"Ugh..."

Seo groaned as she held her head with one hand.

Her fingers tangled tightly into her own crimson hair, pressing against her scalp in a desperate attempt to stop the agonizing, rhythmic pounding vibrating directly behind her eyes.

"What happened...?" Seo muttered.

She forced her heavy eyelids open as her vision swam in dark disorienting circles before finally locking onto the plush, velvet-lined ceiling of the moving cabin.

The entire structure rocked and bumped violently underneath her, the wooden frame creaking with every rotation of the heavy wheels.

Slowly, the fragmented, terrifying pieces of what happened slammed back into her conscious mind.

She could vividly remember the freezing biting air of the mountain.

After the Crimson Sharpshooter was finally killed by Klaus and he immediately fainted from massive blood loss, sheer panic had taken over.

With the help of Neo, they both had desperately escaped the mountain.

They dragged Klaus’s bleeding heavy body through the treacherous snow and finally got to the nearest settlement.

Using her noble title and flashing her family crest, she was able to procure a high-end, heavily armored carriage in the dead of night and now, they had been on route back to Galen Town which was the exact place where she had taken Klaus from in the first place.

However, her memory of the smooth escape hit a violent, abrupt wall.

A beautiful, silver-haired woman had stepped directly into the middle of the dark dirt road, completely stopping their carriage.

Neo had been actively riding the horses at the front, since she was sitting in the back cabin.

The silver-haired woman didn’t use a weapon.

She simply pulled back her fist and punched the entire reinforced carriage upside down. The multi-ton vehicle had flipped completely into the air with a terrifying screech of tearing metal and splintering wood, before the woman casually knocked her and Neo out in one single devastating physical hit respectively.

Seo pushed herself up on her elbows with her muscles screaming in protest and she looked around the dim interior to see that she was still safely in the insides of the carriage.

The vehicle had miraculously been righted. The massive draft horses were currently running forward at a steady pace with their hooves striking the packed dirt.

However, looking through the small glass partition separating the cabin from the driver’s bench, she saw that Klaus was the one currently holding the thick leather reins.

’H-how?’ Seo thought.

She turned her head rapidly to the side, looking down at the wooden floorboards. She also saw Neo lying flat on the ground.

His chest rose and fell but he was still completely knocked out, a dark purple bruise forming rapidly along his jawline where the woman had struck him.

Then, Seo lifted her gaze and looked directly at the opposite passenger seat of the luxurious carriage.

Sitting there, her legs crossed elegantly and her hands resting politely in her lap, was a silver-haired woman.

Her piercing, glowing purple eyes were looking directly at Seo through the shadows of the cabin. It was the exact same woman who had flipped their transport.

Seo didn’t hesitate for a single microsecond.

She immediately raised her hands, her fingers curling to violently cast an offensive elemental spell.

However, before a single spark of mana could ignite in the air, Zephyra spoke.

"Do you know who I am?" Zephyra asked and then, it seemed like Seo’s eyes flashed violently with a blinding, purple, invisible light.

The spell died instantly in her throat.

The mana circulating through her magical veins completely froze, forcefully suppressed by an overwhelming completely alien aura that bypassed her mental defenses entirely.

Seo lowered her trembling hands as her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

"No, I don’t," Seo answered with her voice shaking despite her attempts to sound brave. "But you’re the one that attacked us, weren’t you?"

Zephyra immediately dropped her terrifying posture. She uncrossed her legs, leaning forward slightly, and rubbed the back of her head with a highly awkward, incredibly shy look painting her flawless face.

"Well, I might have overreacted a bit," Zephyra admitted, offering a soft apologetic laugh that completely contrasted her previous display of monstrous power. "Since I reached Galen Town and the Guild said you grabbed Klaus to somewhere for a highly dangerous mission. But I’m glad that he didn’t get hurt."

Seo immediately kept her mouth completely quiet. She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted copper.

Regardless of whoever this terrifyingly bipolar woman was... Seo really couldn’t bring herself to tell her the brutal truth.

She couldn’t say that Klaus had his chest violently blown through by the Crimson Sharpshooter’s magical gun,.

Even if the undead woman was now permanently dead... If this silver-haired monster found out Klaus had been fatally wounded under her watch, Seo was absolutely certain she would be ripped limb from limb.

Then, Zephyra looked down at her lap, her silver eyelashes casting long shadows over her cheeks.

"Will you forgive me for attacking both you and the young man next to you for absolutely no reason?" Zephyra asked softly, her tone dripping with genuine, innocent remorse.

Immediately, Zephyra looked up at Seo, smiling a bright radiant and entirely disarming smile.

As soon as the corners of her lips turned up, her oppressive terrifying aura changed entirely.

The suffocating pressure vanished, replaced by an unnatural overwhelming warmth that physically forced the anger and fear out of Seo’s mind.

"Of cours—" Seo began saying, entirely ready to forgive the woman who had nearly killed them.

WHOOSH!

Before Seo could even finish the single word, a violent, deafening blur of pressurized wind went past her face, blowing her crimson hair wildly into her eyes.

Zephyra completely left the interior cabin, utilizing a burst of raw speed that defied human physics, and joined Klaus directly in the open front of the carriage.

She left Seo sitting there alone in the back, smoothly pulling and completely closing the heavy wooden side door as well, locking the latch securely to prevent the noble woman from coming outside and interrupting them.

Seo sat frozen in the silence of the cabin.

The forced warmth in her chest evaporated the exact second Zephyra left, leaving behind a cold emptiness.

Seo’s expression died completely, her face turning pale and blank. She slowly reached out, her trembling fingers gripping the expensive velvet fabric and pulled herself entirely up onto the long, fluffy bench of the expensive carriage.

She pulled her knees tightly against her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins.

’I really don’t know what to do right now...’ Seo thought, physically swallowing the hard lump forming in her dry throat.

She laid down on the velvet cushions and completely curled herself into a tight, defensive ball.

The rhythmic bumping of the carriage offered absolutely no comfort as hot salty tears trickled slowly down from the corners of her eyes, soaking into the expensive upholstery beneath her cheek.

’I– I want to go home...’

...

Outside on the driver’s bench, the freezing air whipped violently against the moving carriage.

"Finally... I can recognize the route..." Klaus muttered aloud, his breath turning into white steam in the cold air.

He sat perfectly straight on the hard wooden bench, pulling and whipping the massive horses with the thick leather reins.

The beasts snorted. He looked at the jagged rock formations passing by in the dark. He was currently driving directly past the exact place where Neo had attacked him before he was magically transported over to the hidden base of the Death Cult.

He adjusted his grip on the rough leather, feeling the pull of the animals.

He never thought of himself as someone that would be riding carriages or handling beasts of burden either. In his past life, he was used to modern convenience, not manual labor.

’But I think that riding carriages is pretty easy,’ Klaus thought, watching the dirt road unfold under the moonlight. ’If I was completely poor in this world, I could have easily done this as a lucrative side hustle.’

[Riding Carriages is easy, Dear Soul King. However, purchasing them in the first place isn’t easy at all.]

The voice echoed directly from inside his skull, bypassing his ears entirely.

It was Valeria’s voice sounding in his head.

Klaus’s right eye twitched slightly behind his mask. He really couldn’t totally get used to a dead, immortal sniper speaking directly into his brain at all, but he forcefully managed to keep his composure.

’You still haven’t told me about this Soul King wha—’ Klaus thought back, completely ready to interrogate his new spectral slave about the lore implications of his new title.

WHOOSH!

Immediately, a violent high-speed blur of wind physically hit his face, blowing his hair entirely back and stinging his eyes.

When he blinked and opened his eyes against the cold draft, he looked down. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

He saw Zephyra. The silver-haired royal was currently resting her head softly directly on his lap, her body curled sideways across the narrow wooden driver’s bench while he held tightly onto the heavy reins of the moving carriage.

On a normal day, he would have instantly told her to get off his lap and sit properly so she didn’t interfere with his driving or his tactical awareness.

Though today, looking down at her, it seemed like Zephyra genuinely needed the physical contact. Her shoulders were tense and her breathing was slightly erratic. So, he let her stay.

"What’s up?" Klaus asked, keeping his eyes on the dark road ahead.

He flicked the reins, urging the horses to maintain their pace, then he continued.

"You came here pretty quick... I thought you were heading entirely back to the Capital to see your Dad... and your sister. How did that go?"

Zephyra remained completely silent for a long bit. She didn’t move, her face buried into the dark fabric of his trousers as the only sounds were the clattering hooves and the wooden wheels hitting the dirt.

Klaus kept firmly holding the reins with his patience running thin.

"If you don’t want to talk," Klaus told her flatly. "then get off my lap."

Instantly, Zephyra’s arms shot out. She violently hugged his lap, her fingers gripping the fabric of his trousers with terrifying, superhuman strength.

"Hubby, don’t push me away!" Zephyra begged with her voice muffled against his leg. "I’ll talk!"

Klaus eased up the tension in his thighs, relaxing his lap, and waited.

She turned her face upward.

"Me going to visit my Father and Sister... it was a mistake... I shouldn’t have done it at all." Zephyra said.

She then paused, taking a shaky breath.

"Hubby," Zephyra asked, her glowing purple eyes searching his face in the dark.

"Yeah?" Klaus said, keeping his focus split between her and the road.

"Hubby... How would you feel if nobody ever hates you?"

Klaus actually thought about it for a few seconds. He ran the concept through his highly reasonable filter.

"Nobody hates you?" Klaus said, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Isn’t that a good thing? You won’t get a lot of crazies or political rivals that hate you to the point that they’re actively trying to kill you or sabotage your business."

To which Zephyra paused, a bitter devastating sadness crossing her flawless features.

"Oh... let me give a specific example," Zephyra said, her voice shaking slightly. "Let’s say hypothetically I brutally killed your parents, Hubby. Would you hate me?"

Klaus simply shrugged his shoulders with the leather reins snapping lightly against the horses’ backs.

So far, he wasn’t exactly sure if the original Klaus in this specific world even had living parents, or if they were dead however, he shrugged off the existential lore and answered logically.

"Yes," Klaus replied firmly. "Naturally, I would absolutely hate you."

Zephyra’s eyes widened.

"S-so... why..." Zephyra stammered, her voice cracking as her fingers dug deeper into his legs. "Why don’t people hate me?"

The dam finally broke and the emotional horrifying reality of her existence poured out into the freezing air.

"No matter what I physically do," Zephyra cried. "The world bends entirely around me, Hubby."

Klaus didn’t interrupt her.

He kept his grip on the leather reins, listening in complete silence.

"I could violently attack someone for absolutely no reason!" Zephyra sobbed with the tears finally spilling over her silver eyelashes and dropping heavily onto his leg. "I could brutally kill people in cold blood. I could purposefully ruin lives, or do this, or do that... and the terrifying, sickening outcome is always exactly the same!"

She choked on a harsh sob, her shoulders violently shaking against his lap as the suffocating isolation of her existence completely crushed her.

"People still look at me and smile," Zephyra continued. "They forcefully give me real, genuine smiles, Hubby! They instantly forgive me for the most heinous atrocities!"

"Am I cursed?" Zephyra asked. "Was I supposed to not be born?"

Klaus didn’t say anything at first. He didn’t offer empty platitudes or fake sympathy. He simply let go of the reins with his right hand, reached down, and placed his hand directly on the top of her head.

He ran his fingers slowly through her soft silver hair.

"You’re not cursed at all..." Klaus said. "You could actually say you’re highly blessed."

Zephyra sniffled loudly, her tears stopping for a fraction of a second in pure confusion. She looked up at him through her wet eyelashes.

"Blessed?" Zephyra asked, completely baffled by his conclusion.

"Imagine exactly what we could do with that specific ability," Klaus said. "You walk up and steal massive amounts of gold from someone, and they instantly apologize to you and genuinely thank you for stealing from them. We could seamlessly rake up an insane amount of money and political influence too, without any legal repercussions."

Her cries stopped completely then she stared up at his face... Klaus leaned down with his face coming close to hers.

"Sometimes, despite how painful the negative sides of an ability are, we have to look past the negative sides and exploit the value," Klaus told her smoothly. "And besides... if you ever need someone to put you in your place, I’ll always be exactly here after all."

He raised his left hand, lifting his fingers off the leather reins. He showed his ring finger directly to her, highlighting exactly where their matching engagement ring rested against his skin.

"We’re officially engaged, after all," Klaus said.

Zephyra looked entirely up at him. The last remaining tears that welled heavily in her purple eyes fell down her cheeks, but she immediately raised her arm and aggressively wiped them away with her silk sleeve.

A radiant deeply obsessed smile stretched completely across her flawless face. The hollow emptiness in her chest was entirely replaced by an overwhelming surge of affection.

"Hubby~..." Zephyra purred and in a sudden blur of speed, the entire situation on the driver’s bench shifted.

Klaus’s back hit the long wooden seat with a heavy thud. Zephyra had completely tackled him backward. She was now sitting entirely on top of his chest, her knees pinning his hips to the hard wood.

The heavy leather reins slipped completely out of his relaxed hands, falling to the floorboards and flailing wildly in the dirt below.

Without his firm guidance, the massive draft horses panicked. They neighed loudly and violently increased their running speed, their hooves tearing up the road as they began blindly heading entirely in the direct direction of a massive, solid stone wall bordering the mountain pass.

Klaus didn’t even look at the impending crash.

"I love you~" Zephyra whispered, her face hovering mere inches from his as her glowing purple eyes completely consumed by him. "I love you so, so much... I... I..."

Zephyra didn’t have any human words left to accurately explain this massive suffocating feeling expanding violently in her chest so she didn’t try.

She dove her head down rapidly and placed her soft, warm lips directly against his own.

They kissed, the freezing wind whipping around them as the carriage hurdled violently toward the stone wall.