Knock, knock, creak!
“Sorry to barge in, Your Highness. Got something you’ll want to hear.”
The door swung open the instant after the knock. I had been sitting in what served as my temporary office, listening to Kulgan’s report on administrative matters, when Bard strode in as if the concept of waiting for permission didn’t exist.
Kulgan instinctively stepped half a pace forward, shielding me before identifying the intruder. The moment he saw Bard’s face, his guard dropped, but a deep frown remained etched between his brows.
“Bard,” I said with a sigh, “if you open the door before anyone answers, the knock loses its purpose, doesn’t it?”
Kulgan looked ready to scold him on the spot. His lectures tended to be long, and I really didn’t have time for one, so I cut in first with a mild warning and a smile.
“Yeah, yeah, my bad,” Bard said breezily, showing not a trace of regret. He sauntered into the room and threw himself onto the sofa.
He’s not a bad guy, I thought. Just hopelessly rough around the edges.
He’d received a noble’s education and understood etiquette in theory, but he only remembered to act like a proper noble when he consciously thought about it.
Kulgan, on the other hand, was the exact opposite: rigid, disciplined, and determined to observe protocol at all times. It made their working relationship tense, to say the least. Not hostile, but hardly comfortable either.
If Charles were here, things would’ve gone more smoothly. He had both social grace and patience, and he could defuse these little frictions effortlessly. Unfortunately, he was still in Alphasta, buried in work on my behalf.
With no mediator present, it fell to me to keep things from spiraling.
“Kulgan, let’s take a short break,” I suggested. “It looks like Bard has something important to discuss.”
“As you command, Your Highness.”
Kulgan’s tone was polite but heavy. He clearly had something to say about Bard’s lack of manners, yet he swallowed it down when I shifted the focus of the conversation.
Kulgan had many traits that made him dependable, but what I valued most was his balance. He knew when to step forward and when to step back. Serious enough to follow orders to the letter, but perceptive enough to read the room and adjust.
When we paused our work, even Bard seemed to realize he might have barged in at a bad moment. He scratched his head, a sheepish look etched on his face.
“You sure it’s okay? I do want to talk, but it’s not urgent. I can wait until you’re done.”
That kind of consideration would’ve been nice about thirty seconds earlier—say, before you opened the door.
Still, this was Bard we were talking about. Expecting perfect manners from him was a lost cause.
“It’s fine,” I said, smiling. “Kulgan was just about to wrap up anyway. We were moving into the detailed planning stage next, so if we postponed your matter, it’d probably have to wait quite a while.”
I glanced at Kulgan, who gave a small, measured nod in agreement.
“By the way,” I added, “is your business something Kulgan can sit in for?”
“Yeah, no problem,” Bard said easily. “It’s about Lady Bertia.”
“Oh? Tia, is it?”
The moment Bertia’s name left his mouth, Kulgan twitched.
“I mean, if this concerns my— I mean, Her Highness the Crown Princess,” he said quickly, clearing his throat, “then of course I must hear it properly.”
His tone softened immediately, shifting from stiff formality to a gentler respect.
Kulgan, you almost said “my little sister,” didn’t you?
In the otome game storyline, Kulgan had been adopted into House Noches after their only daughter, Bertia, became engaged to the Crown Prince. He was meant to serve as the family’s heir in her place.
In other words, in that world’s original script, Kulgan was Bertia’s adoptive older brother.
That scenario had fallen apart the moment Bertia’s real younger brother was born, but back then, she’d still tried to follow the original “plot” as best she could. She treated Kulgan like an older brother, and over time, he’d come to think of her as a younger sister too.
Even now, that dynamic lingered, albeit a little awkwardly.
“So, then,” I asked, suppressing a sigh of amusement, “what’s Tia done this time?”
Zeno, ever perceptive, quietly began preparing tea the moment the tension in the room eased. The faint clink of porcelain provided a gentle rhythm to Bard’s otherwise absurd report.
“Well, that’s the thing. I don’t really get it myself,” Bard began, rubbing the back of his neck. “But apparently, Lady Bertia’s been, uh… delivering what people are calling ‘two-timing prophecies’ to random men on the street lately. Out of nowhere. Like divine proclamations or something. And the weird part? She’s always right. Every single guy she’s declared ‘two-timing’ ends up confessing or getting slapped by their girlfriend. Word is, they’ve been showing up with handprints on their cheeks to complain.”
“I see.”
“Pfft.”
Zeno, please, I thought, don’t choke while pouring the tea.
He turned his face away, shoulders shaking, pretending to compose himself.
Kulgan muttered in a horrified whisper, “My adorable little sister saying the word ‘two-timing’ out loud…”
That’s not the problem here, Kulgan. And she’s not your sister.
Still, “divine proclamations,” huh?
Given the “two-timing” theme, it wasn’t hard to guess who was behind this. If Futamata was involved, and I was almost certain he was, then Bertia’s mysterious predictions were probably not far off from divine revelation. After all, he was technically a guardian deity now.
“So,” I asked, tilting my head, “has this caused any trouble?”
Bard snorted softly. “Not really. Turns out, she only targets guys who actually deserve it. The ones getting called out are the real cheaters. So even if they complain, it just backfires. The people around them start giving them looks that could freeze lava.”
He leaned back with a grin. “Actually, I’d say it’s done more good than harm. Some of those idiots panicked after getting caught and cleaned up their mess. They broke off their affairs and started treating their fiancées or girlfriends properly. So yeah, I’d say things are improving.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. “I suppose that makes sense.”
Cheating isn’t bad because you get caught. It’s bad because you did it in the first place.
If Bertia’s “declarations” exposed a few men’s double lives, that was hardly her fault. And if their relationships fell apart afterward, that was simply the consequence of their own choices.
Honestly, I thought, any man who’d rather complain to Bertia than reflect on his behavior deserves what’s coming to him.
Whether it was a good thing or not was another matter entirely, but among noblemen, there were always a few who treated pre-marital affairs as a kind of temporary indulgence.