Not Our First Night
I recalled what had happened right after Zen asked me to get engaged to her, just before I arrived at the Curbis ducal family’s separate residence.
“What?”
“Oh, please don’t misunderstand. To be precise, I’m asking you to pretend. Just pretend!”
“Pretend?”
I tilted my head, not quite understanding what she meant.
Zen began to explain to me.
“The truth is, I have to go on a matchmaking meeting this time. Father asked what kind of meeting it was, but my uncle—His Majesty the Emperor—is pushing the matter so hard that…”
Come to think of it, the current mistress of the Curbis ducal family was the younger sister of the present emperor.
Since Heinz was the emperor’s nephew, it made sense that Zen would be his niece as well.
“So you want me to act like your fiancé?”
“Th-that’s right.”
“But why me?”
Out of all the many people she could have chosen, why did it have to be me?
“You, Sir Ijun, are the hot topic these days, aren’t you? And you possess considerable skill as well. If I brought just anyone, it would only raise Father’s and His Majesty’s suspicions. That’s why I thought you would be perfect.”
“Hmm…”
I fell into thought for a moment.
There was no real reason I had to help her with this.
What was in it for me?
Still, those desperate eyes made it hard to refuse her outright.
“You only need to act like my fiancé in public until graduation. After that, I plan to head to the Eastern Continent for training.”
She had even set a clear deadline. How considerate.
“And please take this.”
Zen handed me a small pouch.
When I opened it, I found several platinum coins inside.
Imperial Platinum Coins
Each one was worth a hundred gold coins—the highest denomination in circulation.
“Fine. You said it only has to be in public, and I can’t exactly pretend I didn’t hear you. I’ll help you out.”
This was purely out of goodwill.
It definitely wasn’t because of the money.
***
That was the whole story behind this mess.
I had come to the Curbis ducal family’s separate residence in Eldron City to have a formal meeting (which wasn’t formal at all) with Duke Curbis as Zen’s fake fiancé.
‘But why has that guy been glaring at me like that since earlier?’
I glanced at the bespectacled man standing behind Duke Curbis.
The man who looked like he wanted to devour me alive was someone I knew very well.
Heinz Curbis
The empire’s greatest genius, the man closest to becoming the next Tower Master, and the eldest son of the Curbis ducal family.
He had plenty of other titles too, but listing them all would only make me feel pathetic by comparison, so I’ll stop there.
Setting Heinz aside, I turned my attention to the middle-aged man seated in front of me.
Rice Curbis
The current head of the Curbis ducal family and the Tower Master known as the Demon of Magic.
Excluding that old sage and Lib, he was probably the strongest mage on the continent right now.
Facing someone like that, I couldn’t help but feel nervous no matter how hard I tried not to.
Mages were seekers of truth.
One wrong word and my fake fiancé act could be exposed in an instant.
“I am quite taken with Zen’s steadfast nature and the beauty that blooms from within it.”
I answered the duke’s question first.
“Is that so? Well, our Zen is indeed beautiful. I’m not saying this just because she’s my daughter, but she could easily be called the greatest beauty on the continent.”
Anyone could tell he was saying it because she was his daughter.
‘Maybe I had the wrong idea.’
I had assumed Zen was treated like an unwanted burden in her family.
But watching the duke act like a total daughter-obsessed fool, I realized that assumption had been completely off the mark.
“Still, I’m curious whether you can continue to feel the same way even after learning the truth.”
The duke seemed about to say something.
Even someone as slow on the uptake as me could guess what was coming, so I decided to strike first.
“You mean her Nine Yin Blocked Meridians?”
The moment the words left my mouth, I caught the subtle shift in both the duke’s and Heinz’s expressions.
“You knew?”
“Yes. I have a bit of a talent for reading people’s vitality.”
“And you still find her appealing?”
“What does the Nine Yin Blocked Meridians matter? In the face of love, something like that is no obstacle at all. Besides, it’s a constitution that can be cured.”
To be honest, there was no known cure for it anywhere on the current continent—or even in the demon realm, for that matter.
That was only natural. The Meridian Cure Elixir that could fix blocked meridians only dropped from random gacha pulls.
And I already had several of them.
Of course, I had nowhere to use them, and people with meridian-blocking constitutions like the Nine Yin Blocked Meridians weren’t exactly common, so I couldn’t even sell them. They were just sitting in my inventory gathering dust.
“Can you take responsibility for those words?”
“Yes. It is a curable constitution. The ingredients are a bit tricky, though.”
The reason I phrased it this way was simple.
If I just pulled out an elixir here, they would definitely ask where it came from.
So I worded it as if I could make one instead.
“I see. If you truly can do that, you will become a great benefactor to our Curbis family.”
“I don’t seek the title of benefactor. This is simply something I wish to do for the woman I love.”
Ugh… the goosebumps.
It was worth memorizing that script yesterday.
Still, I couldn’t stop the chill running down my spine.
‘And yet Heinz is still looking at me with those eyes.’
Even after hearing that I could cure his sister’s blocked meridians, Heinz continued to stare at me with clear displeasure.
In his mind, I was still suspicious, and the fact that his precious sister had gotten engaged to someone like me probably didn’t sit well with him.
‘To think the Frost Archmage Heinz was actually a siscon… seriously.’
It was a revelation that could only make me laugh bitterly.
I wrote down a fake recipe listing the ingredients for the elixir and handed it to the duke.
He looked it over and let out a genuine gasp of admiration.
“You can cure blocked meridians with ingredients like these? How astonishing. They’re difficult to obtain, but not impossible to acquire.”
After marveling for a moment, the duke called for the butler and ordered him to gather the materials. Once the butler left, he turned back to me.
“Then stay here for the night. We still have more to discuss tomorrow.”
“Understood.”
And so I ended up spending the night at the Curbis ducal family’s separate residence.
***
That day, Zen began recalling a conversation she’d had with her mother.
“Pardon?”
Zen doubted her own ears and asked again.
“Listen carefully, Zen. A woman must keep a firm grip on a man before marriage. Just look at your father. He’s completely under my thumb, isn’t he?”
“W-well, that’s true, but…”
Even the man called the Demon of Magic was ultimately a family patriarch, a father, and a husband.
And in front of Lady Leia—Zen’s mother, the woman who had dominated Rice since their school days and was famous in high society for being the most charismatic member of the previous imperial family—the Duke of Curbis couldn’t even make a peep.
“That’s why momentum is crucial when a woman wants to control a man at night. So I prepared this for you.”
When Zen saw what her mother pulled out, her face turned bright red.
“Th-that is…!”
“With your beauty added to this, he’ll fall for it immediately.”
Recalling that conversation, Zen let out a small sigh. She hesitated in front of the door to the room where Ijun was staying, then knocked and stepped inside.
“I-Ijun. Are you asleep?”
I had been gazing at the night sky for a moment when I heard a knock and someone entering. I turned to look.
“Hup!”
The moment I saw Zen, I couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.
“You—what the hell are you wearing!?”
“I-I had no choice! Mother insisted I wear this…”
Even as she said that, it hadn’t exactly been forced.
The fact that she had come dressed like this was purely Zen’s own decision.
Even Zen herself hadn’t expected she would be bold enough to wear something like this and act this way.
“By the way, you still haven’t gone to bed?”
“I couldn’t sleep yet. Still… this room has a great view of the moon.”
I deliberately avoided looking at her and kept the conversation going.
Even so, my eyes kept drifting back. The sleek lines of her undergarments beautifully accentuated her sensual figure.
It felt less like something lewd and more like admiring a work of art.
Like how people don’t look at the Venus de Milo and think it’s obscene.
“Every room in this residence has its own concept. This one is the Moon Room. It was designed so guests could enjoy the moon at night, which is why it was built in the spot with the best view.”
“I see.”
Zen tried to calm her wildly pounding heart as she walked toward the bed where I was lying.
‘I have to take control…’
Honestly, she had no idea how.
She had never learned magic, couldn’t handle mana, and had only ever trained with the sword. When it came to this sort of thing, she was completely clueless.
So she decided to use the one method she at least knew about.
I suddenly felt my head being lifted, then a warm sensation returned. I looked up.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh. Please stay still for a moment. There are surveillance spells installed in this room.”
“R-really?”
It was a lie.
There were no surveillance spells.
Zen herself didn’t know why she had told such a lie.
Having laid my head on her lap, she began stroking my hair under the pretext of putting on a show.
I was startled when the warm touch reached my head, but thinking the duke might be watching, I decided to let her do as she wished.
And so our purely platonic first night (which wasn’t) passed by in a leisurely, peaceful manner.