DSB 4

“If you are his subordinate, then restrain your master. He will not release me.”

“Ah…!”

“Th-the Foolish Prince is speaking?”

Lebel clicked his tongue softly.

His subordinates had no intention of restraining their master. There was no malice in it, and the embrace felt comfortable, so he had remained still, but he did not know when the maid calling for him from afar might arrive.

Just as he prepared to ask once more to be released, Lebel sneezed.

“A-atchoo! Uh?”

Lebel startled at the sound that had escaped him.

“Are you cold?”

“…Cold?”

Lebel’s eyes widened.

As a demon, he had never experienced cold before and thus had not realized it, but his emaciated, exposed body now shivered uncontrollably.

His current attire was what he wore in his chambers, that is, sleepwear. He had chosen loose garments easy to don and remove, ones that allowed no movement.

Moreover, the condition of the clothes left much to be desired. They were mere cotton, lacking any fleece lining to ward off chilly winds.

Lebel’s nose and fingertips were gradually turning red. A large hand, callused and rough, enveloped his own.

“Your fingertips are quite red.”

Lebel’s small hand fit perfectly into Yutis’s palm. Lebel let out a soft exclamation. The warmth was melting away the stiffness from the cold.

So I have been feeling the cold after all.

Lebel, who found the warmth pleasing, wished to remain as he was, but Yutis would not allow it.

He released the now-thawed hand, steadied Lebel on his feet, and draped his own cloak over him. The mantle, which reached Yutis’s calves, covered Lebel entirely down to his toes.

Crafted from plush fur, the cloak shielded him from the biting wind. Its weight upon his shoulders brought an equal measure of comforting heat.

Lebel fiddled with the cloak’s. Whenever Karon had tried to drape a similar one over him, he had refused, citing shedding fur, never imagining it held such utility.

Then again, when had he ever felt the cold?

“Was it the marriage that drove you to such desperation that you tried to end it all?”

“…Marriage?”

Lebel paused in his fiddling with the cloak and looked up at the man.

Marriage. Did he mean a mating ritual?

Demons had no concept of marriage. Their gazes intertwined in the empty air.

“If not, then why did you jump? If I had not caught you, Your Highness would have died.”

Lebel tilted his head, still toying with the cloak’s hem, and looked up at the man.

Lebel tilted his head slightly. The man sounded a little angry.

At that moment, a man who had been fidgeting restlessly at Yutis’s side leaned in and whispered quietly into his ear.

“We cannot afford to hesitate here any longer. We have finished all our business, so let us return to the North without delay.”

“Indeed. The emperor would not welcome our prolonged presence here either.”

“With winter upon us, we should head back to the territory swiftly and stockpile provisions. We will have unnecessary mouths to feed next year. We must replenish our food supplies and fend off the demonic beasts that descend from the territory, so there is much to prepare.”

Lebel stared at the men. He could feel their overt hostility directed toward him.

It seemed that this man’s subordinates harbored no fondness for either the emperor or him. In contrast, this particular man appeared different.

“I know that as well.”

“Your Highness!”

It was the voice he had heard earlier. Hans, the one who had spoken of reporting to His Majesty, had returned.

Lebel clicked his tongue. He had hoped to find a quiet spot to rest undisturbed, but that plan had fallen through.

Hans, spotting Lebel alongside Yutis from afar, approached with curiosity before promptly moving to separate the two of them.

Hans wasted no time in issuing a stern warning directly to Lebel.

“Your Highness must not leave the palace.”

Though he feigned politeness by using a title, his grip on Lebel’s arm was rough. Lebel let out a sigh as he realized that he could not even shake off this single sturdy human arm.

More than that, why had the man who had gone to meet the emperor returned with knights in tow? He could not fathom their intentions.

Then Hans positioned himself before Yutis.

“What business do you have with His Highness the Prince? Do the two of you have some prior acquaintance?”

Hans scrutinized Lebel. Setting aside his composed demeanor, his expression conveyed disinterest.

It was nothing new for Hans to find the inner workings of the Foolish Prince inscrutable after all this time, but today’s circumstances were different.

The prince had suddenly begun to speak. But his attitude hit an odd chord.

If he truly understood how he had been treated within this palace, he could not possibly maintain such a calm and detached posture.

He was soon to depart from the imperial palace entirely, thrust into a marriage with the demon standing before him.

All for the sake of the empire alone.

Could it be, though it was merely one possibility, that the prince was putting on an act?

It was only natural that Hans’s suspicions soared sky-high.

To Hans, Lebel’s behavior simply seemed too peculiar. And then he had witnessed Yutis arriving at Lebel’s palace and the two of them together.

Had some sort of secret deal transpired between them?

Hans shook his head. That was unlikely. Lebel had never left this palace. Moreover, Yutis had lived far away in the northern territories.

He had come only under imperial decree, despite his reluctance, and up until his arrival, he had refused the marriage.

“I merely exchanged greetings just now. The emperor… he spoke so highly of your beauty that I came to see for myself.”

“Refer to him as ‘Your Majesty’ with the respect he deserves.”

Lebel observed the exchange between the two men. Their relationship was evidently strained.

But beyond that…

“He may be a fool, but he makes for a fine ornamental piece.”

“The problem is that his face is the only thing worth praising.”

“What good is a pretty face? He is half-baked. He may be a dominant omega in name only, but no one has ever caught a whiff of his pheromones. Who would embrace an omega without any pheromones?”

“But are they really getting married? Wow, a marriage between that monster and the Foolish Prince. This ought to be entertaining.”

“Are you planning to follow along on the wedding procession?”

“Are you insane? Why would I go? The North is crawling with demonic beasts. Do you have a death wish? We lost the war not to them, but to those beasts.”

Lebel calmly pieced together the snippets of conversation drifting around him. He could dismiss the curses and nicknames aimed at “Lebel” as mere background noise, but the moniker “monster” seemed to belong to that man over there.

In a sense, he was indeed a monster. Could these men even hope to inflict so much as a scratch on Yutis if they all charged at him together?

Right now, they too were calling the man a monster, scorning him while simultaneously trembling in fear.

Lebel examined Yutis. With the cloak removed, the firm muscles visible beneath his clothing and the fierce, predatory glint in his eyes proclaimed that he had endured countless wars and brushes with death.

Lebel was strong. As such, he recognized strength in others and had clashed with it many times.

This man stood apart from other humans. He was in a league of his own.

But what was this talk of a wedding procession and demonic beasts? From the way they phrased it, it sounded as though he and this man were the ones set to marry.

…Am I getting married? To him? To this human?

Lebel found it absurd, but as he synthesized all the overheard words, he realized that this fact held the most credibility.

“If your audience with His Majesty has concluded, then you should return to the North.”

As silence stretched between the two men, Lebel sneezed.

“Achoo!”

Ah, this is unfamiliar. Sniffling through my nose and sneezing like this. Even a sneeze is a first for me.

Had the Demon God believed that such novel experiences would make life enjoyable or reignite his will to live?

Because Hans had suddenly yanked Lebel away, the cloak Yutis had draped over him now lay discarded on the ground, and the biting wind assailed him once more.

Yutis’s gaze shifted to the fallen cloak, then to Lebel, who was sniffling through his reddened nose.

“Do imperial knights treat the prince they are sworn to protect in such a manner?”

“What concern is it of yours?”

“Not my concern? It was your empire that arbitrarily decided it should be. Or was what His Majesty said a lie after all?”

Lebel sniffled as he listened to their verbal sparring.