A Debutante to Divert the Rumors
The brief encounter with Everett felt like a surprise gift.
It was all the sweeter for being so fleeting.
He was on duty, so I couldn’t keep him long. After handing over the documents, the act of turning away felt unexpectedly heavy.
Reluctant to part from him, I walked with deliberate slowness.
I could feel Everett’s gaze clinging to my back, yet I didn’t turn around.
If I did, I was sure I would run straight to him and kiss him without a second thought.
I didn’t want to cause trouble for Everett while he was on a mission.
Instead, to fight the urge to look back, I filled my head with random thoughts.
The first question that surfaced was one I had forgotten in my excitement over getting off work early.
So that sudden errand was Kyle’s doing?
At first I had been grateful. Then the doubts crept in.
That Kyle?
Why?
Kylus was the most three-dimensional character in the original story.
He stood on the protagonists’ side, but he was far from purely good.
His efficiency-first personality sometimes led him to drift between the lines of good and evil, creating a subtly awkward tension with Ivetta.
Yet the reason he remained the most popular supporting character was the delicious gap between that pragmatic nature and his absolute loyalty to the Emperor.
His entire way of thinking revolves around the Emperor.
His sense of efficiency was calibrated solely by how much it would benefit the Emperor.
In other words, he wasn’t the type to voluntarily go through the hassle of helping a subordinate’s romance.
It would be inefficient.
But it doesn’t seem like the Emperor ordered it, either.
The Emperor was notoriously indifferent to those around him.
He might not even know how old Everett Rohas was.
It was hard to imagine such a man commanding Kylus to assist with a subordinate’s love life.
Which means Kylus chose to do it himself.
But why?
Everett and Kylus did seem somewhat close.
Though from what I had seen, it looked more like Kylus enjoyed tormenting Everett.
It wasn’t strange that he had noticed we were dating.
We had crossed paths with Kylus several times, and he was frighteningly perceptive.
But are they really that close?
If their relationship was close enough for Kylus to endure something so inefficient, the original story would surely have mentioned it.
After all, the Emperor usually issued orders to Kylus, who then selected the most suitable person for the task.
The Emperor’s aides appeared in the order of Kylus’s preference for delegating work.
Everett had never been among them.
Maybe he simply thought it looked entertaining and decided to help.
The Kylus I had come to know did pursue fun with the same zeal he pursued efficiency.
Even so, the doubt refused to settle completely.
It was like dropping another stone into a lake that had just begun to calm.
Not large enough to make it overflow, but more than enough to send fresh ripples across the surface.
“Prepare the Saintess’s debutante.”
Edwin, returning from his meeting with Lina, dropped the statement after a long stretch of productive work.
Kylus, who had been handling his own tasks with a much lighter heart while the Emperor actually did his job for once, asked a beat later.
“Did you say the Saintess’s debutante, Your Majesty?”
He had heard correctly but still sounded as if the context completely eluded him.
Edwin, considerably softened after seeing Lina, willingly offered a more detailed explanation.
“The Saintess has reached adulthood. It’s time for her debutante.”
He spoke like a doting older brother.
“It is true that the Saintess turns twenty this year, but…”
Kylus’s reply carried a trace of reluctance, as though he were wondering how on earth the Emperor knew her age.
Naturally, this too was Lina’s influence.
Because Lina had taken an interest in the Saintess, the information had lodged itself in Edwin’s mind as well.
“If we’re going to hold one, it should be spectacular.”
If she wasn’t planning to remain in seclusion, she would have to enter high society.
A lavish debutante would drastically lower the difficulty of that entrance.
It was no coincidence that nobles went to such ridiculous lengths to prepare their daughters’ debutantes.
They might not apply worldly standards to the Saintess, but nobles were creatures who lived and died by formalities.
“Make it so dazzling that the eyes of the entire empire turn toward the Saintess.”
Edwin stressed that budget was irrelevant; the event must be unconditionally extravagant.
Coming from Edwin, who disliked—no, actively hated—banquets, the order was bizarre.
In the eight years since his ascension, the imperial family had not hosted a single banquet.
The excuse had always been the ongoing war.
Even after the war ended, he had only attended the victory celebration properly. For his own birthday, he had slipped away after assigning the role to Everett Rohas.
So when that same Emperor suddenly demanded a lavish banquet, it was understandable that Kylus looked confused.
“I will inform the Saintess. We’ll need to secure a chaperone first.”
Once the order was issued, Kylus automatically began calculating the necessary steps.
At the same time, he kept stealing glances at Edwin’s face, trying to read his true intentions.
His expression grew increasingly irreverent, as if he suspected the Emperor had consumed something strange.
Edwin, whose only experience with odd food in his entire life was the coffee Kylus had once made, nearly lost his temper but held back.
The small heart Lina had drawn on the back of his hand was still working its magic.
However, he had no desire to endure Kylus’s persistent, burning stare, so he readily revealed his hidden motive.
“If we want the rumors of my secret lover to die down, we simply need to throw something more interesting into the arena.”
At the moment, the two people most frequently on the empire’s lips were the Emperor himself and the Saintess, Ivetta.
They couldn’t fabricate a nonexistent lover for Ivetta, but a debutante was inevitable anyway.
A debutante for someone of the highest rank—akin to a princess or archduchess—would dominate the yellow papers for months.
Every trivial detail became news: which artisan created her dress, which jewels she wore, who she chose for her first dance.
Especially since the imperial family had so few daughters, it had been decades since the last imperial-hosted debutante.
The newsworthiness was guaranteed.
People had already lost interest in the miracle the Saintess performed during her first public appearance.
It would be better for Ivetta to remain at the center of attention, and the arrangement benefited both Edwin and the Saintess.
Having heard the full plan, Kylus finally nodded in understanding.
“Understood. I will prepare it with suitable splendor.”
The days had grown longer, so it was still fairly bright at quitting time. Still, the midday sun and the afternoon sun sliding toward evening were entirely different beasts.
I was walking home, feeling the heat of the sun more intensely than on my usual commute.
Yet from the moment I left the palace gates, I had the distinct feeling that someone was following me.
Wondering if our routes simply overlapped, I paused as if to look around. The fact that the follower stopped too was unsettling.
A tail?
I remembered what Kylus had said about danger pay on the day he first offered me a position with the Blue Hawk.
So that’s why they gave me a self-defense artifact.
It looked like I would actually need it.
I tried to behave naturally as I rested my hand on the necklace artifact capable of short-range instant movement.
If necessary, I would activate it and flee.
If I caused a commotion near the palace, either the security forces or the palace guards would come running.
Fortunately, the person tailing me seemed like an amateur—their movements were painfully clumsy.
They kept ducking behind trees or building corners, making so much noise that I had to consciously resist the urge to turn around.
What is this?
The thriller scenario unfolding in my head took a sharp detour.
Could this be that?
The “I fell in love at first sight, may I have your name?” kind of thing.
But I soon discovered I had been overthinking it.
The man following me had an agenda I could never have imagined.
Realizing I had noticed him, he rushed forward.
Something shiny glinted in his hand.
“Miss Carolina Diaz. I’m a reporter from the Weekly Society. There are a few questions I’d like to ask you.”
What he held was a magical recording device, its light blinking to show it was already operating. The Weekly Society was the empire’s most notorious tabloid.
A reporter?
It was fortunate that my work with the Blue Hawk hadn’t made me anyone’s target for malice, but why was a tabloid journalist suddenly chasing after me?
And not just any tabloid—one that specializes in high-society gossip.