Translator: Nox

Chapter 2

Despite Katrin’s gentle tone, the Marquis did not answer. Only the sound of his broad strides echoed through the hall.

Anna, who had been waiting for her moment, peeked out from the shadows.

Covering her chest with one hand as if bashful of her deeply plunging neckline, Anna wore her signature innocent expression. Her plan was to cross the young Marquis’s path as if by chance.

Living at Amang Rose in Pelfe, she had encountered almost every high-ranking official imaginable. Even the King had visited secretly last month, so what was a young Marquis from a foreign land?

Yet, Anna could not even find the courage to step in front of the young man as he swept past her. She could only stand there blankly, her eyes following his every move.

“…….”

He was exceptionally tall, far exceeding the average height, with broad shoulders that tapered down to a lean waist. She couldn’t even remember what his features looked like as he walked away without a moment’s hesitation. He was a mere afterimage. Nevertheless, she would have bet her entire fortune that of everyone she had ever seen, no one possessed beauty quite like his.

Just then, Katrin nudged the dazed Anna in the side.

Startled back to her senses, Anna hurried after him, but he was already rounding the landing and heading up the stairs. Anna tilted her head back, looking up at him.

His slightly wavy black hair looked at once disheveled and perfectly styled. Beneath the dark locks, she saw deep-set eyes and a straight, high bridge of a nose. Every action, from the way he shoved one hand into his pocket to his brisk climb up the stairs, showed not a hint of formal etiquette.

“Your Excellency.”

Katrin called out to him urgently, but the Marquis didn’t even react, as if he hadn’t heard her voice. Anna hurried up the stairs to catch him, but she couldn’t even keep pace with the four men following him, let alone the Marquis himself.

Their strides were so wide that even the waiter guiding them had to run to keep up. They seemed completely oblivious to Katrin, who was running while clutching her skirts, and certainly to Anna. In fact, from the moment they entered the hallway, the waiter’s presence became unnecessary. The Grand Duke’s secretary was already waiting by the door, looking frantic.

The Marquis’s relentless pace came to a halt a few steps from the door. As if on cue, the four men following him stopped as well.

Upon seeing the Marquis, the Grand Duke’s secretary turned deathly pale, looking as though he might faint on the spot. He wasn’t the only one turning white. As the noisy footsteps abruptly ceased, a silence so heavy it felt physical descended—and through that silence, a very compromising sound began to leak out.

It was as if the scene beyond the door were visible to the naked eye.

The Marquis let out a scoffing laugh, incredulous. After a long moment of low, rhythmic chuckling, he wiped a hand over his face and whispered softly to the secretary.

“Announce us and open the door. Quickly.”

“Yo-Your Excellency….”

“Open it.”

Terrified by his sudden shift to a predatory demeanor, the secretary looked toward Katrin in the distance as if grasping at straws.

Katrin quickly pushed Anna forward.

After all, a fist nearby is scarier than power far away. This was Pelfe, and the Grand Duke of Pelfe’s secretary was a more immediate threat than a young Marquis from Luxen.

Anna, pushed forward unexpectedly, landed among the four men following the Marquis. It was then that the Marquis, who had been looking forward the entire time, turned around. He spoke to the mistress of Amang Rose, the veteran courtesan.

“Do you have the key?”

When Katrin—and even Anna, who stood right beside him—could only move their lips like people with blocked throats, he smiled.

Perhaps his unruly black hair had been a setup for this very smile. The eyes within those deep sockets were a startling shade of blue, and a small dimple appeared beneath his well-shaped, curving lips.

That smile made the rugged, mature man look almost like a boy, causing one to momentarily forget all the dangerous vibes he had been emitting.

Having caught everyone off guard, he gave a slow nod.

“I see.”

Then, he turned back to face the front.

Anna and everyone else gathered there held their breath, feeling as though they were standing on the edge of a blade.

The problem was that the people beyond the door—the ones who really needed to notice this tension—were currently drowning in pleasure.

Oscar walked leisurely toward the door, from which sounds that made his ears feel tainted continued to leak. He stared at the door, performing a final mental review of the consequences of his actions and the resulting opportunity costs.

The review didn’t take long.

Oscar shoved his hands into his pockets. With a nod to the men standing behind him, they walked toward the firmly closed door as if they had been waiting for the signal, and—

Bang!

They threw open the door to the Grand Duke’s room with ease.

With every rhythmic thrust, the nasal moans grew more explicit.

While the Grand Duke panted heavily in the throes of climax, another orgy was unfolding beside him.

The lewd sound of wet flesh meeting and the suggestive moans intended for an audience heated the air in the room. The velvet sofas, once works of art, had long since been stained and ruined by unidentifiable bodily fluids. The clothes of the distinguished guests, who usually mimicked gentlemen, lay scattered on the floor like rags, and expensive wine costing hundreds of Kerete per drop had been spilled after being passed from mouth to mouth.

At this moment, in this room where astronomical sums of money were flowing away, no one was in their right mind. Thus, even though the door had been opened with such a racket, no one was capable of assessing the situation.

Oscar looked at the people who had abandoned their dignity, clothes, and even their reason to mate like dogs, his eyes full of mockery. With a gesture, he waved back those who tried to follow him in and stepped leisurely into the room of pleasure. The Grand Duke’s secretary hurriedly closed the door behind him.

Oscar sat down opposite the Grand Duke, who was gasping for breath while giving himself over to two courtesans. As Oscar put a cigarette to his lips and lit it, the Grand Duke’s secretary tried everything he could to wake his master.

“Your Highness, Your Highness!”

The Grand Duke, still caught in the peak of his thrusts, snapped irritably at the hand tapping his back.

“What is it!”

“Your Highness, please….”

“Who gave you permission to come in!”

The secretary, nearly in tears, pointed forward. The gazes of the Grand Duke and his guests followed his finger.

There sat a man smoking a cigarette in a languid posture, one leg crossed over the other.

Oscar chuckled alone in the stunned silence before speaking to the Grand Duke.

“Please, continue what you were doing. I can wait a while.”

As soon as his low, mockery-laden voice fell, the Grand Duke scrambled to his feet. The guests who had been partaking in the orgy beside him were also frantic, scrambling to find their discarded underwear.

In the chaos, wine on the table was knocked over, and glasses shattered.

“I told you to take your time.”

The smoke was exhaled carelessly along with his joking tone. His arrogant face, though smiling, looked chillingly cold.

Baden Grand Duke, who had been fumbling to put on the underwear his secretary provided, suddenly froze. Whatever thought had crossed his mind, he threw the underwear to the floor and straightened his back. He glared at the young Marquis, who remained in his relaxed posture smoking, and spat out his words.

“Everyone, get out.”

At his command, the guests he had brought and the courtesans moved as if they had been waiting for the word. As they swarmed out, barely covering their naked bodies, the Grand Duke grabbed the arm of the woman who had been beneath him.

“Y-Your Highness?”

“You, stay and pour the wine.”

Then, wearing nothing but a robe over his bare skin, he slumped back onto the sofa where he had been mid-act. He leaned deep into the backrest and flicked his finger at the secretary, who quickly offered him a cigarette. While he took a long drag in a posture just as arrogant as Oscar’s, the secretary leaned in and quickly whispered the news he hadn’t yet been able to deliver.