The Stand-In Empress’S Wedding Night [EN]: Chapter 62

62. My Heart Is Fluttering

While Rosie was taking a bath, the baby wyvern successfully escaped and hummed a tune.

“You think I can’t find my master without you telling me? Hmph.”

Lalala, flapping its wings, it flew around the center of the West Palace garden, where the consorts’ residences were located. But before long, it flew to the wall of the nearest building and pressed its body close. Rosie’s nagging suddenly came to mind. To meet Zelda without being detected, it needed someone to impersonate.

“That ugly woman is right; I’ll be caught by humans like this. I should transform.”

The baby wyvern rolled its ruby-like red eyes around, looking around.

“Oh? That one’s good!”

Just in time, a suitable person to borrow a body from came into view. A red-haired maid with her hair braided into pigtails was carrying a large basket and walking towards the building where the baby wyvern was hiding.

“I’ll borrow you for a little while while I go find my master.”

The baby wyvern flew behind the red-haired maid. The moment the maid turned around, sensing something strange, the baby wyvern’s form turned into black smoke and was absorbed into her body. After the maid shuddered once, her brown eyes also turned ruby red.

“But whose palace is this?”

The baby wyvern, having successfully impersonated someone for the first time, looked up at the building the maid was heading towards. Just then, it heard annoying voices of a man and a woman from somewhere.

“I don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for today.”

“Then let me have you to my heart’s content tonight.”

The baby wyvern held the basket the maid was carrying in its arms and moved in the direction of the voices.

“Oh, my, what are you doing already? It tickles… it tickles. Hehehe!”

As it rounded the corner of the building, the voices became clearer.

“How annoying.”

The baby wyvern looked up at the place where the voices were coming from: the largest terrace located in the middle of the third floor. The terrace door was closed, but due to the wyvern’s highly developed hearing, it could easily hear the conversation at this distance with a little concentration. Inside the glass door of the terrace, where the curtains were half-drawn, a man and a woman were kissing. But it looked strange to the baby wyvern.

“Ooh? Why are they tormenting their lips like that? They don’t breathe fire from their mouths like Rosie, do they?”

But instead of fire, Rosie possessed the terrifying ability to spew out terrible curses like fire.

“Should I go up and take a closer look?”

The baby wyvern trudged towards a large willow tree located directly across from the palace’s third-floor terrace. Even though it was in the form of a maid, climbing onto a tree branch about three stories high was nothing.

“Is there something delicious in their mouths? Aha, they’re… they’re stealing food from each other’s mouths!”

The baby wyvern hugged the basket, jumped up onto a tree branch, and watched the two men and women fighting with their lips with curious eyes.

***

Prince Tesler, who was engrossed in kissing, suddenly felt an eerie gaze. He inadvertently turned his gaze outside the terrace.

“!”

He was shocked to see a maid sitting on a willow branch across the way. At first, he thought it was a ghost, but even after rubbing his eyes and looking again, it was definitely a person. The woman who was kissing the prince also became restless and quickly hid behind the curtain. In the meantime, the maid sitting on the tree branch spoke to him. Prince Tesler knew it was dangerous, but he was so dumbfounded that he opened the terrace door slightly, as if possessed. He had to hear what this crazy maid, who had lost all fear, was trying to say to him. Besides, the maid’s expression was so nonchalant that it aroused his curiosity. He had to kill her anyway since she had seen his face. But before that, he had time to listen to what she was babbling about. The maid’s cheerful voice was carried by the wind through the open terrace door.

“Was it delicious?”

“!”

“Did you eat it all?”

“?”

“Who had more delicious things in their mouth?”

‘What is that…?!’

Prince Tesler was momentarily stunned by the maid’s bizarre questions and only blinked his eyes.

“You only know how to rub your lips, but you can’t talk? Is your throat blocked? Are your ears blocked?”

His breath caught in his throat as the shock of the maid’s rude remarks increased. It was the first time in his 25 years as a prince that he had heard such rudeness. The woman hiding behind the curtain also heard the words coming through the terrace door and looked at him with eyes that asked what the hell was going on. He frowned and shook his head, indicating that he didn’t know what was going on either. Prince Tesler turned his gaze back to the crazy maid sitting on the tree branch.

“What! Where did she go?”

It was really in the blink of an eye. In the short time he turned his gaze away, the maid disappeared. Prince Tesler threw open the terrace door and went outside to look around. He couldn’t hear even a small sound, but she disappeared in the blink of an eye? Even if she quickly came down from the tree branch to the ground, he should have heard a rustling sound.

‘How can this be possible unless she has wings?’

Confusion and bewilderment rushed in. Forcing himself to regain his composure, he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled briefly. Then, after a while, his guard knight, Sir Ken, appeared on the third-floor terrace.

“What’s wrong, Your Highness?”

“Someone was there!”

He pointed to the place where the maid had been sitting.

“Where… you don’t mean that tree branch, do you?”

“Yes! She was definitely there until just now. She was sitting on that tree branch!”

“Did you see her face?”

Sir Ken asked with distrustful eyes. He was just asking the question because his master was insisting on it.

“I didn’t see her face clearly, but she was a woman. She was wearing a maid’s uniform and had her hair braided on both sides.”

He said, recalling the maid’s appearance.

“…A woman? You mean a woman climbed up a tree branch three stories high and was spying on this place?”

“That’s right! She made eye contact with me, rattled off strange questions, and disappeared in the blink of an eye!”

There was nothing in Prince Tesler’s words that Sir Ken could understand. But seeing him so excited with his neck veins standing out, it seemed like he had seen something.

“Could you have mistaken it for a large bird… or something?”

“I’m going crazy.”

Prince Tesler put his hands on top of his head with a frustrated expression and spun around in place.

“Look at the basket under that tree! Look at what the maid left behind while running away!”

Sir Ken stared at the place the prince was pointing at.

“Judging from the white sheets in it, it seems to be what maids carry around…”

A fairly large basket was thrown under the willow tree, half overturned.

“Um… Your Highness, was that maid with her hair braided in pigtails by any chance red-haired?”

At that time, the woman, who had been listening to the two men’s conversation with a tense expression, carefully interjected.

“Yes, red hair! Why, do you know her?”

“She seems to be a child in my residence. I overheard the maids talking to each other on the stairs as I was passing by the hallway earlier.”

“What did they say?”

“I think I heard a maid saying that she was going to the main palace’s bedding storage to get bed sheets. And that child always braids her hair on both sides. Her name is Anne…”

The woman said with a worried expression. If rumors spread that she was having a secret meeting with Prince Tesler, she wouldn’t be safe either. Not only that, but her family would also suffer great hardships. So, before that maid told anyone, she had to find her quickly and either threaten her or appease her to shut her mouth.

“Damn it.”

Prince Tesler punched the wall with his fist.

“Ken, catch that bitch right now! Don’t let her get away. She can’t have come into this palace since she even talked to me.”

“Then there’s a high probability that she ran away towards the main palace, which is the opposite direction from here. Should I catch her and drag her back?”

“What for? Kill her as soon as you catch her.”

Prince Tesler ordered, grinding his teeth. If the fact that he came here in the middle of the night was revealed, everything would be over.

“She couldn’t have gone far yet. You should be able to catch up with that bitch no matter which way she ran, right?”

“Yes, don’t worry. I’ll be back.”

As Sir Ken disappeared, the woman grabbed Prince Tesler’s arm with an uneasy face.

“Do, do you really have to kill her? I think it would be better to just send her far away…”

“My love, if you don’t want to be in trouble because of such a lowly maid, shut your pretty mouth and stop talking nonsense.”

Prince Tesler wrapped his arms around the woman’s waist and whispered before roughly pushing her onto the bed.

“Sir Ken will take care of it. Until then, let’s finish what we were doing.”

“Okay…”

The woman’s face, which had been full of worry, quickly turned shy.

“Before becoming Empress Linelle’s concubine, whose woman were you originally? Tell me with your own mouth.”

Prince Tesler quickly climbed onto the bed, grabbed the woman’s chin, and asked.

“I was yours from the beginning. I can do anything for you. It’s as if I deliberately became His Majesty’s concubine.”

The woman laughed sweetly and gave the answer Prince Tesler wanted.

***

The baby wyvern, who came down from the willow tree and left the West Palace, quickly walked in the direction where it felt Zelda’s energy. It would be much easier to just fly, but as Rosie said, running around in its true form was a really dangerous thing to do.

“Why do I have to wear such uncomfortable things?”

The baby wyvern felt that the transformed maid’s clothes were very cumbersome. Since it couldn’t take them off, it lifted the dress hem up to its knees and entered the main palace’s back garden path connected to the Empress’s Palace.

“Ugh, Rosie told me not to be seen by other people! I couldn’t help myself when I saw them tormenting their lips so much…”

The baby wyvern recalled the man it had made eye contact with. The man’s eyes felt somehow unpleasant. It wanted to turn back into its true form and breathe fire at the man, but it chose to speak to him in a friendly manner. But as it talked to him, it felt threatened by the man’s face. It didn’t know what it had done wrong, but it felt ominous, so it left the place while the man turned his gaze away for a moment.

“Ah, who is that guy chasing me since a while ago?”

The baby wyvern made an annoyed expression as it felt the presence of the man chasing it from a distance and started running.

“Try and follow me.”

It wasn’t far to the Empress’s Palace’s back garden after running without stopping. The baby wyvern stopped at the place where it strongly felt Zelda’s energy. It was a much larger and more luxurious building than Rosie’s palace.

“If I stay in this form, I’ll be caught by the guy who’s following me, won’t I?”

The baby wyvern looked around to see if there was anyone it could try to impersonate.

“Mee-ow.”

At that time, a fluffy white kitten suddenly popped out from the yellow rose garden.

“Hello? Nice to meet you, kitty?”

The baby wyvern waved its hand and approached the white cat.

“Meow! (Get lost!)”

The cat recognized the wyvern in human form and raised its fur, wary.

***

I had been awake for a while. I felt heat from the burn scar on the right side of my face. It wasn’t as painful as other times, but I couldn’t ignore it and go to sleep. It was strange because I had never felt heat in my burn scar for this long since taking the magic potion. The heat became stronger as time passed. And from a while ago, the intensity of the heat had been maintained at a certain level. I sat up. Feeling my movement, Linelle’s peaceful features frowned for a moment and then relaxed. I looked down at his face as he was sound asleep next to me. I wanted to stroke Linelle’s soft hair, but I thought it would wake him up, so I withdrew my hand that was heading towards his face.

I smiled silently, recalling what he had said before falling asleep. He had been bothered by what Commander Maclom had said to the gods at the training ground, and he kept repeating the commander’s words while making love.

‘What? You want me to take away some of your passion? No way, Maclom? Your wish was rejected before it even reached the sky! Tonight, this moment… is the proof, you bastard! Heh…’

That’s how he proved with his whole body that Commander Maclom’s prayer hadn’t worked. As a result, he fell asleep almost unconscious. Mee-ow, mee-ow. As I continued to admire Linelle’s sleeping face, I suddenly raised my head at the sound of a cat crying. The crying seemed to stop for a moment, then cried pitifully again. I carefully lifted the blanket and got out of bed. I minimized the rustling sound, lifted up to my heels, and walked towards the terrace. It wasn’t just because of the sound of the cat crying that I opened the terrace door and came outside. The heat from the burn scar on the right side of my face had become more severe, so I felt like I needed to get some air. When I came outside, the sound of the cat crying also changed a little. Mee-ow! Should I call it a crying sound that craves something? I glanced down at the terrace. Did I see it wrong? No…? A white kitten was standing upright on its hind legs and waving its two front paws towards me like hands.

Without realizing it, I put one hand on the terrace railing and jumped down. Somehow… I felt like I had to come down. Compared to the speed at which I was coming down quickly, my two feet landed stably on the ground.

“You, what… are you?”

The white kitten jumped into my arms as if it had been waiting. The cat’s eyes sparkled with a reddish light. My heart pounded for no reason. Of course, the cat was cute, but I couldn’t understand why my heart was beating so fast when I wasn’t even facing Linelle. What is this feeling? I felt something swirling inside my stomach. At that time, I heard footsteps in the distance. Someone seemed to be coming this way. But the footsteps weren’t from one person. Besides, the direction of the footsteps was all different. Guards?

“Shh.”

I leaned my back against the wall, looked down at the kitten in my arms, and put my index finger to my lips. Surprisingly, as if it understood what I was saying, the cat raised one of its front paws and covered its pink mouth. The sight was so shocking and so cute that I stared blankly at the cat for a moment. While I was distracted by the cat for a moment, I turned my head at the sudden strange presence that had gotten closer. At that moment, my vision turned to darkness.

“Huh!”

Someone put something over my face.