MSPD 05

Chapter 5

[…ra.]

As her consciousness slowly floated back to the surface, she thought she heard a faint call.

[Bella!]

The harsh rays of the sun stabbed into her eyes, blindingly bright.

[If you’re awake, get up quickly! You’ve been asleep for two days! This isn’t the time to be sleeping!]

Unbelievable.
She couldn’t even endure this little bit of light.

Bella tried to sit up with difficulty, but ended up collapsing back down again.

Even after roaming across bloody battlefields, she had never felt like this. Yet now, just from waking up from a good sleep, her body felt unbearably heavy.

“Ah, I really can’t get up. But… where am I?”

This wasn’t the same room where Bella had first opened her eyes.

This place felt older, deeper—something her body’s memories didn’t recognize either.

Which meant even Belladis had never been here.

[This is Theodore Calyps’s room.]

At those words, Bella recalled the scene just before she lost consciousness.

‘You… protect me, please.’

“Oh, so he brought me to his room because I asked him to protect me. That way no one can touch me. He’s pretty capable, huh?”

[Yeah, he does his job well.]

“He seems to handle his body well too, quick-witted, and since he’s my husband, I don’t even have to bother looking for him.”

As Bella listed Theodore’s strengths one by one, a sudden thought occurred to her.

Maybe… this mission isn’t as difficult as she thought?

She’d kept Calyps alive, and Theodore was smart.

So couldn’t she just sit back and give orders, telling Theodore what to do?

[Don’t tell me you’re planning to just sit back and make Theodore do everything for you?]

“…Is that not allowed?”

[And what excuse will you use to command him? Do you think someone that clever will just move according to your words? Humans aren’t as simple as you think.]

At that moment, the sound of a door opening reached her ears.

Bella quickly shut her eyes and pretended to be asleep.

Careful footsteps approached, then receded.

“She still hasn’t woken up. Still… who would have thought the imperial physician would die like that.”

So that bastard was dead.

“Then are we now expelling the Imperial Guard back to the palace? But will they leave so easily?”

“Of course not. That’s why His Grace intends to send the princess back to the palace. If she goes, the Imperial family’s interference will be blocked, and the Guard can be sent away too.”

…What?

After the door closed and the footsteps faded, Bella’s eyes snapped open.

She had saved their necks from near disaster, and now they wanted to send her back to the palace?

[Heard that? They’re only thinking of sending you away. Do you really think Theodore will listen to you?]

Her chance of victory—0.1%.

Even if she stood on Calyps’s side and fought with him, winning was uncertain. But if she was sent to the palace now?

That was simply losing.

[The difference between a mission in the human realm and chess is that the ‘pieces’ don’t necessarily move the way you order them to.]

“Then you shouldn’t have compared it to chess in the first place!”

Bella kicked off the covers and jumped out of bed. But the moment she took a step, she winced.

At that, Ophanniel shouted:

[First, go to Theodore!]

Hands firmly on his hips, his eyes blazing with determination—

[For now, I’ll coach your every action and every word! Just trust me!]

Unlike the confident declaration, Bella’s expression darkened.

Somehow… she had a feeling he wouldn’t be much help.

He does his job well.

Theodore Calyps sat with his long legs crossed, deep in thought.

The imperial physician, arrested for the attempted murder of the princess, had been imprisoned in the castle dungeon.

But the physician, who had insisted on his innocence, suddenly confessed:

‘Her Highness has repeatedly insulted me over the years. I endured and endured, but could endure no longer. I poisoned her food.’

Insults? Endured?

With that absurd claim, he insisted the crime was entirely his own—
and was found dead that very night.

The tail had been cut off.

The guards of the dungeon were Theodore’s knights, only those he considered trustworthy.

Yet the physician had still died. Which meant—among those he trusted were traitors.

Why wouldn’t there be?

For over a year now, the duchy had been riddled with holes.

“Send her back to the Imperial Palace? That is impossible!”

Theodore’s gaze turned toward the commander of the Imperial Guard.

“We came at the princess’s command! We are her escort!”

The duchy’s gaping hole.

That was Bella.

A breach opened under the name of marriage, a gap created by Belladis herself.

Through that breach, rats had crept in, spreading through Calyps like a disease, shaking its unity from within.

First, the Imperial physician, summoned under the excuse that the duchy’s own physician was insufficient.

Then, the Imperial Guard, summoned under the excuse that the duchy’s knights were inadequate.

If there was any small comfort, it was that these people weren’t hiding—they were standing openly before his eyes.

But how could he be sure?

That there weren’t other rats still lurking in the shadows?

“No matter what, we cannot leave Her Highness’s side! After what she’s suffered, she must already be terribly unsettled!”

That was why.

Why, for the past year, he had been driven half-mad, endlessly rooting out spies.

“That’s why I say—why not take this chance to escort her back to the capital?”

If not only the Guard but even the Emperor’s tool, the princess, were sent back to the capital…

Only then could Calyps stand firm again.

“Her Highness has faced many difficulties, partly due to her own shortcomings. Now, after such an incident, wouldn’t it be best for her to rest her mind and body in the capital where she was born and raised?”

A golden-haired man beside Theodore produced a letter from his breast and set it before the Guard commander.

“Once the princess awakens, escort her to the capital. Deliver this letter to His Majesty.”

“That… that’s…”

‘Enter Calyps and shake them. I place great expectations on you.’

Recalling Emperor Nicholas’s words, the Guard commander’s heart burned with desperation.

To simply return now to the capital? That could not be allowed.

He turned toward Calterion, hoping to persuade him instead.

But whose grandson was Theodore?

Just meeting Calterion’s gaze was enough to chill him to the bone.

“On your way, deliver my own letter to His Majesty as well.”

The oppressive atmosphere swirling around the Duke made it impossible to object. The Guard commander’s face darkened.

His lips trembled, trying to salvage the situation somehow—

“Lady Calyps!”

At the entrance to the audience chamber stood Belladis, her face terrifying.

For the second time.

Theodore stared in disbelief at Belladis, standing boldly in the doorway.

If there was any improvement from before, it was that she wasn’t barefoot.

She strode inside with the air of someone searching for something, sweeping her gaze across the wide chamber…

Then she marched forward between the long mahogany table and the sofa beside it—

looking straight into his eyes.

“L-Lady Calyps!”

“If you just tell us, we’ll step aside, ah, wait—!”

Theodore watched in disbelief as Calyps’s retainers panicked—collapsing onto the floor or scrambling onto sofas.

Ignoring etiquette and propriety, Belladis came right up to him.

Breathing heavily, she asked the Duke:

“May I sit?”

Theodore turned to his grandfather.

The Duke, peering at Belladis with sunken eyes, after a pause gave permission.

“Let her.”

The moment that permission fell—

“?”

Theodore stiffened at a sensation on his right.

When he turned, Belladis was seated beside him.

Her long silver hair spilled down over his black uniform.

Noticing his gaze, she turned sharply toward him.

Her eyes brimmed with something like determination.

Determination—from Belladis?

What was this?

Had she truly lost her mind?

But… what did it matter?

Whatever her truth was, his choice would not change.