Sever hurried across the room and stopped in front of Ray. “Your Majesty, is everything alright? Are you…?” His deep blue eyes scanned over Ray’s body as he spoke.

“Took you long enough to bring it,” Ray snapped, gesturing with his head towards Sever’s hands, which were tightly clutching the items Ray had requested.

In his left hand was held medicine for whenever Ray was sick; in his right, documents containing information that had to be relayed to Ray. He was definitely more interested in what he was holding in his left hand.

He turned his back on his astonished friend and said, “Close the door. Then we can talk.”

At his request, he heard the sound of scurrying feet scampering across the room and then returning.

While Sever went to close the door and arrange everything on the table, Ray went to his closet to pick out a new outfit.

“What are you looking at?” he asked Sever when he returned, gesturing to him with his hand.

The two had a friendly master-servant relationship. So, during official meetings, they showed respect to each other, and in private, they spoke casually. When Sever called his name, Ray walked to the table, took off his shirt, turned around, and showed his wound; the one Ahel had treated.

Sever sighed loudly as he unwrapped the bandage from his lithe body and checked the wound. For the most part, the wound had started healing rather well. It didn’t look half as bad as it had after the initial attack.

Sever nibbled his lips as he inspected it. Then he took a cotton ball soaked in alcohol and dabbed it on the wound. “Did you doze off in front of your attacker or something?”

“He was behind me. I didn’t see him so he got my back.”

“That’s fairly obvious and not what I’m asking at all. You know what I mean.”

“I almost killed them all… I made a little mistake. The one I missed was the one who attacked me,” Ray responded peacefully to Server’s scolding.

But Sever knew well how pitiful his friend was feeling. He was probably quite embarrassed that he hadn’t killed his attacker.

Sever took a deep breath as he put the cotton ball off to the side and picked up a bottle of ointment. “Still, thanks to that you can hunt down the assassin guild responsible for this.”

Once Sever had applied ointment to his wound and rebandaged it, Ray heard him close the medical box.“I think there is an in-house spy among my employees again. They knew I was going out alone, so they set an assassin on me. One was even sent to the Imperial Palace to make sure I didn’t leave.”

“It’s not uncommon to find spies among the people you hire.”

Ray laughed at Sever’s comment, and slid his arm back into his sleeve with an impish smirk on his face.

Sever sighed as he watched him fasten the buttons before he finally spoke again, “Every damn time. I’m so very sick of them. And there are so many in the city. It’s hard to pick the good ones. You’re going to wind up dead if you don’t get more people.”

Ray ignored Sever’s groaning and casually brought up a new subject as he fastened the buttons on his sleeves. “So, is this evidence also circumstantial?”

“Oh, right… No one has said a word. Just as promised. I obviously know who the culprit is, but since there’s no evidence I can’t catch them…” Sever bit his bottom lip and slammed his fists on the table, sending throbs of pain through his hands.

He did this every time. It was obvious that Duke Seraf was the one who had sent the assassin. The Duke despised Ray’s statues as an emperor.

The reason Sever couldn’t catch him, even though he knew it was him, was because of the circumstantial evidence. There was no physical evidence linking Duke Seraf to the incident. And the very next day, an assassin had appeared in Ray’s room.

Ray would be hard pressed to forget the old man’s worried look, and the strange why he’d spoken; ‘Last night I heard an assassin broke in. Are you all right, Your Majesty?’

Ray gritted his teeth against the memory. Your time for this shameless behaviour is running out, Duke Seraf. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Ray already knew what the duke was doing. Up until now, there was no hard evidence against him. But this time was different. Because now he held a very valuable piece of the game in his hand. He would use his newly gained knowledge to get proper evidence.

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When he thought back to Ahel, his mood instantly lightened, the corners of his mouth even curled up in a smile. He could feel Sever staring at him in confusion, but he could care less at the moment. He shook off his friend’s stare and went to the table and desk.

Suddenly, Sever burst out, “Oh, right! By the way, did you come back with some lady? The word already got out thanks to your servants. A few of them saw you giving her a room in the palace. Is that true?” His expression was somewhere between curious and skeptical.

Of course, rumors traveled faster than anything else in the world. If Ray’s employees had already started to spread the word around, it was only a matter of time before Duke Seraf heard about it.

He had given her the room on purpose to start the rumors.

Ray’s smile widened at the thought. “Yes. I brought someone. I gave her a room in the palace. You’ll meet her tomorrow.”