With a reluctant expression, Raoul finally emptied the entire bucket.

‘He must be hungry…’

As Diana wiped the bright red blood from his mouth, Raoul twisted his head like a baby.

“You need to stay still…”

“Grrr…”

He’s incorrigible.

Diana playfully pinched Raoul’s nose before sitting next to him.

The straw underneath her bottom made a dry, rustling sound.

The fishy smell of blood, the bitter scent of dust seeping from the cracks in the old wood, and the phytoncide aroma blowing in from the window outside combined to create a quiet and peaceful atmosphere.

“I told Vincent that you caught a severe cold with a high fever. He knows you well, so he won’t misunderstand and think you’re faking it.”

“…”

“Don’t worry about anything. Just eat well and hang in there.”

Raoul made a sound as if answering and nuzzled his cheek around Diana’s hair.

The warm sunshine shone on the two, causing their eyelids to grow heavy.

Diana tried to focus her mind, shaking off the drowsiness that crept up on her. Class would be starting soon.

“Yawn−. I’m sleepy. Still, I should do some advance studying, right?”

Leaning against Raoul’s arm, Diana opened the book she had brought. It was a guide introducing the clothing culture of the Eastern Continent.

The traditional clothing of the Eastern Continent, which closely resembled hanbok, came in various types and had specific procedures and order for wearing them.

Although written in Hangul, most of the terms were unfamiliar.

“I’m used to the jeogori, but I’ve never heard of deung-geori or jambang… The method of wearing the skirt is quite complicated too. There are many types of undergarments as well…”

Nevertheless, the hanbok in the illustrations had a unique, elegant beauty, emanating a subtle, colorful light.

Diana imagined herself wearing a hanbok and exploring a market in the Eastern Continent.

No one treats Diana like a zoo monkey.

She naturally blends into the crowd.

The street stalls are filled with familiar foods, and the merchants wear white headbands while selling fresh meat and seafood.

Passing the main street where acrobats perform tightrope walking, a bookstore with the scent of ink would come into view, and there, Diana would borrow etiquette books and secretly tucked-in romance novels.

Diana read the book for quite a long time, completely immersed and forgetting that Raoul was beside her.

If Raoul, who had been sitting and waiting quietly, hadn’t suddenly put her round head into his mouth, she might not have even realized how much time had passed.

His warm breath and hard teeth grazed the top of her head and cheek. Only then did Diana realize that her head was inside his large mouth.

“What are you doing…?”

Raoul gently chewed on Diana’s head. That pitiful movement struck Diana with a momentary fear.

She pushed against his fluffy chest and quickly moved her bottom to the side.

“No matter how hungry you are, you can’t eat me…!”

Whine.

It seemed his hunger had not subsided even after eating that much.

“I’ll bring more meat in the evening, so just endure a little longer. Okay?”

Raoul didn’t answer and lowered his head.

His drooping body made her want to comfort him, but it was time for Diana to return now.

She put the robe she had worn back on and picked up the bucket.

“Then, see you in the evening.”

Diana was about to turn and leave right away, but feeling concerned about the gaze following her, she came back and gently hugged Raoul’s body.

As she whispered words of encouragement into his ear, Raoul’s tail swayed gently.

“Don’t be in too much pain. I’ll be back soon.”

At that moment, Carlyle was sitting in his office chair, handling official documents.

At the recent council meeting, the emperor pressured the nobles to provide a suitable number of knights for their estate size to deal with the increasing magic beasts in the border regions.

The number of private soldiers the Arnel Duchy had to provide totaled one thousand. Among them, the number of knights demanded by the emperor alone exceeded ten.

He ground his teeth at the outrageous demand.

Marcel, who had succeeded the throne in place of the critically ill former king, displayed the height of regional egoism, provoking the nobles.

〈The capital is the very legitimacy of the Hamel Empire. If the Evron district, protected by the Prosperity Stone, collapses, the despair the people will feel is beyond words.〉

The Evron district referred to the area within 300 meters surrounding the imperial palace.

The people living there were not ordinary citizens but the owners of guilds with grease on their stomachs or pretentious nobles.

The emperor had kept his mouth shut for years, advising the nobles to handle the increasing blood-drained incidents within their territories using their private soldiers.

However, when the Evron district itself was threatened, he finally pressured the nobles, saying he would solve the problem.

〈According to the prophecy of the High Priest, it may not be long before the magic beasts run rampant in the capital. Shouldn’t we prevent such a misfortune at all costs?〉

There were already three blood-drained incidents within the capital.

Even now, more than half of the private soldiers were deployed to exterminate magic beasts within the capital, not for territorial battles or continental expeditions.

In this situation, sending all the key personnel to the frontier would leave them completely unprepared for future blood-drained incidents.

Perhaps he would have to personally step forward and deal with the magic beasts.

Benjamin spoke with a gloomy face.

“How about appointing that creature as a knight…?”

“Nonsense.”

“His Majesty thinks the lycanthrope that hasn’t been transported to the capital is Arnel’s secret weapon. Why don’t you request to reduce the number of troops dispatched in exchange for sending the creature?”

Suddenly, Carlyle thought of Diana.

Imagining her eyes turning bright red, blaming him, made him feel uneasy.

After Marias died, he had lived forgetting both blood and tears, but his daughter, who closely resembled her, was always a big obstacle to the decisions he made.

“And Lady Diana is no longer a young girl. It seems some of the servants have witnessed the young lady running to the creature’s room late at night. Rumors in high society usually start from the mouths of those beneath, so there is a need to keep the creature far from the young lady’s side.”

Carlyle closed his eyes and rubbed his furrowed brow.

“How much time is left to decide?”

“At most, there are only about 2 weeks left for negotiation.”

“I’ll think about it.”

In the Duke’s plans, his daughter was always pushed to the back.

To him, who only knew how to charge forward with a single goal, his daughter’s existence was always as heavy as shackles on his ankles.

He loved Marias, but he couldn’t love Diana, who was born after killing her.

In the first place, he had never learned what it was like to receive love from parents.

The only love he knew was the warmth Marias gave him, and after she died, the light disappeared from his world.

The upbringing he knew was a very rough method.

With no wife by his side to teach him, he thought it best to keep the child far away from him.

Nevertheless, in her childhood, Diana tried her utmost to win his favor.

She would come down to the dining room wearing a black dress that closely resembled Marias in the portrait to have a meal with him, or gift him an embroidered handkerchief she had learned to make at an early age, expressing her love in such ways.

Each time, Carlyle hurt her young heart with cold words.

〈You’ve done something useless.〉

〈I’m sorry… I thought you would like it…〉

〈There’s nothing I can’t buy with money. Instead of wasting time on this, go practice your mana.〉

〈The teacher said… I’m incapable of mana training… My body is too weak…〉

〈In the end, you don’t know how to do anything.〉

〈I apologize…〉

At that time, Carlyle was in an extremely sensitive state, being threatened by the imperial princess.

The letters pouring into the castle every day had anemone flowers attached, revealing her possessiveness.

She had discovered Carlyle secretly entering the imperial library on the day of the founding festival and had been persistently investigating him ever since.

The imperial princess, who had constantly courted him even before his marriage, had been eagerly eyeing the position of the Duchess after Marias died.

She smiled bitterly, wondering what punishment the emperor would impose if he found out that Carlyle, whose family had been at odds with the imperial family since their ancestors’ time, had accessed the secret bookshelves.

The Arnel Duchy, known as the Sword of the Empire, was actually being forced to submit to the imperial family due to a curse.

Of course, Carlyle had been saved by his wife, a saint, but the imperial princess still believed he had not let go of his desire for revenge against the imperial family.

She proposed that she would hand over the position of the emperor, so he should join hands with her.

He didn’t care what happened to the emperor’s position.

However, the forbidden book in the imperial princess’s hands contained summoning magic that he absolutely needed to know.

Right before his eyes, she tore the paper with the last line written on it, swallowed it, and laughed innocently with her eyes wide open.

“Oh my, it’s the only book of its kind in the world. What should we do? No matter how much of a sword master you are, you don’t have the absurd idea of facing the empire’s knights with just your private soldiers, do you? If so, I’ll deal with you using this summoning magic.”

Since then, she had tried to manipulate Carlyle as she pleased.

Fortunately, due to the strong opposition of Crown Prince Marcel, who considered Carlyle an eyesore, the imperial princess was married to a prince of a maritime trading nation, but the two still had secret meetings.

The imperial princess wanted Carlyle, and Carlyle wanted the knowledge she had swallowed.

During this tedious and long time, he neglected his daughter.

If she didn’t have the ability to protect herself, he hoped she would live quietly, avoiding the imperial princess’s eyes.

He hoped that one day, she would live peacefully in a distant foreign land, away from the empire’s sphere of influence, where a bloody storm would blow.

At least, he thought that was a courtesy to his beloved Marias.

But at some point, thinking about Diana made him feel uncomfortable.

It felt as if he was committing a great sin against the child.

If he took away even her most cherished slave when he had done nothing for her, what kind of expression would that child make when thinking of her father in the future?

‘She probably won’t have any affection left for me anyway.’

As he leaned his head back with his eyes closed, his red hair fell into disarray.

Nothing was going smoothly.