Vanessa drew Liz into an empty room upstairs. After sitting down next to each other on the bed, she faced the nervous maid and asked.

“Now Liz, where did this come from?”

Liz struggled to meet Vanessa’s gaze as she thought about how to answer. Indeed, it was surprising. Her time to see Alex was not much, as she was an almost permanent maid for Kaylee. The boy was only home for once a week to start with.

Vanessa stared at Liz’s face to see if she could see into her thought process. She liked this girl. While younger than herself by a few years, she was a very lively girl, easy to become friends with.

Although, the confession came sudden, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing, even if she was a mere mistress, with her social position, legal wife would be a bit difficult in the eyes of society for someone like Alex. Of course, assuming there was no ulterior motive or plot in the background going on.

“I don’t know mistress…when I heard that I was to leave with you, I couldn’t hold back all of a sudden. I know it’s an unreasonable request but I had to try.”

“Liz, call me sister Vanessa. We’ve known each other long enough now, and you’re practically Kaylee’s aunt. Don’t be so distant. I just wanted to know if you truly liked that boy.”

“I…think I do. I mean I would hate it if I had to stop seeing him for months and years on end. I’m aware that I’m not suitable to be his lover……I just want to be close to Master Alex.”

Liz thought a bit more before continuing. “Someone like Miss Amelia would be far more suited to Alex. It’s quite apparent that she loves him, too.”

Liz sighed in defeat and looked rather gloomy.

Vanessa chuckled a bit after hearing the girl’s thoughts. She stroked her hair as she responded.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with liking someone and wanting to be with them. But, you haven’t shown any signs of it to the boy, so it would be a real surprise to him. Anyways, so what if he gets together with Amelia? You can still be his second. I know it doesn’t sound good but powerful men of high position are likely to have more than one lover.”

“But, Master Kyle doesn’t have a second wife…” Liz muttered barely audible to Vanessa.

Vanessa laughed at that. “Oh, he’s welcome to try…but if he does bring a second woman…hehehe…”

Liz was somewhat shaken by Vanessa’s sudden change in character and wondered where the previous gentle and kind big sister went.

While the two were in their bonding session, likely to become in-laws in the near future, a burst of rapid footsteps were heard from outside the room, echoing in the hallway.

“Mommyyy!! Where are you!” Vanessa and Liz both chuckled and started walking out to meet the cute little bundle of joy.

***

Edward Gray was sitting in his favourite couch, reading a book while drinking a cup of tea. Something he usually did just before going off to sleep together with his demonic wife.

Tonight, however, was a little different. There was an extra guest present in the room. As soon as the man who was not supposed to be present appeared, the temperature inside the room seemed to have been reduced by ten degrees.

The Duke was frozen, unwilling to shift his vision from his book. His instincts told him that he might lose his life if he were to make any sudden moves.

‘I’m too young to die. I’m only forty-two. I haven’t even taken in a mistress yet!’ As he gave himself some nonsensical courage, he breathed out slowly and moved his vision slowly towards the person sitting across from him, who was now helping himself to a cup of tea.

The Duke parted his mouth, only to close back up after deciding that it was perhaps better to stay silent and wait for the unknown person to speak.

After drinking a cup of tea in silence and muttering, “Not bad, good tea”, the intruder turned to Edward and asked.

“Do you know why I’m here boy?”

The first thought that went through the Duke’s brain was that how was he a boy. Even if the old man looked to be around sixty, he himself was clearly an adult. Soon after, he decided that it wasn’t really important and contemplated upon the more significant parts of the sentence.

Why was he here? Why? Realisation hit the Duke. His message from earlier had caused the King to ask that one person for help, something that he believed would not happen. And obviously his attempts to shift the blame to the unknown and suspicious individual was not effective.

The Duke got down from the couch as fast as possible and knelt towards the old man.

“Your subject greets the royal ancestor!” Edward was cursing himself inwardly. Perhaps, he should not have told his guards to ‘ignore’ the crown prince under all circumstances after all.

“Hmph, at least you remember your manners, boy.” The old man poured another cup of tea and waited for the kneeling ‘boy’ to speak.

“I-I pray that the crown prince is alright!”

“Hmph! No thanks to you!”

The royal ancestor’s sentence caused cold sweat to stream down the Duke’s back. As he was thinking hard about how to get out of the situation, and realising that there was no way to avoid punishment, both the Duke and the old man heard a strange voice in their ears.

“Ok, perhaps that’s quite enough. I’d never hear the end of it from my wife if I let my future in-laws to suffer through unnecessary hardship.”

Both men turned to look to see a young man sitting adjacent from them, with a relaxed expression on his face.

‘How did he- No! How long has he been here!!’ All sorts of alarms inside the old man went off, telling him not to provoke this man. The kind he felt when he met the monster emperor when he was a mere grandmaster ranked warrior.

“Oi, kid. Stop scaring the boy, he’s learned his lesson. Probably.”

Kyle held a bottle of wine in his hand. The Divine Wind, seeing the bottle in Kyle’s hand, was shocked to the extreme.

“Wha-! How??!!” His shaken voice rang out in the room as he stared at the bottle in Kyle’s hand. That was HIS wine bottle! How could it be in this man’s hand??

Trent Strand hurriedly checked inside his space artefact. Sure enough, the bottle of wine was no longer there!

“Hmm, not bad, barely passable. I’ll treat you to some of mine next time, if I get a chance. Gotta go back, can’t keep the wife and kid waiting too long. See ya!”

Kyle threw the bottle of wine towards the stunned old man, which the latter caught absentmindedly.

The young man vanished from their vision as he was never there to begin with. Edward rubbed his eyes to see if he just saw an illusion. He turned towards the royal ancestor and saw that the old man was staring at the wine bottle in his hand with his mouth agape!

“Not a word of this! Or I’ll have you vanish from this world!”

The Divine Wind made a rather scary threat before similarly disappearing from the spot.

The Duke kept kneeling on the spot for quite some time. After a considerably long amount of time, he finally came back to reality and breathed out a huge sigh of relief.

After getting up and pouring himself a cold cup of tea to calm down, he muttered to no one in particular.

“At least the royal ancestor didn’t mention anything else about the crown prince. Lucky lucky. But, who is that man named Kyle exactly?”

“Oh, my daughter, is this a good thing or a bad thing…time will tell I suppose…It’s really out of my control now!”