After the dance ended, they moved to a nearby table, and Beatrice asked her question with a tilt of the head. A thin smile crossed Yurisian’s cold face.

“It’s not something that you need to be concerned about. Have you returned for good this time?”

“Yes. As I have now finished all my required studies.”

The lady smiled with her eyes. In ones and twos, the other nobles tactfully began to enter the Crown Prince and Lady Beatrice’s vicinity. Although it had been a long time since she had last been out in society, the lady skillfully handled pleasantries with the various nobles.

While he was standing expressionlessly at the lady’s side, Yurisian’s face suddenly stiffened.

As the fastened, blue curtains of the terrace were fluttered open by a gust of wind, it slightly exposed a view of the terrace’s interior. A familiar, yet the unfamiliar woman was seen standing inside. There was a flash of her black hair, which was a rare sight in the empire, that disappeared instantly.

Evanessa Halyn. The empire’s one and only Saintess who, together with the Pope, served as his greatest opponent.

A clear hostility rose in the Crown Prince’s purple eyes as he glared at the terrace.

***

Evanessa was embarrassed to be caught in the middle of stretching while seated in her chair. Due to this, one of the shoes she was holding in her hands dropped onto the ground. She didn’t have the thought to spare to pick it back up.

The person who appeared from the shadows of the terrace, where she’d never imagined that anyone would be hiding, was the Grancia Empire’s young Prime Minister.

‘The Suspicious Extra.’

With absolutely perfect timing, she had just thought of a different possible meaning for that phrase. Because inside of the game, the extra who played the most important role was, in fact, this man.

“…You were already here?”

Evanessa couldn’t hide her disgruntled expression as she stared at his disheveled head of hair. It was such a bird’s nest that it made her instinctively want to reach for a comb.

“It seems like you’re more aggressive than you look, Saintess Evanessa.”

The prime minister bent over at the waist and picked up her shoe that had fallen to the floor. Then, as if he was having second thoughts, he stilled momentarily. While Evanessa stared at him with a quizzical expression, the prime minister slowly walked up to her until he was standing right in front of her face. A cool, lemony scent wafted past her nose.

Her eyes caught on the stretch of skin exposed by his loose collar and tie.

He read the path of Evanessa’s wandering eyes and asked, “are you still thinking of staying here?”

Evanessa, who was trying to figure out who was easier to deal with between the suspicious extra and the rude crown prince, took a deep breath.

“Would it be alright if I stayed here for just half an hour more? It would be very troublesome for me if I go out now.”

If she left now, there was a 99% chance that she would be spotted by the Crown Prince, and she would definitely get caught in his act of harassment.

The prime minister lowered his body to the floor until he was resting on one knee and said, “do as you please.”

“Alright. Although I am very grateful… what on earth are you doing?”

“I am only showing you the proper courtesy.”

Only

After pulling on a white glove that he took out from a jacket pocket, the prime minister gently lifted Evanessa’s ankle. Then, he took the shoe he had picked up and slipped it back onto Evanessa’s foot.

Evanessa’s whole body stiffened as the soft texture of his glove grazed along the top of her foot.

“Would you like me to put on the other shoe?”

… Was this person making fun of her?

“I never asked you to put it on in the first place.”

“I just wanted to try it out once.”

After saying all that he had to say, the Prime Minister stood up. The man, who was two heads taller than Evanessa, looked down at her blankly.

Evanessa’s eyes frowned as she bent over to put on her remaining shoe.

Chapter 16
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