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CHAPTER 08
Your Majesty, Please Be My Husband
“Miss… why are we in a place like this….”
May looked like she was about to faint on the spot.
Serena had made her wear a worn hood, taken a hired carriage into the back alleys, and stopped in front of a shabby-looking building.
In this world, there were four kinds of people who entered the back alleys. Those who sold their bodies for money, those who committed crimes and hid, those who worked in the shadows—and those who came to hire them.
Serena belonged to the last category.
This place hadn’t always had such a dangerous atmosphere.
It had originally been a settlement for the poor, but criminals gradually infiltrated it, made it their base, and over time it became known as the Empire’s underworld.
There were constant incidents, but because the residents had no fixed identities or addresses, the imperial security forces avoided intervening. Even the Imperial Palace turned a blind eye.
So for Serena to come here with only her maid and no escort was enough to make May feel like she might collapse.
Even Serena couldn’t bring herself to say, This will happen often.
“Where are Father and Klaus?”
“They left at dawn. There was an urgent issue in the estate.”
“I see.”
Of course she knew. She would have known even without being told.
She had only lightly “touched” things.
“Let’s go in.”
The building had no sign and looked like it might collapse at any moment.
Serena knocked carefully on the door.
No response.
“Miss… did we come to the wrong place?”
May looked around nervously.
Serena silently counted to ten in her head, then spoke again.
“When the goddess bestowed her blessing upon the night sky, a moon was born to illuminate the dark earth, and when she scattered tears of joy, they became stars adorning the heavens.”
“Miss…?”
May tilted her head in confusion.
Serena raised a finger to her lips.
It was a famous line from the world’s creation myth—the goddess’s origin story.
A simple tale about how night was created, but here, it had a different meaning.
Creeeak.
The tightly shut door slowly opened.
Beyond it was darkness so deep that even incoming light couldn’t penetrate.
“You’re really going in?” May asked fearfully.
“If you’re scared, stay outside.”
But May quickly shook her head and clung tightly to Serena’s arm, deciding it was safer to go in together.
As they stepped inside, the door closed behind them, and complete darkness swallowed everything.
Then, as their eyes adjusted—
Light suddenly flooded in, and Serena narrowed her eyes slightly.
“Who are you?”
A blade gleamed coldly right at her throat.
“Shouldn’t introductions come first? And… asking someone who they are while holding a sword like that is rather impolite, don’t you think?”
Serena calmly scanned the interior.
What looked like a shabby building on the outside was an elaborate, refined interior.
Space magic?
She hadn’t expected even a mage to be involved. Interesting.
“Miss!” May’s trembling voice called out, nearly in tears.
She was in the same situation—also held at swordpoint.
“Aren’t you going to lower your weapons?”
“You think we don’t know you’re here?”
The red-haired man didn’t seem inclined to listen.
After a brief silence, Serena sighed.
“You look like you might kill us at any moment.”
“If necessary.”
Serena was a mage herself. If she chose to, she could deal with him easily.
But if there was indeed a mage here—as suspected—it would become complicated. The space magic alone suggested a high-level practitioner.
And she had no intention of making this messy.
“Go and tell your master this,” Serena said calmly.
“Tell them… the Silver Flower has arrived.”
* * *
“……”
Diego stared at Serena, who was calmly drinking tea in front of him, feeling his insides burn.
So she had been the one who sent that letter all the way to the battlefield.
“Lady, that letter….”
“I was merely relaying what I knew. Isn’t that what serves the greater cause?”
She shrugged lightly and set down her teacup.
May had fainted from shock earlier and was resting in another room.
Diego, still visibly shaken, finally spoke.
“I have many questions. First, the source of your information about the Guardian Power.”
Information about the river depth or enemy collaboration could be uncovered by placing spies in the army.
But the Guardian Power was on a different level entirely.
Serena had prepared an excuse she couldn’t admit the truth of—because I read the novel.
“I once knew an old woman who had come from the Kingdom and lived in the Empire as a child. She told me a story passed down in her homeland. A legend from the early founding days.”
“The story of the Guardian Power?”
“Yes. She said that during the time of the lunar eclipse, the Guardian Power becomes ineffective.”
“So you sent me a letter based only on that legend?”
“It was a gamble.”
Diego’s expression hardened.
“Do you understand what you are saying you gambled with?”
Serena looked at him calmly.
“The outcome of a war… and the lives of people.”
“That decision could have cost many lives.”
“But I believed it wasn’t something to dismiss outright. There must be a reason that legend survived.”
She knew it sounded like a weak excuse, but there were no records of the Seiren Kingdom’s Guardian Power. It was a royal secret.
Fabricating evidence was impossible.
So this was the best explanation she had.
“And I also assumed you would not act immediately based on that information alone, Your Highness. Am I wrong?”
“……”
“You would verify everything, and only then move when the possibility became strong enough.”
Diego had indeed done exactly that.
He had investigated all reports, interrogated captured soldiers, and gathered fragments of truth.
Even so, it had remained a gamble until the end.
“Second question,” he said, exhaling deeply. “How did you find this place?”
“I have capable informants. Only my maid and I know this. Now you make it three people… or seven, if we include everyone here.”
This was Diego’s hidden base.
The Knights of Knox—his childhood companions and the soldiers who had grown up under his protection.
The fact that she had located it genuinely shocked him.
“I am a mage,” Serena added calmly. “And now that you know, that makes seven people aware of it.”
Diego rubbed the back of his neck in frustration.
Finally, he asked:
“And the last question… what did you mean yesterday?”
“Yesterday?”
Serena tilted her head innocently, though she clearly remembered.
“You… proposed to me.”
Diego looked away for a moment, then back again, visibly flustered.
“Lady, I believe I misheard.”
Serena clapped her hands lightly twice.
“Do you hear properly now?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are not mistaken.”
Diego froze.
“I think I should see a physician.”
“Shall I accompany you?”
“Absolutely not! Just… stay right there.”
Serena stepped closer as if to help him.
Diego immediately flinched back, covering his mouth and turning away.
Under the moonlight, his ears were bright red.
Only then did Serena recall—this man had absolutely no experience with women.
“Do you intend to tease me?” he asked stiffly.
“I thought it was a perfect performance.”
Her expression turned blank in an instant.
Diego clenched the armrest.
“If you are going to marry, it should be someone you love,” he said awkwardly.
Serena gave a small smile.
“Your Highness is quite romantic.”
Diego fidgeted.
“Th-that’s just what other ladies have said.”
Clink.
The teacup was set down sharply.
“Marriage is not the result of love. It is a tool. A means. I apologize if my words yesterday were misleading.”
She looked directly at him.
“I meant it purely as a proposal of utility.”
“A means… for what?”
Her gaze sharpened.
“I will make you Emperor.”
* * *
“Wow… she’s quite something.”
Alro chuckled as he watched the departing carriage.
Eden nudged him in the side.
“Do you think any of this makes sense, my lord?”
Diego leaned back on the sofa, exhaling slowly.
He replayed her words.
“If you do not become Emperor, do you understand what stands before the South and Hillstein?”
“But I cannot.”
“If you wish to protect what is precious, then think instead of refusing outright.”
The Empire’s law, imperial succession, political factions… everything weighed on him.
The current Emperor disliked Diego.
He was the illegitimate son of the previous Emperor and a mistress—born in the shadows.
Though he had always fought for the Empire, the idea of the throne had never meant anything to him.
Until now.
Now, because of her, everything had started to shift.
If we meet three times, it is fate.
“If we meet again, please marry me.”
Diego touched his ear unconsciously.
It wasn’t the promise of making him Emperor that lingered.
It was the word marriage.
Serena’s eyes when she said it had been calm—like a still lake.
And for the first time, Diego found himself wondering.
What is she really thinking?
