The Engagement Announcement

It had been exactly seven days and nights since the club members gathered to handle Titania’s situation.

Ensi met Lily in the morning, her face pale white, and he knew instantly.

Her story had begun earlier than expected.

“Congratulations on your engagement.”

“Ensi!”

When he offered his congratulations in a casual tone, Lily let out a cry that was closer to a scream.

Seeing Lily in a state where it wouldn’t be strange if she fainted right then and there, Ensi decided to stop agitating her.

“Wasn’t it two weeks ago that the diamond mine was discovered in the Florence territory?”

“I don’t— ha— I don’t know.”

As if even recalling topics related to the engagement was burdensome, Lily squeezed her eyes shut while pressing her forehead.

However, soon realizing that her emotions could not be managed by that alone, she slowly repeated the action of clenching and unclenching her fists.

“They were quite fast at determining the reserves.”

“…It was meant to be the item to persuade the Duchess, who was negative about the engagement, so they must have moved quickly.”

Lily ground her teeth with a murderous sound, her eyes flashing for a moment.

Because Ensi had been observing her closely, he didn’t miss that look and subtly moved his body backward.

Judging by her behavior, any moment now—

“Dmn it! That dmn father of mine! I even came to the Knight Faculty specifically so the Duchess would reject me!”

It was time for the explosion.

As Lily struck a nearby tree with all her might, the sturdy tree wobbled.

It seemed that mana had been loaded into her fist following her heightened emotions; Ensi felt pity for the tree and moved even further back.

“You said you came here because you just liked sweating.”

“That was a side benefit, a side benefit!”

Agniele, the strong candidate for Lily’s fiancé, was the epitome of a knight.

That meant he was upright and held strong convictions, but conversely, it also meant he was inflexible and old-fashioned.

The Duchess, who knew her son’s personality well, wanted someone who could compensate for Agniele’s shortcomings to be his partner.

At the same time, she hoped for someone who could bridge the weak connections to the political and financial world—the limitation of a knightly family.

In that sense, Lily, who was enrolled in the Knight Faculty, was not a candidate the Duchess would consider for many reasons.

More accurately, Lily was disqualified from the moment she entered the Knight Faculty despite all the opposition.

At least, that was the case until the diamond mine was discovered.

“I suppose— compared to their size, the Lassius family lacks capital management power, so a diamond mine would be quite tempting.”

Ensi admired the skill of Marquis Florence, who had pulled out the card that could turn the Duchess’s heart.

He thought that no matter how much of a diamond mine there was, the Duchess wouldn’t change her mind as long as Lily was walking the path of a knight.

‘They must have added something else besides the mine.’

Ensi clicked his tongue, grasping the reality where greed for power had settled in thickly.

“Ahhh—! What do I really do!”

Regardless of what Ensi was thinking, Lily stomped her feet at the reality that she might actually be engaged to Agniele.

“Well… why don’t you push that worry aside for a moment and go to Nocturne first to kneel and beg?”

Ensi, who had watched from the side all the eccentricities and hardships Lily went through to win Nocturne’s love, reminded her of something she shouldn’t forget.

The fact that before Nocturne started dating Lily, he had set a condition: if even one of them had an engagement pushed by their family, they would break up cleanly.

“Agh… ack!”

[I forgot!]

At Ensi’s words, Lily recalled the past from barely a year ago and vanished like the wind with a short scream.

She was likely running toward the building where Nocturne’s class was held.

By tomorrow, rumors might spread that she had knelt and begged Nocturne regardless of other people’s gazes.

Having easily predicted the future, he walked against the flow of classmates who were beginning to enter the training grounds one by one.

Now that the person who nagged him to attend every class had run off to her lover, he couldn’t miss this chance for a self-appointed free period.

After the morning had passed, the sun was now high in the sky.

“This life is ruined!”

Ensi let out a sigh amidst the crisis that he might actually go deaf.

“Nocturne… Nocturne…!”

“Did he say let’s break up?”

“Don’t say it so bluntly! He said he needs time to think!”

Usually, that means it’s a breakup.

Of course, Ensi was wise, so he did not let the sentence passing through his mind escape his lips.

Fearing that saying something useless would cause a headache, Ensi bit down on his pipe, which he had filled with medicinal herb leaves to seal his own mouth.

“I have to win back Nocturne’s heart.”

Looking at Lily as she muttered with determination, the image of Nocturne naturally came to mind.

The man who gazed only at Lily even in moments when she wasn’t looking at him.

‘I don’t think you need to do that.’

In his judgment, the time to think that Nocturne mentioned was not a grace period before a breakup.

Rather, it meant he needed time to think about how he should act in the future.

Ensi, habitually biting his pipe, glanced at Lily who was pacing around anxiously while messing up her hair.

It was like looking at a general right before a battle.

It felt as though if Nocturne said “let’s break up,” she would immediately drop to her knees and plead desperately.

Seeing that, Ensi felt that Lily would handle it herself even if things went slightly wrong for a moment, so he decided to leave her be.

“Solve the engagement first.”

To prevent Lily, who was buried in thoughts of Nocturne, from digging herself deeper into a hole, Ensi mentioned the cause of this mess.

Then Lily suddenly spun around and looked at Ensi.

“Right, the engagement. I have to solve it quickly. No, but can I even solve it?”

Lily, who was rambling, suddenly struck both of her cheeks hard with her hands.

At that, Ensi told her the words she likely wanted to hear.

“You can do it. Though it doesn’t seem like Marquis Florence will back down easily.”

Of course, she probably wouldn’t have wanted the words that followed.

“—What if you change your target of attack?”

“What?”

However, Lily found a new path from Ensi’s negative words instead.

It was the moment hope rose in her vivid violet eyes.

“What if I make someone other than Marquis Florence—that is, someone other than my father—break the engagement?”

They were likely all in on it together, so who on earth was she planning to target?

Names of those who could be called stakeholders in the engagement flashed through Ensi’s mind.

When his thoughts finally reached Lily and Agniele, Ensi let out a sigh.

“You mean ‘Agniele’?”

Lily fell silent at the voice full of skepticism.

To be honest, she couldn’t shake the doubt of whether it was possible as she said it.

Agniele had chivalry, but he also possessed the virtues a family successor should have.

That meant if he judged the engagement set by the family to be beneficial, he would follow it without a word of complaint.

Even if he didn’t love his fiancé, even if their personalities didn’t match.

As long as he wore the crown of the family successor, he was a man who would willingly endure it.

“I can… probably do it?”

Lily spoke in a rare, unconfident voice.

Of course, considering the situation, it was quite understandable.

“How?”

“He likes training, so what if I interfere with that?”

“I think that would be insufficient.”

“How about nitpicking every single thing he does? You know, things like: I hate you because you’re stronger than me, I hate blunt people, I hate you because you’re right-handed… things like that.”

“That would be a bit annoying.”

Still, if it was Agniele, he might just silently move past it.

He might even show an effort to fix the things Lily pointed out.

“Right? If I keep doing it, won’t it eventually work?”

“But Lily, you realize that to nitpick his every move, you have to spend that much time with him, right?”

Won’t Nocturne misunderstand?

Realizing she had overlooked the most important fact, Lily let out a groan and slumped into her chair.

She should already be anxious about the engagement news, yet she failed to consider the state of her most important lover.

She muttered to herself to get it together and struck her cheeks hard again.

Slap! Ensi, who casually ignored the savage sound of flesh hitting flesh, tilted his head.

“Any other way besides that?”

“…There isn’t one.”

“Too bad.”

“Should we just run away together?”

“Does Nocturne agree to that?”

“If I persuade him diligently— no, wait. Running away won’t work. I can’t make our baby deer Nocturne suffer!”

She’s really obsessed.

Ensi looked at Lily with cold eyes and then let out a sigh.

In the meantime, Lily was moving one step further.

“What do I mean, run away together? It’s better if I defect alone, get settled, and then come back for Nocturne. Even if it’s hard, if I just do it alone…!”

Did Nocturne say he would wait all that time?

He wanted to ask that, but somehow, it felt like that man would wait.

No, thinking about it carefully, he was the kind of man who would step forward and say he’d go with her the moment Lily decided to run.

He didn’t know since when, but Nocturne was already completely fallen for Lily.

“For now.”

Ensi, having finished his thoughts, interrupted Lily’s fantasy which had progressed all the way to liquidating her assets under her name, defecting to the Rehasel Kingdom, receiving a knighthood, and then proposing to Nocturne.

“I think it would be best to induce Agniele to rethink the engagement.”

“—Really?”

“Yes.”

So stop that useless delusion.

At Ensi’s voice, which was nothing short of firm, Lily couldn’t make a peep and just nodded her head.

Aside from the difficulty of defection, it was clear she would fail from the very first stage of her plan to sell off her assets.