CH 57

In addition, the desire to brag about Ophelia certainly made her fall for his provocation even more quickly.

Really, if Ophelia hadn’t been shy, she would have carried her by her side and screamed all over the block.

—We’re friends for life! She’s the one of my destiny!

Before long, Catherine calmly warned Lawrence.

No, that was more brutal than kind.

“If you look at Ophelia and fall in love with her, I’ll pluck out your eyeballs.”

And Lawrence shrugged his shoulders once again, calmly taking Catherine’s words.

“Isn’t it better for me to fall for her? If it goes well, she’ll be family in the future.”

“What bullshit… huh?”

“Family. Real family.”

Catherine’s eyes began to shake violently as Lawrence lowered his voice into a whisper, placing his hand over his mouth.

—Ophelia and her, family… Family.

However, in order to do that, her brother and Ophelia must decide… 

“No way.”

Catherine’s mind, which had been gone for a while, came back as soon as she imagined the scene of Ophelia and Lawrence standing side by side in a rain of flowers.

“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you even if you show that kind of attention.”

“Ah, it didn’t work.”

“What? You!”

In the midst of such a fierce battle between the pair of vigorously energetic siblings.

While the servants of the marquisate looked at the place to be cleaned today with philosophical hand gestures and expressions saying, ‘Here they go again’…

A mature looking worker, who had been working alone in the Lawrence’s brewery, narrowed his eyes.

“What is this buzzing sound? Is it the locusts again?”

He frowned as he recalled the days before when dozens of locusts had raged on him.

But no matter how much he widened his eyes and searched everywhere, he couldn’t find the locust.

“Ah, if I see a locust with this level of defense, it’s probably not a locust. Did I hear it wrong?”

He tapped his ear and trudged away. No matter how much he rubbed his ears, the humming didn’t go away.

“What is it? Is it around here?”

He looked around the oak barrel, but could not find the source of the strange sound.

“Did I really hear that wrong?”

As he tilted his head and turned around with a puzzled face, a black cloud came into his field of vision.

“Dark clouds? Damn it! If it suddenly rains…!”

He sprinted to collect all the things that shouldn’t get wet in the rain.

So he didn’t notice.

What looked like dark clouds covering the sky was an enormous swarm of locusts that could hardly be called dozens of locusts.

.

Two days after the evening party.

As soon as Ophelia entered the Imperial Palace, she rushed towards Richard.

—Bang!

She shouted as she hit his desk with force.

“Where have you been!”

“You’re close.”

Richard, who faced Ophelia at such a close distance that the tips of his nose collided with hers, did not push her away even as he said that.

Ophelia didn’t care at all about their proximity and let a wild snort out.

It had been long past the period where she would be embarrassed or ashamed for snorting like this or directing her bloodshot eyes at him.

“Where the hell have you been!”

“I was told you looked for me two days ago.”

“What…!”

Ophelia, who was preparing to shoot, faltered at Richard’s ensuing question.

“What about yesterday?”

“What?”

“You looked for me two days ago, but you came only today. What were you doing yesterday?”

“No, that’s… Um.”

Ophelia quietly pulled back and shook her head.

And Richard, having no intention of letting her go, grabbed her slender wrist that was resting on the desk.

He didn’t apply too much force so that it would hurt, but she would never get out of his hold.

He asked again.

“The aide wasn’t in the aide’s office. Where and what were you doing yesterday?”

Although held still, Ophelia tugged her wrist with a glimmer of hope, but there was really no way she could get out of his grasp.

She finally opened her mouth, but it closed without a sound coming out.

And as the silence lengthened, Richard’s golden eyes sank deeper and deeper.

Ophelia was his aide, but she had no obligation to report her every move.

However…

It was Cooper who greeted Richard when he returned to the Imperial Palace midday two days ago.

“You’re back?”

“It’s not very different from what we expected.”

“Human trafficking is related to religion.”

“Yes. I couldn’t find any particular connection with the Marquisate of Neir. Let’s dig into that part a bit more.’

“Yes. I will.”

“And what religion it is. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a few people gathering and talking nonsense, but if it goes beyond that, it’ll become a problem.”

Voluntary human trafficking itself was already a problem, but such an unknown religion could cause a bigger problem than that.

“And one more thing.”

Cooper picked up the small pink bottle that Richard had brought back with him and narrowed his eyes.

It was a viscous substance that clung to the bottle and slowly dripped down.

“It’s medicine.”

“If it’s medicine…”

At the word ‘medicine’, Cooper’s easy smile disappeared in an instant, and his eyes reddened at once.

Drugs had a long history and were among the evils that had not yet been eradicated.

It would be strange if he, who was the crown prince’s aide and personally suffered from being entangled in drugs, didn’t roll his eyes.

“The medicine itself is not a drug.”

“Then. When mixed with other things, it becomes that kind of thing.’

Richard tapped Cooper on the shoulder as he held onto the bottle so strongly that it was as if he would break the bottle.

“We’ve found the original producer, so secure it.”

“Yes.”

“And Cooper.”

Richard whispered this softly to the grimacing Cooper.

“This drug will never work out.”

To his assertion of the future, Cooper agreed without a single doubt.

Richard was the next emperor who would stand on top of everyone’s heads.

That’s why every word he said was weighty, and what he said had to come true.

It sounds absurd at first to believe that someone’s words would come true, but the emperor and the crown prince were in such positions.

And Richard was also a person who actually did what he said he would.

Everything he said had never gone unfulfilled.

Even those who rose up like bees, claiming that what Richard brought up were nonsensical, kept their mouths shut when they saw the trajectory he had walked.

There was no reason why Cooper, who was only full of loyalty to him, did not blindly believe in Richard’s words.

“Cooper, this is more urgent, so take care of it first… Oh. Greetings, Your Highness.’

After nodding lightly at Iris’s polite greeting, Richard hesitated.

“What about Ophelia?”

“She’s not here yet. She has never been late.”

“She’s never been like this before, perhaps she is sick…’

Richard’s expression changed very subtly as he watched the two busy covering for Ophelia, who did not appear without a word.

Every time he heard Ophelia’s name coming out of Cooper’s mouth…

—

Recalling that far, Richard shook his head.

Just like that, how much time had passed while he was lost in his memories?

Richard and Ophelia parted their lips almost simultaneously.

“Maybe there’s something else.”

“I was gone!”

And silence fell between the two.

The eyes of Ophelia, after confessing her shameful actions yesterday, shifted sheepishly while waiting for her flushed cheeks to cool down.

Thanks to her mother’s sincerity and constant love yesterday, Ophelia was freed from her nightmares and fell asleep as if she had fainted.

But never did she imagine that the whole day would fly away while she slept so ignorantly of the world.

It was the first time she had such a restful sleep since starting this goddamn infinite regression, but there was a price.

Richard’s voice slipped through Ophelia’s ears as she wiggled her fingers.

“You slept? All day?”

“Yes. Haha. I slept very well… I apologize for being absent from work without a word.”

Unable to hide her embarrassment, Ophelia put her hands together on her navel and bowed her head, then lifted and tilted her head.

“By the way, what were you trying to say? What about someone else?”

Richard gave a completely different answer to her question.

“I was investigating.”

It was a blatant switch in topic, but Ophelia went along with it without hesitation.

Whatever it was about someone else, how important could it be?

“Oh, two days ago? But what kind of investigation? Wait, did you go there yourself?”

“Because it’s faster.”

“Is it okay for the crown prince to just wander around like that… I guess. Of course.”

The all-too-common talk of being aware of your position and taking care of yourself popped up, but it quickly went away.

Since the other person was not a normal person at all, what’s the use of talking about common sense?

Ophelia’s expression became more and more serious as Richard continued to speak.

“Human trafficking?”

Ame: counting down the days to richard’s jealousy explosion~

Dea: ophelia’s about to get locked up somewhere….or cooper might lose his jo