5 (10)

“Lord Pontina Louis, a pleasure to meet you for the first time.”

Louis turned toward the bell-like voice. A noblewoman with a striking face stood there. Her dress was plain, but it could not hide her beauty. It was a banquet; anyone speaking to Louis would not have been strange. Yet Louis had known for ten minutes that this woman would approach him. Even a fool could hardly miss someone staring holes into him.

What kept Louis from speaking first was the ring on her finger.

‘In other words—a married lady.’

“Ah… yes. A pleasure. I don’t recall your face. What is your husband’s name?”

Louis’s wary tone drew out the woman’s feelings again.

“Dein Dekal. I’m Enika.”

From her lips came the most unexpected name Louis could imagine. He glanced around first. The banquet was loud; starved for festivity, several guests were already dead drunk—Fred among them, of course.

“…………”

Seeing Louis’s guarded look, Enika felt a pull. Young, so young—and strong. Very different from Fred. Very different from the men of this city. Her private motive for approaching him was simple.

‘I’m going to enjoy myself too. You think only you get to have fun?’

Twisted by spite toward Dekal, she had grown rather warped.

Louis, ignorant of her reasons, still felt he was getting in deep. Enika didn’t bother asking his preference; she held out her hand.

“Walk with me.”

Enika was quite confident in her looks. She was highborn, and with a pretty face at that; she had never once lacked the initiative in affairs with men—well, except once. Dekal. That was why she had married him.

Louis felt uneasy and didn’t want to walk, but he couldn’t ignore her insistence. He naturally drifted out with her to the rear.

“What do you want?”

At Louis’s cold reply, Enika sensed there was no love lost between Louis and Dekal.

“Heh-heh… So you two don’t get along?”

“……….”

“He and I don’t get along either. That makes us allies. You can relax—I don’t expect much from you, Lord Louis.”

Her coy words made Louis strain to grasp her meaning, but he still could not.

Frustrated, he pressed her.

“Speak plainly.”

Enika flinched for an instant—Louis’s Charisma pressed down on her—but the pressure only excited her.

‘Angry looks suit you too…’

She stroked Louis’s backside. He tried to stay calm.

Actions spoke louder than words; as a man, Louis could not miss the signal of her continued touch. Enika wanted to sleep with him tonight.

“…Move your hand. Before I say something I shouldn’t.”

At his warning, she drew back quickly. Yet despite his words, his tone was gentle—a positive sign. Enika stuck out her tongue playfully.

‘Heh-heh…’

Heat already pooled low within her, and she began to consider what troubled Louis—what he needed. What began as a simple scheme to spite her husband had turned into genuine arousal for Louis. She wanted to pounce on him—her married woman’s desire swelled.

Soon she found the answer: a man of higher rank than herself needed a secret place.

“A secret—I’ll keep it. Just follow me. Relax.”

Her pretty face and breathy excitement tugged at Louis; desires flared up without warning.

To seize her, to conquer her—those impulses caught flame.

Louis was used to such temptations. As the son of a powerful house, he had been flooded with offers beyond measure.

He had kept away from women simply because of work. Once that forgotten feeling rose again, he wanted her too. Enika was a beauty.

“…And why should I trust you?”

“Shall I make you? Fine. Dekal… he’s spending the night with some other woman again, isn’t he?”

‘Ah. So that’s it.’

Her choked voice let Louis see the whole backdrop at once. The problems were lighter than he’d thought—trifling, even.

Understanding her completely, he could no longer restrain himself.

In a quiet, empty court where no one watched, Louis slid a hand around her waist.

Enika pressed to him naturally. The oppressive aura weighed more heavily, but the more it did, the more excited she became. In a single motion she gripped him and rested her face to his chest.

They moved to a kiss—naturally. As their lips met, she shed the last pretense she had kept and began to devour him.

Her practiced tongue nearly made Louis lose his mind.

‘It’s been… a long time.’

Kissing, he gripped her firm backside. She had no child yet with Dekal; her figure remained as in her youth. Savoring that springy fullness, Louis finally pushed back the woman clinging to him like mad.

Before the slack-eyed, honeyed look on her face could turn into loose-tongued words, Louis touched a finger to her lips.

“To that place you know…”

Enika wet her lips and, imagining the pleasure to come, drew him along and led the way.

Over three days of nailing down details with Fred, Louis met her eight times. Even he found it remarkable that they had managed to keep it secret—and eight times at that. She was that clever.

‘A clever married woman with a cheating husband…’

Women’s desire often surged in their thirties; in that light, Enika’s actions were hardly incomprehensible. In any case, Louis liked her—and she promised to keep the fling discreet.

Enika, wrapped in Louis’s arms—this younger man—was drawn to him deeply.

She was a woman who lacked nothing in sex; she secretly kept five youthful concubine-slaves.

What aroused her about Louis was largely instinct—an attraction to a man of higher station than herself.

Now Louis slept, dozing as he held Enika.

She loved the feeling—this gentle warmth her husband had never once given her. Louis held her as if she were dear, dozing.

‘No man has ever pressed on me like this.’

She recalled their first night—the suffocating intensity. Of course, after sharing affection, it no longer felt like that now.

Louis would leave today. It had been a short time, but she had fallen hard. Even so, a promise was a promise. Feeling a little blue, she muttered to herself in a way unlike her—but when Louis woke, she showed no sign.

After a last kiss with Enika, Louis left his elder brother’s city.

‘Too fine a woman for Dekal.’

Only Louis would dare say such a thing of a Sword Expert like Dekal. Short as it was, Louis found Enika charming, clever, and quite pretty—a remarkable woman in many ways.

‘Next target: Marquis Gangpireu…’

With a strangely exhausted Hansen in tow, Louis set out for the marquis’s lands to acquire the remaining number.

Marquis Gangpireu was one rank below Duke Remitri, but in practice his faction stood on an equal footing.

In the Duchy of Eron there had originally been only two ducal houses:

The current royal House Dyuraendeu and House Pontina. Long ago, from a state now absorbed by the Empire, Eron had grown under these two houses and gained its name.

House Dyuraendeu subdued Pontina and rose to royalty; Pontina remained dukes rather than be degraded to marquesses. After centuries of political struggle, Pontina’s lands had shrunk greatly.

In short, only the ducal title remained; in practice they had become equals to the other marquess-led factions.

That was why, despite the title, they received no special treatment.

Now Louis waited for Marquis Gangpireu in a reception room.

Marquis Gangpireu.

Greedy enough to have fought Duke Remitri three times.

His persistent designs on Remitri’s territory sprang from a desire to reach the center.

The realm was chaotic; the royal house had become nominal. Gangpireu was a wily one, hoping to absorb Remitri’s lands and seize a larger chance.

‘Truly a snake.’

Louis was sure the marquis was standing him up on purpose.

In negotiation, time mattered more than one might think. Time flowed for everyone.

And the more time bled away while no action was taken, the more situations worsened—especially in clashes among the powerful.

For the powerful, time was ground up into staggering sums of money. Even now, Louis was as good as bleeding coin. Why, then, was dragging out time important in negotiation? The answer was simple: the deadline.

Whatever the deal—be it a child’s begging to his mother—negotiations moved at the end. The closer to the end, the more losses snowballed, and the greater the pressure on Louis than on Gangpireu. With pressure high, if the marquis dug in, Louis—up against a deadline—would have to concede.

‘Now the third day.’

Three days since arrival, Louis still had not met the marquis. He seemed to be in the city; claiming to be arriving from outside was surely a lie, Louis judged.

‘No matter what, I won’t put catapults on the table.’

The last card Louis would offer was simply money, even at a loss.

If necessary, he would have offered catapults— but he knew the marquis needed cash now. He had not sat idle for three days.

Even if subordinates hid it, basic city info reached Louis. He could not see details since this was not his city, but even in another’s city the system let him glimpse the opposing city’s simple state—that was an enormous thing.

It let him lightly infer what the other side tried to hide. In just this way, he had learned that Fred’s city was unhappy and sent Hansen to find the cause.

So too now. Hansen’s special knack was running a double act—pretending to do one thing while fishing out the opponent’s information.

Obenroe, the city Gangpireu ran, had its finances in the red—

the same budget deficit Proia had suffered when Louis executed Max and the city’s operations briefly stalled.

‘Today—or tomorrow at the latest. If he stands me up through today, I’ll make a scene.’

These were another faction’s lands; he could even be taken hostage. Still—he had endured three days. As Louis shaped a plan for a little ruckus, Hansen appeared.

Flushed face, glittering eyes.

The moment Louis saw him, he knew Hansen had hooked something.

‘Good. Hansen.’

“Young Master Louis—huff… huff…”

He had clearly run; he glanced around. Fortunately, Louis had already dismissed his attendants, and none were present.