The Wedding
After the day I reunited with Lee Hye-yeong.
Plenty had happened in the time between.
But time, as it always does, kept moving forward.
A little over a month had passed.
Charlotte and I had decided to hold the wedding as soon as possible, so we skipped the engagement ceremony and every other formality along the way.
And so today was finally the day.
The day of my wedding to Charlotte.
Word had it that society was buzzing with talk about our marriage. Of course it was. This was the union of the imperial family and the grand ducal house—the two most powerful forces in the Empire. Their bond would only grow stronger for it. People who might once have dared to speak against either of them had already been scarce; after this, they would be scarcer still. Even the Church, which stood on roughly equal footing, would find it harder to open its mouth.
Back when I had collapsed from the shock of seeing Lee Hye-yeong at the debutante ball—right before she went on her rampage that night—Pope Tenesa had apparently brought up a marriage between me and Lee Hye-yeong. She said it right there in front of my mother Camilla, Empress Elizabeth, and Charlotte herself.
What the fuck kind of insane nonsense was that?
Any person with a shred of normal sense, watching me pass out from the sheer trauma of Lee Hye-yeong’s psychotic fit at the debutante banquet, would never have opened their mouth to ask that I be paired with her. The mere fact that the Hero summoned to this world to slay the Demon King—a threat to the entire realm—was Lee Hye-yeong was already enough to drive anyone mad. And yet the Church had been thinking of linking me to that bitch.
Of course, after the absolute shitshow she pulled that night, even the most shameless person—even a Pope with zero social awareness—couldn’t keep pushing a marriage after that. She had thrown a tantrum inside the home of the man she supposedly wanted to marry and even tried to harm the people he cared about. If Grace had just finished her off then and there, there wouldn’t be a single loose end left to deal with now. But that walking tumor of a Pope had barged in midway, and so that goddamn woman was still breathing, still wearing the title of Hero.
Looking at the state she was in, any decent person would have had the decency to never mention a relationship between me and Lee Hye-yeong again. And yet, as if to prove she was exactly the kind of person who would serve a goddess deranged enough to summon someone like Lee Hye-yeong as a Hero, that damned woman kept sending messages about a marriage between us.
When the first contact came, Camilla had kept it from me, worried about the stress it would cause, and immediately conveyed a refusal to the Church. Not a polite refusal, either—she cut off the grand ducal house’s sponsorship of the Church entirely, making the rejection as forceful as possible. Tenesa still kept trying to make contact.
So Camilla had considered quoting the sin written in the holy scriptures of the goddess Tenesa served—the taboo against stealing someone who was already married or spoken for—and telling the Pope she was about to commit it. That would have made her back off at once. But if the Pope learned of it, she would pass it straight to the Hero, and there was no telling how Lee Hye-yeong might react. To avoid creating any dangerous variables, Camilla chose not to say it.
Charlotte, however, had been staying at the grand ducal residence the entire time, so eventually the Church had no choice but to press the matter. Since Tenesa kept being a nuisance anyway, Camilla finally informed them of my marriage to Charlotte about a week before the wedding. Only then did Tenesa stop asking for a union between me and Lee Hye-yeong.
According to Camilla, the Pope had actually looked relieved. She raised no objections whatsoever to my marriage with Charlotte, offered her blessings, and even volunteered to officiate the ceremony herself.
Camilla had shared her thoughts on Tenesa’s attitude with me.
I know you can’t help hating the Hero. But I hope you won’t hate Pope Tenesa too much. It may be hard for you to understand, but she is someone who has no choice but to follow the goddess’s will…
At my mother’s words, I had wanted to snap back, Isn’t the real problem that she serves a goddess that deranged in the first place? But the religious culture of this world was unified around the worship of that damned goddess, and arguing with Mother would have been pointless. So I kept the thought to myself.
Still, I was grateful that Tenesa had locked that woman in a specially prepared solitary cell deep beneath the cathedral so she couldn’t barge in or cause a scene. That was probably why she hadn’t shown her face all this time. I had taken Tenesa for a thoughtless, mild-mannered type, but it seemed she could make a shrewd decision when it counted.
And though a trustworthy, highly capable person was supposedly watching Lee Hye-yeong around the clock to keep her from escaping… this world had screwed me over so many times that I couldn’t help feeling uneasy about what might still go wrong.
And…
Even today—right now, on the day of my wedding to Charlotte—there was one more thing pounding away at my skull.
My sister Lilith.
After she had thrown her fit when we parted in Camilla’s office, her solitary confinement had been lifted after about a week. From a mother’s perspective, Camilla hadn’t wanted to be too harsh with her own daughter. I hadn’t opposed the decision either. I didn’t want her locked away alone for long because of me.
But even after Camilla gave her permission to leave the cell, Lilith never came out. She barely ate, spoke to no one, and simply shut herself away in her room in silence.
As her mother, Camilla had hoped Lilith and I could go back to the way we used to be. But we had already drifted too far apart for that to be easy.
Lilith, who had confessed that she loved me.
Me, who had rejected her and begged her not to try to kill me.
Even looking each other in the face would be unbearably awkward now. That was why she stayed in her room, and why I had never gone to see her either.
For so long, she had been the person I loved more than anyone—but as family, not as a woman. From childhood, whenever that beautiful sister of mine had clung to me, I had done everything in my power not to see her as anything else. There had even been times, honestly, when I felt a twinge of envy toward whatever man she might one day end up with. Lilith was beautiful, and she had always been so kind.
But that didn’t mean I could accept her confession with joy. We shared the same blood. From the time I was very small, I had sworn to myself that I would love her only as family—as my older sister. I would never look at her as a woman. Never.
And yet the fact that she still refused to leave her room, showing no intention of attending her own younger brother’s wedding today… it might as well have been her way of saying she had no desire to return to being ordinary siblings again.
Which was why, even on the day of my wedding, my head couldn’t help but ache.
As if worrying about Lee Hye-yeong—the one who had crossed over from Earth—wasn’t already more than enough, now there was Lilith, the sister I had spent the most time with in this life.
Will we even make it through the wedding safely…?
I couldn’t help but worry. What if one of them crashed the ceremony… or both of them?
Nah… no way. Even this world couldn’t be that cruel.
I hadn’t received any unusual reports as of this morning. Tenesa, who had left the grand cathedral last night to prepare for officiating, had told me the Hero was still locked in her cell and that I could rest easy. Camilla had urged Lilith again last evening to attend the wedding, but Lilith had remained silent and refused to leave her room.
“Haa…”
Even so, the worry wouldn’t leave me, and a sigh slipped out before I could stop it.
A scolding voice answered at once.
“Edward? Sighing right in front of your bride-to-be, moments before the ceremony… isn’t that a little rude?”
Charlotte.
I was in the bride’s waiting room with her, just the two of us, stealing a few quiet moments together.
You idiot. Your soon-to-be wife is standing right in front of you looking this beautiful, and you’re off thinking about something else…
I immediately bowed my head and apologized.
“Ah… I’m sorry.”
“Hehe… I suppose it can’t be helped. I understand completely. You’re the one who’s suffering the most, Edward…”
Charlotte had always been like this. Even when it was obvious I was acting selfishly, she always understood and let it slide. I always felt nothing but guilt toward her. I hadn’t done nearly enough for her… and yet she kept loving me and understanding me like this. And now I found myself thinking that I loved her too.
“Charlotte…”
I called her by the pet name we had agreed I would use after the wedding.
“You’re calling me that again already… We haven’t even held the ceremony yet…”
“We’re already husband and wife in every way that matters, aren’t we?”
“Oh my… Edward♡…”
Whether she was pleased with my answer or not, Charlotte’s cheeks flushed faintly.
“And I’d like you to drop the ‘-kun’ when you address me from now on as well.”
I made a request of my own in return.
“Ah! Then… Ed—”
Just as Charlotte opened her mouth to call me by name as I’d asked—
KWAAAAAAAAAANG!!!
WEEE-OOO! WEEE-OOO!
A massive explosion shook the air, and the magical alarms installed throughout the wedding venue began to wail.
“Edward! Something’s happening!”
Charlotte flung the bouquet in her hands to the floor, grabbed hold of me, and cried out.
This can’t be happening!
I was certain.
The cause of this chaos was either Lee Hye-yeong or Lilith.
It seemed this world had no intention of ever leaving me in peace.