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Chapter 42
Only then did Roban, realizing something was wrong, start to struggle as he was dragged away.
“Call Esha! Where is my daughter, Esha? This must be a misunderstanding! If we just talk, we can work this out somehow—”
I ignored his voice as it faded into the distance.
Roban no longer mattered to me in the slightest.
– You have successfully altered the fate of Esha Marceline.
– You have prevented the great famine in the Marquisate of Marceline.
– You have resolved the food shortage in the territories adjacent to Marceline.
– You have prevented the knight Loren’s extreme decision.
One message after another appeared, as if waiting for this very moment.
‘Ohhh…’
No matter how many times I saw it, that rush of accomplishment never got old.
– You have succeeded in leaving a turning point in history.
– Calculating curse mitigation based on contribution to the achievement.
– The Curse of Forgetting is mitigated by 41%.
– Someone’s memories have been completely restored.
‘Now, who’s regained their memory this time?’
Just then, I felt someone’s gaze prickling the back of my head. I turned around.
Among the royal knights bustling about to restore order,
one man stood still—completely motionless.
His face was hidden under his helmet, but I knew from the start who he was.
Esha’s lover, Loren.
The moment our eyes met, he brought his clenched fist to his chest and bowed his head.
At that calm, solemn gesture, realization suddenly struck me.
‘Ah. So it’s you.’
The one who recovered their memories this time was him.
“Is it all over now?”
Acel entered, having waited in the carriage until things settled down.
Since royal knights had been mobilized for this operation, he hadn’t gone far—just waited nearby.
“I suppose so.”
Laura sat with her back against the door, her face hidden beneath her bridal veil that swayed faintly as she nodded.
“You went to great lengths for a single performance, didn’t you?”
“But it worked, didn’t it?”
Acel couldn’t deny that.
The plan—to locate the matchmaking meeting arranged by Roban Marceline and arrest both him and the Marquis of Lebanon—
was, at first glance, childish and reckless.
But it had succeeded precisely because Laura insisted, “The more absurd a plan is, the better it’ll work.”
And Acel hadn’t come away empty-handed either.
After all, the Marquis of Lebanon was a notorious tax evader.
“Come now, get up. You’re not planning to stay like that forever, are you?”
Laura lifted her head.
“Are you going to escort me?”
“You thought I’d just leave you here?”
Because Roban and the Marquis had much to hide, they had chosen a meeting place far from the capital.
There was no way Laura could return to the Luweiz estate without help.
Acel extended his hand.
“You were the one who told me to fulfill my duties as a fiancé first, weren’t you?”
“My, how considerate of you.”
Laura muttered sarcastically as she stood up. Acel’s cold formality always managed to grate on her nerves—
because his politeness felt like the kind he gave to everyone.
Then, just as she was rising, Laura’s foot caught on the hem of her dress. She nearly stumbled—
and Acel instinctively caught her.
“Maybe if you paid attention to where you—”
He stopped mid-sentence.
The veil had slipped from her head, and suddenly, her face was right there—
so close that he could see the fine line of her teeth between her parted lips.
Her wide, startled eyes, the faint breath that brushed against him—
for a moment, even Acel forgot to breathe.
“….”
Indeed, Laura was beautiful. She simply never used her beauty to her advantage—
or, more often than not, used it for entirely different ends.
After several silent seconds, Laura finally spoke.
“Your Highness?”
Acel blinked, snapping out of it.
“I’ll… have to tell the building owner the flooring needs fixing.”
He muttered an absurd excuse while rubbing the back of his neck.
A short distance away, watching the scene unfold, Luigi sighed and shook his head.
‘Now I see—he really did inherit that bloodline. The resemblance to his brother is uncanny.’
In the early days of his marriage, the Emperor had been unable to admit his own feelings,
treating the Empress coldly and keeping his distance.
By the time he realized the truth, the Empress had been attacked by political enemies and forced into hiding.
All the Emperor could do then was pray for her safety and erase her traces to protect her from pursuit.
Acel might look like the Empress, which was why Luigi had always taken comfort in that resemblance.
But watching him now, Luigi saw that Acel had only inherited the Empress’s face—
and the Emperor’s heartless stubbornness.
‘Unbelievable.’
Still, there was one silver lining—Acel clearly did have feelings for Laura.
Before returning to Mortum, Luigi had planned to remind him once more:
that there was no woman more suitable for the Crown Princess than Laura.
But after seeing Acel’s behavior today, he changed his mind.
‘If I interfere now, it’ll only backfire. Best to let things unfold naturally.’
The only thing he hoped for now was that Acel would realize his own feelings sooner rather than later.
His father had taken far too long—
and the longer it took, the harder the road ahead would be.
‘He’s late.’
The next day.
Angel sat in the drawing room of the Luweiz estate.
Before him sat an empty teacup. The tea had long gone cold, leaving only a bitter aftertaste.
Angel normally never touched sweets, but boredom had pushed him past his limits.
He stuffed a stale cookie into his mouth and glared at the hallway.
It had been ages since he’d been shown into the room.
No one had come to check on him, not even to say “Please wait a bit longer.”
‘Why isn’t she coming out? Is she… deliberately keeping me waiting?’
He’d visited the Luweiz estate several times before—mostly to meet the Marquis himself—
and every time, the servants had treated him with haughty disdain, as if they were nobles and he wasn’t.
None of those servants remained now, but Angel didn’t know that.
Growing increasingly irritated, he finally rose from his seat.
All the way from the drawing room to Laura’s chambers,
he didn’t encounter a single servant.
This was simply because the household staff at Luweiz were few and stretched thin,
but Angel didn’t see it that way.
In just a few brisk steps, he reached his destination.
The door was crafted from finer materials than the rest—
clearly belonging to its mistress.
Knock knock.
“Are you inside?”
Thankfully, Laura’s voice came back.
“Would you wait just a moment, please?”
‘So she is in there.’
At least it wasn’t some ploy to keep him waiting while she wasn’t home.
Still, his irritation didn’t fade.
‘So she’s in there, and yet she won’t even show her face?’
Leaving a guest waiting endlessly in the parlor—
a clear display of dominance, meant to remind the other party who held control.
A psychological ploy: “You’ll wait until I allow it.”
He wanted to call her out on her little game, but…
‘Still, a knight can’t just barge into a lady’s room.’
Even if she was a so-called villainess, a woman was still a woman.
Angel was chivalry personified—down to the bone.
Yet the irritation of waiting so long didn’t quite go away,
so he remained standing by the door.
Then—
“Don’t do that.”
Came a faint, protesting voice, followed by another insistence: “I said no.”
‘Someone’s in there with her?’
Angel waited, his patience wearing thinner by the second.
Then came a crash—something breaking.
Unable to restrain himself, he grabbed the doorknob and swung the door open.
“Are you all right—”
“Oh dear, you’ll trip—”
What he saw next made him freeze.
A small child—barely reaching Laura’s knee—
and Laura herself, swiftly scooping the child up into her arms.
“Sweetheart, what did I tell you about running out suddenly? You don’t know what’s out there, do you?”
Laura gently patted the child’s back, soothing her.
The little one rested her chin on Laura’s shoulder, whining softly—
but her expression was peaceful, comfortable.
That kind of closeness didn’t form overnight.
Laura looked up at him at last.
“Oh my, Sir Angel, what brings you here?”
But Angel couldn’t answer.
From the moment he saw the child, his composure had vanished.
“Th-that, uh… what—?”
Thud—
The papers in his hand slipped through his fingers and scattered across the floor.
