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“We will!”

The knights cheered excitedly, but the emperor could not do the same. He wanted to get married to her, but it seemed that Poliana was now determined to avoid it.

Only a few days ago, she got drunk and an unexpected incident occurred. Yet Lucius the First watched as Poliana continued to empty her glass along with the other knights. He felt anxious and he walked up to her nervously, “Pol, are you going to be drinking a lot today?”

“It’s just water, your highness.”

Poliana replied in determination and showed him her cup. Indeed, inside her cup was clear cold water. It was going to be very hard to avoid drinking at a party that was thrown in her honor, so the emperor asked, “So the other knights aren’t pressuring you to drink?”

“When I told them that I will cry if I drink, they gave me water to drink instead.”

“…”

This party was to console Poliana, but it was obvious that the knights did not feel comfortable with her crying. What good friends…

Poliana said to the emperor. “I will just drink cold water. I swear I will never get drunk and lose control over myself again. If I ever drink again, I will give up my last name.”

Her last name “Winter” was given to her by Lucius the First. It was something she treasured the most in her life, so she really must’ve meant it when she said she would never drink again.

At first, only those very close to Poliana were at the party, but soon, more and more people arrived. Sir Ainno, who joined later, first came to check on Lucius the First’s health. When the emperor looked upset, Sir Ainno grinned just to annoy him. And when the knight saw Poliana Winter, who got very close to being trapped by a gold digger, he began to laugh hard. Sir Ainno asked, “W-were you able to deal with that gold digger?”

“I made sure he will never be able to do anything like this again.”

“Hahahaha! I’m sure you did!”

Sir Ainno, who rarely showed any emotions, laughed loudly. Everyone in the room was thinking the same thing, ‘What a jerk.’

Sir Ainno’s love life was going very well. Cekel no longer ran away as soon as she spotted him. In fact, they chatted together often nowadays. The emperor no longer had any wives. Although the knights and the soldiers were still very busy, the maids now had a lot of time to spare. Sir Ainno, who should’ve been too busy to have any spare time, made sure to make time to visit Cekel to talk with her.

The main topic of their conversation had been Poliana and Frau. As soon as she learned the truth about Frau, Cekel was relieved to hear that the emperor got involved himself to fix the situation. Sir Ainno was able to use the topic of Poliana’s current problem to get closer to Cekel and make her feel less wary of him. In some way, it was Poliana who helped him with Cekel, which was why Sir Ainno didn’t try to annoy Poliana further.

Sir Ainno turned back to the emperor. Lucius the First should’ve been happy to stop the woman he loved from getting married to a gold digger. But strangely, the emperor looked upset. Sir Ainno whispered to him to ask why, but Lucius the First just shook his head. He didn’t want to answer and Sir Ainno didn’t prod him further.

‘I will ask him later.’

Sir Ainno didn’t know the details, but the emperor’s mood must’ve had something to do with Poliana. What else could there be? And since both Poliana and Lucius the First were alive, Sir Ainno assumed that things would eventually work out somehow.

Meanwhile, Poliana was making another determined declaration, “I will live alone forever! It’s not worth getting married! I am going to get a dog too!”

Poliana has been drinking only water, but she seemed to be having a good time as if she was drunk.

Lucius the First was wondering when he should propose to her, so whenever Poliana loudly yelled that she will never get married again, his heart ached.

‘I swear, I am never going to get involved with a man again!’

She was going to stop drinking from now on, and even if she took a sip of alcohol, she will never drink with a man alone. Her bad habit was to fall asleep on the spot whenever she became drunk; she was going to have to fix this.

In this society, it was impossible to avoid drinking completely. There will be times when she must participate in drinking. Today, she got lucky, but next time, these same knights, who were being so understanding, will very likely pressure her into drinking.

Poliana didn’t think it was unfair since she did the exact same thing to others. This was the way of life in the military.

Only

Poliana yelled again, “I will live alone forever!”

A long time ago, Sir Baufallo told her to live alone if she wanted to remain a knight. At the time, Poliana couldn’t tell him with certainty that she will never love. She knew enough that no one could ever tell what the future held. She also thought it would be a shame to live her entire life without knowing what love felt like.

Now, 10 years later, Poliana made a huge mistake of falling for a man. It was going to be the biggest mistake of her life. So, she kept repeating to herself that she would never get married and every time she did, Lucius the First became more and more upset.

***

So the rumor of how Marquess Winter’s wedding was canceled spread fast. This story spread much faster than the one about her getting married. People’s reaction was very different than before. When they first heard that Poliana was marrying Frau, people refused to believe it. However, when they heard the wedding was off, everyone nodded. They have all been expecting this news, so they weren’t surprised at all. After all, the difference in status between Poliana and Frau was too great. Poliana had everything to lose from this marriage while Frau had nothing to lose.

The older generation still felt that it was necessary for everyone to get married, but most of the elder nobles were either imprisoned themselves or had friends or relatives in jail now. The high-ranking nobles were too busy dealing with their situations that they had no great interest in what was happening to Poliana.

People, who were interested, assumed that Frau didn’t return to Yapa because he was upset about the breakup. People guessed that Frau somehow annoyed Poliana enough to make her dump him. Some even believed that the power of the marquess exiled Frau so he could never return to the capital. Such a thing wouldn’t have been hard for Marquess Winter to order since Frau was a complete nobody compared to her.