“I’m sorry. I really am here to say goodbye.”

Muen gently wrapped an arm around Liya.

At a time like this, saying some sweet little line like “How could I ever leave you” would make the girl happier... but it would also only deepen the bitterness of parting.

“So annoying. We only just reunited for such a short time.”

Liya pouted even more in dissatisfaction.

In her eyes, she had worked so hard to make her way to Belrand, and had even set aside a lot of her Saintess duties, yet she’d barely gotten any chances to be with the person she loved.

And even when they were together, there were still two bad women blocking her at every turn. Too hateful.

The Goddess should hurry up and punish those shameless women!

Liya grumbled in her heart a few times, but she also understood she was only venting uselessly. A Goddess who loved all equally wouldn’t bother with such tiny personal matters of romance.

“But for me, it’s already the biggest thing.”

Liya pressed closer into Muen’s chest, indulging in the breadth and warmth of it.

Muen smiled gently, held her tighter, and, as if naturally, lightly rested his chin against the top of the girl’s head.

There was no need to say a bunch of sweet talk like Anna did, and no need to keep up little flirtatious games like the Empress did.

With this cute, soft girl, at a moment like this, all you had to do was hold her.

You give her warmth, and she returns it tenfold. A girl like this really will offer everything she has with that kind of selfless devotion.

“Muen.”

“Hm?”

“You haven’t listened to my music in a long time.”

“Mm.”

Muen lowered his head, looking into those rabbit-like, lively eyes. “It’s been a long time.”

“Then... I’ll play for you?”

“I’m all ears.”

Liya sprang up in one motion and pulled her violin out of her spatial magic device.

After becoming the Saintess, she’d basically had no chances to perform, but this violin had still been kept in excellent condition.

Maybe that wasn’t only because the girl loved it—maybe it was also because she knew she would always have the day when she could play again for the person she liked.

“What do you want to hear?”

“Let me think...”

Muen propped his cheek on his hand and thought for a moment.

“Come to think of it, I still don’t know what that piece was called—the one you played the first time I heard your music.”

“The first time?”

A nostalgic look rose on Liya’s little face, and then that nostalgia turned into a lingering tenderness.

“You want to hear it?”

“I do.”

“Then I’ll play it for you.”

Liya drew the bow across the strings. Her fair cheeks and that jujube-red expensive wood reflected each other, like the sunset mirrored on a late-summer lake.

“The piece is called ‘Joy of Love.’ Please enjoy.”

As her waist twisted and lifted, bright, cheerful, romantic music—long and lingering with affection—began to flow in delicate threads from the strings.

Muen listened quietly. The moment he closed his eyes, it was as if he had returned to that night again.

A dim, elegant high-end restaurant. Crystal ornaments studding the dome. Gems setting off candlelight. Swaying shadows. Couples in the corners holding each other and whispering.

The music was about to begin.

Three minutes later, he would be assassinated.

Three minutes and thirty seconds later, he would face a life-and-death crisis.

But in only ten seconds, he would meet her gaze—her, under the spotlight, at the center of the stage.

For him and her, that was the beginning of everything.

...

...

“Ah... it’s obviously just a brief separation, so why does it feel like life and death?”

After leaving Liya, Muen wiped at his already damp collar with a helpless look.

Soft and cute had its advantages—namely, there was a lot of water.

Soft and cute also had its disadvantages—namely, there was a lot of water.

But no matter what, that was the girl’s sincerity. He couldn’t let it down.

“Brat, you seem to be thinking about something that makes people want to beat you up again.”

A huge bear-shaped shadow had come close at some point, speaking in a gloomy tone.

“Is that so? Like how, before I leave, various beautiful girls are seeing me off with true feelings, while Great-uncle Grandfather, you chased enemies all the way back—only to not get any reward, and even get viciously scolded by Her Majesty the Empress and the previous Saintess?”

Muen seriously rubbed his chin. “Put like that, you really do have a motive to hit me.”

“Tch. If it weren’t for the fact old Campbell only has you as ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) a son, with my temper when I was young, I’d have already beaten your ass into blooming flowers.”

Pink Bear sat down beside Muen. From the bear’s mouth, a furry hand reached out, lighting a cheap cigar with melancholy.

“I’m old now. My temper isn’t that big anymore. I’ll spare your disrespect for now.”

Muen turned his head. When he saw the clear, distinct imprint of a beautiful woman’s fist on Pink Bear’s face, he couldn’t help going speechless.

“Sorry.”

“Hm? What are you apologizing for?”

“I shouldn’t have underestimated you like that. To take a punch from the former Saintess and still be hopping around... that’s probably only possible for someone as thick-skinned and tough as you—”

“Get lost, get lost. What do you know? Is that a fist? That’s love!”

Pink Bear puffed out his chest, head held high, rubbing his cheek with a righteous expression. “A steel fist full of love—how could it possibly injure me?”

“...Before you say that, you should wipe the blood near your nose. It’s already smeared onto the suit.”

“...”

Pink Bear silently took out a long strip-shaped thing and wiped. After wiping, he even tossed it to the ground and stomped on it hard a couple times...

Muen narrowed his eyes—and realized it was an arm wrapped in half a torn sleeve.

“Hertz’s?”

“That old bastard’s.”

“You got hit because of this?”

“Half and half, I guess.”

Pink Bear covered his face miserably, bitter as he spoke. “I talked too clean and too hard before doing it. Getting taught a lesson after failing is only natural.”

“I didn’t expect he could actually escape from you. I remember you’ve already advanced to being a Crowned One.”

Muen said in surprise. “A Crowned One who’s been charging strength for thirty years because of a curse—couldn’t catch a Hertz?”

“...I was careless.”

Pink Bear’s mouth twitched. “But that old thing is also vicious and slippery enough. I didn’t expect he’d be willing to rip off one of his own arms alive and do a lizard’s tail escape.”

“Is that so? So the Kingdom really was prepared?”

Muen fell into thought.

If it were only Hertz—no matter how many puppets he had, no matter how many times he threw away arms to escape—in territory as vast as the Empire’s, he still wouldn’t be able to shake off Pink Bear’s pursuit.

That was the difference between a Crowned One and someone who wasn’t. No matter how many tricks you had, facing that enormous chasm, all you could do was exhaust every method and flee in humiliation.

“Someone picked him up?”

“Yes. A Crowned One inside the Kingdom. He didn’t show his face.”

Pink Bear’s expression was heavy. “I just advanced. My realm isn’t stable. I didn’t make a rash move, so I could only watch Hertz escape back into the Kingdom.”

“So that’s how it is...”

Muen couldn’t help sighing again.

Looks like the preparation wasn’t ordinary at all. It was like the Kingdom had already planned the whole thing before Milne even came as an envoy.

From the Kingdom’s spy carrying vital intelligence and escaping, to Milne’s death, to Hertz setting up feints and fleeing quickly... link after link, tight as gears biting into each other.

They had long since treated their most talented prince as a chess piece on this board, waiting only for the right moment to push him out and add one more chance of victory to this game.

Should it be called brilliant... or shortsighted?

Muen couldn’t judge. Because whether it was a good move or a rotten move would only be known once the future result came out.

But at this moment, Muen’s mood still inevitably sank.

Because if the Kingdom was so thoroughly prepared, then the demon race—who might already be colluding with them in secret—couldn’t possibly have made no preparations at all for him, the duke’s son.

Maybe the scene of his battle with Ariel had already been directly delivered into the demon race’s hands.

“This is going to be annoying...”

Just imagining the moment he arrived at the Abyss and the entire demon race put out a bounty order to hunt him made Muen’s scalp go a little numb.

He hadn’t expected that one day he’d also get to enjoy treatment like a protagonist. Ariel? Ariel, save me.

Oh. Ariel already went to the Abyss first.

Then never mind.

“Hey. A man can’t say ‘hard.’ Here—take this.”

“What?”

Muen eyed the thick booklet Pink Bear handed over, wary. “Another Saintess photo album? I’m warning you—your dirty trick of framing me and then running to tattle to Celicia, I absolutely will not—”

“Detailed demon race intelligence. If you don’t want it, I’ll throw it away.”

“I want it, I want it, I want it!”

Muen immediately turned into a top-tier rapper, snatching the intelligence booklet out of Pink Bear’s hand in one grab. “Something this important, and you’re only taking it out now? Great-uncle, you’re too distant. We’re family!”

“Heh. Now you remember we’re family? The way you talk still doesn’t show any respect to me as an elder.”

“That’s because Great-uncle is approachable and kind. Someone as handsome as you just naturally makes people feel close, isn’t that completely normal?”

“You little—”

Pink Bear laughed and scolded him. “Finally telling the truth!”

Muen: “...”

“Alright. Enough nonsense. Keep this and read it slowly on the road.”

Pink Bear suddenly got serious and patted Muen’s shoulder.

“Do you know why, among the demon race’s eight Grand Dukes, that Ghostblood Grand Duchess who came to Belrand to cause trouble before was so weak—so weak she got killed by King Yintuo in just a few moves?”

“Hm?”

Muen didn’t expect Pink Bear to suddenly ask that, and reflexively asked back, “Why?”

“Because she’d only taken over the demon Grand Duke position for less than ten years! And her previous demon Grand Duke... thirty years ago, was personally beheaded by your father, Lorne Campbell! The Lion King’s name shook the continent because of that battle!”

Pink Bear stared at Muen seriously, enunciating every word.

“I won’t say any encouragement. But you have to remember at all times... you carry the name Campbell on your head! That is the Empire’s sharpest sword! A dragon-slaying blade!”

Boom!

A summer thunderclap tore across the sky, echoing like war drums.

Muen stared blankly at the pink bear in front of him—who was originally comical—now releasing astonishing momentum as he spoke the word “Campbell.” At the same time, the blood flowing in Muen’s body seemed to hear that call and began to boil.

“Yes.”

Muen answered solemnly. “I will never disgrace the name Campbell!”

...

...

“Oh, right. I heard demon succubi taste pretty good. Remember to come back and share your impressions with me, or just use recording magic—”

“Get lost!”

...

The Academy, the entrance to the Sea of Flowers.

Muen stood in front of that mechanism gate that once needed all the Academy professors to raise their hands and vote together to open—yet now he could enter and leave at will—and he was silent for a long time.

After staying quiet for quite a while, he finally raised a hand and peeled off a small slip of paper stuck to it.

“Do not disturb if you have business?”

Muen’s mouth twitched. “No business early, no business late—has to be business at a time like this... Don’t tell me she’s brewing some scheme again.”

Instinctively, Muen’s “about to get screwed” warning buzzer started humming in his head again, making him shiver.

But after viciously “cursing” that damned old loli in his heart...

Muen still silently stuck the note back on.

“If you won’t see me, then you won’t see me. Even though you damned old loli definitely has something important you didn’t tell me again... but who told me my heart is so broad?”

Or rather, he’d long since gotten used to it.

Muen turned around and left.

After walking out of the Academy, King Yintuo was standing in front of a carriage pulled by a dragonblood horse, waiting quietly.

“Let’s go.”

With no one else around, Muen climbed into the carriage.

“Set out. To the Abyss.”