The Stand-In Empress’S Wedding Night [EN]: Chapter 342

342. Extra Story 14. You Finally Got the Courage~?

“If you don’t have any, you should go to the dressmaker and get some made. Right?”

This time, Zelda spoke to Ash in a slightly softer, more instructive tone.

“Your Majesty, do you have any separate tasks for this maid today?”

“No, Empress. Um… well, Ash, the climate here is different from Tanya Island, so it would be good to have a few outfits made. Go and don’t worry about the price.”

Unlike the other two, Melanie was very kind.

Nevertheless, Ash still looked dazed.

“Thank you for your consideration… Then, I’ll be going, Your Majesty.”

Ash bowed to Melanie and Zelda before leaving the drawing room.

“It doesn’t make sense for that maid to be in charge of both the Great King and the Queen. And the Great King has Vice Commander Palto, so what does he need a maid for?”

Zelda glanced at the drawing room door that Ash had just left and said to Melanie.

“I agree with Your Majesty. Her attire alone is crossing the line. You weren’t just going to let her walk around in front of the Great King like that, were you?”

Selani added.

“Doesn’t she look healthy?”

Melanie asked with a smile.

“Are you kidding? She must have deliberately had the chest area made a size smaller when she had the dress made.”

Selani was sure.

“What if she approaches the Great King with impure intentions, like Selani said? How can you be so naive?”

Zelda put down her teacup and said seriously.

“He’s not that kind of man. If something was going to happen with Ash, it would have happened already. How many years have they known each other?”

“Your Majesty, the relationship between a man and a woman can change in an instant.”

Selani sighed deeply, as if lecturing her innocent sister.

“Is that your story, Selani? How’s it going with the Magic Tower Lord? Any progress? Huh?”

The conversation shifted to Selani’s love life.

“……Why are you suddenly changing the subject?”

Selani’s voice faltered, sounding subdued.

“I was going to ask too. Selani, you have feelings for Velos, right?”

Zelda threw out the words she had been holding back.

She felt like her best friend’s life would be too pathetic if she said she had no feelings for him.

Since they became friends, she often felt sorry for Velos’s life.

“I don’t think the Magic Tower Lord sees me as a woman.”

Selani surprisingly revealed her thoughts honestly.

“But you see him as a man, right?”

Melanie asked with an intrigued look, and Selani nodded obediently this time as well.

“Oh my, look at her. Are you saying you have a crush? My smart sister?”

“What does intelligence have to do with love? Just look at Your Majesty; it has nothing to do with brains.”

“What~? I’m not stupid, little sister.”

Melanie lowered her voice with a rather aggrieved expression.

“Then?”

“I’m pretending to be stupid. It’s harder than pretending to be smart. Didn’t you know?”

At Melanie’s words, Selani and Zelda bit their lower lips tightly at the same time.

Zelda regained her composure and spoke to Selani.

“Let me give you some advice as Velos’s friend. Velos definitely has feelings for Selani too. He’s just being cautious.”

“Why? I’m not a difficult person.”

Selani couldn’t understand.

Unlike other young ladies, she had never deliberately played hard to get or acted like a shrew with Velos, so she couldn’t figure out why he was hesitating to approach her.

“There’s a reason.”

Zelda picked up her teacup again, took a sip, and said thoughtfully.

“It’s not that he doesn’t like Selani, but rather because he likes her. He doesn’t want to get hurt anymore……”

“What do you mean?”

“Velos would never tell you this, so I’m telling you as a friend. The choice is yours, Selani.”

Zelda calmly told her the reason why Velos couldn’t easily approach her.

As if proving Velos’s words that it was a story that couldn’t be heard without tears, Selani burst into tears as she heard the secret.

“He’s so pitiful. Sniff, but why did he hold funerals for those insincere women?”

“Didn’t he have to leave some inheritance to the Magic Tower~?”

Moya’s voice, destroying the sentiment, was heard from the drawing room window.

“Moya, how do you know that? You were in the egg back then.”

She always interferes like that.

Zelda glared at Moya and scolded her.

“Master! Moya could hear everything humans said even when she was in the egg~?”

Moya retorted.

‘That annoying mouth.’

If she had been closer, Zelda would have immediately shut Moya’s mouth.

Knowing that herself, Moya didn’t come into the drawing room and stubbornly continued to speak, hiding behind Moni on the windowsill.

“And he met another one 100 years later, and that woman was richer, so the Magic Tower Lord treated her very well, and then he got backstabbed again……”

Moya, please shut up!

“Aren’t you guys going to eat sausage? Go to Sharon. Hurry.”

Zelda, unable to watch any longer, jumped up and closed the window.

Thankfully, despite Moya’s shocking confession, Selani still pitied Velos and shed tears endlessly.

***

“Ha! How can sisters be so alike in turning people inside out? What? Advice, not an order?”

Ash fled the drawing room and returned to her room.

“A dried-up anchovy is laughing.”

Selani was like Melanie, but with more in her head.

Even after pouring out a torrent of curses, her resentment didn’t disappear.

“Oh? I meet a half-cooked sausage here again?”

“I guess this is her room. Is she crying?”

Moya and Moni, chased out by Zelda, flew into any bedroom. They were going to take a nap together in bed, but it happened to be Ash’s room.

Ash leaned against the door, wiped away her tears, and then was shocked to find the two of them.

“What is it now! Did the Queen send you to monitor me?”

“Why would Melanie go that far for you?”

At Moni’s blunt reply, Ash’s sorrow exploded, and she lay down on the bed.

“Hey, half-baked sausage. I heard in the drawing room that Melanie is giving you money to buy a dress, so you should be happy. Why are you crying? Huh?”

Moya asked persistently.

“It’s annoying. Don’t talk to me.”

“Is it Ash, or Achoo? You like the Great King, don’t you?”

Moni poked Ash’s side and hit the nail on the head.

Ash was startled and quickly raised her head.

“Wh, what?”

“We’re great baby wyverns, so we know everything, Moni~? But give up. Melanie can’t even beat Moya.”

“Moni is right. There’s a poem like that, right? ‘How beautiful is the back of a person who knows their place and shrinks back’……”

Moya changed a poem she had heard somewhere to suit her taste.

“Target a man who doesn’t have a partner other than the Great King. We can help, Moya~?”

“Yeah! There’s a guest from the Lapion Empire who’s perfect for you, Ash.”

Moya and Moni exchanged glances and said to Ash cautiously.

“Who…… is it?”

Ash, who had been shaking her head, saying that she only had the Great King, suddenly became curious and asked who that person was.

“He’s a very cool guy called the ‘open sausage’ of the Imperial Castle, no, the ‘open pants’ of the Imperial Castle.”

Moya scratched herself here and there because her body itched when she lied.

“What kind of bizarre nickname is that? So who is it?”

Ash frowned and asked.

Ironically, Ash’s curiosity was heightened by the nickname.

“He’s always with our cold bodies. He’s a nice guy, Moya~?”

“Are you saying he’s a secretary?”

“Well, that’s what they call him. Think about it. We’re going to go play.”

Moya took Moni’s hand and went out the window.

Ash slowly sat up and fell into thought.

Moya and Moni, who watched the scene from outside the window, smiled with satisfaction.

“To get Raphael away from Sharon, we have to pass him on to her, Moni~?”

The idea of introducing Raphael to Ash came from Moni’s head.

Since some time ago, Raphael had been hanging around Sharon, talking to her, and bothering her, so Sharon had been spending a lot of time alone, blankly. Because of that, the work of making sausages for the two baby wyverns had also begun to be neglected.

“Moni, you’re really smart. Hmph, how dare a giant squid covet our Sharon?”

Moya muttered, glaring at Raphael’s room window as she flew to Sharon’s room.

“Sharon has to live alone. She’s busy making our sausages for the rest of her life, Moya~?”

***

The drawing room with the men was flowing with similar topics as the women’s.

“Your Majesty, are you going to collect Kelbarn tomorrow and go straight to the Magic Tower?”

“That’s right.”

Linelle replied briefly to Hector’s question.

“Ah, how about Selani accompanying you tomorrow?”

Linelle clapped his knee and asked Velos.

“Selani accompanying me? Why……”

Velos asked back with a puzzled look.

“Is that the only face you’ve shown so far? It’s a chance to show a proper Magic Tower Lord [A powerful mage who oversees the Magic Tower].”

“That’s a good idea. A working man is cool, something like that?”

Hector nodded and agreed with Linelle’s opinion.

“The Great King knows well. Go to the Magic Tower and show her around, and pretend to hold a potion bottle and put it down. You know, turn the reagent bottles around like this.”

Linelle gestured as if turning something around with his hand and encouraged Velos.

“I’ll think about it.”

Velos’s ears turned red as if he was embarrassed.

Linelle started to push him at this opportunity.

“Thinking is for the dead. You have to act. Go to Selani yourself and ask her to accompany you tomorrow. Have tea or take a walk.”

“When would be a good time to go? Now……?”

“Does the Emperor have to tell you even that?”

Linelle clicked his tongue and looked up at the wall clock in the drawing room.

“Go at night. Around 10 o’clock.”

In the end, he even set the time.

That night, Velos left his room at 9:30 and wandered around the hallway.

The guests from the Lapion Empire were all assigned rooms on the same floor, so there was no need to go far.

The distance between the two people’s assigned rooms was about fifty meters.

But it felt like five thousand meters to Velos.

He slowly walked towards Selani’s room, recalling Linelle’s advice he had received in the drawing room during the day.

‘What’s so difficult? Walk, knock, say you came because you have something to say, ask if you can come in, ask her to go to the Magic Tower with you tomorrow, ask if she wants to have a glass of wine now. Is that difficult? After that, leave it to your instincts.’

“Easy to say.”

Come to think of it, there was also Hector’s well-mixed pressure and threats.

‘If you can’t even do that, you’re not a man. You should cut off what you have. I hope my sister-in-law marries a manly person like me. Melanie thinks the same way. Magic Tower Lord, if you ever make our sister-in-law suffer, you know what to do. I’ll personally destroy the Magic Tower.’

Hector’s fist whistled through the air, coming and going in front of Velos’s eyes.

Just looking at the size of the fist, it seemed like he could really destroy the Magic Tower.

Linelle’s advice and Hector’s threats didn’t help Velos’s steps at all.

There was no one in the hallway late at night.

It was the perfect environment to awkwardly knock on the door of the woman you like.

He raised his hand and lowered it, clenched his fist and opened it.

He arrived in front of Selani’s door in 10 minutes, but it took another 10 minutes to knock.

“What are you doing here, Magic Tower Lord?”

Moya’s voice was heard from the window right behind the door.

“Why are you guys here?”

Velos looked back in surprise.

“Why do you think we came?”

“We’re here to help because we’re all not getting old, Moni~?”

Moya and Moni answered with a sly smile.

They were wandering around interfering here and there, and the last thing they noticed was Velos.

“Mind your own business and go your way.”

Velos frowned, trying to chase away the annoying baby wyverns, but Moya and Moni, who had already sensed something interesting, slipped into the hallway.

“Did you come to mate with Selani?”

“Oh? You finally got the courage~?”

“!”

These guys.

“Now even……”

Even the baby wyverns are making fun of me.

Suddenly, Raphael’s outrageous words from last night were etched in his mind.

‘There’s someone here who’s worse at dating than our Emperor. He might really be impotent?’

And that mocking gaze that went down below was vividly replayed.

Just you wait. I’ll settle it tonight.

The jeering of the two baby wyverns became the starting point for Velos to finally make a decision.

“But Magic Tower Lord, you’re empty-handed? How rude. Do you want to take this?”

Moya opened her sausage-only bag, took out a sausage, and handed it to Velos.

“Say thank you~ and accept it. Giving a sausage is love, Moni~?”

“I don’t need it.”

As soon as Velos threw the sausage, Moni snatched it and stuffed it into Velos’s uniform pants.

“We’ve prepared the sausage, so all you have to do is dance the shoulder dance. Do it like this~ like this~ like this~.”

Moya personally demonstrated the shoulder dance,

“Wow, it’s been a while, isn’t it exciting, Moni~?”

Moni also got excited and danced the shoulder dance, and then excitedly bumped her head horn into Selani’s door.

It was like a knock.

Knock knock knock- knock!

In the end, she hit it too hard, and her head horn got stuck in the door.

“Mo, Moni…… what are you doing now!”

Velos hurriedly took Moni’s head horn out of the door and stepped back.

“Melanie’s sister Selani, come out and receive the sausage!”

Moni, who was caught by Velos but still had a free mouth, now recklessly made a noise.

“Are you crazy? Can’t you be quiet?”

Velos’s face flushed.

Velos, who had decided to return to his room with teleportation, began to chant the spell in his mind.

However.

Knock knock knock-.

“Come quickly, come quickly! The Magic Tower Lord came because he wants to mate, Moya~?”

With Moya’s exposure, he was finally caught.

“Damn it.”

He was so ashamed that he couldn’t lift his face…….

“Let’s just die today. Let’s die together!”

Velos grabbed Moya and Moni’s wings with both hands and ran to the window.

At that moment, Selani’s door burst open.

“What…… did you come to do?”

Selani stared at Velos with her arms crossed.

Perhaps because he had practiced so much in the room, Velos automatically blurted out the words.

“I, I came because I have something to say. If you’re free tomorrow, would you like to go to the Magic Tower with me…….”

“To mate.”

“Are you going to mate……?!”

No, that’s not it.

Velos stopped breathing with his mouth open.

He got caught up in Moya’s words in response to Selani’s question of what he came to do.

‘That damn baby!’

Velos glared at Moya, who was smiling and sticking out her tongue cutely.

“No, that’s not it…… Selani, that’s…….”

Velos stammered in embarrassment.

Selani’s eyes looking at him were arrogant.

However, the door was slowly opening.

“Come in.”

“……Y-yes?!”

Velos froze.

“Why would you go all the way to the Magic Tower to mate?”

Selani said to herself and went into the room first, leaving the door open.