Volumes I, II & III of TBMMS + Side Story are Available Uncensored on Ko-fi!

I.

After a full six months, Xenobius reappeared, and aside from his skin being slightly sun kissed from the battlefield, he looked no different from the way he did last winter.

He was tall enough that Evina, who was considered quite tall among the Empire’s women, still had to tilt her head way back to look up at him. His build was solid and massive, more like a general than the typically lean Espers, and on top of that, he had striking features known to be unmatched across the Empire.

His thick, masculine brows, his prominent nose, and the strong yet refined lines of his cheekbones and jaw had grown even sharper now that he had lost a little weight.

It was clear. Aesthetically and artistically, not a single flaw could be found on that face.

And the fact that he could walk around alive with the nickname “Emperor Xeno” in a society ruled by an actual emperor was truly something remarkable. It simply proved how immense his abilities and power really were.

“Take it off.”

He closed the terrace door and turned around, casually peeling off the gloves that had been confining his large hands and tossing them aside before sinking heavily onto the sofa.

Her gaze flickered briefly to his long, thick fingers.

He spread both arms across the back of the sofa, let out a deep sigh, and crossed his long legs as he looked at Evina.

“What are you doing? I said take it off.”

His thick brows twitched.

As if the shameful act of flinging his gloves away wasn’t enough, he roughly yanked loose the necktie that had been so primly fastened at his throat and stuffed it carelessly into his pocket just like the gloves.

She stared blankly at the faint irritation rising in his gray eyes as he swept back his black hair. Then it suddenly struck her that this unrestrained, rough manner suited him far better than any neat and solemn appearance ever could.

The kind that exuded a strong male scent.

“Did you forget our promise?”

He glanced at the black mourning dress Evina was wearing, irritation clear in his eyes.

Her gaze followed his downward.

How long she had dreamed of this.

The black dress that meant her husband was dead.

She grasped the hem with both hands and let it flutter for a moment.

A sharp, thrilling wind of freedom blew.

“Yeah. That. The thing we promised.”

The edge of his voice was rough and low.

“You said it would be fine once your husband was dead.”

He turned his head briefly and let out a short laugh. The profile of him swallowing a sneer was devastatingly attractive.

“Right?”

He stretched his waist out as if half lying down on the sofa and sighed again. The banquet must have bored him terribly.

“You said once your old fart of a husband was dead, I could screw you or do whatever the hell I wanted. Your husband was in the way, so I took care of it.”

As he looked at her with eyes that said wasn’t that enough, she gave him a faint smile.

Yes.

She had always wished her husband would die.

Being born with the name Siollier and failing to awaken as a Guide was a truly horrible thing.

Her family treated Evina as defective her entire life for carrying good blood yet never awakening, and they sold her off to the man who offered the most money.

All while giving her the false hope that she might still awaken as a Guide someday.

That was how Evina was sold to a man thirty years her senior and lived in hell for five full years.

So she had begged.

Begged the man before her.

Please kill my husband. I’ll give you whatever you want in return.

And as a result, Evina became a widow not even a few months later. She also came into all that wealth in a single stroke.

But didn’t they say the devil shows you a brief happiness and then invites you to hell?

He had returned to the capital in triumph after sounding the drums of victory in the war, and now Xenobius summoned her from the large estate where she had been living happily after her husband’s disappearance.

As if to say it was time to pay her debt.

Really, he wasted no time at all.

She sighed inwardly.

“…Here?”

The sound of music rang through the banquet hall.

After years without a single banquet following the young prince’s sudden death, the hall was now swarming with petty nobles who had come up from all over the Empire.

And of all places, it had to be here.

Evina glanced around.

At this hour, with the banquet in full swing, a secret rendezvous between the Grand Duke, known as the Empire’s finest Esper, and a widow dressed in mourning.

There couldn’t be a more absurd farce.