A Night Too Hot to Handle
I have no idea how I even made it up those stairs.
As soon as Edwin closed the door, he slid straight down to the floor.
“Crazy bastard.”
He cursed and condemned himself for his complete lack of restraint.
But the heat that had risen showed no sign of cooling.
Meeting Lina always left his fingertips tingling and a warm glow blooming inside his chest, yet tonight was entirely different.
It felt like his whole body was blazing.
The innkeeper just had to say those unnecessary things.
Swearing to the gods, until the moment he stepped into this inn, Edwin had harbored only the most wholesome thoughts—Diaz must be tired; I should let her rest right away.
“Haa……”
Only today did he discover just how vivid his imagination truly was.
Edwin’s gaze flicked downward for a brief second before snapping back up.
It was an organ attached to his own body, yet it refused to obey him.
Blood had rushed downward.
……To his face.
He nearly slammed the back of his head against the wall in self-reproach, then stopped.
If Lina in the next room heard it, she would be startled.
Instead he shot to his feet and strode straight into the bathroom, still fully dressed.
He needed cold water—anything to cool the fire raging through him.
Edwin marched into the bathroom and roughly twisted the temperature control magic stone.
He prayed for a shock of icy water strong enough to clear his head, but before it could pour down, the sounds from the bathroom next door reached him first.
A soft little hum. The splash of water.
It was Lina.
Edwin startled so violently he fled the bathroom as if escaping a battlefield.
He pressed himself against the wall farthest from the bathroom.
The inn’s finest room was quite spacious. At this distance, even poor soundproofing shouldn’t have carried noise from the next room.
But Edwin was an aura master.
His hearing was developed several times beyond an ordinary person’s.
To those sensitive ears, the faint sound of water still trickled through.
And once he noticed it, the sound seemed to grow louder with every passing second.
Edwin clapped both hands over his ears.
He needed to get farther away, but there was nowhere left to retreat.
He wanted to leave the room.
No—he wanted to leave the entire inn.
Yet if he stepped outside now, he might lose every ounce of control and find himself clinging to her door, begging her to open it.
Even Edwin knew that after nothing more than a kiss to the back of her hand and a few supportive embraces, behavior like that would get him dumped instantly.
I absolutely cannot let that happen.
Just imagining the possibility made him want to strangle himself.
He wondered if he would truly sink that low, but Edwin no longer trusted himself.
What kind of escort am I?
He laughed at himself bitterly.
Right now, the most dangerous person to Lina was Edwin himself.
To protect her from his own desires, he racked his brain with ferocious intensity.
His gaze drifted to the window.
Should I jump?
There was a large tree right beside the inn.
That should be enough to get away.
But the outside was far too quiet for a stealthy escape. Everyone seemed to have gone indoors; only the chirping of insects drifted up from below.
Edwin was no assassin. No matter how carefully he landed, the sound would give him away.
He abandoned the window.
He would try again once Lina had fallen asleep.
Do I really have to endure nights like this every single day for ten days?
Imagining ten days that would feel like ten years, Edwin despaired.
Then he remembered his promise to Kylus.
It won’t be a full ten days, then.
He had agreed to visit the palace every other day.
Ah.
It felt as if a goddess’s halo had descended upon him.
He felt as though he had received divine revelation.
Edwin offered a short prayer of gratitude and rummaged through his coat with rough hands.
A teleportation scroll leading to the imperial palace appeared.
He tore it without hesitation.
What’s the use of one night every two days? Even every night wouldn’t be enough.
He would burn this fever through work instead.
And there was more than enough accumulated work to expend every last ounce of this heat.
Light flashed, enveloping Edwin completely.
“Your Majesty?”
Kylus, who had been working alone in the emperor’s office deep into the night, shot to his feet in surprise.
“This isn’t the day you were scheduled to return.”
Worried something might be wrong, he approached, only to be waved off with a careless flick of the hand—like shooing a fly.
Doesn’t look like anything serious happened.
There seemed to be no problem with his health, but his mood was clearly abysmal.
Edwin usually treated Kylus with a measure of leniency, but only when he was in a good mood.
Kylus wisely closed his mouth and retreated to a corner so as not to provoke him.
With visibly reluctant steps, Edwin walked to the desk, sat down, and issued his command.
“The capital guard’s discipline has grown lax. Tighten it up properly.”
Then, as if a sudden whim had struck him, he paused, reconsidered, and changed the order.
“No. They might want to handle it themselves. Instead, bring me only the guards who performed the security screening for the ancient teleportation array yesterday afternoon.”
Kylus immediately revised his earlier judgment.
Something had happened.
For some poor, nameless, and extremely unlucky guards—and for himself.
Kylus relayed the order to the knight standing watch outside the office and returned.
He asked carefully, “Did you return because of this matter?”
He wondered what on earth those guards could possibly have done.
His question was magnificently ignored.
Edwin, who had added that he should be notified the moment the guards arrived, gave another order.
“Bring every piece of pending work. All of it.”
Suddenly?
His expression was murderous; he hardly looked in the mood to work. Still, Kylus obeyed and fetched the documents that required the emperor’s attention.
“These are the most urgent matters. We believed you would arrive tomorrow, so a great deal of the compilation remains unfinished.”
Only half-listening, Edwin flipped through the papers with irritable movements and spoke like a machine gun.
“I will return to the palace throughout the next ten days. Prepare every document I must handle at this hour each night. And ready more scrolls.”
The command was delivered as lightly as if he were requesting apple pie for dessert. Kylus’s face crumpled.
“Yes, I will prepare them as quickly as possible.”
Seeing how foul Edwin’s mood was, he answered without his usual grumbling, but his vision had gone dark.
The imperial palace was protected by powerful security magic.
We deactivated several spells in the surrounding area for this trip, but even so…
Creating scrolls capable of piercing the palace’s security was no ordinary task.
Kylus already felt a migraine coming on at the thought of coaxing those arrogant, slow-moving mages.
If I demand ten additional scrolls within five days, they definitely won’t comply without a fight.
Whether Kylus despaired over the sudden lightning bolt from a clear sky or not, Edwin—who desperately needed something to occupy his mind—threw himself into the work with pure willpower and effort.
As a result, he processed documents faster than usual.
It was an astonishingly energetic display.
Having finished before sunrise, Edwin urged Kylus on like a true workaholic.
“Is there nothing more?”
“There is not.”
Kylus, who had planned to work a little longer before bed but had been dragged into an all-nighter by the emperor’s sudden appearance, answered in a sullen voice.
“Tsk.”
Edwin clicked his tongue and stood.
“What of the task I ordered earlier? Those guards.”
Just when he thought they were finished, lightning struck again.
At this hour of the morning, identifying and rounding up the afternoon guard shifts from the previous day in only four hours was no easy feat—even for Kylus.
“It will likely take another two hours.”
Yet Kylus bowed his head without excuse, inwardly cursing his own sleep-deprived judgment.
I should have created work for him even if I had to fabricate it.
Edwin pinned him with the gaze of a debt collector.
“I will return tomorrow—no, this evening—to review it.”
With that, he declared he needed to loosen his body, took up his sword, and headed for the training grounds.
The butterfly effect sparked by the innkeeper’s joke had finally reached Kylus.