"......Huh?"
I barely managed to conceal my startled expression, responding in a deliberately puzzled tone.
"You did not send away for my own good—is that not what you ant?"
"......I’m sorry, but I fail to understand. There doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the two, does there?"
For now, I brazenly denied it while desperately trying to figure out what to say next.
Because—she wasn’t wrong.
My goal was for Lady Luna to unify the continent.
At first, I followed her simply because she was the one most capable of achieving that goal. But now, I genuinely wanted her to be the one to bring unification. And the most crucial condition for her to accomplish that was for Lady Serpina to remain in control of the Serpina Army—indefinitely.
In other words, I had saved Lady Serpina’s life.
Which ant that her statent was, in a sense, the undeniable truth I had never once admitted to her.
There was only one problem.
How in the world had Serpina figured out that I had said those things to save her life?
"......."
Serpina stared at with an enigmatic expression.
The usual overwhelming pressure, the commanding gaze of an absolute ruler looking down from above—none of it was there.
What stood before was... I hesitated to put it into words, but—a frightened girl.
For the first ti, Serpina von Eingart felt like nothing more than an ordinary woman.
I carefully observed her reaction before finally parting my lips, speaking heavily.
"May I ask why you think that way?"
Before making any reckless statents, I needed to hear her reasoning first.
"......Very well."
Serpina slowly closed her eyes, then, as if coming to a resolution, led toward the desk.
On the spacious desk, there was only one thing—an expansive map of the continent.
"If it weren’t for your advice... I would have prepared a diplomatic envoy the very next day and departed for Brans Army. Since our army holds the initiative, few would expect to travel all the way to Arnel Castle. I assu you thought the sa."
"If my lord were to make a move, I would expect you to head no farther than the border."
"Yes. You understand, then. As expected..."
I wasn’t sure what kind of riddle she was trying to pose, but for now, I decided to play along.
Serpina was no fool. If she had called here and was speaking so firmly, it ant she had already pieced together a solid line of reasoning.
And considering the presence of the map on the table—it ant the answer was hidden there.
If I couldn’t refute her reasoning with my own, there was only one thing to do.
I had to climb onto the foundation of her logic.
I silently examined the map, listening intently to her words.
"From a strategic perspective, the nearest location from here is Cohart Castle."
She pointed to Cohart Castle with her finger.
Naturally, I focused on the map even more.
"The ti required to travel there... and the ti needed to form an alliance and return..."
...!
I saw it.
The mont she ntioned "travel ti" and "return ti," I understood exactly what she was implying.
"You’re referring to a landslide."
"!!!!"
At my words, Serpina’s eyes widened in shock. She stared at , visibly shaken.
Her reaction alone was enough to confirm that I had deduced the correct answer.
While looking at the map, the thought that kept repeating in my mind was the fact that Serpina had asked if I had tried to save her.
Which ant—sowhere on this map, there had to be a clue pointing to her death.
A clue within the map that indicated how she could have died? That narrowed down the possibilities significantly.
And the reason it boiled down to a "natural disaster" was because she had pointed at Cohart Castle, which was positioned near the border.
No matter how many rebels lurked in the region, the odds of an assassination attempt occurring within the territory itself were lower than the likelihood of a natural disaster.
But Serpina wasn’t soone with a 100 Intelligence stat like . Even if she were extraordinarily intelligent, predicting a natural disaster down to its exact location and occurrence was impossible.
Which ant that even for soone as logical as her, it had to be a natural disaster that was reasonably foreseeable.
For example, sothing like, "Were you concerned that I would be struck by lightning?" would be an absurd conclusion for Serpina.
Lightning leaves no clear evidence. It would be far too contrived for soone to witness it and report it later.
More importantly, for lightning to strike, it needed to rain—but the northern continent had been experiencing stable weather for a while.
If she had traveled far south, the weather might have been different, but that distance was too great to be relevant.
So lightning was out of the question.
Then what?
My eyes landed on the valley that lay along the shortest route between Eingart Castle and Cohart Castle.
In this ga, traveling through a valley always ant preparing for potential landslides.
There was only one possible answer.
And a landslide would leave behind tangible evidence, making it easy for reports to co in.
There were even villages nearby.
"...So, in the end... you really were... trying to save ."
"......."
"But... even if I were to suddenly claim that a landslide was going to happen out of nowhere, I wouldn’t have believed you. Just like last ti... And had you been completely honest about it, I might have acted stubbornly just to defy you. Frankly, I don’t believe in nonsense about the movents of the heavens and whatnot."
...???
"You must have known... that I would think that way, didn’t you?"
Not really—was what I almost said.
But I swallowed the words down.
To be honest, this was the first ti I had ever heard that Serpina didn’t believe in such things.
She usually listened to well enough, and since she talked about things like "insight" and "intuition," I just assud she had so belief in those kinds of concepts.
Whether she knew what I was thinking or not—
Serpina looked at with an almost sorrowful expression and spoke.
"Tell , Swen... Was I right? Did you... say that to save my life?"
Hearing her trembling voice, I thought to myself.
What was my role within the Serpina Army?
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
It was to keep her alive.
And for that, the most important thing was ensuring that she trusted —making sure she listened to my words when it mattered most.
After all, I had already seen two rulers before her et their downfall because they ignored crucial advice.
Serpina was different from Lunarian. To gain her trust, I had to prove sothing to her.
And right now—
Wasn’t this a golden opportunity to do just that?
If I were Serpina, I wouldn’t have been fixating on the unbelievable notion that I could predict a landslide. I would have been thinking about sothing deeper.
But for so reason, the usual sharpness in her eyes had been replaced by urgency.
Had sothing happened to make her think this way?
Regardless...
Wouldn’t it be best to just go along with what she was giving ?
Thinking lightly of it, I slowly lowered my head.
"...To be honest, I considered telling you outright, but I feared it would sound a bit absurd..."
"...!!!"
Good.
Now, all I had to do was raise my head and say sothing like, 'As long as I could save my lord, that is all that matters to .'
If she asked how I knew, I could just throw in sothing vague about the heavens. The outco had already proven right, so she wouldn’t bother pressing for details.
With that in mind, ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) I lifted my head and slowly opened my mouth—
"My lord, as long as I could save y—"
...?
Sothing was wrong.
I couldn’t speak.
No—more precisely, my mouth, the organ designed for speech, had been sealed shut.
What had filled it, blocking my words, was... sothing soft.
It didn’t take long to realize what it was.
A tongue.
The very tongue that had allowed to maneuver my way through every conversation, to deceive and manipulate, to navigate my way to survival—
That tongue was now entangled with soone else’s.
And in that mont, I realized—
Serpina’s lips were pressed against mine.
She was kissing .
Despite the sheer suddenness of it, I felt no shock, no overwhelming embarrassnt.
Instead—
I felt a strange sense of relief.
As if... this wasn’t the first ti.
Why...?
Before I could even dwell on the thought, her warm, soft tongue pushed deeper, claiming every corner of my mouth with a slow, deliberate thoroughness.
How much ti had passed?
Eventually, our lips parted with a faint, glistening strand of saliva lingering between us.
"Haa..."
Serpina, her face flushed red, her breath uneven, looked at .
Her golden eyes—
They held only .
Not as an absolute ruler.
Not as the Lady of the Serpina Army.
But as a woman.
And in that voice, trembling with emotion, she spoke.
"...Swen. I don’t care who holds a place in your heart. It doesn’t matter how many ca before ."
"So, please."
"I don’t need all of you. Just a part of you is enough. At least for this mont—stay by my side."
As I looked at her, listening to the plea in her voice—
I thought to myself.
...My first kiss tasted like yuzu.
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