“You saw a magic item?”
“Yes, do you know a lot about magic items?”
Coincidentally, it was something quite familiar to Aris.
“…If I had to specify, magic items are more my specialty than general magic. I probably know the most among the imperial mages?”
“Really?”
To Puti, whose already large eyes widened even more, Aris drew a circle with his finger and answered.
“Because it makes more money.”
“…Aha.”
A chill settled in Puti’s eyes that had been sparkling. Watching the stark change, Aris giggled and continued.
“There aren’t many people with talent for it either.”
“Even among mages?”
Aris squinted his eyes.
Since the results often didn’t match the effort put in, even among the already few mages, those who specialized in magic items were even rarer.
“Yeah. So it would make more money, right?”
When he brought up money again, Puti said reproachfully.
“You already receive a lot of money.”
Aris let out an empty laugh.
“The person who receives even more should be quiet.”
Then Puti put full force into his eyes and straightened his shoulders confidently.
“I deserve it since I deal with His Majesty from the closest position.”
Deal with. It seemed like he definitely hadn’t cursed the Emperor in the past, but lately Puti had been indirectly reproaching the Emperor without hesitation.
“You’ve been speaking freely since some point?”
Even at Aris’s point, Puti was calm.
“I won’t talk about it elsewhere. I shouldn’t either. You signed a new contract, didn’t you?”
“Right.”
Upon becoming the Emperor’s person, or more precisely, belonging to the Shadows, he had signed a new contract with the gist of not opening his mouth about things happening around him.
Of course, since they needed to exchange information with each other, the Emperor’s people were naturally exceptions.
‘It is strange that Puti belongs to the Shadows though.’
The “Shadows” was a secret group packed with people of higher caliber than the imperial mages or imperial knights.
And Puti belonged there.
Rather than being a proper member, he had naturally signed a contract to maintain secrecy because he knew a lot as the Emperor’s direct attendant, but still.
‘I think I originally had that role too.’
After receiving evaluations several times that his abilities were quite useful, now the same Shadows were using him without hesitation.
‘They said there wasn’t this much work before.’
Just as he disliked having imperial mages or knights by his side, originally the Emperor apparently wasn’t particularly good at utilizing the Shadows either. However, after Seoho appeared, work rapidly increased and the Shadows were dying from overwork.
Then Puti looked around as if being cautious, then whispered quietly in Aris’s ear despite the magic being spread.
“Aris, don’t talk about it elsewhere and tell me. It’s frustrating, right?”
The Emperor’s state that could absolutely never be seen outside, only in front of Seoho, was quite amusing.
As Aris nodded slightly, Puti suddenly perked up his ears and stuck his head out beyond the corridor.
Then he gestured to a servant who was just approaching this way.
“Ah, bring it over here.”
Aris, who had briefly released the magic while Puti was talking to the servant, cast the magic around them again once the servant disappeared. Puti, who didn’t notice at all, bit into one of the cookies placed on the tray and offered some to Aris.
“Have some.”
Aris picked up the cookie Puti offered and asked back.
“Can I eat it?”
These were refreshments that would go into the Emperor’s room. But Puti was calm.
“I said we can’t go in right now.”
Indeed, as Puti said, the voices of the two people full of laughter could still be heard in the corridor. If he knocked on the door just to pass over refreshments, he’d obviously receive the Emperor’s sharp gaze.
Puti shrugged his shoulders and continued.
“I can bring new ones later. You just had snacks a little while ago anyway.”
Eventually, Aris also bit into a cookie like Puti.
“Seoho-nim likes snacking, right?”
When he asked while recalling Seoho, who often sought sweet foods during lessons, Puti answered.
“Yes. That’s why there’s a lot of this stuff in His Majesty’s room now.”
“It’s delicious.”
“Right? I’ll bring some for you often. If there’s anything you like, tell me right away.”
Having happily finished eating the cookie in his hand, Puti suddenly let out a deep sigh and muttered.
“It would be nice if it could just stay like this.”
Aris snorted.
“It’ll be impossible unless the prince or the Holy Maiden leave the palace.”
He didn’t know if Seoho felt it, but since Angel and the prince came to the palace, the Emperor had been in an extremely sharp and sensitive state.
‘Even so, I heard it’s better than before though.’
From what he’d heard, the Emperor originally had almost no emotional expression.
When Aris first heard that story, he wondered if that time when there were no emotional changes wouldn’t have been better than now when he was so moody, but the Shadows’ reaction was different.
‘Did they say it was good because he seemed human?’
Their bodies were tired from increased work and it was mentally a bit hard because of his moodiness, but still, now was better.
And now Aris could understand what the Shadows meant.
‘That appearance back then…’
There was once when he followed a Shadow who was making a report after Seoho fell asleep and saw the Emperor. And the Emperor that day was a completely different person from what Aris usually saw.
He naturally knew that the Emperor’s affectionate gaze was directed only toward his fate. When not looking at Seoho, the Emperor’s face was always dry and cold.
But the Emperor Aris saw that day really didn’t seem human.
‘He was chillingly inhuman.’
Even the cold expression that he’d sometimes thought showed poor emotional control in front of Seoho had seemed human. Aris realized then for the first time that the face evaluated as indifferent to existences other than Seoho contained emotion.
That all the moments Aris had been with the Emperor were mostly with Seoho, and even without him, they were talking about Seoho.
Divine power flowing naturally out of his body.
It wasn’t directed at them, nor did it have any special meaning, but it was a tremendous power that made one stop breathing just by seeing it. It seemed like the surrounding air had become a bit heavier too.
‘Did they say dawn was the time when the Emperor’s power was most powerfully manifested?’
And that face like beeswax wrapped in divine power. It was still a beautiful face, yet at the same time not beautiful at all.
Sharp eyes and tightly closed lips, the gaze looking at them. He couldn’t feel anything from all of that.
The Emperor seemed to perceive not only himself but even them as not being living humans at all.
The moment he realized that, disgust rose along with displeasure.
‘Is that really human?’
Perhaps it was just something wearing the skin of a human.
It felt like nausea would surge up at any moment. But fortunately for Aris, around the time bile was rising, Seoho slightly shifted his body.
Then the atmosphere surrounding the Emperor changed in an instant. His eyes were still sharp as ever and there wasn’t a trace of a smile in his expression.
But those blue eyes that softly melted after perceiving the only existence moving and alive in his world made the Emperor human.
At the same time, his breath cleared. The sensation of being endlessly submerged in black mire, of being buried in darkness disappeared.
He could feel the refreshing air of dawn that he hadn’t perceived at all, and something that had been constricting his body vanished.
The Shadows who had come to make the report together also began to relax one by one. A while later, on the way back after finishing the report, Aris asked a fellow Shadow.
‘What was that feeling just now? Don’t tell me it was always like that until Seoho-nim appeared?’
The one in charge of reporting to the Emperor as the representative of the Shadows answered.
‘He was like that.’
At that answer, Aris found himself asking back.
‘…The servants who stay by His Majesty’s side stayed next to him while feeling all of this?’
It was a question thrown with Puti in mind. Then the Shadow gave a bitter smile.
‘You see as much as you know. It’s another reason why we don’t place skilled people around His Majesty.’
Having learned another reason why there were no imperial mages or knights in the Imperial Palace, Aris felt uneasy.
Did the servants and soldiers of the Imperial Palace know that they were staying beneath the dragon’s huge fangs? That if they just brushed against those huge fangs, they would die?
‘They probably don’t know.’
Aris quietly looked at Puti, who was smiling slightly following the sound of laughter. A person who knew nothing while simultaneously knowing many things.
Because he knew nothing about the Emperor, he was conversely the person who could approach the Emperor most closely and assist the Emperor most loyally.
He thought he could understand why the Emperor had placed Puti beside Seoho.
“You’re a truly loyal person. You’ll be able to rise to a higher place.”
It would be out-of-the-blue words to Puti. Sure enough, Puti narrowed his brow and looked at Aris as if it was strange, then soon nodded as if it was natural.
