As Agnes screamed, the knights were startled and untied the rope that bound Kailo.
“Everyone, get out! Quickly! Get out now!”
Agnes sent everyone out of sight. She had to somehow manage the situation.
With everyone gone and their flustered faces disappearing, only two people remained in the commander’s office of the Black Knights.
“…”
Agnes, left alone with her favorite character Kailo, didn’t know what to do.
Kailo was still kneeling, looking up at her.
His gaze was filled with hatred and contempt.
Thud!
Then, he raised both wrists onto the sofa table and spoke in a restrained voice.
“Cut them off.”
“…”
“For the crime of daring to touch the princess’s body, I will accept the punishment. Cut them off.”
His tone was resolute.
At his words, Agnes felt her heart crumble.
‘Kailo…’
Her favorite character, Kailo, was a tragic character who brought tears to her eyes just by thinking about him.
And she was playing the role of a despicable person who tormented him.
‘Why…’
Agnes sobbed inwardly but tried not to show her emotions.
“I have no intention of cutting off your wrists.”
How could she cut off those precious wrists?
Even though he was a royal, it was customary to use honorifics to show respect to the knights.
But Agnes had never used honorifics with Kailo.
“…”
Kailo frowned, looking up at her. His gaze seemed to question her motives.
“First, get up and sit down.”
“…”
“It’s an order.”
At her words, Kailo finally stood up. His attitude seemed to suggest that kneeling was nothing to him, and it hurt her heart.
As he sat on the sofa, Agnes cautiously sat across from him and carefully opened her mouth.
“Yesterday… I drank too much and…”
“…”
Agnes’ gaze met his face. His cheek was slightly swollen.
It wasn’t just that. There were red marks on Kailo’s neck, as if they had been scratched by fingernails.
It was the wound she had inflicted while resisting him the night before.
Their eyes met for a moment.
Realizing that her gaze was on the wound on his neck, Kailo let out a sarcastic laugh.
“…I got hurt because of you.”
Agnes muttered softly.
Seeing her unfamiliar reaction, Kailo quietly stared at her. His searching gaze quietly scanned her from head to toe.
He couldn’t understand why she was acting this way. Kailo asked softly.
“Do I have to give up my life instead of my wrists?”
Kailo knew very well how much the woman in front of him despised him.
A woman who sought an excuse to drive him away like a hyena.
He didn’t know if Princess Agnes wanted his life because of what happened yesterday.
It was ridiculous for such a trivial matter.
His jaw muscles twitched with anger as he clenched his teeth.
Agnes waved her hand.
“No, that’s not it… I just wanted to apologize for my excessive behavior yesterday.”
“…”
Apologize?
As if.
Kailo thought that the princess was using yesterday’s incident as an excuse to somehow drive him out of the Knights.
But it was out of the question.
He couldn’t be driven out of the Knights he had entered, not for such a trivial matter.
“I was wrong. I will discipline myself, so please give me the punishment you desire.”
“…”
Agnes realized that no matter what she said, the conversation wouldn’t go anywhere.
‘I was wrong… this life is wrong…’
It was sad but a normal reaction. Would anyone believe that someone who had been a despicable person until yesterday was suddenly sincere in their apology?
“Or do I have to take off my clothes to satisfy you?”
Then, Kailo asked in a low voice.
Take off… clothes?!
Gulp.
Agnes’ throat gulped.
Of course, that wasn’t what he meant.
It was clear to anyone that he was asking if he had to take off his knight’s uniform.
But Agnes’ face turned bright red, as if they had just had a sexual conversation.
“…”
Seeing her reddening face, Kailo’s face crumpled as he realized the reason.
What now…
He hadn’t imagined that his thoughtless words would sound like mockery.
Kailo bit his lip, trying to think of an excuse. He couldn’t be driven out of the Knights like this.
“What I meant was…”
“No! Let’s just pretend yesterday never happened.”
“…Are you serious?”
“Yes, so I hope you’ll forget about yesterday too.”
With those words, Agnes stood up. Her face and neck were still flushed.
Agnes fled the commander’s office as if running away.
“…Sigh.”
Left alone, Kailo let out a long, low sigh.
The image of the princess’s face turning red as if they had exchanged a sexual joke came to mind again.
She was an incomprehensible woman.
She insulted and slapped him when she wanted to, and now she was up to some trick.
He closed his eyes for a moment and then got up.
It was time to prepare for his mission. Kailo slowly put on the leather gloves on the desk.
His fingers, clad in leather gloves, reached for the stinging wound on his neck.
The long, bright red wound was brushed by the surface of the leather.
The image of the woman who scratched his neck and slapped his face last night came to mind like an afterimage.
The woman who loved Raymond Spencer, whom he hated, and despised him.
Princess Agnes was a woman who evoked unpleasant emotions just by thinking about her.
But her unexpectedly innocent reaction to an unintentional remark was surprising.
He didn’t know she could be so naive.
***
Returning to the princess’s palace, Agnes began to suffer from that day on.
Her head throbbed painfully.
She couldn’t figure out what to do next. She wished it was just a dream, but no matter how much she slept and woke up, reality remained the same.
In the meantime, she barely left her bed for a few days.
The aristocracy was in an uproar.
It was because of the outrageous remark Princess Agnes made at the war memorial ball.
The anger of the nobles was understandable.
It was only natural for them to be angry when the princess, of all people, insulted their family members and soldiers who fought and died in the war.
In general, the citizens of the empire respected and loved the royal family as a basic passive trait…
But they couldn’t turn a blind eye to the princess’s increasingly outrageous behavior.
Lying in bed, Agnes tried to recall the early part of the original story.
‘What did the emperor do to the princess in the original story… Did he send her out of the capital for a while?’
Around this time, the princess seemed to have disappeared from the novel for a while.
After Agnes fell ill, she heard rumors circulating in the social circles that the princess was so sick that she was on the verge of death.
Honestly, it wasn’t that bad…
‘It must be a rumor created by the emperor to shield the princess.’
Anyway, thanks to that, she had a few days to gather her thoughts while confined to her room.
The timing was terrible, but… it was true that she had been reincarnated into a world where her favorite character was alive and breathing.
Her positive circuitry began to spin quickly.
Her grief over her death was only temporary.
Since she had no family and was a loner in her previous life, her only regrets were her unfinished fan art and merchandise.
But now, that was a trivial matter. She could create real-life merchandise now, right?
Anyway, since she had obtained a new life and a position that could potentially help her favorite character…
She would definitely, absolutely, somehow prevent his death and pave a flower path for him.
However…
If people found out that Princess Agnes, who used to praise the original male lead Raymond, suddenly became a fan of Kyle, they would think she had gone crazy.
Kyle would also suspect her of being insane.
If a woman who had slapped him three times suddenly confessed her love…?
That would be psychotic in anyone’s eyes.
‘More than anything, he would be very surprised.’
She didn’t want her own little kitten, Kyle, to be surprised.
Approaching a poor abandoned kitten required a very careful process.
‘Our Kyle is actually very tender-hearted and pure. I must not startle him.’
She had to seep into his life slowly, like rain soaking into clothes.
To do that, she had to hide her burning heart for the time being.
Besides, there was no benefit in revealing her obsession. So for the time being, she would be perfectly…
‘Low-key.’
