TSKSML 26

Chapter 26

“Help me become a better man than the Grand Duke.”

Something was definitely wrong.

Jayna just wanted to keep pretending she didn’t understand.

“Jayna, you’re a woman too, right? Help me get close to Lady Angelina. Help me become a man who can make a woman’s heart flutter.”

Louis Hardt was a man who acted when it counted.

He could die in the process, but he intended to behead Phemos, become a true man, win Angelina’s heart, and ascend to the throne.

As much as he hated to admit it, he needed someone else’s help to get there.

To Louis Hardt, Jayna was as beautiful and lovable as Angelina.

He believed that if Jayna thought a man was attractive, then Angelina would think so too.

But Jayna thought differently.

The Crown Prince’s words — “Jayna, you’re a woman too, right?” — struck a nerve.

Jayna was always embarrassed about how unfeminine she was.

Unlike Lilliana and April, she couldn’t sew and was hopeless at housework.

So Louis Hardt’s words sounded like he didn’t see her as a woman at all.

“Why do you look so serious? Don’t tell me you’re going to refuse?”

“N-no, sir.”

Jayna tried to calm herself, telling herself there was no reason to feel upset.

Of course a bodyguard wouldn’t be seen as a woman.

If that fact could be used as an advantage to help the person she served, wasn’t that a good thing?

And if she thought about it, Louis Hardt’s suggestion wasn’t so bad.

She could help bring Louis Hardt and Lady Angelina together, and then help her sister get together with Grand Duke Zighardt.

“How should I help you?”

Jayna’s sudden question, asked with determination, caught Louis Hardt off guard.

Do I really have to say this out loud?

He scratched his cheek.

But Jayna was clearly dense enough that she would never figure it out unless he spelled it out for her.

“W-well… I want advice or anything that could help me become a more attractive man.”

“Advice? I wouldn’t dare…”

“Think of me as a friend.”

Louis Hardt quickly threw out the word “friend” to make it easier for her to understand.

But why did saying “Let’s be friends” feel so embarrassing?

He quickly glanced at Jayna’s expression.

‘To be friends with the Crown Prince!’

But saying something like “How could I dare be friends with the Crown Prince?” would only hurt Louis Hardt.

Jayna, who had few friends herself, understood that feeling. She decided that rejecting him wouldn’t be right.

“…I accept your command!”

Jayna drew the sword at her hip and made a knight’s oath.

It wasn’t something a friend would typically say, but at least it wasn’t a rejection.

Louis Hardt wanted to say something, but the determined light in Jayna’s eyes made him stop.

They were still somewhere between bodyguard and friend.

Clunk.

The carriage jolted as it hit a stone.

It would take two full days to reach Ikellang.

✦✦✦

In the middle of the corridor at the Refia Palace stood Helene.

She had come to confirm with her own eyes that Jayna had indeed become the Crown Prince’s bodyguard.

“I’m just going to observe what kind of atmosphere there is between them…”

If it turned out that Jayna and the Crown Prince had a thing going on, Helene had resolved to do whatever it took to push them together—even set herself on fire.

Excitedly moving forward, Helene spotted another guard and quickly darted in the opposite direction.

Thanks to helping Lilliana with errands, she had permission to enter the palace freely, but as expected, the main palace where the royal family lived was heavily guarded.

No matter where she turned, there were guards. She ran around so much, she no longer knew where she was.

Now, she wasn’t even sure how to get back.

And things only got worse.

A royal guard dog caught her scent and began barking wildly.

It was coming down the hallway—toward her.

‘I’m doomed!!!’

Helene regretted letting her curiosity get the better of her and sneaking into the main palace.

To trespass in the residence of the royal family… that was a straight path to the underground prison.

But regret came too late.

She could already hear the guards’ footsteps and the barking of the dog.

There was nowhere to hide.

Unless she could fly.

…Or become a wall.

Even knowing it was pointless, Helene pressed herself flat against the wall.

Then she noticed something odd—a brick that was a slightly different color.

Without thinking, she pressed it.

✦✦✦

The Emperor turned away only after watching the military wagons completely disappear through the window.

He had given the order, but he hadn’t expected Louis Hardt to leave for Ikellang so quickly.

As a selfish and greedy father, he had merely told his unskilled son to make his own achievements, providing him with only about twenty soldiers.

He wasn’t a great emperor—he couldn’t even bring himself to say, “Come back safely,” to his son.

The Emperor, a once-mighty Sword Master, had defeated the giant monster Phemos alone 20 years ago.

He had proven to the entire nation why he, and not his brothers, deserved the throne.

He knew his son was different from him, but as the Emperor of the Empire, one should be able to slay monsters that plagued the people.

It wasn’t like the Emperor hadn’t considered the possibility of his son being eaten alive by the giant Phemos.

Returning from the temple where he had prayed to the Sun God for his son’s safe return, the Emperor felt unusually tired today—despite his iron stamina that could normally endure week-long horseback riding.

Wanting to be alone, he dismissed his attendants and knights and walked not to his room, but into the corridor.

He pressed a slightly discolored brick on the wall.

The brick gave way, and the entire wall shifted, revealing a hidden room.

It was the late Empress’s room.

The Emperor couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it.

But as Emperor, he couldn’t continue to publicly grieve his wife’s death, not even after all these years.

So he turned the room into a secret refuge, his private sanctuary.

The Empress’s clothes, her hairbrush, her favorite paintings.

Surrounded by her belongings, it felt as if she were still there.

The Emperor walked to the chair she always used and sat in it as if it were second nature.

Then he sensed something.

‘…Someone’s here.’

He saw the shadow of a woman hiding behind the canopy bed, cast onto the carpet.

“…Eva?”

For a moment, he called out the name of the Empress, so closely did the shadow resemble her—but that couldn’t be.

He drew the Empire Blade at his waist and approached the crouched woman.

“…Who are you?”

The woman stepped back.

Without hesitation, the Emperor held his massive sword to her neck.

He looked ready to behead her, like a deer caught in his sights.

It was the worst possible situation.

Helene’s face turned pale enough to faint on the spot.

Then the Emperor dragged her through the room, checking every corner.

Under the bed, beneath the tables, inside every closet—he thoroughly searched the place.

There seemed to be no one else.

He looked Helene up and down.

Her cascading red curls, fiery red eyes, and voluptuous figure.

Though her silhouette resembled the Empress, her presence was entirely different.

She was no sunlight-born fairy like the Empress—she looked like a devil sent by the gods to tempt mankind.

A rare beauty indeed.

And that was exactly why the Emperor decided she had to die.

The fact that she could stir his heart so easily—it had to be part of someone’s scheme.

He thought no one would be foolish or old-fashioned enough to send a beautiful woman to assassinate him anymore.

Though he didn’t know who was behind it, he laughed scornfully and prepared to cut her down in a single stroke.