The Stand-In Empress’S Wedding Night [EN]: Chapter 343

343. Extra Story 15: Love for Velos (343/347)

“Don’t misunderstand, Miss Cellani. I didn’t come with impure intentions.”

Velos tried to smooth over what Moiya and Moni had blurted out just before entering the room.

*If it weren’t for impure intentions tonight, she wanted to tell him to just go away,* but Cellani, still maintaining her refined image, swallowed the words.

“I understand. Please, close the door,” Cellani said, turning to Velos with a disappointed look.

“Ah, yes! They were just joking, so please don’t take it too seriously.”

Velos smiled awkwardly, pulling Moiya and Moni away from the doorframe where they were peeking into the room.

“If you’re not going to mate, can’t we come in too?” Moni asked Cellani.

“Yeah, let’s hang out, the four of us. We can drink ourselves silly.” Moiya spotted the wine bottle Cellani had been drinking alone and smacked her lips.

“You were drinking wine?” Velos also craned his neck to the side, glancing at the wine bottle on the sofa table.

“Yes. I was having a little before bed,” Cellani replied primly.

She also had to swallow the words, *‘I’m so frustrated because of you that I’ve been drinking like water these days.’*

“There are no glasses? Don’t tell me you were… chugging from the bottle?”

“!”

*Oops, caught.*

After a moment of embarrassment, Cellani shrugged nonchalantly.

“…Well, I didn’t want to bother the servants late at night, and it was too much trouble. Why? Are you disappointed?”

“Ah, no. I just couldn’t imagine such an elegant lady like Miss Cellani drinking wine straight from the bottle.”

Velos stared at Cellani’s lips, which had probably been on the bottle a moment ago.

*Her down-to-earth nature was a different kind of charm.*

“I thought you were smarter than Melanie, but Cellani’s behavior is so uncouth? I like it.” Moiya gave a thumbs up, chuckling.

“I knew her mouth looked hot, Moni~? Right, Magic Tower?” Moni flew over and sat on Velos’s shoulder, saying.

“Please just leave. You’re going to get me kicked out too,” Velos pleaded desperately with Moiya and Moni using ventriloquism [speaking without moving your lips].

“Ah, why! If you’re not going to mate!” Moiya snapped, annoyed.

Velos’s face turned red.

*What an embarrassment in front of Cellani.*

*‘I really am going to get kicked out.’*

Velos hung his head, waiting for Cellani’s decision.

He could feel her slowly approaching.

He looked up and saw she was holding the wine bottle.

“Get out,” Cellani ordered in a firm tone.

*I’m getting kicked out after all.*

Cellani’s expression was very resolute. If he stood his ground here, he felt like he would get hit on the head with that wine bottle.

Velos apologized, unable to meet her eyes, crestfallen.

“Ah, yes… I’m very sorry for the late hour.”

“You stay.”

“Pardon?”

“Moiya and Moni, get out.”

“Sniff, you’re as cold as you look, Moiya~?”

“The Magic Tower is no fun at all. We’re more fun, Moni~?”

The two of them jumped up and down, protesting to Cellani in a sulky tone.

“Velos is fun enough, okay?”

“Huh? The Magic Tower is fun? I thought Cellani just had weird eyes, but her ears are weird too!”

Cellani continued, undeterred by Moni’s grumbling.

“And how do you know if we’re going to mate or not? Here, take this and leave us alone.”

Cellani handed the wine bottle, which she had been drinking from alone, to Moiya, trying to appease her.

“Ooh? If that’s the case, of course, we have to leave!”

Moiya snatched the wine bottle and, with Moni, did a shoulder dance as they closed the door themselves and disappeared.

The two stood facing each other, as if in a standoff.

Velos felt like he had to say something.

“We’re the only ones left… are you okay with that?”

He said it to ease the awkwardness, but it only made the atmosphere stranger.

“Does Velos have a bomb on him? Why wouldn’t it be okay if we’re alone?”

“You might be uncomfortable. Besides, it’s late at night, so I have to be careful…”

“What’s the reason you came to visit on this cautious late night?”

At Cellani’s question, Velos finally remembered the reason he came.

“Ah, I’m planning to collect Empress Zelda’s cure tomorrow and go to the Magic Tower. Would you like to come with me?”

He swallowed hard, carefully uttering each word, and,

“Okay.”

Cellani accepted the offer too easily.

Velos began to panic at the quick reply.

Now that the business was over, he should leave, but he wanted to stay longer.

But he didn’t have the talent to continue the conversation naturally.

He scratched his head twice, patted his neck twice, then clasped his hands together and laughed, haha, twice, and pointed to the door behind him with his index finger.

“Well, then, I’ll assume we’re going together tomorrow, and I’ll be on my way.”

“Freeze!”

Velos’s foot, which had taken a step, stopped in mid-air at Cellani’s shout.

***

Meanwhile, Moiya and Moni, who had received the wine bottle from Cellani and were wandering around the royal palace, headed to Sharon’s room.

But they found a suspicious man with his face pressed against Sharon’s door.

“Sharon~? Are you asleep? Are you sleeping?”

The owner of the plaintive voice was Raphael.

Moiya, thinking he was a strange guy, raised the wine bottle to bash him in the back of the head but lowered her arm again.

“Hey, Raphael! I told you not to bother our Sharon!”

“We should really teach him a lesson today, Moni~?” Moni flared her nostrils and breathed fire.

At that moment, Raphael quickly took out two long sausages from the paper bag he was holding and held them up to the fire Moni was breathing.

“Ooh~? Sausages?”

Moiya’s ruby eyes flickered with excitement as she saw the sausages, which were longer than she was tall.

Raphael wore a triumphant smile at the sight.

“You came just in time. I was looking for you because I had something to give you.”

Sharon, who never answered, was still silent tonight.

So Raphael thought of another way to approach Sharon, deciding to use Moiya and Moni.

“Ta-da! A gift for you guys.”

Raphael began to flatter them, handing each of them a sausage.

“Today, I went to the most famous sausage shop in the royal palace and specially ordered these for you. They’re seafood sausages with all kinds of seafood inside. How about that? Isn’t it amazing?”

“Ooh? Does that mean there’s a shark friend in here too?”

“I don’t know about sharks, but I think there’s squid in it.”

“Oh my gosh! They even minced up members of their own species to make this sausage.”

Moiya stared intently at Raphael’s face, deeply moved.

“Thank you. I needed a snack, and it turns out your open fly is useful.”

Moni tasted the seafood sausage first.

Unlike the sausages she usually ate, a savory flavor spread throughout her mouth and melted away.

“Raphael… this is so touching, Moiya~?”

“In the Aclato Kingdom, they opened their wallets instead of their flies, Moni~?”

“Haha, I’m giving this to you with absolutely no connection to Sharon.”

“Yeah, we’re receiving it with absolutely no connection to Sharon. But let me say again, Sharon doesn’t suit you.”

Moiya munched diligently on the sausage, patting Raphael on the back.

“Do you think we’ll persuade Sharon for you just because we received something like this?”

Moni also turned away, warning him that it was impossible.

*This wasn’t going as planned?*

As the two were about to receive only the sausages and enter the room where Sharon was staying, Raphael hurriedly opened his mouth.

“Hey, wait a minute! I heard they also make sausages with minced king crab and lobster? They’re actually too expensive, so I didn’t order them, but if you want, I’ll order them tomorrow.”

“!”

“!”

At Raphael’s words, Moiya and Moni hesitated, then turned around and knocked on the door.

Knock, knock, knock-.

“Sharon~ come out. There’s a handsome man outside, Moni~?”

“That person is your husband, Moiya~?”

***

Cellani shouted to freeze, and Velos even stopped breathing.

“Let’s talk.”

Velos breathed out only after Cellani said the next words.

“Haa… do you have something to say?”

“Do I have to have something to say?”

“That’s not true.”

“Then sit down.”

Cellani sat on the sofa first, gesturing to the seat in front of her. Then Velos came over with quick steps, sat demurely in front of her with both hands gathered.

“I’ll ask you directly. Do you like me?”

“!”

*It wasn’t a question of ‘Do you like me?’ but a question filled with certainty.*

“Yes.”

As if he had been waiting, a word of affirmation immediately popped out of Velos’s mouth.

Since the one asking the question was straightforward, the answer came right away.

“I heard about it from Her Majesty the Empress. The reason why Velos is dragging out our relationship.”

“Ah… you heard.”

“I was embarrassed when I heard. And actually, I don’t really know how I feel right now.”

“I understand.”

From Cellani’s point of view, it could be burdensome enough.

Wouldn’t it have been better to know that he would never age?

But she had learned the truth.

From Cellani’s point of view, it might seem like her heart was being tested.

*‘I would feel burdened too.’*

Velos regretted telling Linelle and Zelda his secret.

*It was something he could have handled alone…….*

“So let’s check it out now, us.”

Velos’s thoughts were broken by Cellani’s combative voice.

“……What do you mean?”

“What else could it be? Don’t you know what you have to do to check each other’s feelings? Why are you acting like this when you’ve lived for as long as you have?”

Unlike Melanie, Cellani had been called a prodigy since she was young.

The only thing the sisters, who had different personalities and tastes, had in common was that they were headstrong when it came to love.

But even with the same direct approach, Cellani was slightly different from Melanie.

Unlike the disorganized Melanie, Cellani liked everything systematic, and that was being applied to love as well.

“I always go to bed by 10:30 at the latest. It’s 10:05 now, so… 2 minutes for a kiss, 15 minutes for a kiss. 5 minutes for awkwardness. I’ll give you 3 minutes to see me off.”

Cellani looked at the time and divided the things to do before 10:30 into minutes.

“……What happens if you go over time?”

“I don’t know? I’ve never broken it before, so I don’t know. Since you’re going to protect me tonight anyway, please keep the time too.”

Cellani said seriously, then chuckled at the end.

The last words were a joke, but Velos didn’t laugh.

He waited for Cellani’s laughter to subside, then mustered the courage to lift her up.

“I’ll try to keep it.”

First, he kissed her,

“But it seems like I won’t be able to keep one of them, what should I do?”

Then he looked into her eyes and said to her.

“Which one do you think you won’t be able to keep?”

Cellani took a deep breath and asked.

The sound of their breathing was so close that it was hard to talk.

“What do you think?”

Velos asked, instead tilting his head and swallowing her lips.

“Do you… have any physical changes?”

After quite some time, Cellani slowly opened her eyes and asked.

“I’m embarrassed, but yes. There are changes.”

*Of course, there would be.*

Velos lowered his gaze, then looked up at her again and shyly confessed.

“No, I mean, I heard that something changes when you feel love…….”

*Ah, that change.*

Embarrassed, Velos smiled awkwardly and said quietly.

“I don’t know yet with just this.”

“Is that so?”

*Why don’t you know? My heart is beating so fast right now.*

Cellani also smiled slightly, hiding her nervousness.

Velos’s lips touched Cellani’s smiling lips again.

Velos’s frozen nerves were on high alert at the sensation of the soft lips he was feeling for the first time in decades.

Velos pulled Cellani’s waist towards him and began to lead skillfully and gently.

Cellani felt like her whole body was melting at the softness that was nearly 300 years old.

“I can feel the depth in your kiss.”

Cellani, who valued time, had fallen in love with this man who had stopped time.

“Miss Cellani, it’s already 29 minutes.”

“Ah, you have to go now.”

Cellani pushed Velos’s body away slightly with a regretful expression.

“Ah?”

But Velos’s arms pulled her waist back into his embrace.

“I’ll just hold you like this for a moment. I need time to feel the afterglow.”

That’s how 30 minutes passed, but in fact, Cellani’s heart had already gone over to him to the point where she didn’t care about the time.

Velos wanted to lie down in bed with her like this and fall asleep.

“Would you like to stay the night?”

“……Did I just say that, or did Cellani say that?”

Velos asked, wondering if it was a misunderstanding because he had the same thought.

“I want to wake up with you tomorrow morning. Since you broke the time anyway?”

Her lips, which had been honest and raised at the end of her words, bloomed like flower petals.

Velos couldn’t stand it and carried Cellani to the bed without realizing it.

“Oh my, was that teleportation just now?”

“Yes, it’s the first time I’ve teleported such a short distance. I was in a hurry…….”

Velos looked great looking up from the bed.

Cellani’s expression suddenly became serious as she looked at him with a dazed look for a moment.

“Surely, you won’t suddenly age after we make love, will you?”

“That won’t happen.”

“What about your physical age? Is your physical age as young as your face?”

It was an important issue, so she had to ask.

“Do you mean if I lack energy? Hmm, I don’t know. I think you’ll have to check it out.”

“……Pardon?”

“Cellani, you have to check how much energy I have.”

The shirt Velos was wearing disappeared in the blink of an eye.

“Do you use magic for things like this too?”

Cellani asked, looking curiously at his clothes flying to the chair.

“This is also the first time. I used magic because I didn’t want to waste time taking off my clothes.”

Velos smiled, folding his eyes gently.

Fine lines that hadn’t been there before appeared slightly around his eyes.

Cellani, who had been stroking Velos’s eyes, wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered.

“While you’re at it, make my clothes fly away too.”

It was the night love began.

-fin-