Arkan’s mouth, which was about to grumble right away, closed shut immediately.

Although his expression hadn’t completely softened, he was at a loss for words this time.

“I didn’t, I didn’t avoid it. It’s not like that.”

“I just saw you dodge quite swiftly. I was worried that, immersed in the peaceful daily life of Betor, if there were any foolish individuals targeting Your Majesty, even one in a thousand or ten thousand, but seeing how you just dodged, I don’t need to worry about that. You’re very quick.”

“Such a thing would never happen, but even if there were such fools, as you say, one in a thousand or ten thousand, I can protect myself at least. I wasn’t avoiding anything.”

“Ah, I see.”

This is maddening!

The inexplicable heat that had been burning his body until just moments ago disappeared like sand blown by the wind, and Arkan was once again plagued by the urge to pound his chest.

No, no. The heat hasn’t disappeared. Arkan thought.

It hadn’t disappeared, but had all rushed to his head, making his eyes sting.

“Do you spend all day thinking about how to upset me?”

Erdene widened her eyes as if to say, what nonsense is that?

“Though I’ve unexpectedly found myself with free time, I’m not so idle as to spend the whole day scheming to upset Your Majesty. What a waste that would be!”

“Waste? Did you say waste?”

“What’s wrong with that?”

Arkan’s chest swelled greatly. He had inhaled but couldn’t exhale.

Tense veins popped on his forehead and his face reddened even more.

Erdene didn’t know the reason, but Arkan himself knew, which made him even angrier.

“I think about it all day!”

At his exclamation, Erdene blinked blankly as if she had been struck.

‘No, wait. This isn’t right.’

Only after shouting did Arkan come to his senses and tried to sort out his confused thoughts, but it was no different from covering his eyes and groping around.

He had no idea how to organize his thoughts, where to start, and instead, everything became even more jumbled.

He had just made some terrible mistake. But he couldn’t figure out what it was. Something was missing…

The corners of Erdene’s mouth slowly turned upward.

It was certainly not a smile of pleasure. One look at her eyes, seemingly flashing with killing intent, made that clear.

Erdene slowly nodded her head.

“Ah, I see. I didn’t realize. You think about it all day… My goodness, if that’s the case, why didn’t you say so earlier? I’m quite skilled at making someone’s life miserable too, it’s a shame I’m only finding out about Your Majesty’s dedication now.”

“No, what are you saying… Wait, I think I said something wrong.”

As Arkan tried to salvage the situation, a sharp cracking sound suddenly interrupted.

Startled by the unexpected noise, Arkan’s eyes widened.

Quickly gathering his wits and looking around, he noticed that one of the ornaments above Erdene’s ear was missing.

“What are you doing…!”

Arkan gaped at the shattered pieces of the ornament under Erdene’s palm.

Erdene spoke in a fierce voice.

“You spoke well, Your Majesty.”

“Wait, just listen to me…”

“We’ll see about this.”

She left Arkan, momentarily dumbfounded, and strode out briskly.

Her movements were so abrupt that one could almost hear the wind being cut.

Arkan, who had been staring down at the fragments left on the table – once beautiful ornaments but now pitiful pieces that had reached the end of their life – belatedly whipped his head around.

“Did she just say ‘we’ll see about this’?”

Viscountess Weekes, that is, Maura Weekes, hurried from the morning upon receiving word that the Queen was urgently looking for her.

She was so distracted that she barely ate her meal and barely kissed her husband’s cheek as he left for work.

‘I wonder if it went well!’

The employees of the viscountess’s household thought she was flustered due to fear of the Queen’s fearsome summons, but that wasn’t the case at all.

She was excited… excited for the first time in a very long time! She wondered if she had ever been this joyful since the day her beloved only son got married.

‘They’re both young, and they grew up in completely different environments… So, of course, they’ll have many conflicts. Many indeed! Even my husband and I, when we were young… Oh my, I shouldn’t even mention it. But they say newlyweds grow closer through their quarrels.’

Chattering to herself about things no one had asked and no one was listening to, she finished her preparations busily and boarded the carriage sent from the palace with an unusually good mood.

The smile didn’t leave Maura’s face until she entered the Queen’s palace.

“I am here to see Her Majesty the Queen.”

After bending her knees and straightening up, Maura raised her head and belatedly realized that she had been quite mistaken about something.

Erdene, sitting on the sofa with her chin resting on her hand, looked sullen and fierce.

She seemed unbearably angry about something. Maura’s joyful mood, which had made her face flush, flew away in an instant.

The fear that filled that empty space made her suddenly terrified.

“Yo-Your Majesty?”

“Come here and sit down.”

Maura glanced at the seat Erdene was gesturing to and hesitantly approached.

She sat down carefully, but her manner suggested she was worried a snake might jump out from under the sofa.

After just telling her to sit, Erdene seemed to lose interest in Maura and turned her gaze elsewhere.

Anne, whom Maura had become familiar with during her visits to the Fiddlers marquis’s residence, brought refreshments with graceful movements, but neither Erdene nor Maura touched their cups.

Enduring the silence while sweating, Maura twisted her fingers as if wringing them out, with a tearful expression.

“Um… Your Majesty, why did you…”

“It didn’t work.”

“Pardon?”

Bang! There was a sound. It was the sound of Erdene kicking the table.

“Oh my goodness!”

Maura screamed dramatically and jumped back.

However, the teacups were safe. It was because Anne, who had been watching, quickly lifted the tray.

‘Damn it, if I were in the Empire, I could at least grab anyone and beat them to a pulp!’

Erdene, who had been seething, gritted her molars. The more she thought about it, the more unbearable her anger became.

She had returned to the Queen’s palace alone and spent the entire night wide awake.

Arkan’s action of subtly pulling his arm away when she reached out, the strange sense of emptiness and disappointment she felt at that moment, grew more intense every time she dwelled on it.

By morning, that memory had become quite distorted in Erdene’s mind… to the point where Arkan seemed to have recoiled as if seeing a bug.

“Yo-Your Majesty! I-I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said such things…”

Maura spoke, almost on the verge of tears.

Erdene, as if just realizing her presence again, sighed deeply and rubbed her forehead.

“Put it down, Anne. I won’t kick the table anymore.”

“If you’re really angry, I can bring something that’s alright to break, Your Majesty.”

“Yes, yes. Go fetch a table with mismatched legs or something.”

Anne set down the tray with the teapot and cups again and quickly left.

The casual conversation between the two was enough to astound even the mild-mannered Maura, but at least Erdene had calmed down, which was fortunate.

“Your… Your Majesty.”

“You gave me your secret method, and Sophia and Sabnak also chimed in, but it didn’t work.”

“Th-That… No, His Majesty…? Could you please tell me the details…”

The veins on Erdene’s clenched fist stood out prominently.

That hand, small but seemingly as hard as a rock, with old scars more visible, made the timid Maura uneasy.

Erdene started to tell the story relatively calmly, but she couldn’t contain her growing emotions.

By the end, she kicked over the small table Anne had brought with a crash.

The rickety side table that had been stuffed away in storage was reduced to firewood with one kick from her.

However, Maura was more shocked by Erdene’s words than by the table flying and shattering, and she could only gape.

“Your Majesty, did His… His Majesty really say that?”

“Do you think I’d be talking nonsense after eating a proper meal?”

“Of course not. No…”

Maura’s cheeks, which had been blinking her eyes and mouth simultaneously, belatedly flushed red.

Putting on the fiercest expression she could muster with her gentle features, she pushed the tray far away and tapped the table.

“Good heavens, His Majesty shouldn’t say such things to Your Majesty! How could he say that!”

Erdene jumped to her feet.

“You think so too, don’t you?”

Maura’s chubby cheeks reddened even more with excitement.

“Of course, absolutely. I, no, all citizens of Betor admire His Majesty Arkan, but wrong is wrong. How could he! To think about upsetting Your Majesty all day long when you’ve just gotten married, and then to tell Your Majesty about it! My goodness, where is the propriety in that?”