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211. Beggar Siblings – Morning

In the early hours, Ksenia was waiting for Leo.

After finishing a conversation with Cardinal Berg, he confirmed that Lena was asleep (his younger sister always went to bed early and woke up late) and sat down next to Ksenia, who was in her pajamas.

The annex was enveloped in darkness.

The couple, filled with secrets, exchanged glances on the back sofa in the living room. There were many things they wanted and needed to say, but Leo quietly pulled her closer. Ksenia came along without resistance.

The air was cool. The fireplace, which had consumed the last log, had nothing left to burn, resulting in an incredibly quiet winter night. The two of them, sitting half on each other, shared their body warmth and listened to each other’s breathing.

Regularly, their calm and deep breaths conveyed their psychological states.

After emptying his lungs about twenty times, Ksenia, who had been tracing Leo’s chest, asked. Leo, who was stroking the back of her head, answered succinctly.

“What did your grandfather say?”

“He said he would help.”

Silence fell again. Leo, who had been sleeping irregularly and running nonstop for the past few months, wanted nothing more than to rest like this. Fortunately, Ksenia stayed still, and after a while, it was Leo who broke the silence again.

“I’m fine.”

“What do you mean?”

“That you’re a noble. So don’t worry about it. I really don’t mind… In fact, I’m glad to have learned your secret.”

“Thank you for saying that. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed when you confessed you were a prince.”

“Why?”

“I mistook it for your father sending you to me. I thought you were deliberately getting close to me… Thankfully, that wasn’t the case. If it had been, you would have no idea what I might have done.”

Hahaha.

Leo brushed off Ksenia’s lively smile with laughter. Her neatly displayed teeth were adorable, and when he playfully tapped her front teeth, Ksenia bit his finger, ‘Ahn—.’

But would a swordmaster fall for such attacks? Leo’s fingertips dodged her teeth and escaped to her jaw, along the smooth line of her neck, up to the collarbone that his lips couldn’t reach. And Ksenia really loved stroking that little hollow space.

Ksenia pouted with a smile. She subtly extended her neck, granting permission for a relationship, and rubbed her cheek against Leo’s. Her soft lips climbed up his jaw, exploring all the way to the corner of his mouth…

“Cough!”

Just as Ksenia was about to seize Leo’s lips, she suddenly jerked her head up. Leo quickly straightened himself and looked over the back of the sofa.

It was Reb. He stood at the door with his arms crossed, keeping his distance.

“Leo. Can we talk for a minute?”

“Ah… sure. Ksenia, I’m sorry. Can you go in first?”

“…Alright. You know where my room is, right?”

Ksenia smoothed her clothes while casting a displeased glance at the rude intruder before leaving.

She couldn’t come up with a word to throw at him, but she had noticed how much deeper the relationship between him and Leo was than she had imagined.

“Playing around quite well, huh?”

Leo Dexter would have said that. However, the usually reticent Reb reprimanded his oblivious friend’s ignorance in silence, and Leo awkwardly scratched his head.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. No rush. Gilbert Forte has been taken care of.”

“Really? That’s a relief. So what will you do now?”

Reb didn’t reply. Instead, he sat on the opposite sofa and brought up another topic.

“What about Bart?”

“…It should be Bart ‘Sir.’ I didn’t meet him. He was gone by the time I arrived. I just briefly saw Hirie.”

Leo explained what had happened so far. He managed to prevent Hirie Gaidan from losing her mind, but had no choice but to leave her in a furious state, and he shared how, while trying to break through Duke Tertan’s siege, he met a royal knight named Galen and brought him along.

“You didn’t have any trouble?”

“Why would I?”

Reb recounted everything that had occurred from the moment Leo left Tiamun village until arriving there.

He revealed that Ksenia’s attitude changed as soon as he left. No longer trying to hide her identity, the coachman sent by Count Peter began to refer to her as ‘Lady,’ which significantly altered the dynamics of their group.

Ksenia treated Lena like a princess. She apologized for her previous rudeness and advised Santian Rauno not to act rashly.

She regarded Santian not as someone she had known as a sister or a friend of a princess, but as a servant. Lena, though bewildered by this, accepted it quite naturally. Instinctively reacting to the familiar noble etiquette, she regained the decorum of a princess.

Ksenia initially addressed Reb’s attitude as well. Unknown to their relationship with the prince, she hoped he would maintain a respectful distance as a knight assigned to guard the princess.

Reb, who didn’t particularly care about that, agreed.

However, it was difficult for him to change how he regarded Lena as a sister, and Ksenia began to gradually acknowledge him as she was surprised by the elegance and courteousness he exuded.

At this moment, Ksenia still believed she was a collateral descendant of the count family.

She only found out that she was Count Peter’s only daughter when she sent a letter to Cardinal Berg, who had returned after a pilgrimage, asking to come back just a few days prior to her journey to the capital. She embraced the returning Cardinal Berg, referring to him as grandfather.

“You must have been surprised.”

“Yeah. I never imagined it. Anyway, that’s how it is. The church’s communication has been quite convenient… What did the cardinal say?”

“He said he would help. I think if I’m with Grand, I won’t have to worry about this.”

Leo opened his palm.

Nothing appeared to Reb but he knew what Leo was trying to show.

“That’s good. So now we just have to go to the capital and drive out Prince Eric?”

“Exactly. However, it seems we might need to take some time.”

The situation had suddenly reversed.

Unable to escape Oriax’s gaze, Leo had expected to be discovered sooner or later. Thus, he had planned to sway the so-called anti-Eric faction nobles, who had been pushed out of the political center and were hiding in their territories, to incite a civil war. Now, that need was gone. Gathering knights as initially planned would be much faster and easier.

Of course, they could go right away to take Prince Eric’s head.

With a swordmaster strong enough to easily breach the usual defenses and a knight commander like Reb by his side, it would be fine to storm the palace alongside Cardinal Berg and kill Prince Eric.

But such an extreme choice would backfire. Leo needed to be recognized by the Knights Order as the rightful heir to the throne and demonstrate to the world that Prince Eric was a follower of a wicked god.

Simply killing him wouldn’t solve everything.

The ultimate goal was to ensure Lena became a princess safely and that they could live peacefully after the ending, so Leo planned not to rush it.

A perfect ending.

He desired a conclusion in which Lena could be perfectly happy. And now, that didn’t seem impossible.

Leo de Yeriel smiled brightly. In his eyes, a truly beautiful ending unfolded, and he had no intention of rushing through it recklessly. Step by step, he would prepare flawlessly and take action.

Reb felt a sense of relief seeing Leo’s cautious smile. Assured that he wouldn’t have to worry, he waved goodbye to Leo, who was heading toward Ksenia’s bedroom, suddenly remembering a thing he hadn’t said.

Should I say it now? He hesitated, but he wasn’t clueless enough to interrupt Leo’s personal life. Besides, it wasn’t that important, and the truth was Leo likely already knew.

Anyway, it seemed like our sister… Lena saw me as a romantic interest.

How troublesome.

*

There was almost a year left until the king’s death.

It was expected to occur around the early winter of next year, so Leo had no intention of hastily leaving the Monarch Baron’s family, but suddenly an event occurred that required him to do so.

Prince Eric de Yeriel’s ‘Akinin’ schedule had been set. An official notice had come, demanding attendance from the nobles of all regions for the prince’s coronation or enthronement.

It was absurd.

Even if he was bedridden, the king was still alive. How could the prince unilaterally hold Akinin? The entire kingdom was agitated, but Leo guessed the reason.

Oriax’s body was heating up.

An entity that had never been imprinted with a mark was wandering through his territory, posing an inexplicable threat. As Cardinal Berg had gotten closer, tracking had become incredibly difficult, and Oriax must have perceived this as a serious threat.

Malhas, who dominated the two northern kingdoms, and Astroth, who had usurped the throne of the Belita Kingdom, surely had reasons to covet the human king’s position.

It wasn’t surprising given the issue of offering efficiency.

Malhas, who feasts on the whirlpool of war, or Astroth, a duke of horrors who loves fear, drew their divine power from humans as there were no other races.

They too suffered from the unreasonably low offering efficiency, so the position of king, the lord of all the common people, was undoubtedly a tempting seat. Since the sacrifices regarded themselves as beings subordinate to the king, it was perfectly suitable for them to extract what was originally the Lord’s possession.

Thus, feeling threatened, Oriax hastened the coronation ceremony. Being unaware of what approached him, he wanted to make the maximum preparation.

Yes. How well it has worked. The enemy approaching you doesn’t know that he is the legitimate prince who was unjustly expelled.

Reveling in Oriax’s blunder, Leo immediately left the Monarch Baron territory.

Lena, Reb, Santian Rauno, Galen, and several knights from the Monarch Baron family, along with Cardinal Berg and a retinue invited to the Akinin at the palace, accompanied Leo.

The date for Akinin was set for five months later in the summer.

Even if they could start preparing for the ceremony immediately, it would take time for the neighboring kingdoms (Belita, Oren, Icel) to send congratulatory envoys to Rutina.

Thanks to having some leeway, Leo accepted Cardinal Berg’s suggestion and stopped by Count Wilend’s residence on the way to Rutina.

Count Geoff Wilend was where the conflict over Prince Eric’s legitimacy against Duke Tertan’s family was occurring, and Cardinal Berg suggested that it would be better to sway him, unaware that Leo could quickly take control of the knight order.

There was nothing wrong with that.

Considering the life after the ending, it would be necessary to solidify power, so Leo gladly agreed.

However, there was an issue…

“It seems you are indeed the prince. The princess has returned safely, so it’s a joy for our Conrad Kingdom. But I have no interest in politics. I’ll just marry off my last remaining daughter and pass on my title to my son.”

That was Count Geoff Wilend’s statement. He expressed that he no longer desired power and rejected the side of the returning prince and princess.

There was no way to tell if his words were sincere. Perhaps he thought it was too much trouble to clash with the increasingly powerful Duke Tertan faction and was trying to back off accordingly.

If Prince Eric wins, he’ll claim he wasn’t helping, and if Prince Leo wins, he can act friendly with his son after the fact. A prince with a weak power base like Leo might find it irritating, but he could not reject the son.

This is the nature of noble society. Cardinal Berg frowned.

“Your Highness. This seems incorrect. But there’s one more great noble I’d like to introduce you to. Marquis Dennis Arne… he is the northern border baron of Conrad Kingdom.”

“I know him. But I heard that Count Wilend and Marquis Arne are in-laws. It’s better to pull both of them in, so let’s stay a few days and try to sway them. If that doesn’t work, we can persuade Marquis Arne to draw in the Count.”

Brazenly, Leo notified the Count that he would stay at his manor for several days. During that time, it turned out that it was Lena who managed to persuade the Count.

[ Achievement: Twenty photos – Lena occasionally recalls the past faintly in her dreams. ]

One by one, as she journeyed back through her dreams, she reached that conclusion.

Lena’s eyes sparkled as she woke up from a long sleep. However, there was a certain demure charm in the slow-moving touch down her gentle curve, while her carelessly spread legs formed a smooth line, marking the start of her morning.