Happiness.

That was the only proper emotion Adrian could currently identify among the myriad of thousands of other emotions as Renelle lay on his chest, asleep.

It was a few hours after their kiss and just under an hour since Renelle confirmed to him that she was just as obsessed with him as he was with her.

He guessed this was what people felt whenever they said that they could finally die happy.

Not that he was ready to die just yet, after all, he still had years to spend with his lady.

Adrian stayed still for a second, listening to the silence outside, noting that it was probably night.

Or at least, the time when everyone was tired enough and was ready to sleep.

He turned towards Renelle again, looking at her peacefully resting face before placing a light kiss on her forehead. Then, moving as slowly as he could, readjusting her without waking her up.

A frown suddenly appeared on her face from the loss of his warmth, but she soon returned to her deep sleep.

After all, even though she refused to show it during the past month, she was pretty exhausted and this was the only proper sleep she had gotten since.

Adrian made sure that she was properly asleep before a clone in the form of a shadow disconnected from him and connected to hers. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

With that, he put on his butler uniform and walked out of the tent, gently closing the flap behind him before looking up at the sky with both hands in his pockets.

There was truly nothing up there to look at, only a vast empty darkness, but for a second, Adrian could’ve sworn he saw something move up there.

But he didn’t bother to think too much about it, after all, this dungeon was a pretty unusual one, even when compared to the ones actually introduced in the manhwa.

There was no info on it in the manhwa either, since, in the original timeline, the protagonists never visited a dungeon such as this.

So what was different this time?

Well, the answer to that was pretty obvious, him, the biggest anomaly in this story.

Did he care that the story was going completely off course? Yes, after all that meant that his lady’s fate was being changed.

The problem was that events that were supposed to happen much later in the manhwa were happening too soon.

But he had a suspicion that the Cult Master, an antagonist written out of the story, like Renelle and him, had some sort of knowledge about the coming future.

But Adrian was also certain that it wasn’t regression.

Except that was the reason why he suddenly disappeared from the story, as this was his plan all along.

Still, those were thoughts for much later, after all, he had something to handle right now.

Adrian looked away from the sky and forward, towards the other tents before speaking up,

"Do you mind doing this somewhere else?" He said, "My lady is quite tired and currently in deep sleep."

At first, it seemed as if he was talking to himself, but a second later, several figures suddenly emerged from the darkness.

They seemed strong, but nothing his shadows couldn’t handle, even the strongest among them seemed to only be at the peak of C-rank.

Which was disappointing, since they seemed to be among the few that had entered this dungeon quite early.

Did they truly get comfortable within this hellhole?

Well, it wasn’t as if Adrian cared whether or not they improved, after all, the only one important to him in this dungeon was his lady, who was asleep at this moment.

And it seemed these lot were here to disturb that sleep.

But unlike what he expected, they didn’t seem to have any intention of attacking.

Instead, one of them suddenly walked towards him and said, "The king would like to have a word."

"Quite the time for a conversation," Adrian said in response with a chuckle.

Still, he was in the greatest of moods right now, so he added, "Lead the way."

Without another word, the man turned around and started walking towards the castle.

Adrian calmly followed behind them without question.

***

"He’s here, your majesty," the men leading Adrian suddenly knelt as they reached the dark throne room.

On the throne before them, sat a man with glowing red eyes looking down at them all, but Adrian paid him no mind.

Instead, a smile appeared on his face as he looked at the humans permanently frozen in ice.

There was one person he knew of who could’ve caused this, and he couldn’t help but smile seeing the permanent expression stuck on their faces.

He could roughly imagine how they got into that situation.

Adrian’s thoughts were interrupted when one of the men who went to fetch him suddenly spoke up, "You are in the presence of the king, kneel."

Adrian turned to the man before looking ahead of him, noticing the man’s face in great detail.

He had white hair and red eyes, and there was a small smile on his face as he looked directly at him.

"No."

Was the only thing he said, looking directly at the man on the throne before him.

"You da—" before the man could complete his words, the king lifted his hand, immediately shutting him up.

"Leave," the king finally spoke up, and without question, the men stood back up and disappeared into the darkness again.

At least, in the eyes of a normal person, but Adrian saw as they walked to the back of the pillars in the hall, which was a funny scene for some reason.

Right.... The corrupted mana within him still hadn’t been flushed out yet.

He chuckled before turning back to the king and they silently started observing each other.

"So you’re the butler the Empress has been searching for, for the past month," The king was the first to break the silence.

"Yes," Adrian answered.

"I see."

The king still had his hand resting on his chin as he continued looking down at the butler.

From what he sensed so far, the man seemed nothing special, from his passive aura, he was a B-Rank at most,

So why was Lady Renelle so enamored by him?

Well, even Adrian didn’t have the answer to that. All he knew was that they were both unexplainably drawn to each other.

"I assume you didn’t call me here just to ask that," Adrian said as he continued looking at the King.

"No," he shook his head, sitting up straight, "a little rat told me that you’re capable of resisting the corruption and somehow survived the black sea?"

"And I’m assuming this rat has green fur?"

Adrian already knew who the snitch was, but he didn’t linger on that for too long; instead, he added, "and?"

The king looked at him for a while before saying, "Care for a story?"

"Not quite," the butler shook his head, "I very much intended to return by my lady’s side soon, before she notices I’m gone."

The King laughed.

"You truly are amusing for a butler," he said after laughing for a while, "but I assure you, you’d want to hear it."

Adrian silently looked at the man before him for a while before letting out a sigh. He didn’t care about his story as long as it didn’t affect his lady in any way.

But then again, this one might involve his lady, so he decided, "I can spare a few minutes."

The king nodded before he started.

"I’m guessing you’ve met Marion already," he said in a tone of certainty rather than question, "and he should’ve already told you how we got here."

"Pretty much," Adrian answered, not really surprised that Marion and the king had met, after all, the shadow stuck on him had relayed that much.

It even relayed something quite interesting.

"You see," The King continued, "after searching this place for an exit for years, the people here just gave up and completely lost all hope."

"But I, like Marion, didn’t."

"I continued searching for an exit every single day for two years and because of that, most people started referring to me as their Savior, their king."

"When this Kingdom was finally built and I sat on this throne for the first time, I realized something."

The King took a short pause as he looked at Adrian.

"Getting trapped here wasn’t so bad," he said with a smile, "after all, in Avera, I’m just a common soldier, but here?"

"Here, I am a king."