The Papers Were Beautifully Arranged
At first, it had been nothing more than an act to restore Regina’s mana and get what he wanted. But before he knew it, something else had begun to seep in around the edges.
He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
Conrad lowered his upper body and nipped at her white, rounded shoulder, and Regina’s body jerked at the sharp bite. Sucking at her swollen nipples, he caught both of Regina’s wrists in one hand, then lifted his other hand over her head and roughly stripped off his trousers and undergarments before seizing his hard, heavy shaft with the other hand.
“Spread your legs more.”
His voice was gentle, almost coaxing, but the words themselves were brazenly explicit.
Blushing furiously, Regina tried to part her legs a little wider, and the tip of his length was aimed at the opening between her thighs. Conrad drove himself in without hesitation.
“Conrad, hng!”
Now that her body had released its first slick burst of desire, it seemed to accept Conrad’s thick, hot shaft with ease.
Even as he kept sucking on Regina’s nipple, Conrad left red marks on her pale breasts.
The hard rod splitting her lower body slowly pushed deeper inside. Feeling the thick, heated length kneading and drawing at him with such a tight grip, Conrad let out a low groan.
Regina’s head tilted to the side, and a thin moan slipped from her slightly parted lips.
“Ahh, Regina.”
Conrad, pushing himself all the way in to the root, called her name. The place below, stretched nearly to its limit, was swallowing him whole.
“Hngh!”
The heat blooming from that secret place didn’t take long to crawl all the way to the crown of her head.
As the obscene opening clasped around the length it held, Conrad’s patience finally snapped.
Thwack—
Sensing how the red, tender flesh kept clinging to his shaft and refusing to let go, Conrad drove into her again and again with rough, relentless force.
As he moved hard and fast, Regina clamped her lips together, and tears welled at the corners of her eyes.
Conrad already knew those weren’t tears shed from pain, but from pleasure so intense it had overflowed.
“Should I stop?”
He asked it in a teasing voice, though he had no intention of stopping at all. Contrary to his words, the penis still ruthlessly stirred inside her.
Releasing Regina’s hands, Conrad kneaded her soft breasts and pressed his lips to her cheek. The shaft that had been plunging slowly and deeply inside her rubbed lightly against the place where she felt him most keenly.
“Hah—! N-no.”
Her pale arms wound around Conrad’s neck. Delighted to obey her wishes, Conrad quickened the motion of his hips.
As the penis that had been moving shallowly back and forth began to probe deeper, Regina’s eyes flew open.
“Hahk!”
“You like it here.”
Conrad rubbed the inside with the head of his cock as though he knew everything, then rolled his hips. Her inner walls quivered and clenched around him, and a rough groan spilled from his lips.
“Kehh!”
Overwhelmed by the stimulation, Conrad stopped moving for a moment, and Regina was finally able to catch her breath.
But only for a moment. Conrad spread her legs wider and thrust into her with relentless force.
Regina’s entire awareness narrowed to the thick, hot shaft sliding in and out of the narrow seam of her body.
Her fingertips tingled, her toes curled, and she could barely force a proper moan past her lips.
The unmistakable shape of his shaft. The overwhelming pressure of the sex that could no longer be driven any deeper was unbearably hot.
“Ah! Conrad, wait, haaah—!”
At the sound of his name spilling from Regina’s lips, Conrad’s eyes flashed.
His fingers, stroking down her snow-white thighs, brushed the place where their bodies were joined.
Unlike the soft caress of his hand over the top, the penis plunging inside her was so fierce it sounded as if something were being struck again and again.
Taking in every sensation of those persistent fingers and that merciless shaft, Regina’s lips gave off shrill, broken moans one after another.
“Ah, ah! Hngh, nnngh!”
As Regina rocked her hips as if urging the shaft deeper, the swollen length pushed harder into her.
His hand kept tracing her opening, rubbing her round clit without pause. Conrad watched Regina, moaning beneath him, and drew in a rough breath.
“Now, I—hahh!”
“Regina, ngh!”
When wet heat rushed below and clenched around his flesh, Conrad could bear it no longer.
Power tightened in his hips, and he pressed the head of his cock deep into Regina’s core.
Feeling the hot release fill her completely and still overflow, Regina closed her eyes.
“Regina.”
She heard Conrad calling her name, but she didn’t have the strength to answer.
The last thing she felt was the touch of something soft against her lips before Regina drifted into sleep.
***
Several days later.
Regina read through the report Limutan handed her with practiced ease. In too many places, she found traces of embezzlement from the imperial budget.
“There are more empty accounts than I expected.”
At her muttered words, Limutan’s shoulders twitched.
The atmosphere in the imperial palace had been grim lately.
Chloe, the Grand Empress Dowager, had shut herself away in her palace and refused to come out, staging her protest over Regina’s supposed insolence as empress.
The two of them had clashed in the Grand Empress Dowager’s Palace, and ever since, whenever they met, they snapped at each other like cats with their fur on end. They might wear gentle smiles in public, but wherever they crossed paths and then parted ways, the evidence of that conflict always remained behind.
For example, like this.
The remaining maids and attendants in the Empress’s Palace were proof enough.
Everyone sent from the Grand Empress Dowager’s Palace had been thrown out, and all the furnishings had been completely replaced. Chloe had sent new furnishings to arrive in their place.
And that wasn’t all.
The knights guarding the imperial palace had changed too.
When Regina ordered them not to carelessly meddle in the work of the maids and attendants, the knights were delighted.
“Is this really the salary knights are supposed to receive?”
Limutan could never forget the voice that had laid bare the sheer absurdity of it.
The knights’ take-home pay had been shaved down so subtly that even Limutan, as the emperor’s aide, hadn’t noticed at first glance.
Without a doubt, it was Chloe’s handiwork.
Before, the cost of repairing the knights’ armor and swords had been paid by the imperial palace. Now, that expense had simply been folded into their salaries.
They must have sensed something was wrong, but there was nothing they could do about it with His Majesty the Emperor.
When they questioned the knights, they were told that because the budget had worsened while supporting monster extermination, the salary cuts should be taken as an act of loyalty.
As if that wasn’t enough, they were also fed the nonsense that the emperor was busy with so many other urgent matters that he shouldn’t be bothered with such petty complaints.
The naive knights swallowed Chloe’s ridiculous sophistry whole.
On top of their salaries, the knights received a separate danger allowance. Since that allowance came from the defense budget, it passed directly through Conrad, the emperor himself.
As the number of monster hunts increased, so did the danger allowance, but the salaries Chloe had set for the knights kept falling lower and lower.
It had happened because, while Conrad was consumed with monster extermination, the Ministry of Internal Affairs had failed to properly oversee the palace’s budget management.
I’m glad Her Majesty stepped in.
Only those with clearance could view the imperial financial reports.
Because they were only made public during audits, no one had realized corruption had become this severe.
“The papers were beautifully arranged.”
Regina’s sarcasm was sharp. If this was how they looked now, one could only imagine what an audit would uncover.
But despite the lightness in her tone, her eyes were cold, and Limutan did not dare lift his head.
“To play such tricks on the people who protect this nation...”
“Your Majesty, one of the Grand Empress Dowager’s attendants is requesting an audience.”
The knight standing guard outside the reception room came in to report. It was a woman with an impressive long ponytail.
In the Fredericks Empire, both men and women could become knights. Once they learned to wield aura, the physical differences between them mattered very little.
Within the order as well, they had forged bonds by standing together as comrades, life and death side by side, so there was no stiffness between them regardless of gender.
They came in here to say something they could have reported outside, so I’m guessing one of the Grand Empress Dowager’s attendants got rude again.
It was a signal known only to the knights and Regina.
If anyone from another palace acted carelessly, she had already made it clear that they were to come inside and report it directly.