The Crown Prince paused for only a moment before reaching out and cupping my cheek anyway.
“My name is Auriel Herza Cradion. If Ser wishes for it, I am a man who can place the entire world in your hands.”
Sensing an instinctive threat, I tried to use my power to restrain the Crown Prince’s movements, only to realize something deeply unsettling.
‘I can’t use my power. The demons aren’t responding.’
This was truly serious.
It meant that a demon at least equal to or greater than the demons who had submitted to me was hiding within that man’s shadow.
Or perhaps the Crown Prince himself was a demon.
‘Even my mana… has stopped moving.’
It wouldn’t budge, as though it were frightened.
Then that meant I had no choice but to use my abilities.
‘…If I do that, I won’t be able to keep it hidden anymore.’
Given the highly conspicuous nature of my power, my identity would be exposed immediately.
‘Even so, wouldn’t it be better to deal with him properly right now?’
“You’re thinking about it.”
The Crown Prince had approached right in front of me without my noticing and spoke while looking directly into my eyes at close range.
“I can’t help it. It doesn’t seem like you’re going to let this slide.”
My face was reflected in those vivid blue eyes that reminded me of Mikhail.
The distance between us narrowed until I could feel his breath, and my body stiffened.
An unbearable sense of disgust slowly welled up inside me.
“Ser, the truth is, I….”
It was then that the lounge door burst open with enough force to nearly shatter it.
“Ser!”
Huh…? Did that thing really just break?
The man who came running toward me with the fallen door behind him was—
“Elhardt?”
How did he know I was here?
Elhardt closed the distance in an instant, grabbed me, and pulled me away from the sofa.
Then he shouted sharply,
“What are you doing to my maid?”
…I couldn’t believe all of this had happened in the span of a single breath.
Only then did the door crash to the floor, and the Crown Prince blinked twice while still frozen in the posture of leaning toward me.
“Ah….”
With a deflated sound, the Crown Prince looked down at his now-empty hand before rising from the sofa.
“To think you would interfere this much.”
Oh, he was annoyed.
The corners of the man’s mouth, who hadn’t so much as blinked no matter how rude I had been in the Crown Prince’s Palace, twisted strangely.
“Without knowing anything, you keep getting in the way….”
“Ser, put this on.”
Elhardt took off his jacket and wrapped it tightly around my upper body.
This guy was so big that I couldn’t see the Crown Prince anymore.
‘Did he deliberately put himself between us?’
The Crown Prince let out a hollow laugh as though he found the situation absurd, then spoke in a leisurely voice.
“Elhardt, are you aware of your position? Where you are, and under what authority you were allowed to come here.”
I raised my head and looked at Elhardt.
I was no longer curious about the Crown Prince’s identity.
What concerned me now was Elhardt’s expression, and how he felt.
“Yes, I know very well.”
Elhardt turned away from the Crown Prince, keeping me behind his back, and answered calmly.
“All this time, I fought for my country. I have never once lost, and not a single knight in the Empire has been able to defeat me.”
Of course he hadn’t.
He possessed the most monstrous physical abilities of anyone I knew.
“What do you think will happen if, from now on, I turn my back on the country that abandoned me and fight solely for myself?”
He sneered with such coldness that it was hard to believe this was the same man who had silently endured humiliation until now.
“Does His Highness the Crown Prince, in all his nobility, have any way to stop me? I, too, am curious whether you have the confidence to bring me to my knees and take my head through your own ability.”
“You would abandon Bardia? What nonsense….”
“If I find someone I want to protect badly enough to do even that.”
Have you ever imagined a flame boiling with vivid blue fire?
It was right here.
I quietly stared at Elhardt’s back, which filled my entire field of vision.
That astonishing thing he had just said was, apparently…
‘So he’s pretending to be in love with me.’
As an excuse to get us out of this situation, it was fairly convincing.
‘The fact that he didn’t need to go that far… I’ll keep that a secret.’
In any case, he had bought me time to think, too.
Yes.
The Crown Prince would have no choice but to back down here.
Elhardt possessed a body that could be considered the natural enemy of anyone who wielded mana.
If the Crown Prince’s talent lay in his ability to control mana, then he would never be able to defeat Elhardt.
‘He’ll probably pretend to concede and confine us to the detached palace again.’
That would likely be the best he could do.
“You… her?”
After murmuring those words, the Crown Prince remained silent for a long while.
Curious about what he was thinking, I tried leaning from side to side to get a look at him, but every time I did, Elhardt moved with me and blocked my view.
Frustrated, I tapped him on the back, and he reached one arm behind him and held out his hand.
‘Huh? What’s this?’
Was he asking me to hold it?
When I poked his palm with my index finger, he promptly grabbed my hand.
‘Hmm….’
I hadn’t lost to his reflexes.
I had simply let him catch me.
“Let’s do this, Elhardt.”
When the Crown Prince finally spoke again, his voice was as calm as ever.
I couldn’t tell whether that calmness was feigned or whether his feelings had genuinely changed.
“It seems you misunderstood something. I was merely trying to return her dress. You wouldn’t want other people to see her dressed only in her undergarments, either.”
As he spoke, the Crown Prince approached us and held out the dress.
“Once she’s properly dressed, we can return to the banquet hall together. Then today’s little disturbance can end quietly without becoming the subject of gossip. And….”
And what else?
“I’d like to ask her for one dance in return for keeping watch over her.”
“…What other nonsense are you trying to pull?”
Even without looking, I could tell Elhardt was speaking through clenched teeth.
He didn’t even accept the dress the Crown Prince offered, his wariness obvious.
“Ser, we still have something to talk about.”
The Crown Prince spoke directly to me.
“Give me a chance to answer your question.”
If he meant my question about his identity…
‘It doesn’t seem like he’s going to give me a proper answer.’
What were the odds that he would actually reveal the truth?
As I hesitated to answer and fell into thought, Elhardt turned toward me.
“Ser….”
His long eyelashes trembled pitifully over those golden eyes as he looked down at me.
‘Ugh….’
The ache in my heart definitely wasn’t my imagination.
‘Ah, I can’t.’
I hurriedly reached out and covered Elhardt’s eyes with my palm.
“……?”
If I danced with the Crown Prince, Elhardt would be left alone.
‘The compound poison is still out there.’
I couldn’t shake the feeling that the Crown Prince had prepared some kind of trap.
His request for a dance was undoubtedly an attempt to exploit that opening.
Normally, rather than avoiding a trap, I would probably choose to leap right into it and bite down on my opponent’s nape.
But this time—
‘I don’t want to.’
The fact that the man I would have to push into the trap was this particular man bothered me.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
“Yes, Ser.”
Elhardt’s eyelashes tickled my palm, making me keep flinching and curling my fingers.
“I’d like to talk again another time.”
“What?”
The Crown Prince widened his eyes and stared at me as though he had received an entirely unexpected answer.
‘…This really isn’t like me at all.’
“I’m not feeling very well today.”
“You’re not feeling well?”
“Yes. Maybe I ate too much, so my stomach hurts a little… and I think I’m coming down with a cold, too.”
I even coughed several times.
“Ah….”
The Crown Prince stared blankly at me with his mouth slightly open, looking completely stunned.
“A cold…? You…?”
Was that really so surprising?
It was almost as though he knew I was someone who rarely ever got sick.
Still, I suppose it would be surprising when someone who had seemed perfectly healthy suddenly started acting sick.
Even I found this version of myself strange— Iserna Airvayne, pretending to be ill.
But what else could I do? I couldn’t think of any other way.
I pressed one hand to my forehead and even staggered weakly, causing the Crown Prince to flinch.
As though he were about to reach out to me at any moment.
‘Did he fall for it?!’
Apparently, I was quite a convincing actress.
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