Chapter 52
“What?”
“I said I like Your Majesty.”
This was crazy. Completely crazy.
After the words I calmly blurted out, a chilling silence flowed.
‘Aaaaagh…! Th-this…! Damn mouth!’
What good was all my effort to hide my feelings?
In the end, my body—moving without regard for my will—betrayed me!
I wanted to jump up and run away right that instant.
But I had to clean up the mess my mouth had made.
‘W-what should I say to explain it? Should I say I was joking?’
But I’d been far too serious just now.
The way I looked straight at Your Majesty’s face, my voice without a trace of laughter.
This might be my room, but—
If one or two people passing by had seen this, they definitely would’ve whispered among themselves!
[That girl’s confessing right now.]
[Yeah. She’s about to get rejected.]
Like that!
Ugh. As if confessing with one hundred percent sincerity would go over well.
‘Then how am I supposed to fix this! …Should I say I meant that I like Your Majesty’s face and my words just slipped out? Yeah, even if it’s embarrassing, wouldn’t that be better?!’
With my head spinning, I decided what to say.
“Haha. So, what I was trying to say was—!”
It was a better excuse than I’d expected.
I figured I’d make Your Majesty believe it, then bolt out of here.
If I stayed in the same space any longer, who knew what my body might do…!
But the one who made a sudden move wasn’t me—it was Your Majesty’s mouth.
“I like the Saintess too.”
“……”
Heh. A person needs expectations in order to feel disappointed or happy.
Since I thought this was something with absolutely no chance of becoming reality, my mind actually calmed down.
So, heart, don’t get carried away.
What those words mean definitely isn’t the same feeling as mine.
I’ll confirm it right now, my body parts—so don’t move on your own and just wait.
“Y-Your Majesty, what do you mean when you say you li-li-like me?”
Sorry. I lost my composure and my voice shook.
At the corners of Your Majesty’s eyes, faint smile lines formed as he smiled softly.
What am I even looking at right now?
Love or whatever aside, may I live a long life—me, who gets to look at Your Majesty’s face from across the table.
So that—huh?! I can keep looking at that face for a long time…!
“The Saintess is interesting to watch.”
See? He says I’m interesting to watch.
This was clearly him treating me like a convenient subordinate to toy with.
So Your Majesty thinks of me as—!
“That’s why I like you.”
What kind of delayed attack is that.
For a moment, my head spun.
That’s why I like you… like… like…
“I like you too—”
Thud.
I slammed my forehead down onto the table.
A dull ache spread through my head as it collided with the hard wooden tabletop, but I didn’t have the luxury to worry about pain like that right now.
“……”
‘Should I… sew my mouth shut?’
At this rate, wasn’t I going to develop some kind of habitual confession disorder…?
It was a frighteningly plausible prediction.
I hate myself for knowing myself so well. Sob.
“Saintess…! Are you alright? What on earth was that all of a sudden?”
Startled by my sudden self-harm, Your Majesty lifted my face from the table.
As a result, both my cheeks were caught in Your Majesty’s large hands.
Frowning, he examined my face.
“Tsk. Your face is a mess. It doesn’t look like just your forehead is injured.”
“……”
“Did you hit your nose too? It wasn’t this—”
“……”
It might sound like high-level mockery disguised as concern, but Your Majesty’s eyes were genuinely worried.
Which meant, genuinely, that my face was a mess and my nose bridge was low…
Haha. Are there people who get hurt by such obvious truths? Well, not me.
Compared to Your Majesty’s face, everyone’s a mess anyway…!
And that wasn’t where my attention was focused.
Your Majesty leaning forward, stretching his upper body toward me.
The breath I could feel right in front of me, the sensation of his hand against my cheek, that beauty seen from inches away…!!
I was a moth before a flame.
Circling the fire because of instinct, only to inevitably leap into it!
If there was a difference between the moth and me, it was that I knew that fire was dangerous.
Heh. Knowing it—what good does that do…?
“You’re running a fever too. It’s hot. It’d be best to call a healing priest and get proper treatment.”
My heart pounded.
Your Majesty’s voice overlapped with the sound of my heartbeat.
Yes, I wanted to confirm it.
“Your Majesty, I have a question.”
“Now? Then let’s call a priest first—”
“No, I’m fine. I want to ask now.”
Your Majesty, who had been about to call someone outside the door, turned his gaze back to me.
The two of us met each other’s eyes.
It wasn’t just because my eyesight was good—we were so close I could see myself reflected in Your Majesty’s pupils.
Your Majesty’s hand rested at my temple. Could he hear my heart racing?
Being aware of it only made it more embarrassing.
“What is it?”
“Your Majesty, why are you so good to me?”
At my words, Your Majesty moved his lips slightly.
Was he choosing what to say?
Without waiting for his answer, I continued.
“Is it because I’m the Saintess?”
“Not really.”
“Then is it because I’m a subordinate who listens well to Your Majesty?”
“I’ve never thought of the Saintess as a subordinate.”
Not because I was the Saintess, and not because I was a lackey.
Then…
The question that had been circling my mind since yesterday—
The one I thought couldn’t be true, yet still wanted to ask more than anything—
I finally voiced it.
“……Your Majesty. Are you managing me like a net right now?”
Allende had been called a genius since childhood.
He outperformed his peers, and even adults would sometimes come to him to ask for advice on solving problems.
After entering the temple, there were no limits to his knowledge, and even when something unfamiliar arose, he could understand anything just by reading books.
But.
‘What in the world is a net?’
The Emperor’s office.
Sitting at a desk piled high with documents, he tapped the tabletop with his index finger.
No matter how much he searched his experience and books, references to nets never strayed far from their dictionary meaning.
‘Judging by her expression, that doesn’t seem to be what she meant.’
The Saintess, who had asked whether he was “managing her like a net,” had worn an unreadable expression.
As always, when the Saintess made such a face, her thoughts tended to go far beyond common sense.
Allende asked Ebon, who was seated at the table organizing documents.
“Chancellor, do you know what a net is?”
Ebon considered whether there was some other intention behind the Emperor’s question, then answered with what he knew.
“Isn’t it something used to catch beasts or fish?”
“Is there no other meaning of ‘net’ that you know of?”
“That’s all I’m aware of……”
A troubled look appeared in Ebon’s clear violet eyes.
Allende shifted his gaze to the side.
Henkel, who had been steadfastly standing guard, met the Emperor’s eyes—and remained silent.
“……”
“So you don’t know either.”
It was understandable that the three of them wouldn’t know.
Allende had lived a life, by choice and by circumstance, far removed from romance.
Ebon, due to his deeply rooted distrust of people, had coldly pushed away anyone who showed affection and approached him.
Unexpectedly, Henkel had had a few romantic experiences, but all of them had ended with the other party unable to endure his taciturn nature and leaving him.
“You don’t seem to love me.”
Those were the words Henkel always heard when being broken up with.
The three men’s romance-related cells were so dead that even being told, “Please observe a moment of silence for the deceased cells,” would have been appropriate.
So no matter how much they were the finest elites of Zendal—
They couldn’t possibly know slang from a field that had nothing to do with most of their lives.
Still, the fact that there was knowledge none of the three of them possessed was quite a blow to their pride as lifelong elites.
In the end, the three of them put their work aside and gathered around the table, putting their heads together.
“A net……”
“What could it be……?”
“……”
The Saintess Order.
The name of a group formed by people within the Imperial Palace who followed the Saintess.
It began when a few knights who praised the holiness of the Saintess they had seen in person every day decided, “Let’s make a proper place to praise the Saintess!”
That was the origin of the Saintess Order.
There were four founding members at the start.
Gradually, more people asked to join, and now the group had grown into a large organization with over a hundred members.
And now, as the sun in the sky was briefly hidden by clouds—
Two members of the Saintess Order were conversing around the chapel building like conspirators plotting something.
“That was dangerous. It may have been a bit exaggerated, but……”
“Still, if we hadn’t done that, the Saintess might have followed that Bonia knight……”
Kadian and Hufferson.
They were discussing the recent romantic consultation involving the Saintess.
The confession incident by the Bonia knight that Kadian had witnessed while accompanying the Saintess as her guard.
It was treated as top secret even within the Saintess Order, known only to four executives including Kadian, and to Hufferson.
“……So, Hufferson. The Saintess must not follow that knight to the Kingdom of Bonia.”
Kadian said in a grave tone, as though addressing a matter of great importance.
The ultimate goal of the Saintess Order was “the Saintess’s happiness.”
Naturally, they wanted to support the Saintess’s love.
But if the object of that love was a knight of Bonia, it was dangerous.
“That’s right. If she goes to Bonia, she’ll be confined. Our Saintess is a free soul—we can’t let her spend her entire life inside a temple like the First Saintess.”
“Exactly. We can’t let her go to another country.”
“If she goes abroad, she might even be forced to participate in a war. We can’t allow her to undergo the same procedure as the Second Saintess of the Babernon Kingdom.”
Their gazes met in midair, and the two nodded resolutely.
‘The Saintess—’
‘We will protect her.’
With that vow, their conversation ended.
“Then I’ll be off. I have another engagement.”
“I’ll see you next time.”
After Kadian left, Hufferson turned the corner toward the entrance of the building to return to the chapel.
But he couldn’t go back inside right away.
“Hufferson.”
Someone who had just arrived in front of the building called out to him.
Silver hair tied back, reaching to his shoulder blades.
Snow-white skin as though it had never been touched by the sun.
A delicate, handsome face paired with chillingly cold, transparent violet eyes.
It was the Chancellor, Ebon Hyben.
Hufferson immediately greeted him and asked,
“Chancellor, have you come to see the Saintess? She’s stepped out for a moment—”
“I came to see you.”
“Me?”
Startled by the unexpected words, Hufferson’s eyes widened.
Ebon, as if he considered even this a waste of time, went straight to the point.
“Do you know what ‘a net’ means?”
The way Ebon asked, his face looked oddly pouty.
