His face showed that he was barely holding back. The way he gently caressed her lips with his finger was tantalizing.

“Don’t make a face like you’re going to devour me.”

To change the atmosphere, Adel grabbed his cheeks and shook them.

“Hey! That’s prohibited once we’re married.”

He warned with a grim face, but

“Then I have to do it a lot before that.”

Adel playfully tried to grab his cheeks again.

Plump!

In the end, Christine grabbed her thin wrist and laid her down on the bed, climbing on top of her. Adel’s heart pounded heavily.

Is this sound mine? Or perhaps it’s his…….

His slategray eyes, filled entirely with her, were too hot. They were like the eyes of an animal devoid of reason.

At this rate…….

“Chris, I’m still…… a patient.”

Only then did Christine let go of Adel’s wrist and get up.

“So if you can’t handle it, don’t touch. Next time I might not be able to hold back.”

At his ominous warning, Adel’s heart did more than just pound; it churned. But to break the awkward atmosphere, she laughed as if it were nothing.

“What’s with you, I can’t even joke around because it’s scary. But what do we need to do first to get married?”

In truth, she had held her wedding ceremony the day she entered the Oswald Duke’s house. A mere greeting and signing the marriage oath in front of a few people of the Duke’s family was the entirety of the wedding.

There was not even a congratulatory greeting in a formal sense. Everyone just sharply observed the young bride wearing a silk dress and makeup for the first time.

Of course, the atmosphere did not matter to Adel at all. The shocking appearance of her husband, whom she met for the first time that day, was too much. She had no expectations for her husband, but still, a paralyzed old Duke in a wheelchair.

It was a wedding more depressing than a funeral, where she had to barely hold back her tears.

“I’ll take care of everything. We’ll start with an engagement ceremony three days from now.”

Lost in thought, Adel was startled.

“An engagement ceremony in three days?”

“Yes, right after my inauguration ceremony. After the engagement, we’ll live together.”

“Wait, we live together?”

Adel’s head went blank at the rapidly progressing schedule.

“Yes. From now on, I’ll keep you by my side, and no one will be able to touch you.”

His determination to protect Adel was firm. He would never let her suffer or be in pain again. Not even if it was the emperor.

“But living together without being married…….”

“Shall we just have the wedding ceremony in three days?”

Adel shook her head with a dark expression.

“I’m sorry, but that’s impossible, Chris.”

Too excited, Adel had momentarily forgotten reality.

She was Lady Oswald. Although accused of poisoning her husband, she was not exiled from the family by the head of the household, Stone, as the poisoning could not be proven.
But here, he had two tricks up his sleeve.

First, to make it look like he was considering Adel, thus improving his reputation.

Second, it was his plan to tie her to the Oswald family for life.

“As long as I’m not expelled or banished from Oswald, I’m the Duchess of Oswald. So I can’t marry or even get engaged to another man.”

There was one more thing that was bothering him.

“And what if the Emperor just watches?”

Rumors had spread that there would be an engagement ceremony with April after the inauguration. But now that the fiancée had changed, the Emperor wouldn’t just watch.

Christine tightly grabbed Adel’s hand, sensing her worry.

“Don’t worry, it’s all been arranged with the Emperor. You just need to take care of yourself.”

But Adel couldn’t trust it easily. If the Emperor had approved all of this, a price would have been needed.

“You agreed to give a blank document as the price?”

Christine looked apologetic.

“Yes. But I don’t know why the Emperor is looking for it. Do you have any idea?”

“It’s just a blank document. It’s just signed by Valencia’s Grand Duke before he became the Emperor.”

“They must have set up something to make it look that way.”

“I tried reading the writing in many ways too, but I failed.”

“They must have sealed it with magic. Even 10 years ago, wizards were easy to find.”

Many wizards were mobilized and sacrificed while Calrime was waging war. Some even speculated that the papacy started the war to get rid of the wizards.

Christine, lost in thought for a moment, concluded cheerfully.

“Anyway, one thing is clear. That document could be a weakness of the Council of Elders or the Emperor’s weakness. We’ll know once we hand it over to the Emperor.”

(This is a time separator.)

The black castle in the northern part of the Imperial Palace.

A blue flame flickered over the huge bronze stove. The flame, not hot even when close, seemed almost like an illusion.

“Be careful, the flame can engulf you at any moment.”

Yan, who was staring blankly, came to his senses at the eerie voice.

Next to him stood a man covered head to toe in a black robe. Under his hood, disfigured skin from burns and bizarre eyes that looked like they were taken from a beast were visible.

It was Kenny, one of the few senior wizards left in Calrime.

Kenny pulled out dried herbs from a pouch and threw them on the flame.

Crack!

As if to prove his words, the blue flame swallowed the herbs in an instant.

Then the area was filled with a strange white smoke that gave off an odd smell.

Yan quickly covered his nose and mouth with a handkerchief and handed over a red scroll. It was the blank document he had received from Christine.

“Begin.”

In the thick smoke, Kenny began to chant as he unrolled the red scroll. Weird sounds flowed from his twisted, burnt lips.

“~ՁթպֆՓ…….”

Yan’s face involuntarily twisted at the eerie and unpleasant sight.

Oooooong…….

Soon, the swirling smoke was sucked into the empty scroll, beginning to form letters.

Yan continued to read the letters written on it, still covering his mouth with a handkerchief.

As Christine had guessed, it was a document that had been sealed to appear blank!