By then, she was lucky that she didn’t have the strength to pick something up. She lay on the cold stone floor, coughing as if wringing her body in pain, and waited for death to come.
And so, she kept thinking and thinking about these warm, soft, and flavorful foods.
“Let’s eat first. The head works when the stomach is full.”
Peon looked at Kaela, who was looking at the soup with an uncomfortable expression. She, with her hair tied with a ribbon and sitting quietly, seemed to be controlling her diet like other ladies.
“Eat a lot, Kaela.”
“Ah, yes,…uh-huh.”
He just grumbled and spoke informally, hoping that Kaela, who had eaten deliciously and a lot, would eat well. He had only seen her corpse for a moment, but that moment was forever etched in Peon’s memory.
Her shiny platinum hair had become brittle and was falling out here and there, and her exposed skin had no healthy spots due to malnutrition and frostbite. He wished that Kaela, who died with her eyes open in a gaunt face with only bones left, would eat well.
But he seemed to be unqualified. Kaela avoided Peon’s gaze as if he were a difficult person and picked up her utensils.
“Your schedule to return to Lusenford will be delayed.”
“Yes, Your Highness. The more times like this, the more I have to stay in Crania.”
Kaela started eating with the ‘strange man’ in this strange world. The thick potage that wrapped around her tongue was too soggy and delicious.
Before she could scrape the bowl and eat without dignity, she looked at Peon once or twice. Because when she saw the man who had left her to starve to death, she came to her senses.
“How is the evil dragon these days?”
“It’s quiet.”
Peon answered confidently.
“It will be quiet for a few months to come. The north is peaceful.”
“Is that so? That’s certainly good news to hear.”
While others would look at Peon with scrutiny and say that he was neglecting his duty to guard the north if he was idle, Adeo was genuinely happy.
“I’m really glad. It’s very fortunate that the north is quiet at least. Everyone will be peaceful. Did you prepare the defense in advance?”
“You always have to prepare for defense. I’m saying this because no abnormal trends of monsters or spirits have been detected.”
“His Majesty must have been pleased.”
“His Majesty doesn’t know.”
Unlike Kaela, who had already scraped off all the potage, the gentlemen’s meal was very slow.
“He doesn’t know?”
The emperor was very sensitive to the actions of the evil dragon Gusalante, who suddenly started to rampage in the north.
The evil dragon was a huge creature that could annihilate the empire at any time. The good thing was that, thanks to the treaty between the evil dragon and Crania established a thousand years ago, the magic of the evil dragon did not affect the empire.
However, the huge flames caused by the evil dragon and the monsters and spirits that obeyed him were another story. So, inevitably, the Grand Duke of Lusenford had to confront the evil dragon directly.
“If the North is breached, the empire will be in danger. Yet the emperor, who is focusing on the defense of the North, doesn’t know this?”
“I refrained from reporting because it didn’t seem like the right situation. If it’s safe, it’s not something that should be worried about.”
“That may be so.”
Adeo nodded. His half-brother’s abnormal obsession with his wife was famous. It had been from the start, and he even turned a blind eye to the illegitimate child. The current emperor must really be unstable.
“We have to handle many things that His Majesty can’t pay attention to.”
Kaela, who was eagerly eating her second onion soup, suddenly closed her mouth. She was startled and about to cough. That was a very dangerous remark. It sounded like they would handle things within the emperor’s authority on their own.
Especially that remark, which the Grand Duke of Lusenford, who would never say such a thing, said. Kaela, who had been eating her food as if she had been caught off guard and had a mishap, tried to cough lightly, very lightly.
“Isn’t His Majesty’s health also a problem right now? Overexertion must absolutely be avoided.”
Peon, who calmly handed a napkin to Kaela, who was making strange noises and suffering, and also skillfully pushed a glass of water, gave a reasonable reason for the remark that sounded like rebellion.
Kaela, unable to even thank him, took the napkin to cover her mouth and got up from her seat and left.
Only after leaving the dining hall, she coughed loudly and calmed down, she took a deep breath and looked at the dining hall.
‘Is he crazy?’
Making such a bold statement in a place where there are servants serving meals.
Kaela wondered what reaction the emperor, who heard that remark, would show. When she was the Grand Duchess, it was a remark that would have caused the emperor to immediately rage and summon the Grand Duke of Lusenford.
The emperor, whose hobby was to monitor his every move and pick fights, could not have been quiet. Peon always had to prostrate himself in front of the emperor, and if he didn’t, the support to the desolate Lusenford would be cut off.
But what? Because we are worried about the emperor’s health, we will handle the things that the emperor can’t pay attention to?
Who is that man who dares to say dangerous words that no one in this empire can utter? She looked down at the napkin she was holding tightly in her hand.
‘Why did he give me this?’
Is it because he feels sorry for the younger sister he knows?
As soon as she felt victimized, Kaela quickly caught her breath and re-entered the dining hall.
‘Pitiful. Have gone too far. Needs to snap out of it.’
The man with the emperor’s color, purple, in his eyes was staring at her.
“Are you okay?”
At the gentle question of her father, Kaela quickly nodded and sat down.
She, who was inadvertently looking for a glass of water, realized that the location of the glass of water was not where it should be, but very close. Looking at the direction, it was pushed by Peon.
Sitting in a dining hall full of sunlight, Kaela recalled the dinner she had alone with him in the windy and dark Lusenford.
He uses his mouth more for talking than eating.
It was a remark that said to shut her mouth that was chattering about how her day was, and how it was going, while eating.
In the dining hall of the Duke of Ostein, it was the most important thing in daily life for a father and daughter to have a meal while having a conversation, but in the desolate North, there was only silence on the table between the couple.
Kaela looked down at the soup bowl. Despite starving to death, the memory held her more intensely than the hunger that seemed crazy.
Her appetite was being cut down. Should it be fortunate?
