intensity of that heat had been maintaining a certain level.

I sat up.

Sensing my movement, Rinel’s peaceful features briefly furrowed before smoothing out again.

I looked down at his face as he lay fast asleep beside me.

I wanted to stroke his soft hair, but fearing I might wake him, I pulled back my hand that had been reaching for his face.

I silently laughed, recalling what he had said before falling asleep.

He had been bothered all along by what Commander Makrom had prayed to the gods at the training grounds, and while making love, he had grumbled, repeating the commander’s words.

‘What? Ask to take away some of my passion? That’s not it, Makrom. Your wish was rejected before it even reached the heavens! This night, this moment now… is the proof of that, you bastard! Heh…’

Thus, he demonstrated with his whole body that Commander Makrom’s prayer or whatever had not worked.

As a result, he fell asleep in an almost unconscious state.

Meow~ Meow~

As I continued to admire Rinel’s sleeping face, I suddenly lifted my head at the sound of a cat’s cry.

The crying stopped for a moment, then resumed pitifully.

I carefully lifted the blanket and slipped out of bed.

Minimizing the rustling sound and even lifting my heels, I walked towards the terrace.

Opening the terrace door and stepping outside wasn’t just because of the cat’s cries.

The burn scar on the right side of my face felt even hotter, and I felt I needed some air.

As I came outside, the cat’s cry changed slightly.

Meow~!

It was more of a yearning cry, you could say?

I glanced down below the terrace.

Did I see wrong? No…

A white kitten was standing upright on its hind legs, waving its front paws at me like hands.

Without realizing it, I gripped the terrace railing with one hand and jumped down.

Somehow… I felt I needed to go down there.

Despite the rapid descent, my two feet landed steadily on the ground.

“You, what… are you?”

The white kitten leaped into my arms as if it had been waiting.

The kitten’s eyes glowed with a red hue, sparkling.

My heart pounded wildly for no reason.

Of course, the kitten was cute, but I couldn’t understand why my heart was beating so fast when I wasn’t even facing Rinel.

What on earth is this feeling?

I felt as if something was swirling inside my stomach.

Just then, footsteps were heard from afar.

It seemed someone was coming this way.

But the footsteps were not of just one person.

Moreover, the directions of the footsteps were all different.

Guards perhaps?

“Shh.”

I pressed my back against the wall, looked down at the kitten in my arms, and put my index finger to my lips.

Surprisingly, as if understanding my words, the kitten raised one of its front paws to cover its own pink mouth.

That sight was so shocking yet so adorable that I stared blankly at the kitten for a moment.

While I was momentarily distracted by the kitten, I turned my head at the strange presence that suddenly drew near.

At that moment, my vision turned to darkness.

“Huh!”

Someone had put something over my face.