The Stand-In Empress’S Wedding Night [EN]: Chapter 245

245. Only You in My Sight

2023.05.10.

“I’m not taking it away. I’m just trying to warm it up for you.”

Kwaaaak-!

Moya, seemingly unconvinced, immediately breathed fire from her mouth, nicely grilling the sausage.

“I can do it too!”

“…Okay, go ahead and eat.”

I smiled, soothing the slightly overexcited Moya.

“We should take shelter from the rain. Let’s get to the carriage quickly.”

At Linelle’s words, we all headed towards the waiting carriage.

Rams kept crying incessantly.

Rosie tried to soothe him, but when he didn’t stop, she handed him to Prince Norton, but it was no use.

“I think he’s cold… I’ll hold him. He’ll warm up quickly then.”

“Ah, thank you.”

Prince Norton handed Rams to me.

As I walked to the carriage, I held Rams close, gathering warmth around him with my arms and chest.

Fortunately, feeling the warmth in my arms, Rams gradually began to stop crying.

***

Inside the carriage, towels and blankets prepared by Linelle from the Imperial Palace were ready.

As soon as I got into the carriage, I took off Rams’s rain-soaked clothes and wiped his body with a towel.

Since there were no clothes for Rams to change into, I had no choice but to wrap Rams’s body carefully in a blanket, then wrapped him once more with another blanket and held him in my arms.

Rams’s body, which had been shivering from the cold, gradually calmed down. His pale cheeks also regained their color.

I looked down at Rams and smiled in relief.

“If we have a child, I’ll be seeing that often.”

Linelle, sitting in front of me, said while gazing at me holding Rams.

“Does it look cozy?”

I asked with a smile, and he opened his mouth with a rather serious look.

“No. Too… sexy.”

“!”

I was speechless at the unexpected answer.

And how resolute his voice was.

I felt like he would get angry if I asked, ‘Are you kidding me?’

Momentarily, heat rushed to my body, and I could guess how red my face must be now.

It wasn’t like we were the only two in the carriage.

Why is that man being like that?

Prince Norton was next to Linelle, and Rosie was sitting next to me.

“Ahem, ahem…!”

Prince Norton opened and closed the carriage window for no reason.

“Oh my goodness…”

Rosie was even more embarrassed and bowed her head deeply.

The two couldn’t say anything to the Emperor and just forced a smile with a ‘what-did-I-just-step-in’ face, repeatedly raising and lowering the corners of their mouths.

However, Moya wouldn’t stand for it.

“Hmph, sexy my foot, Moya~.”

Even the baby wyverns were in the carriage with us.

“The Emperor who spouts such nonsense is sexier, Moni~.”

Only Moni, who was devoted to Linelle, looked at him with adoring eyes.

“Y-Your Majesty… there are many ears listening.”

I glared at him, giving him a hint.

“Indeed. Only you are in my sight, so I thought it was just the two of us.”

He answered nonchalantly and smiled.

I was so embarrassed that the heat in my body soared even more.

I felt like I wanted to go out of the carriage right away and get soaked in the rain again.

‘Haa, why did you have to say such unnecessary things!’

What should I do? I can feel the heat gathering more and more in my stomach…

“Rosie, switch places with me.”

Linelle narrowed his eyes and looked at my complexion as if examining me, and said to Rosie.

He seemed to have noticed the heat rising in my body.

Well, it would be impossible not to notice since my face was flushed.

“…Yes? Y-Yes, Your Majesty.”

Rosie was bewildered but immediately got up from her seat and switched places with him.

The reason he asked Rosie to switch places was… surely not in the carriage…?

‘Right. How could he, with so many eyes watching us?’

The man sitting next to me glanced at me with eyes that stirred up my anxiety.

“Why, why?”

“Such questions are not appropriate for the Emperor.”

This man always uses the title of Emperor at times like this.

He stared at me intently.

“…Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Why, I wonder?”

He asked me back with a look that said he knew the answer.

If I stayed like this, I felt like his lips would rush at me as they were, so I gave him a look that meant to be mindful of the two humans and two wyverns in front of us.

He seemed to understand the meaning of my gaze, nodded, then looked ahead and opened his mouth.

“Everyone in this space, listen.”

“Okay, I’m listening.”

Moya mimicked his voice and replied.

Moya and Moni sat side by side on the shelf attached to the carriage wall, looking down at us from the front with their legs crossed in the same way.

“Everyone, close your eyes until I tell you to open them. It would be even better if you fell asleep like Rams.”

At Linelle’s absurd command, Rosie and Prince Norton looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders at the same time.

“Your Majesty, what’s the matter?”

Prince Norton asked with a curious voice.

Linelle began to explain as if he had been waiting for the question.

“According to the diagnosis of the Master of the Magic Tower, Zelda needs me to relieve her body heat when it rises. The method is…”

Ah, I wanted to block his mouth with my lips, even if it meant using my own lips.

But I endured the embarrassment, worried about the heat gathering in my stomach.

The two, who had been listening to Linelle’s words with a serious attitude, closed their eyes at the same time.

“Please do it quickly before the heat rises further. I wanted to catch some sleep anyway.”

“Yes, don’t mind us.”

Prince Norton and Rosie said with their eyes tightly closed.

No, closing your eyes is one thing, but why are you blocking your ears?

Before my bewilderment and embarrassment could subside, his lips suddenly touched mine.

“By the way? If I go to the Imperial Palace, will you really give me a lot of sausage… Oops, you’ve already started eating lips, Moya~.”

Moya raised one hand as if asking a question and opened her eyes slightly.

Is sausage all you have in your head?

But I couldn’t say anything since Moya’s love for sausages had saved Rams’s life.

“Moni is so clueless, Moni~.”

Moni covered Moya’s eyes with her hand.

What a commendable kid.

“As expected, our pretty Moni is quick-witted.”

Moni smiled and liked it with her eyes closed at Linelle’s compliment.

“Your Majesty, Moni only does pretty things because she’s pretty, right?”

“Of course, of course. Moni is the prettiest of all the females I know.”

“Heehee.”

Perhaps because she heard him say she was pretty, Moni pressed Moya’s eyes even harder with her hand.

“Ugh, don’t press, Moni. You’ll make my eyeballs pop out, Moya~!”

As I watched the two bickering, his cold touch reached my face.

As I felt his cool body temperature, the heat in my body slowly began to subside.

Fortunately, only the excessive heat subsided, and my basically high body temperature remained the same, so Rams, who was held in my arms, would still feel my embrace as warm.

As I kept trying to pull away, conscious of it, he whispered in my ear.

“It’s better to do it properly once and lower the heat quickly.”

“…”

His face was getting closer and closer.

Thinking about it, what he said seemed right, so I looked around at the two people sitting in front of me and Moya and Moni covering their eyes on the shelf, and nodded.

As soon as my permission was given, he pressed his lips firmly against mine.

Even a light kiss made my body feel much lighter.

It felt like the season was changing from midsummer to cool late autumn.

This is why I can’t quit his lips.

After the kiss, he gently stroked my back and stomach.

Then, he looked at Rams’s cute face, who was babbling in his sleep, and stroked Rams’s head as well.

“Achoo-!”

Coincidentally, Rams sneezed as soon as his cold touch reached him.

“This won’t do. Switch places again. Rams will get cold if you keep staying next to him.”

“…I guess so. Are you feeling better?”

“Yes, the heat has gone down a lot.”

“Already?”

He asked with a disappointed expression.

“Achoo!”

But as Rams sneezed again, he had no choice but to switch places with Rosie again.

“…Rams is the most clueless, Moni~.”

Moni muttered with her eyes closed.

***

The Imperial Palace of the Partsha Empire in the Southern Continent.

Prince Kalbain and Princess Consort Jasper read the letter sent by Princess Resilia from the Rafion Empire.

The two placed the letter on the table and had tea time.

“What are you planning to do?”

Princess Consort Jasper asked Prince Kalbain, elegantly holding her teacup.

“Of course, we have to marry Princess Resilia to Norton.”

“When we stayed in the Rafion Imperial Palace, we tried to connect the two of them, didn’t we? Why did we hide it back then?”

Princess Consort Jasper had a somewhat uneasy expression.

She picked up the letter again.

In the letter sent by Princess Resilia, there was also talk about Rosie.

“According to the letter, it seems that Prince Norton and Rosie are in love… Was it because their relationship with Princess Resilia had already soured back then that they kept it quiet?”

The letter sent by Princess Resilia described Norton and Rosie as if they were in an affair.

But if Emperor Linelle was willing to give up his concubine to a prince from another country, it was clear that the two were not in an ordinary relationship.

“Is there anything to worry about? They even have a child between them. And it’s a son, they say.”

Prince Kalbain didn’t care about Norton’s feelings.

“But… according to the letter, Emperor Linelle is trying to connect Rosie with Prince Norton, so it seems that their relationship is not ordinary, right?”

“Jasper, feelings are bound to change. Like us.”

Princess Consort Jasper felt goosebumps all over her body at Prince Kalbain’s last words.

“And we need Rams. To do that, it’s better to treat the birth mother well.”

Prince Kalbain took Princess Consort Jasper’s hand, who couldn’t have children, and patted the back of her hand. The muscles in her face trembled slightly.

“I don’t think we should forcibly separate Prince Norton and Rosie. If he already has no feelings for Princess Resilia, I don’t think we should force him to marry her.”

Princess Consort Jasper expressed her opinion quite firmly.

“First, we’ll try to persuade Norton to marry Princess Resilia, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll have to use other methods.”

If persuasion doesn’t work, they won’t just marry the two of them, but they’ll use other methods again?

What methods?

‘Could it be that they’re trying to get rid of Rosie?’

She thought that Kalbain, with his cruel nature, was capable of doing that.

‘That’s how he killed his older brother, the 1st Prince, and seized the Partsha Imperial Palace.’

Princess Consort Jasper clenched her teeth.

The image of her husband dying by the sword wielded by Prince Kalbain was still vivid.

That day, her happiness also died.

She tried to die following the 1st Prince, but she changed her mind.

Dying wouldn’t be too late after avenging her husband.

She and others thought that Kalbain, the 2nd Prince, was blinded by power and eliminated his brother, but in reality, it was to take his brother’s wife, his sister-in-law, for himself.

He had to kill his brother to take her, and he had to become the Emperor of the Partsha Empire to keep her by his side.

Prince Kalbain had repeatedly told her that fact, but she never believed it.

‘He’s blinded by power and using me.’

Princess Consort Jasper, convinced of that, secretly took medication that would prevent her from having children and pretended that she was originally unable to have children.

It was because she didn’t want to leave Prince Kalbain’s bloodline in the world.

Anyway, thanks to these stories of the Partsha Imperial Palace, which was full of family discord, Kalbain’s coronation ceremony was postponed indefinitely and only recently had the date been set.

The position of Emperor could not be left vacant for long, so an agreement was reached among the ministers.

However, the position of Empress was a different story.

Princess Consort Jasper’s family was so weak that they couldn’t voice their opinions among the ministers.

And she herself wanted to postpone the wedding as much as possible.

But if Prince Kalbain ascended to the throne, the wedding would be held soon.

So, the best time to take revenge was on the day of the Emperor’s coronation ceremony.

Princess Consort Jasper pretended to drink black tea and asked him again.

“What if Prince Norton insists on marrying Rosie until the end?”

“I’ll have to kill him.”

It was a firm tone without hesitation.