I Wasn't Trying to Seduce with the Male Lead - Episode 107

“What did you say?”

Minaz asked back, but Claude turned his head awkwardly instead of answering.

If he wasn’t going to tell her, she’d have to figure it out herself.

‘Did he say he wants to marry a Duke?’

She could confirm the fact, but her thoughts couldn’t go any further. Minaz took out the most realistic possibility from the many that came to her mind.

“Are you saying you’re really… into Lian?”

“What are you talking about!”

Claude jumped up in surprise.

“I should have known from the way you’ve always looked at him with hearts in your eyes!”

“I am not! I just admire him!”

He couldn’t even deny looking at him with “hearts in his eyes.”

Minaz tilted her head and asked again.

“Or what? The Duke of Phaedra?”

Claude’s tidy brows furrowed intensely.

“How on earth do you jump to that conclusion first?”

“But the Duchess of Floyd is married. The Duke of Bormia is older than your grandfather, and you seem to want to kill the Duke of Calabria.”

“Of course it’s not them! There’s a much more plausible person.”

Seeing Minaz still tilting her head, Claude made a frustrated expression.

“Isn’t there? An unmarried, pretty female duke of a similar age.”

Claude said in a voice that faded with embarrassment, then turned his eyes away.

Minaz’s eyes, which had been frozen for a moment, widened.

“What! Me?”

Her voice boomed explosively down the hallway in her surprise.

Claude glanced around, looking concerned, but didn’t scold Minaz.

“No way! You’re kidding, right?”

“Do I look like the kind of person who would make a joke like that?”

Contrary to her desire to deny it, of course, Claude was absolutely not that kind of person. He was the type to look displeased at the slightest hint of a joke from someone else, let alone make one himself.

But this was a reality that was hard for her mind or heart to accept.

“You’re so quick-witted, so why…” The words just popped out. “We even took a bath together! I even washed your…!”

At Minaz’s words, Claude looked like he wanted to jump off the railing. Minaz didn’t stop there, she frantically raised her thumb and shouted.

“It was this big!”

“…Please, can you refrain from saying things to the person you just confessed to that a normal person would never say?”

When she came to her senses, Claude looked like he would crumble if she blew on him, due to the immense mental damage. Minaz frantically tried to fix the terrible situation she had created.

“But you’re seven years younger than me. We’re not even the same age, and we’ve never even thought of each other that way…”

“You may not have, but I have.”

Come to think of it, for a high-ranking nobleman, it was quite late in life, yet Claude had never had a single rumor about him. He had a handsome face and was strangely popular, so why hadn’t he married? She had thought his refusal to marry was just his particular stubbornness.

‘He’s been looking at me that way? Really?’

No matter how much she heard it, she only understood it in her head, but it didn’t feel real.

As she stared blankly at the floor, Claude took a step closer.

“I am no longer the little boy who used to follow you around.”

She raised her gaze to his face. She hadn’t paid much attention to it before, but his face was much higher than she remembered. His voice was low, resonating as if from his waist, and his Adam’s apple was prominent on his firm neck. His broad shoulders, his strong arms, and his sharp jawline were all those of a man.

“I… I don’t know. I’m just so flustered.”

It was a statement she had managed to get out after a long hesitation. It was a lame but honest feeling.

Claude didn’t seem surprised, as if he had expected it, but he couldn’t hide the painful look in his eyes.

“I’ll leave it to you to persuade the Count. Let’s talk again when you’ve calmed down.”

After saying that, Claude left Minaz and walked down the hallway. Minaz watched his receding back without saying a word.

It felt like she would never calm down.

She stood frozen and unmoving, when Claude, who had walked quite a distance, suddenly stopped. It seemed he had forgotten to say something.

He slowly came back and stood in front of Minaz. He grabbed the thumb she was still holding up.

“It’s not that small now.”

After saying this in a firm and serious tone, he spread his index finger and made a circle with it and his thumb. He nodded once in satisfaction at the sight, then left again.

“You must have been busy.”

The Duchess said to Minaz, who was entering the Emperor’s study. She was late because she had been frozen in the hallway for a long time.

“Yes. Did you two have a good talk?”

Minaz asked back calmly, hiding her flustered feelings. The Duchess nodded affirmatively and asked another question.

“I heard you summoned the legislators from the Bureau of Law and gave them instructions. Are you preparing to amend the law?”

“Yes. I have something to tell you about that.”

Even though it was a short period, they had faced a huge enemy together, risking their lives, so they had built a kind of camaraderie. Therefore, Minaz did not beat around the bush and frankly told them about the plan they had been pushing for.

“So, according to imperial law, the Emperor cannot marry a commoner Empress. So, we’ll have to take Eleanor as a courtesan first and…”

“We can’t do that.”

Lian cut her off resolutely.

“I was going to formally welcome Eleanor after all the preparations were done. I cannot ask her to become a courtesan.”

“I thought you would say that, but please be a little flexible for our sake. That’s how the law works, isn’t it? Surely you’re not planning to ignore the Empire’s legal system.”

“I have no intention of ignoring the Empire’s law.”

Then what? When Minaz looked at him with questioning eyes, Lian said in a clear voice, “I will not become the Emperor.”

Minaz made a face she had only made a few times in her life, and now for the second time today. A vague description would be: her jaw dropped, her eyes wide, and she just stared.

“What are you talking about?”

“Just what I said.”

“My brain has exceeded its usage limit for today, so please explain it in a way that’s easy to understand.”

She was ready to give him a slap if he started spouting nonsense, pretending to be reluctant to take on the role, saying he didn’t know he would become Emperor, or that it was too much for him. However, Lian did not feign the humility she had not expected.

“From the day I first picked up a sword, I wanted to live as a knight who protects the Empire. That feeling has not changed.”

“You don’t have to give up that feeling. The Empire is a country of knights. You can be an Emperor and a knight at the same time, can’t you?”

“I don’t have that luxury right now. Besides, I don’t think I have the qualities of an Emperor.”

Rejecting the position of Emperor with excuses, as if he was being saddled with some bothersome club presidency. She knew he was extraordinary, but this was too much for an ordinary person to understand.

Minaz waved her hand and said, “That’s absurd. You were born to be Emperor. We all grew up knowing that. Eleanor says so too.”

She deliberately brought up Eleanor. Lian created a picturesque scene by lowering his golden eyelashes.

“She certainly has a mysterious side… She knows many things no one else knows.”

As he said, Eleanor was too insightful and brilliant for a commoner. She had said several times that Lian would have been destined to become Emperor if he hadn’t met her. Minaz, who was rarely swayed by others’ opinions, somehow felt that everything she said was right.

However, Lian was silent for a moment, then shook his head.

“I feel that the person in her story is not me.”

“Eleanor seems to be sure of her assumptions.”

Lian smiled bitterly and raised his head.

“If I had become the person in her story… I think I would have been caught in a flow I didn’t want and would not have been able to escape that cycle.”

His purple eyes were filled with melancholy, creating a dangerously poignant atmosphere. Looking at his serious tone and expression, it seemed he had thought a lot about this problem and had come to a conclusion.

“But we need a new Emperor right now. If you don’t do it, who will?”

It was a position for which countless people would give their lives to achieve for even a single day. If they were to put forward an unqualified person, those who were not convinced would rise up, and chaos would soon erupt.

Minaz, who had a frustrated look on her face, looked at the Duchess. The two had just been talking.

“Ah, the Duchess, perhaps?”

She thought the Duchess of Floyd would be a good alternative. She was elegant, charismatic, and capable, and as a Duke of the Empire, she had a right to the throne. The fact that the succession would naturally pass to Lian after she abdicated was also appealing.

However, the Duchess shook her head from side to side.

“I love my life as a regulator of the Empire’s numbers. Also, I have no intention of giving up my freedom to roam the northern territories with my falcons.”

It was a statement befitting the Duchess, who had gone to the north right after giving birth to Lian and had been away from the capital for 20 years. Her detachment was so firm that there was no room to argue, and it seemed unchangeable.

“But then there’s no one. The Duke of Bormia is too old and has no successor…”

Minaz, who was racking her brain, felt a strange sense of déjà vu. She felt like she had felt this way just a moment ago.

The Duchess and Lian were looking at her with serious eyes.

“I intend to recommend you.”

This was truly the most absurd day of her life.

Minaz swallowed hard.

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