38.
Edwin rose from the throne and snatched a sword from the scabbard of a guard standing vigil behind him.
The aura Edwin had exuded while his fury simmered throughout the meeting was truly menacing. In an instant, an unnatural silence descended upon the conference hall, which held nearly a hundred people. Eyes darted toward him, wary of the sharpened blade.
Yet, a subtle sense of nonchalance remained among the assembly; they reasoned that surely, nothing grave would occur simply for voicing their opinions in a general meeting. After all, this was how they believed politics worked.
But Edwin was not a politician; he was a man closer to a soldier. Accustomed to the creed that “orders are to be obeyed,” he was not the type to tolerate dissent. Until now, that had simply been an exception.
“In the military, insubordination is met with summary execution.”
For a moment, the faces of three or four figures who could serve as examples flashed through Edwin’s mind.
‘Illegal slave trade, tax evasion, murder of freemen. Who else was there?’
The scope of the corruption among the nobles that Kailus had gathered over the years in the capital was extensive. Using a few of them as an example to maintain discipline would be of no consequence. However, the person who lingered longest in Edwin’s mind was, of course, Count Harkan. As befitted the second-in-command of the West, he possessed an overwhelming number of dirty corners.
‘So, I cannot kill him easily.’
Edwin lifted only the corners of his mouth, smiled coldly, and swung his sword lightly.
With a sharp tearing sound—*thwack*—the table in front of him was sliced clean in two. It served as a visceral preview of summary execution. The nobles’ eyes widened as if they might pop out at the display of force.
“Do not make me say it twice.”
Edwin warned them once more, making eye contact in turn with the matchmakers who had been the most active. The golden aura wrapped around the sword flickered with his threat.
“I remembered that this place is a conference hall and not a battlefield today, but I do not know how it will be next time.”
A terrified middle-aged man began to weep, snot and tears running down his face in silence. Edwin ignored the unsightly spectacle and gestured with his chin toward the Prime Minister, who had been quietly observing the shift in the political climate. Perhaps he hadn’t reached that position for nothing; the Prime Minister was quick-witted.
“T-that concludes the meeting.”
Even the voice of the Prime Minister, a staunch pro-emperor official who had served for many years, trembled.
Edwin left the conference hall as if he had been waiting for this moment, the guard’s sword still in his hand. He did not know that a middle-aged noble had collapsed the moment he vanished behind the door, nor that the man happened to have a weak heart. And he certainly did not know that the rumors of this day would cross the walls of the Inner Palace and become heavily embellished. He was too busy processing paperwork without a moment’s rest after ending the general meeting in such a brutal manner.
Still, thanks to that, he had barely managed to finish his work before the weekend.
*･☪D✶༄ ‧₊˚a⋰˚☆m✶༄ ‧₊˚
After stamping the Emperor’s seal on the last remaining document, Edwin hurriedly changed his clothes and headed to the meeting place. His face, which had been as cold as if covered in frost throughout the day, brightened as he approached the Summer Rose Garden.
“Sir Rohas. Over here.”
Ri-Na, who had arrived first at the entrance leading from the Outer Palace to the Summer Rose Garden, spotted him and waved. Feeling sorry for keeping her waiting, he approached with long strides, and Ri-Na smiled faintly as she took his hand. Her outfit—an achromatic dress that was easy to move in, a departure from her usual attire—looked fresh.
“It’s just that… I came straight from work.”
For a moment, his gaze lingered just a little too long on her unique attire, and Ri-Na began to straighten a wrinkle-free skirt for no reason. When she couldn’t quite manage it with one hand, she even secretly tried to pull away the left hand she had given to Edwin.
Edwin held their clasped hands a little more firmly and said, “Gray. It suits you well.”
In truth, his inner thoughts were to launch into a lengthy eulogy—*‘The gray dress seems to highlight your intellectual and elegant side’*—but that blunt, one-sentence compliment was the best he could offer as a man with absolutely no interest in fashion.
Still, at the sincerity in his tone, Ri-Na smiled shyly.
“Really? Is it because of my hair color?”
She looked like a spring flower blooming in summer. Edwin stared at her as if bewitched and mumbled, “I… I also thought sky blue, yellow, pink, and light purple looked good on you.”
The colors of the carefully chosen date outfits she had worn every time she met him flowed out in chronological order. Her face, previously like a spring flower, flushed red, fed by Edwin’s earnest compliments. Ri-Na, not wanting to show how fluttered she was, pressed down on the corners of her mouth that kept twitching upward.
Then, she feigned a haughty tone. “Was blue not good?”
Edwin thought for a moment before answering cautiously. “That suited you well, too. You were so pretty, I couldn’t decide which was better.”
Perhaps because the very concept of “playing hard to get” was nonexistent, Ri-Na eventually burst into laughter at the pouring praise.
“Other people would laugh if they heard you.”
Ri-Na shook their clasped hands lightly, as if scolding a flatterer. It was meant as a dismissal of empty words, but Edwin could not protest. His field of vision was so full of Ri-Na’s smile that there was no room for words to slip out. Between day and night, her silver hair was being dyed with a warm light by the slowly setting sun, and her eyes, still holding the residual heat of her laughter, turned toward him.
*Thump, thump.*
As Ri-Na entered his field of vision, his pounding heart made its presence felt. Edwin’s ears, too, were dyed red by something—whether it was the sunset or something else, it was uncertain.
His consciousness only returned when he heard Ri-Na’s voice in his ear.
“But did Sir Rohas come here straight from work, too?”
“That’s right.”
Edwin nodded reflexively. It was a question that didn’t require deep thought, so his eyes remained dreamy.
“You could have postponed our meeting if you were busy.”
Ri-Na assumed the reason his eyes had become dreamy was due to exhaustion. It was a misunderstanding born of worry, but it was enough to wake Edwin’s mind.
“I wasn’t that busy.”
Edwin hurriedly made excuses. However, Ri-Na did not seem to believe him. That was because Edwin had already changed the meeting place once. The original location had been a lakeside in the suburbs with beautiful scenery—not the Summer Rose Garden attached to the Imperial Palace. With work piling up, he hadn’t found the time to spare half a day to go to the outskirts.
Edwin had been inwardly disappointed. Even if he cut his sleep further, he simply could not find the time. Yet, he couldn’t postpone the meeting. Seeing the worry on Ri-Na’s face, as if she might tell him to go back and sleep right now, Edwin’s eyes drooped a little.
‘Was I the only one waiting for today?’
Ri-Na was not the type with particularly keen observation skills, yet she always easily noticed when he was even a little exhausted.
‘Even though she tells me I look tired and that I should rest without worrying about her…’
Edwin felt a little hurt, wondering if perhaps Ri-Na found him bothersome. His mood sank rapidly.
At just the right moment, Ri-Na shook their lightly clasped hands as if to soothe him. Her violet eyes, containing affectionate concern, gently caressed him.
“They say the lights in the Imperial Palace don’t go out from the moment the sun sets until it rises again… Are you truly alright?”
There was no reason for a gaze to have a physical sensation, but somehow, it tickled.
“I am fine. Truly.”
With that one look, it felt as if he had received the blessing of a saint; his bloodshot eyes from overwork cleared, and his fatigue vanished. The biggest reason was the realization that Ri-Na wasn’t trying to send him away because he was a nuisance. Edwin forgot his earlier hurt, crinkling his eyes as he smiled at her.
He smiled so prettily that the nobles, who were currently being ground into the dust by Edwin at every meeting, would have been horrified to witness it. He remained completely unaware that Ri-Na was inwardly cursing the Emperor as a vicious employer.