Chapter 43
“Stop!”
Like a police officer mediating between suspects, I stepped in between the two of them and held out my palms.
A quick glance.
‘…He is in a bad mood, right?’
The first thing I checked was His Majesty’s face.
To others, it might just look like the expressionless face of a handsome man whose thoughts were unreadable.
But that was one hundred percent the face of a displeased emperor.
I’ve spent too many years around His Majesty to fail to tell that much.
“Haha. Aren’t you two trying a bit too hard? You’ve got to leave some behind so small business owners can make a living too.”
The people at the shop booths the two of them had passed were shoveling their merchandise into burlap sacks with hollow expressions, as if they’d been steamrolled.
All of it was meant for those two.
I’d bet anything that by tomorrow, a “Handsome Men Prohibited” warning would be posted on this street.
Anyway, the priority right now was to separate Delcan from His Majesty.
“Delcan, we’re heading out now! See you next time!”
I grabbed His Majesty’s sleeve and pulled him toward another direction.
I’d expected him to resist, but His Majesty followed me without complaint. The real ambush came from somewhere else.
“Lily.”
Delcan called out to me.
Right, that farewell was a bit one-sided…
I stopped mid-step and turned around.
From the outside, it probably looked like the three of us were having some kind of dramatic three-way standoff in the middle of the street.
In this case, since I was dragging away His Majesty who’d been competing with Delcan, it was more like a three-way face-off with His Majesty in the middle.
I never imagined Delcan and I would end up in a configuration like this.
“What kind of relationship do you have with this person?”
“Huh? Uh…”
If someone asked what kind of relationship His Majesty and I had…
“A debtor–creditor relationship?”
“….”
I do have some sense.
Even I could tell that the atmosphere instantly turned icy at my words.
But right now, neither of us was an emperor or a saint.
And our married-couple setup had ended a long time ago.
As I rapidly eliminated all the complicated relationships I couldn’t explain to Delcan, the only thing left was the debt related to the ring.
What a life—to be left with nothing but debt. Sob.
“Debt…?”
“…Relationship?”
His Majesty’s incredulous voice overlapped with Delcan’s shocked one.
“Well, um. I still have something to pay back, you know. Right?”
I crooked my index finger so only His Majesty could see it.
His Majesty glanced at the ring on my finger and snorted.
Delcan looked at me with wavering eyes, then sharply shifted his gaze to His Majesty.
“Are you seriously using money as leverage to keep following her around even after the divorce?”
“Ah, I’m the one following him, though?”
I appreciated Delcan’s concern for me, but I couldn’t let this escalate into a bigger fight between him and His Majesty.
Delcan’s life was important, after all.
I pointed at the sleeve of His Majesty’s clothes that I was still holding.
“Look. I’m the one holding on.”
“She says so.”
His Majesty smiled like a victor, while Delcan asked me in a trembling voice,
“You’re divorced, so why…?”
“Because he’s handsome…?”
“……”
Ah. I know that look.
It’s the same look I saw not long ago while watching a show on the deck.
Kgh. Delcan. Was I really that trashy…?
What was my current setup again?
A debtor indebted to her ex-husband, who keeps following him around because she can’t forget his looks even after the divorce…
Yeah. Let’s stop analyzing that.
Still, Delcan, you can’t really argue with this part, can you?
Setting his personality aside, His Majesty’s face really is unbeatable.
“Then we’ll be going now.”
The atmosphere was awkward.
I tugged on His Majesty’s sleeve and turned my back on Delcan.
Perhaps unable to accept the fact that his friend was such trash, Delcan didn’t say a word.
Delcan, we’re friends, right? We’re still friends… right?
I glanced back once or twice, sending him wistful looks, but Delcan just stood there stiffly, fists clenched.
My heart hurt. This wasn’t the ending I’d hoped for when I stepped in…!
My sadness was short-lived. We moved forward, pushing through the crowd that reminded me of a tourist attraction.
When His Majesty and Delcan separated, the people who had gathered around them began to wander off again in search of street food and entertainment.
“Hey. Ex-wife.”
“?”
As we were nearing the alley where Captain Henkel was, I heard an unexpected voice and turned around to see His Majesty smiling playfully.
“Me?”
“Is there another ex-wife here?”
Your Majesty, because of that setup, I just got treated like garbage by my friend a moment ago. Sob.
“Here.”
With an indifferent gesture, His Majesty held something out to me.
When I looked, it was the silver-furred pom-pom doll I’d been eyeing at the game booth earlier.
“You wanted it.”
“…Whoa.”
Suspicious of the sudden tenderness, I looked at the doll, then at His Majesty, back and forth—until something clicked.
“This is dangerous.”
Was this really a face one could easily forget?
The crowd had dispersed, but there were still people sneaking glances in our direction.
Even if this wasn’t a street frequented by high-ranking nobles, it wasn’t impossible that someone like Delcan—someone who came and went from the imperial palace—might be around.
“Maybe we really should wrap your face up tight…”
I was already anxious enough after unintentionally staging a live three-way standoff in front of everyone earlier.
I went into the alley and brought out the basket I’d left with Captain Henkel.
It was one of the baskets Siana had prepared for me, saying I’d need it.
Inside was a shawl. I could use that to cover His Majesty’s face.
I should’ve done this earlier. Why didn’t I think of it sooner?
“What are you trying to do?”
“Just a moment.”
It was just as I pulled the shawl out of the basket.
Clatter.
Something else rolled out onto the ground along with it.
The moment I saw what it was, a shiver ran up my arm.
“Why is this…?”
It had already been two weeks since I returned to the imperial palace, greeted with tearful welcomes from those who’d known I was missing.
Aside from being subjected to the ultimate form of overprotection—“a 24-hour escort knight”—a few things in my life had changed.
First.
I was starting to see signs that I might become absurdly rich.
What on earth do I mean by that?
The dessert recipe competition I’d given up on, assuming I wouldn’t be able to attend, ended up being won by Heli.
Heli said she’d give all the prize money to me, which was ridiculous.
“The reward for labor should be fair,” “Are you trying to turn me into some shameless thug?!”
I argued and argued until we split it evenly—500 gold each.
It was only enough to commission one leg of a statue, but that wasn’t the end of it.
“A contract?”
After the win, Heli refused the mandatory recipe contract, saying the copyright belonged to me.
The winner refusing to sign a contract?
Naturally, the Antoine Bakery went into an uproar.
Olivia, the owner of Antoine Bakery, who had been contacting Heli multiple times a day, immediately sent over a contract when she heard that the recipe’s owner (me, Lily) had appeared.
They were offering a percentage of the profits from popcorn sold across the nationwide Antoine chain. It seemed like a good deal, so I signed it.
A few days later, a check arrived—apparently the contract fee plus a week’s worth of sales.
“…Whoa.”
Even accounting for the contract fee, the amount was enough to make my hands—and my soul—tremble.
Do people do nothing but eat popcorn all day?
I used to dream of owning a never-ending chicken pouch.
Now it felt like I’d gotten a never-ending fandom-funding pouch instead.
So what was there left for me to do?
Life is all about flexing.
I went ahead and booked a production slot with the sculptor Hupperson had found last time!
Even if I couldn’t cover the full 3,000 gold cost of the statue, I could comfortably pay half of it as a down payment with my own money.
Did I just call it “my money”? I’m losing it. Shinari, you’re an adult now. An adult. I can totally buy Showen a meal.
Since there were two months to wait due to prior orders before production could begin, I needed to decide which version of His Majesty would become Statue No. 1.
Every day was blissful…
Let’s set that aside for now.
Second.
This one was huge—I discovered the possibility that I might have divine power.
After hearing my tales from Bonia, Siana raised a question about the ring.
“A holy stone can only contain one type of divine power. White light is protection-type, and yellow light is attack-type divine power… so the explosion likely wasn’t from the ring’s holy stone, but from the Saintess’s own divine power.”
She was saying that what I’d thought was the ring’s power might actually be my divine power.
Divine power? Me?!
But I’d made a fool of myself by getting excited too early more than once.
I needed to be cautious.
“But the yellow light came from the ring…”
“There’s a training method where you use a holy stone as a medium to draw out the divine power inside your body. With the holy stone in the ‘Ring of Protection,’ it could’ve withstood the Saintess’s divine power, so it’s not an entirely baseless theory.”
“What’s the Ring of Protection…?”
“It’s the ring His Majesty the Emperor gave to the Saintess. A national treasure passed down in Zendal.”
…This ring. I kept thinking it was scary, and now it’s really scary.
Decorative gem, holy stone, national treasure title—everything’s stacked.
Will I ever be able to repay this, even if I save money my whole life…?
For someone like me, who’d only just started flexing with statues, the scale was completely out of reach.
It felt like my fandom fund, which I thought was a lottery jackpot, shrinking pathetically in front of the world’s richest person. Sob.
Anyway, I wanted to confirm whether Siana was right about my divine power.
But the Idmanta measuring device in the chapel was still under repair.
If it was truly a divine mineral, I guess repairs took a long time.
Well, it wasn’t like divine power I never thought I had was urgently needed right now.
I had no worries about making a living or being kicked out of the palace anymore!
The problem was…
I stood frozen in the living room, staring at the bed.
It had already been over ten minutes since I entered the room and discovered that, completely locking up.
That small wooden box, about half the size of a tissue box…
The box that comes back no matter how many times I throw it away…!
Just like the moment I saw it fall out of the basket while pulling out the shawl,
A cold shiver ran down my spine.
“…It’s definitely a cursed box.”
And finally, third.
Something strange has attached itself to me.
