As all things must, the awful time came to an end. Carinne headed to the post office after seeing off Giles with Ian and parting ways with Iris. She had sent out a few letters on personal business and needed to check for replies.

The problem was…

‘I’m going to be late for my appointment!’

It was just before sunset. There were only a few minutes left until her appointment time. She had to stop by the post office before heading to her appointment, so time was of the essence.

The events of the day flashed through her mind as she hurried.

“Can Iris and I tag along?”

The reactions to Carinne’s suggestion were as follows.

“I’d be honored.”

A two-faced man with unknown intentions.

“Wow, Carinne, I’m all for it!”

An innocent young lady who was jumping for joy.

“….”

A moronic man who sneered for some unknown reason.

“Permission granted.”

The moronic man spoke.

“Thank you.”

Carinne replied curtly and stepped between Ian and Iris.

It was going to be a difficult task, keeping Ian and Iris apart while preventing Giles from badgering Ian.

As expected, Carinne ended up running around the palace all afternoon, breaking out in a sweat. Ian was a man who was true to his purpose. He managed to squeeze information out of Giles by any means necessary.

Giles, flattered by Ian’s earnest compliments, ended up revealing facts that he didn’t necessarily need to.

Carinne diligently played the part of a busybody, interjecting with comments like, “Oh, that’s just a legend,” or “Wow, Sir Giles, you really are knowledgeable. But could you tell us something other than boring old stories?”

She did everything she could, down to the last ounce of her strength. However, she couldn’t prevent Giles from bringing up the ancient ruins. Ian reacted strongly to the word ‘ancient’ and expressed his desire to visit the ruins.

Giles, being the boastful fool that he was, offered to take him, and Carinne decided that it would be better for her to tag along than to leave Giles alone with Ian.

“I’ve been bored with nothing to do lately, so can I come as well?”

With Ian and Giles readily agreeing, Carinne ended up making a half-hearted promise to Ian and Giles.

And then there was Iris.

Carinne hadn’t paid much attention to Iris, who had been engrossed in Giles’s stories.

While her attention was elsewhere, Iris had struck up a conversation with Ian about the beauty of nature. Carinne tried to interrupt their conversation a few times but gave up. She had a surefire way to get Iris’s attention away from Ian.

After seeing Giles and Ian off, Carinne took Iris aside and warned her.

“I was going to tell you this earlier, but that Ian fellow is actually a huge womanizer. And I mean a notorious womanizer. I heard he left countless women heartbroken in Irita. He’s a two-timer, he lies to his girlfriends like it’s nothing, and he’s even dumped a few of them without a word. There are more than a few women who’ve cried over that man.”

Iris gasped and covered her mouth with her hand at Carinne’s elaborate lie.

Iris, who had a princess fantasy, was strongly prejudiced against womanizers. Carinne’s plan was to make use of this. She would instill in Iris a strong aversion to Ian so that Iris wouldn’t show him any favor if she happened to meet him again in the future.

‘If you’re wondering why she chose this strategy, you’ll have to understand the traditions of the Saraha royal family.’

In the Saraha royal family, the throne was inherited by the strongest. To determine the successor, they had to find out who was the strongest, and all means and methods were permitted in the process.

It didn’t matter if they killed each other, so it was fair to say that whoever was the last one standing when the emperor died would become the next emperor.

And thanks to the current Saraha emperor, who didn’t give a hoot about his children and kept taking in concubines, Saraha was overflowing with half-siblings, and the Saraha royal family was in a constant state of bloodshed.

The brothers and sisters who should have been close deceived and killed each other.

Ian, who had grown up in such a terrible environment, came to despise human existence. However, after meeting Iris in Esmeril, Ian’s prejudice was broken as he received pure goodwill for the first time in his life.

To him, Iris was like a pearl found in the mud, and after some twists and turns, he fell head over heels for her.

If you look only up to this point, it seems like a beautiful romance novel, but the novel is headed towards ruin because of Ian’s psychopathic and duplicitious nature. So, if Iris didn’t show goodwill to him, Ian would not be interested in her, and thus, couldn’t we prevent the sad ending?

That was Carinne’s thought.

“What does it mean that a man who is so popular with women came to Esmeril?”

“To meet a woman?”

“That’s right!”

After listening to Carinne’s explanation, Iris muttered, ‘But he seemed like a good person.’

Carinne persistently persuaded Iris and eventually received a promise from her to be careful of Ian.

That seemed to bring the incident to a close—Giles stopped saying useless nonsense to Ian, Iris became wary of Ian, and the ancient ruins… That was also planned. Why not just block it so that no one could enter?

While walking around with various thoughts, she soon arrived in front of the post office. Carinne stated her name at the counter and received several letters. They were all positive responses.

Well, it was true that meeting Ian made things complicated, but this much should be considered smooth.

Carinne hurried to the meeting place to happily end the day.

No, she tried to go. If it hadn’t been for the unexpected person waiting for her in front of the post office, she would have been able to meet Archen on time and go to the shrimp dish specialty store.

“Surely, you didn’t follow me?”

Carinne said as she opened the door to the post office and took a few steps before coming face-to-face with Giles’s sullen face.

It was an unpleasant fact to admit, but Giles was quite handsome. He was definitely not ugly, and if he had to be ranked, he would be in the upper-middle class in looks. He looked favorable if you only considered his appearance, but his arrogant attitude ruined it.

“Didn’t you say that you were going to dinner?”

Giles spoke, maintaining his usual arrogant attitude.

“I’ve made a reservation at a good place.”

“…Pardon?”

Carinne was taken aback and only gaped. She did tell Giles that she was going to dinner. However, it was only in response to him asking what she would do when she was done, and she had no other intention.

“If you’ve made a reservation at a good place, why don’t you go by yourself?”

“My lady.”

Giles made a slight frown as if he didn’t like that.

“I don’t like pushing and pulling.”

.Pushing and pulling?

What kind of pushing and pulling could she possibly do with Giles? She couldn’t figure out what he meant… No, she actually knew what he meant, though she didn’t want to admit it.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Carinne answered half-heartedly and half-truthfully.

Giles lowered his head and let out a loud sigh. Annoyance and irritation seeped from his face as he raised his head. ‘Ah, as expected, a popular man is impossible.’

This was the kind of expression that fit that line. Could he possibly have a prince complex on top of his idiot gimmick? An uneasy feeling quickly spread down her back. There was no cure for a prince complex, so running away was the answer in this case.

She put on a fake smile like an employee promoting a product at a cosmetics store.

“Enjoy your dinner. I have to go because I have an appointment…”

She had to pass by him to go to the meeting place. Giles quickly blocked Carinne’s path as she tried to go around him.

“Are you doing this on purpose?”

“No, I’m not.”

“My lady. I’ll say it one more time, but I don’t like pushing and pulling. Everything quickly and precisely. That’s my motto.”

She deeply regretted thinking of Duke Lucas after seeing Giles earlier. This guy wasn’t even a toenail of the Duke. At least he knew how to back off when she said no.

“That’s a great motto. But what can I do? I’m very busy today…”

Carinne said as she slowly backed away.

She planned to run away if necessary. She gave up on normal persuasion. That only worked on normal people, not on a hopeless prince complex patient. It would be a bit of a detour, though it couldn’t be helped if she went back.

Carinne glanced back to secure an escape route. Alas, it was a dead end when she looked back. Giles smiled and extended his hand after seeing her panic.

“Come on, let’s go.”

She took another step back. There was nowhere else to go now. She would have to kick him between the legs and run, no matter what happened afterward.

Of course, the status of a king candidate was much higher than that of a princess of a ducal family.

It was also obvious that Giles would be furious and try to eat her alive. However, fortunately or unfortunately, there was no one else in the alleyway except for her and Giles. There weren’t any CCTV-equipped light poles, so there wouldn’t be a problem if she erased the evidence.

If he accused her of being a criminal later, she could just pretend to be innocent and say, ‘I didn’t do anything like that.’

Giles took another step closer, and it seemed like there wouldn’t be any space left to move her feet if she backed up any further when Carinne had made up her mind and was calculating the angle for an accurate kick.

“What are you doing right now?”

Suddenly, a cold voice rang out from the entrance of the alleyway.

—