“Ugh, it’s amazing!”
Moiya said in a voice tinged with admiration after sneaking a peek at Linel’s gown.
“...What are you talking about?”
He lowered his gaze and asked softly.
“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing.”
Moiya covered his gown again.
“It’s amazing, Moiya~.”
Moiya giggled quietly to himself, very happy.
“It feels useless without my master...”
Linel glared at a certain part of his lower body and asked Moiya, who was grumbling softly, what he meant, but Moiya pretended not to know again, saying it was nothing.
He looked at Moiya, who was smiling suspiciously, and then looked at the bottom of the juice glass that he had swallowed in his daze.
What did he put in here?
He thought about grabbing Moiya’s balls and questioning him, but stopped himself.
Wasn’t it a topic that even drank a magic potion that induces partial amnesia?
Even if Moiya had put something strange in the juice, it didn’t matter to him at the moment.
He weakly placed the empty juice glass on the table.
Moiya, who had been watching him, tilted his head and asked,
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
“Yes.”
“Oh? What if I had poisoned you?”
“I don’t care if it was poison as long as I can see your master off tomorrow.”
“Tch, acting tough.”
Moiya pouts and flaps his wings toward the window.
“Moiya.”
“Why are you calling me, cold body?”
“Come back here.”
Linel said, tapping the table with his fingertips.
“Funny, why are you ordering me around when you’re not even my master?”
Moiya grumbled, but without realizing it, he flew to the table Linel had tapped and sat down with his hands clasped together.
“It wasn’t poison...”
Moiya muttered timidly.
She thought Linel had called him to question him about what he had put in the juice, so he struck first.
But he said something unexpected.
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
Moiya, who was about to curse at him just by hearing his words, paused for a moment because his eyes were so earnest.
“...Goosebumps! Why are you being so disgusting?”
Moiya quickly swept his goosebump-covered arms with both hands.
“Just keep talking.”
“Our master is sleeping, but Your Majesty isn’t sleeping?”
“You should sleep. After today passes...”
“...What are you saying? Aren’t you sleepy? Your expression looks like you’re already asleep?”
Moiya asked, twirling one finger in front of Linel’s eyes.
He simply raised and lowered one corner of his mouth.
“That’s strange. Why are you suddenly acting like you’ve never eaten a sausage in your life?”
“What?”
“Why are you acting pitiful when it doesn’t suit you?”
Moiya clicked his tongue as he watched his gaze darken.
“Yes! I’ll stay up all night with you. When we go to the palace later, you have to give me a lot of sausages. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“There... and you know... even if there’s something that makes you mad at me, you have to forgive me once.”
Moiya’s eyes moved here and there, and he glanced down at his lower body as he spoke.
Linel, completely unaware that he had drunk the juice laced with poison, nodded obediently.
“Yes.”
“Promise!”
Moiya grabbed Linel’s pinky and forcibly hooked it to his own pinky.
He obediently promised.
“Oh, and I’ll follow my master tomorrow.”
It wasn’t a request for permission, but an announcement.
Judging from Linel’s expression right now, it seemed like he would listen to anything, so Moiya hinted.
He had expected him to nag him, telling him to stay here and be quiet next to Rosie, but unexpectedly, he nodded.
“Yes. That won’t happen, but if something happens to Zelda, you have to protect her. Understood?”
“Yes! I’ll protect my master.”
Moiya put both hands on his waist and replied boldly, sticking his plump belly out. Linel smiled faintly.
“From what I saw talking to the devil in the wine cellar this time, our master is really inflexible.”
“...Was she?”
“Yeah! If it were me, I would have just made a deal with the devil, but my master is really stubborn like a wyvern.”
“Heh, so you should stay by her side and protect her well.”
“Don’t worry! Your Majesty, just take care of yourself. Even if you don’t want to, you have to, hehe.”
Moiya hunched over the table and lifted his robe again.
“Why have you been looking in there like that all this time...”
Linel asked in an annoyed tone.
“Hehehe, it’s just. Because it’s cool.”
Moiya smiled sinisterly and patted his thigh before giving him a thumbs up.
Late that night, Roxana went to the magic tower and met Logan.
“What... did you need just now?”
Logan asked Roxana, doubting his ears.
“The magic potion that Emperor Linel drank. I need another one.”
“You couldn’t possibly... use it on Empress Zelda...?”
Roxana nodded lightly at Logan, who couldn’t finish his sentence properly.
Logan closed his open mouth and spoke calmly again.
“I can’t make it without the permission of the Lord of the Tower. Especially when it comes to Empress Zelda, whom the Lord of the Tower considers his companion.”
“I already told the crows.”
Roxana put her hand to her forehead, looking annoyed at Logan’s uncooperative reaction.
“Then, come back when the Lord of the Tower gives his permission.”
Logan politely declined.
“It will be good for me as well as the Lord of the Tower, so do as I say.”
Roxana raised her voice and looked around the shelves of herbal bottles.
To make a magic potion that induces partial amnesia, the blood component of the target whose memory you want to erase is needed.
After Zelda was infected with the evil energy, Bellos collected her blood to make a healing potion.
And when she blocked the demon fire with her hand, Linel, who was holding her, could also have been infected by the demon fire, so he collected his blood as well.
However, Bellos had not expected this at all. Zelda's blood was going to be used in a magic potion to erase her from Linel's memories.
And now Linel's blood was going to be used on Zelda in the same way.
Logan knew that he couldn't refuse Roxana's order, but on the other hand, he was genuinely curious.
"Do you need to do that to the Empress?"
Roxana's eyes lit up with eeriness at Logan's words.
"Wouldn't it be better to do it safely? The Lord of the Magic Tower wouldn't object either. Then it would be easier to accept Empress Zelda as his consort."
She wasn't wrong.
Logan also knew that Bellos couldn't stand to fight Roxana now.
"But still..."
Roxana snapped at Logan, who was hesitating.
"There's no time! The pirate group led by Hetor and the knights of our principality will arrive at the northern continent by tomorrow morning. There'll be bloodshed soon."
Roxana, who had been speaking irritably, lowered her voice and mentioned Bonis.
“Your daughter is in there too...”
Logan’s hands, which were organizing the herb bottles, stopped.
“I believe you will keep my daughter safe, as you promised before. Do you remember?”
“Of course. But you also remember that my promise is based on your cooperation, right?”
“!”
“If you’re worried about Bonis’s safety, then just make that potion. I think the Lord of the Tower gave you Emperor Linel’s blood back then, right?”
Logan had no choice. He felt bad for Zelda, but for the safety of his daughter, Bonis, he had no choice but to cooperate with Roxana.
‘Maybe it’s a good thing. Yes, it’s better for Zelda too...’
Emperor Linel’s memories of Zelda would disappear, and it would be much better for her not to remember him, rather than living with that sadness.
30 minutes later, Bellos, who heard the news from the crows, returned to the Tower using teleportation.
He looked very displeased, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Logan, who was already making the magic potion on Roxana’s orders, to stop.
“Welcome. I was just there to take care of business.”
Roxana said, shaking the completed magic potion bottle.
Bellos silently took Roxana and used teleportation to return to his room in the monastery.
Roxana borrowed Bellos’s black robes so as not to be noticed by others.
Then she asked where Bonis was staying.
Bellos quietly closed the door as Roxana opened it and started to leave, and spoke quietly.
“Tomorrow morning, I will go to the Tebello Empire with Her Majesty the Empress. Those accompanying me will go to get herbs for the potion she is taking to heal and to heal her burn scars.”
Roxana nodded with a frown at Bellos’ explanation.
“I expected it. That Emperor Linel would send her far away before the Allied Forces led by Hetor arrived. So you’re going to the Tebello Empire after all?”
“Bonis will accompany us.”
“Oh, then things will be much easier.”
Roxana smiled.
“What is this...?”
Bonis was startled when Roxana barged into her room late at night and then asked about the potion bottle she had placed on the table.
The liquid inside the small potion bottle sloshed.
“A way for everyone to be happy?”
Bonis looked back and forth between Roxana and the potion bottle with an ominous gaze.
“Have you ever thought about why Emperor Linel would suddenly send the Empress to the Tebello Empire?”
Roxana asked with a secretive expression.
“Of course, it’s for the treatment of Her Majesty the Empress.”
Roxana burst into laughter at Bonis’ answer.
“Where, where should I start explaining this...?”
Roxana turned one temple to her fingertips and muttered,
“Even if it’s not the Tebello Empire, Empress Zelda will be cured.”
Bonis let out a sigh of relief, but she tensed up again at Roxana’s words, which seemed to have some kind of hidden agenda.
“Really?! The Tebello Empire... Then why...”
“Emperor Linel made a deal with me to save the Empress and his younger brother.”
“What kind of deal? What did you do!”
“I told him to abandon the Empress in exchange for saving the lives of those two.”
Bonis took two or three steps back with her mouth wide open.
“Emperor Linel will soon lose his memories of Empress Zelda. But when I think about the Empress living her life missing him, I think it’s too cruel?”
Roxana said with a worried look on her face, the corners of her lips drooping.
“So shouldn’t you, as the Empress’s confidant, help her?”
Roxana’s wicked scheme drove Bonis into hell.
This is crazy!
Bonis’s stomach began to churn.
“I can’t do it!”
“If you can’t, your father will die.”
Roxana coldly rebuked.
“And Logan aside, should I let you live since you found out this secret?”
Bonis glared at Roxana for a long time before looking at the potion bottle on the table.
Bonis thought of her own father, who had been blackmailed by Roxana to create this magic potion.
‘My father must have been blackmailed like me! What a bad bitch, what a devil! But in the end, I’m the same...’
She hated Roxana, but she couldn’t shake off her self-loathing. She lamented her current situation.
“There’s nothing we can do to turn back now. When the Emperor wakes up from his sleep, he’ll have no memory of Empress Zelda left in his head. It would be better for both of them if we erased their memories of each other. Don’t you think so?”
“!”
She wanted to say yes. But Bonis couldn’t make her voice come out.
“See, you don’t like that either? If you don’t have the courage, don’t pretend to be loyal and take this.”
Roxana personally put the potion bottle in Bonis’ hand.
Linel stayed up all night with Moiya.
To be exact, he watched Moiya dozing off.
When he couldn’t stand the drowsiness anymore, he would sit on the table and repeatedly greet Moiya, who was sleeping, and poke his feet to wake his up.
“Ugh, huh? Where did I end?”
Then Moiya would open his eyes again as if he had never fallen asleep and continue his story.
That’s how Linel got through tonight, listening to Moiya’s stories that he had experienced while living in the egg for over 200 years, stories that he didn’t need to hear.
“I learned how to curse from humans from Rosie when I was in the egg. Even when I was with the Lord of the Tower in the Tower, I never heard anyone curse like Rosie did in over 100 years. I was surprised once by Rosie’s curse in the egg, and then I was surprised twice by Rosie’s face when I came out, Moiya~.”
Moiya kept babbling while blinking his eyes.
However, as he continued to reveal things about Rosie, he eventually fell asleep again.
Linel didn’t wake Moiya up anymore and left him alone.
It was time to wake Zelda up.
He turned his head and looked at the bed. She was sleeping soundly, shivering.
Linel watched her for a while with pleasure, then got up from the chair and approached Zelda.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her soft blonde hair. Her long, soft hair slipped through his fingers.
He unconsciously clenched his hand before her hair slipped out.
It was because he felt that she was slipping out of his life like Zelda’s hair slipping out of his fingers.
“Ah.”
Zelda narrowed her eyes and opened her eyes, perhaps because he had gripped her hair too tightly.
“Are you awake?”
“I can’t not wake up.”
Zelda answered curtly and glared at him as he held her hair in his hand.
“Why are you grabbing my hair so early in the morning, and on a day when we’re going on a long journey?”
Linel snickered.
Zelda’s speech had changed since she had been infected by the evil aura.
Her warm and bright tone had changed to a blunt and cold tone, but even that aspect of hers was lovable.
Linel let go of Zelda’s hair that he had been holding between his fingers.
Now, it was time.
“We should get up and get ready to leave. We don’t have much time.”
He said, forcing a lively expression.
“You know, Linel...”
Zelda grabbed his gown sleeve and began to speak.
“Yes?”
“When we meet again in the Tebello Empire, then then...”
Zelda sat up and stared at his face earnestly.
Judging from her expression, it seemed like she was saying something very important, so Linel quietly looked at her face.
“Let’s have a baby.”
Zelda said with hopeful eyes.
Moiya said in a voice tinged with admiration after sneaking a peek at Linel’s gown.
“...What are you talking about?”
He lowered his gaze and asked softly.
“Huh? Oh, it’s nothing.”
Moiya covered his gown again.
“It’s amazing, Moiya~.”
Moiya giggled quietly to himself, very happy.
“It feels useless without my master...”
Linel glared at a certain part of his lower body and asked Moiya, who was grumbling softly, what he meant, but Moiya pretended not to know again, saying it was nothing.
He looked at Moiya, who was smiling suspiciously, and then looked at the bottom of the juice glass that he had swallowed in his daze.
What did he put in here?
He thought about grabbing Moiya’s balls and questioning him, but stopped himself.
Wasn’t it a topic that even drank a magic potion that induces partial amnesia?
Even if Moiya had put something strange in the juice, it didn’t matter to him at the moment.
He weakly placed the empty juice glass on the table.
Moiya, who had been watching him, tilted his head and asked,
“Aren’t you going to ask?”
“Yes.”
“Oh? What if I had poisoned you?”
“I don’t care if it was poison as long as I can see your master off tomorrow.”
“Tch, acting tough.”
Moiya pouts and flaps his wings toward the window.
“Moiya.”
“Why are you calling me, cold body?”
“Come back here.”
Linel said, tapping the table with his fingertips.
“Funny, why are you ordering me around when you’re not even my master?”
Moiya grumbled, but without realizing it, he flew to the table Linel had tapped and sat down with his hands clasped together.
“It wasn’t poison...”
Moiya muttered timidly.
She thought Linel had called him to question him about what he had put in the juice, so he struck first.
But he said something unexpected.
“Will you stay with me tonight?”
Moiya, who was about to curse at him just by hearing his words, paused for a moment because his eyes were so earnest.
“...Goosebumps! Why are you being so disgusting?”
Moiya quickly swept his goosebump-covered arms with both hands.
“Just keep talking.”
“Our master is sleeping, but Your Majesty isn’t sleeping?”
“You should sleep. After today passes...”
“...What are you saying? Aren’t you sleepy? Your expression looks like you’re already asleep?”
Moiya asked, twirling one finger in front of Linel’s eyes.
He simply raised and lowered one corner of his mouth.
“That’s strange. Why are you suddenly acting like you’ve never eaten a sausage in your life?”
“What?”
“Why are you acting pitiful when it doesn’t suit you?”
Moiya clicked his tongue as he watched his gaze darken.
“Yes! I’ll stay up all night with you. When we go to the palace later, you have to give me a lot of sausages. Got it?”
“Yes.”
“There... and you know... even if there’s something that makes you mad at me, you have to forgive me once.”
Moiya’s eyes moved here and there, and he glanced down at his lower body as he spoke.
Linel, completely unaware that he had drunk the juice laced with poison, nodded obediently.
“Yes.”
“Promise!”
Moiya grabbed Linel’s pinky and forcibly hooked it to his own pinky.
He obediently promised.
“Oh, and I’ll follow my master tomorrow.”
It wasn’t a request for permission, but an announcement.
Judging from Linel’s expression right now, it seemed like he would listen to anything, so Moiya hinted.
He had expected him to nag him, telling him to stay here and be quiet next to Rosie, but unexpectedly, he nodded.
“Yes. That won’t happen, but if something happens to Zelda, you have to protect her. Understood?”
“Yes! I’ll protect my master.”
Moiya put both hands on his waist and replied boldly, sticking his plump belly out. Linel smiled faintly.
“From what I saw talking to the devil in the wine cellar this time, our master is really inflexible.”
“...Was she?”
“Yeah! If it were me, I would have just made a deal with the devil, but my master is really stubborn like a wyvern.”
“Heh, so you should stay by her side and protect her well.”
“Don’t worry! Your Majesty, just take care of yourself. Even if you don’t want to, you have to, hehe.”
Moiya hunched over the table and lifted his robe again.
“Why have you been looking in there like that all this time...”
Linel asked in an annoyed tone.
“Hehehe, it’s just. Because it’s cool.”
Moiya smiled sinisterly and patted his thigh before giving him a thumbs up.
***
Late that night, Roxana went to the magic tower and met Logan.
“What... did you need just now?”
Logan asked Roxana, doubting his ears.
“The magic potion that Emperor Linel drank. I need another one.”
“You couldn’t possibly... use it on Empress Zelda...?”
Roxana nodded lightly at Logan, who couldn’t finish his sentence properly.
Logan closed his open mouth and spoke calmly again.
“I can’t make it without the permission of the Lord of the Tower. Especially when it comes to Empress Zelda, whom the Lord of the Tower considers his companion.”
“I already told the crows.”
Roxana put her hand to her forehead, looking annoyed at Logan’s uncooperative reaction.
“Then, come back when the Lord of the Tower gives his permission.”
Logan politely declined.
“It will be good for me as well as the Lord of the Tower, so do as I say.”
Roxana raised her voice and looked around the shelves of herbal bottles.
To make a magic potion that induces partial amnesia, the blood component of the target whose memory you want to erase is needed.
After Zelda was infected with the evil energy, Bellos collected her blood to make a healing potion.
And when she blocked the demon fire with her hand, Linel, who was holding her, could also have been infected by the demon fire, so he collected his blood as well.
However, Bellos had not expected this at all. Zelda's blood was going to be used in a magic potion to erase her from Linel's memories.
And now Linel's blood was going to be used on Zelda in the same way.
Logan knew that he couldn't refuse Roxana's order, but on the other hand, he was genuinely curious.
"Do you need to do that to the Empress?"
Roxana's eyes lit up with eeriness at Logan's words.
"Wouldn't it be better to do it safely? The Lord of the Magic Tower wouldn't object either. Then it would be easier to accept Empress Zelda as his consort."
She wasn't wrong.
Logan also knew that Bellos couldn't stand to fight Roxana now.
"But still..."
Roxana snapped at Logan, who was hesitating.
"There's no time! The pirate group led by Hetor and the knights of our principality will arrive at the northern continent by tomorrow morning. There'll be bloodshed soon."
Roxana, who had been speaking irritably, lowered her voice and mentioned Bonis.
“Your daughter is in there too...”
Logan’s hands, which were organizing the herb bottles, stopped.
“I believe you will keep my daughter safe, as you promised before. Do you remember?”
“Of course. But you also remember that my promise is based on your cooperation, right?”
“!”
“If you’re worried about Bonis’s safety, then just make that potion. I think the Lord of the Tower gave you Emperor Linel’s blood back then, right?”
Logan had no choice. He felt bad for Zelda, but for the safety of his daughter, Bonis, he had no choice but to cooperate with Roxana.
‘Maybe it’s a good thing. Yes, it’s better for Zelda too...’
Emperor Linel’s memories of Zelda would disappear, and it would be much better for her not to remember him, rather than living with that sadness.
30 minutes later, Bellos, who heard the news from the crows, returned to the Tower using teleportation.
He looked very displeased, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Logan, who was already making the magic potion on Roxana’s orders, to stop.
“Welcome. I was just there to take care of business.”
Roxana said, shaking the completed magic potion bottle.
Bellos silently took Roxana and used teleportation to return to his room in the monastery.
Roxana borrowed Bellos’s black robes so as not to be noticed by others.
Then she asked where Bonis was staying.
Bellos quietly closed the door as Roxana opened it and started to leave, and spoke quietly.
“Tomorrow morning, I will go to the Tebello Empire with Her Majesty the Empress. Those accompanying me will go to get herbs for the potion she is taking to heal and to heal her burn scars.”
Roxana nodded with a frown at Bellos’ explanation.
“I expected it. That Emperor Linel would send her far away before the Allied Forces led by Hetor arrived. So you’re going to the Tebello Empire after all?”
“Bonis will accompany us.”
“Oh, then things will be much easier.”
Roxana smiled.
***
“What is this...?”
Bonis was startled when Roxana barged into her room late at night and then asked about the potion bottle she had placed on the table.
The liquid inside the small potion bottle sloshed.
“A way for everyone to be happy?”
Bonis looked back and forth between Roxana and the potion bottle with an ominous gaze.
“Have you ever thought about why Emperor Linel would suddenly send the Empress to the Tebello Empire?”
Roxana asked with a secretive expression.
“Of course, it’s for the treatment of Her Majesty the Empress.”
Roxana burst into laughter at Bonis’ answer.
“Where, where should I start explaining this...?”
Roxana turned one temple to her fingertips and muttered,
“Even if it’s not the Tebello Empire, Empress Zelda will be cured.”
Bonis let out a sigh of relief, but she tensed up again at Roxana’s words, which seemed to have some kind of hidden agenda.
“Really?! The Tebello Empire... Then why...”
“Emperor Linel made a deal with me to save the Empress and his younger brother.”
“What kind of deal? What did you do!”
“I told him to abandon the Empress in exchange for saving the lives of those two.”
Bonis took two or three steps back with her mouth wide open.
“Emperor Linel will soon lose his memories of Empress Zelda. But when I think about the Empress living her life missing him, I think it’s too cruel?”
Roxana said with a worried look on her face, the corners of her lips drooping.
“So shouldn’t you, as the Empress’s confidant, help her?”
Roxana’s wicked scheme drove Bonis into hell.
This is crazy!
Bonis’s stomach began to churn.
“I can’t do it!”
“If you can’t, your father will die.”
Roxana coldly rebuked.
“And Logan aside, should I let you live since you found out this secret?”
Bonis glared at Roxana for a long time before looking at the potion bottle on the table.
Bonis thought of her own father, who had been blackmailed by Roxana to create this magic potion.
‘My father must have been blackmailed like me! What a bad bitch, what a devil! But in the end, I’m the same...’
She hated Roxana, but she couldn’t shake off her self-loathing. She lamented her current situation.
“There’s nothing we can do to turn back now. When the Emperor wakes up from his sleep, he’ll have no memory of Empress Zelda left in his head. It would be better for both of them if we erased their memories of each other. Don’t you think so?”
Roxana spoke as if she were doing a good deed.
“You’ll be punished!”
“If it’s punishment for a crime, then of course it is,”
Roxana replied with a pleased expression.
“What?”
“I’ve been punished for a crime my whole life without committing it, so if it’s punishment for a crime, then it doesn’t matter.”
Roxana said, thinking of the whip scars on her back.
“Do you think His Majesty will remarry you because of this?”
“Bonis, that’s not something you should worry about.”
“You’re the devil! The devil is possessing you, not Her Majesty the Empress!”
“Come on, use your brain. This is good for Empress Zelda, too?”
“Stop talking nonsense...”
“Do you want her to spend her whole life missing Emperor Linel? Even if she returns to the Lapion Palace to get revenge on me, there’s nothing she can do. She’ll just die a dog’s death.”
Roxana spoke quickly with a cold expression.
“His Majesty will remember our Empress!”
“How can he? Do you think he can love her again? What if he finds out before he can even feel her that she is the acting Empress who deceived him? And if the ministers find out that she is the acting Empress, will they stay still?”
“T-That!”
“And me? Will I stay still if I remarry him?”
Roxana already seemed to have everything she wanted.
“Don’t you want Empress Zelda to recover and live comfortably without pain?”
“T-But I can’t make her lose her memories!”
“She’ll only lose her memories of Emperor Linel. Her memories of everyone else will remain intact.”
“Is that... really?”
Bonis asked with a suspicious tone.
“Yes. Since her life as a deposed Empress won’t change anyway... well, it would be nice to have some old memories. A gift from me?”
A gift?
Bonis burst into laughter.
It was clear that the word gift had a different meaning for Roxana.
“After the Empress’s party leaves tomorrow, the allied forces of the Principality of Aklatto and Tanya Island will surround all the guests here. If you can’t accept this... stay here. And die loyally. That’s all you need to do.”
“You’ll be punished!”
“If it’s punishment for a crime, then of course it is,”
Roxana replied with a pleased expression.
“What?”
“I’ve been punished for a crime my whole life without committing it, so if it’s punishment for a crime, then it doesn’t matter.”
Roxana said, thinking of the whip scars on her back.
“Do you think His Majesty will remarry you because of this?”
“Bonis, that’s not something you should worry about.”
“You’re the devil! The devil is possessing you, not Her Majesty the Empress!”
“Come on, use your brain. This is good for Empress Zelda, too?”
“Stop talking nonsense...”
“Do you want her to spend her whole life missing Emperor Linel? Even if she returns to the Lapion Palace to get revenge on me, there’s nothing she can do. She’ll just die a dog’s death.”
Roxana spoke quickly with a cold expression.
“His Majesty will remember our Empress!”
“How can he? Do you think he can love her again? What if he finds out before he can even feel her that she is the acting Empress who deceived him? And if the ministers find out that she is the acting Empress, will they stay still?”
“T-That!”
“And me? Will I stay still if I remarry him?”
Roxana already seemed to have everything she wanted.
“Don’t you want Empress Zelda to recover and live comfortably without pain?”
“T-But I can’t make her lose her memories!”
“She’ll only lose her memories of Emperor Linel. Her memories of everyone else will remain intact.”
“Is that... really?”
Bonis asked with a suspicious tone.
“Yes. Since her life as a deposed Empress won’t change anyway... well, it would be nice to have some old memories. A gift from me?”
A gift?
Bonis burst into laughter.
It was clear that the word gift had a different meaning for Roxana.
“After the Empress’s party leaves tomorrow, the allied forces of the Principality of Aklatto and Tanya Island will surround all the guests here. If you can’t accept this... stay here. And die loyally. That’s all you need to do.”
“!”
She wanted to say yes. But Bonis couldn’t make her voice come out.
“See, you don’t like that either? If you don’t have the courage, don’t pretend to be loyal and take this.”
Roxana personally put the potion bottle in Bonis’ hand.
***
Linel stayed up all night with Moiya.
To be exact, he watched Moiya dozing off.
When he couldn’t stand the drowsiness anymore, he would sit on the table and repeatedly greet Moiya, who was sleeping, and poke his feet to wake his up.
“Ugh, huh? Where did I end?”
Then Moiya would open his eyes again as if he had never fallen asleep and continue his story.
That’s how Linel got through tonight, listening to Moiya’s stories that he had experienced while living in the egg for over 200 years, stories that he didn’t need to hear.
“I learned how to curse from humans from Rosie when I was in the egg. Even when I was with the Lord of the Tower in the Tower, I never heard anyone curse like Rosie did in over 100 years. I was surprised once by Rosie’s curse in the egg, and then I was surprised twice by Rosie’s face when I came out, Moiya~.”
Moiya kept babbling while blinking his eyes.
However, as he continued to reveal things about Rosie, he eventually fell asleep again.
Linel didn’t wake Moiya up anymore and left him alone.
It was time to wake Zelda up.
He turned his head and looked at the bed. She was sleeping soundly, shivering.
Linel watched her for a while with pleasure, then got up from the chair and approached Zelda.
He sat on the edge of the bed and stroked her soft blonde hair. Her long, soft hair slipped through his fingers.
He unconsciously clenched his hand before her hair slipped out.
It was because he felt that she was slipping out of his life like Zelda’s hair slipping out of his fingers.
“Ah.”
Zelda narrowed her eyes and opened her eyes, perhaps because he had gripped her hair too tightly.
“Are you awake?”
“I can’t not wake up.”
Zelda answered curtly and glared at him as he held her hair in his hand.
“Why are you grabbing my hair so early in the morning, and on a day when we’re going on a long journey?”
Linel snickered.
Zelda’s speech had changed since she had been infected by the evil aura.
Her warm and bright tone had changed to a blunt and cold tone, but even that aspect of hers was lovable.
Linel let go of Zelda’s hair that he had been holding between his fingers.
Now, it was time.
“We should get up and get ready to leave. We don’t have much time.”
He said, forcing a lively expression.
“You know, Linel...”
Zelda grabbed his gown sleeve and began to speak.
“Yes?”
“When we meet again in the Tebello Empire, then then...”
Zelda sat up and stared at his face earnestly.
Judging from her expression, it seemed like she was saying something very important, so Linel quietly looked at her face.
“Let’s have a baby.”
Zelda said with hopeful eyes.
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