In the basement of the Crown Prince’s palace, a bluish smoke rose without fail today as well.

Without fail, when the Crown Prince ran out of the drug called Asis, he would pester the Marquis.

Today, as usual, Severus was on his way back after visiting the Crown Prince’s palace to replenish a small amount of Asis. This was one of the devices Severus used to control the Crown Prince.

Severus emerged from the smoke-filled basement.

As the Marquis was heading out of the palace, he encountered Empress Bergamo, who was just entering the Crown Prince’s palace. As Severus was lightly greeting her and passing by, Bergamo spoke to the Marquis.

“Marquis. Do you visit the Crown Prince’s palace more often than I, his mother?”

“It can’t be helped. I don’t have to supply it, but His Highness keeps asking for it.”

Originally, Asis was highly addictive. The Empress subtly expressed her displeasure at the frequent supply of such a drug.

Despite the Empress’s warning remarks, the Marquis’s voice remained even.

At his utterly calm expression, the Empress turned to face the Marquis.

“Marquis, I have been lenient regarding what your daughter has done.”

The Empress shot a sharp glance at the Marquis.

“I am well aware of Your Majesty’s grace. How could I, Severus, not understand Your Majesty’s concern? The incense offered to His Highness the Crown Prince is being gradually adjusted in its composition, so you need not worry.”

“Is it proper for the Crown Prince, who will support this country in the future, to depend on drugs? Have him quit as soon as possible.”

“There’s nothing for me to lose if I cut it off right now. However, do you wish for this corridor where you’re standing now, and all the floors of the palace to be soaked in blood?”

Frowning and running his hand through his hair, the Marquis found the Empress merely annoying.

But unable to reveal his true feelings, he swallowed them.

“As the drug’s composition has changed and doesn’t satisfy him as much as he wants, he’ll be seeking it for a while. Just leave it to this Marquis.”

“I will be watching.”

At the Marquis’s firm words, the Empress retreated a step and concluded the conversation. After all, there was nothing good to come from falling out with the Marquis.

The Empress then turned and entered the Crown Prince’s palace.

That the child born of her own womb was being swayed by drugs, the Empress tried to suppress the anger boiling inside her as she stepped firmly one foot after another, searching for the Crown Prince.

Having just passed the Marquis, it was quite obvious where the Crown Prince would be.

The Empress headed to the basement without a moment’s hesitation.

The Empress had the servants at the door open both doors wide simultaneously.

The hazy smoke that filled the space began to dissipate quickly through the widely opened doors.

The basement, where not even a silhouette was visible before, began to reveal its forms more concretely as the smoke cleared.

The Crown Prince was half-lying sprawled on the sofa with his eyes closed.

At the sudden influx of clean air, the Crown Prince frowned sharply and shouted.

“How dare you…!”

“Crown Prince.”

Trashi, at the unexpected voice, grasped his drug-addled, hazy mind.

The Crown Prince struggled to raise himself, sitting up on the sofa to look towards the source of the voice.

“That’s enough for today.”

The Empress continued speaking without blinking an eye, even as the acrid smoke was escaping.

“Leave this filthy place now and send a marriage proposal to the House of Estillen. I already have the reply that will come back, so all you need to do, my son, is to announce the engagement as soon as you send the proposal.”

“…Yes, yes. Do as you wish.”

The answer to the Empress’s words was predetermined. The Empress already having the reply to a marriage proposal the Crown Prince hadn’t even sent? The Crown Prince let out a bitter laugh and gave the answer the Empress wanted to hear.

“You’ll do as you wish anyway, won’t you, Mother?”

His head seemed to throb even more.

Having immediately received the answer she wanted, the Empress, seemingly no longer wanting to remain in this acrid basement, turned her back on it.

“Oh, and your new fiancée is the young lady from the House of Estillen. It would be quite troublesome for this mother if you were to kill her. Do you understand?”

“As if I kill because I want to?”

At the Crown Prince’s sarcasm, the Empress sent a fierce glare.

“Look around this empire. Is there a young lady from a prestigious family in the empire who could become the Crown Prince’s fiancée!”

“……”

“Crown Prince, if even this young lady becomes a corpse, I will hold a soul wedding ceremony with Lady Larie’s corpse at the forefront. Remember that.”

Leaving these resolute words, the Empress left the basement, and the Crown Prince remained sitting on the sofa, letting out a bitter laugh.

A funeral ceremony? Is that something to say to the Crown Prince of the empire?

But Trashi had no authority whatsoever. Everything related to him came from within Empress Bergamo’s hands.

Trashi turned his head.

On the table in front of the sofa, the incense that had been rising from the censer still remained faintly.

Adeline, whom he had wanted, had become that annoying Duke’s, and because he had come to see the Crown Prince and upset him, his insides were boiling.

Trashi, as if displeased with the faintly flickering smoke before his eyes, picked up the censer and threw it away, then leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes.

“Bring Asis again.”

As Trashi was ordering Asis to be prepared and brought again, he opened his closed eyes and turned his head.

He gestured to any servant in sight and commanded.

“Ah, right, you there. Write a marriage proposal and send it to the Estillen Count’s house.”

The Crown Prince took a rose from the vase on the table and tossed it in front of the servant.

“Enclose this flower as well.”

Larie was a woman like a beautifully cultivated rose from the Estillen Count’s house.

Although the rose symbolizing such a Larie was rolling on the floor in a mess, Trashi didn’t care.

To him, a fiancée was like a flower that would wither soon anyway.

“Y-Yes, I will do so.”

The servant picked up the rose he had thrown.

Thus, the marriage proposal sent in the name of the imperial family was written by the hand of a servant whose name the Crown Prince couldn’t even remember, and sent to the House of Estillen.

To Trashi, formalities and procedures didn’t matter at all, and no one from the Estillen family expressed displeasure at such behavior of the Crown Prince.

And so, less than three hours after sending the marriage proposal.

The engagement between Larie of the Estillen family and the Crown Prince was officially announced.

Adeline was strolling in the greenhouse late at night.

The conversation she had with Casius in the office after returning from the Empress’s palace in the afternoon kept coming to mind.

“Why is my wife so irritated? Just like a jealous woman.”

It was still mind-boggling to think about it again.

Jealousy? Does it make sense to dismiss the emotion she felt towards Larie as mere envy?

‘What do I have to be jealous of that woman for?’

She had merely talked about the rude behavior of Casius’s former fiancée.

It was quite unfair, but Adeline soon could read a mischievous look in the Duke’s eyes as he looked at her.

It was clearly the look he had when he was about to tease her.

Perhaps knowing it was a sly joke, Adeline wanted to perplex the Duke.

“If you want to be called by that name, you should fulfill your duties as a Duke.”

“If you don’t want to be at the center of a scandal in front of people, settle things with your ex-lover. Until then, that title won’t exist.”

So she had acted provocatively, unlike usual. But Casius stopped Adeline as she was about to leave the office.

“Adeline. Be careful of the Estillen Count’s daughter.”

“Careful?”

She thought it was an extension of the joke, but he unexpectedly brought up a story.

“There’s no one in the Count’s family who can break Larie’s stubbornness. Since she was born with the love of the Estillen Count’s family in her hands, she’s a woman who has achieved whatever she wanted by any means necessary.”

“……”

“So, don’t provoke that person too much. She has a fierce temper.”

With those final words, Casius released his hold on Adeline.

And through the gradually closing gap of the office door, she could see him making an indecipherable expression.

‘Don’t provoke the Estillen young lady?’

Adeline couldn’t forget Casius’s strange face as he said those words.

Moreover, saying she was fierce, it seemed as if Casius knew Larie very well with just that one word.

Even without that, the relationship between the two was quite concerning.

She wanted to go to Casius and ask about their relationship, but in the end, she didn’t learn anything.

Just that the two might have been in a closer relationship than she thought.

‘Besides, he seemed quite used to calling her Larie.’

At first, she thought he had made a mistake with the title, but Casius was very accustomed to calling her Larie.

Even seeing Larie being excessively wary of her at the tea party, it was clear there was something between the two.

As that thought struck her, Adeline’s expression hardened.

For a moment, as irritation was about to surge, Adeline immediately shook her head.

“Forget it.”

Whatever relationship the two had, it’s not important.

The main purpose of this marriage is survival.

Adeline had to prepare for any possibility.

Her birth father is Severus Credion.

Even without Casius’s words and actions, it was a fact known to everyone that the relationship between the Credion Marquis family and the Torpeo Duke family was not friendly.

Although it seems that man harbors feelings for her now, who knows when he might have a change of heart.

‘…There’s no such thing as unchanging love in this world.’

If love were eternal, she wouldn’t have been abandoned by her parents.

When she lived as Kim Ji Hye. And when she was reborn as Adeline Credion here in the Soltarius Empire.

If she couldn’t even be loved by her parent Severus, how could she expect eternal love from a man?

Men are unpredictable in when they might change.

Rather than dreaming of fairy tale love, it would be faster to prove her worth to him.

Adeline gazed out the greenhouse window with deepened eyes.

While feeling the need to prepare an alternative plan, somewhere in a corner of her heart felt completely empty.