"Is it really you, Your Highness?" she asked, tears filling her eyes.

The bundle of sea plants slipped from her hands and drifted away with the current. Slowly, she swam closer, her orange mermaid tail moving gracefully through the water.

If Roxanna had forgotten she was living in the beast world, she would have thought the woman was a beautiful mermaid straight out of a Sea World performance.

"It’s me," Azul said with a small nod. "How have you been, Helga?"

[Oh, so she’s the Helga Orion and the others mentioned before,] Roxanna thought. [She must be an amazing healer.]

Roxanna wasn’t just assuming that. The entire cave was lined with shelves filled with stone jars, and most of them seemed to contain medicinal plants and herbs.

On the other side, Helga suddenly wrapped her arms around Azul in a tight hug. Fortunately, she had took Azura beforehand, so the little girl didn’t interrupt their reunion.

But... weren’t they too close?

[I know they’re probably old friends who are happy to see each other, but... they’re way too close,] Roxanna complained in her mind, feeling a surge of jealousy.

Her eyes practically filled with jealousy, but she didn’t say or do anything. She kept trying to convince herself that they were simply happy to meet again.

"How could I possibly be fine?!" Helga finally pulled away. Tears still clung to her lashes as she lightly smacked Azul’s shoulder. "My fiancé disappeared! Of course it’s been hard for me to sleep at night!"

The moment the word fiancé came out of her mouth, Zeir and Calen immediately turned toward Roxanna, waiting for her reaction.

As expected, Roxanna didn’t explode in anger. Instead, her eyes grew so wide they almost popped out of her head. Then she slowly swam backward until she was several meters away from everyone.

[Didn’t Azul say he wasn’t married to anyone?!] she screamed in her mind. [And didn’t his soldiers say he always ran away whenever beautiful mermaids approached him?!]

The system immediately responded. [He isn’t married to anyone, Host.]

[But he never said he didn’t have a fiancée.]

[Besides, it’s completely normal for royals to have arranged fiancées from childhood. It’s also normal for a prince to be chased by many beautiful mermaids.]

Well, it definitely wasn’t normal from Roxanna’s point of view!

[Oh no!] she cried internally. [Now I feel like I’ve stolen someone’s fiancé!]

Her panic only grew worse as she thought. [Doesn’t that make me his mistress?!]

Before she could continue spiraling into disaster, Azul suddenly spoke.

"I’m sorry for making you worry, but it couldn’t be helped." Then, without hesitation, he pulled Roxanna back to his side. "Anyway, this is my wife, Roxanna," he said firmly. "And our daughter, Azura."

Helga instantly froze in her place. She covered her mouth and stared at Roxanna from head to toe several times.

[A-Azul!] Roxanna screamed in her mind. [You can’t introduce your mistress to your fiancée like that!]

[You’re going to break her heart!]

After all, Helga had been waiting for him for years and Roxanna couldn’t help imagining a tragic love story.

Maybe Helga had spent all those years hoping and dreaming about the day Azul would finally return. Maybe she had imagined their wedding over and over again.

But now? The missing fiancé had come back with a wife and a daughter. What woman wouldn’t be heartbroken?

"Goodness, you really have a wife and a daughter!!" Helga suddenly shouted.

But instead of looking angry, she broke into a huge smile. "Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" She looked so relieved that Roxanna almost forgot how to breathe. "I thought you still wanted to continue our engagement!"

Helga laughed happily and suddenly grabbed Orion’s hand. "We’re about to get married too," she explained. "But since you never officially broke off our engagement, we couldn’t move forward."

Then she looked at Azul with hopeful eyes. "Now that we’ve finally found you, how about breaking off our engagement right now?"

Azul raised an eyebrow. "Didn’t you just say you couldn’t sleep at night because your fiancé was missing?" he asked calmly.

Helga immediately shrugged. "Yeah, of course!" she replied. "If nobody ever found your body, then I would be stuck being engaged to you forever!"

She pointed at Orion before saying, "And that means I wouldn’t be able to marry my darling!"

The man she called "darling" immediately turned pale.

After all, Helga had just announced to everyone that he had stolen the prince’s fiancée, not exactly the kind of position most people wanted to have.

On the other hand, Azul let out a soft chuckle. "It’s not as if the royal family could punish you for marrying someone else while I was missing," he said.

His tone was calm and light, making it clear that he had never blamed her for moving on.

Then his expression softened. Looking directly at Helga, he spoke in a firm but gentle voice. "But now that I’m here, I, Azul Aquilian, officially declare that the engagement between myself and Helga Marnos is dissolved."

He paused briefly before adding, "Without any conditions."

For a moment, the cave fell completely silent, and then Helga’s eyes suddenly lit up. It looked as though a huge burden had finally been lifted from her shoulders.

"Darling! Did you hear that?!" Helga practically screamed as she turned to Orion. "Now we can finally get married without worrying about anything!"

She looked so happy that it seemed like she might start swimming circles around the cave at any moment.

"Y-Yeah, but H-Helga, you should calm down first," Orion said awkwardly.

Even now, his face was still a little pale. After all, he genuinely felt guilty. No matter how many times Helga told him otherwise, he couldn’t completely shake the feeling that he had stolen the missing prince’s fiancée.

Seeing his reaction, Azul spoke up. "It’s alright," he said. "Helga and I were never that serious about our engagement anyway."

His tone was calm and reassuring, as if he wanted Orion to stop blaming himself. A moment later, Azul turned toward Roxanna. The moment his eyes landed on her, they softened.

A small smile appeared on his face. "I’ve already found my own serious relationship."

Roxanna’s heart skipped a beat and for some reason, those simple words felt warmer than any long confession.

More than that, those words made Roxanna feel so embarrassed that she immediately buried her face against Azul’s shoulder.

"I’m sorry for making you worry," Azul said softly as he patted her head. "Please don’t worry. I truly don’t have any relationship with anyone else. You’re the only one."

Roxanna didn’t know what to say. In the end, she simply nodded. Still, she couldn’t stop the happiness spreading through her chest.

After Helga finally calmed down and Roxanna had received the answers she needed, the atmosphere became much more relaxed.

As Helga sorted through the medicinal plants on the shelves, she suddenly spoke again. "No, but I really was worried about you, Your Highness."

Her hands slowed for a moment. "I thought you had died. I thought we would never find out what happened to you."

"After all..." she said quietly, "Prince Mera didn’t survive after helping you escape, so we all thought..."

She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence and the cave fell silent for a moment.

"That doesn’t matter anymore," Azul said gently. "The most important thing right now is that I’ve returned. Unfortunately, my memories aren’t in great condition, so I need some time to process everything here."

Helga took a deep breath. "It’s only natural that you’re like this. Prince Mera said that the only way to save you was to let you forget the past."

A faint smile appeared on her face. "And... he was right."

Then her gaze slowly shifted toward Azura.

The little girl was quietly sitting nearby, completely unaware that the conversation was about her father. A warm smile appeared on Helga’s face. "At least he gave you enough time to build a small family."

Azul then confessed, "Actually, my daughter is also the reason why I decided to return to the ocean and remember all of you."

He gently stroked Azura’s head as he continued, "Our daughter is sick. She can only breathe underwater, but even after we came to the ocean, she’s still very weak. That’s why... I thought my mother might know the answer."

Roxanna looked down at her daughter before speaking as well. "She might be like this because I’m not a sea beastwoman," she said softly. "Maybe her body is confused because she’s half sea beast and half land beast."

Her voice became quieter. "So... if there’s anything I can do to help her, I’ll do it."

After all, Roxanna felt responsible for what had happened to their daughter. If something bad happened to Azura, she would be truly heartbroken and she probably wouldn’t dare to have another child again.

"Oh, dear, it’s not your fault," Helga said softly. She even looked at Roxanna with a gentle and caring expression.

"If someone has to be blamed, why not blame your husband instead?" she added. "Because he isn’t a land beast, your daughter ended up getting sick. I will support you if you want to slap him."

Azul stared at her speechlessly. "Do you hate me that much, Helga?"