By Zephyria 
Mahir cautiously opened his mouth as I stared at his face, which seemed both flustered and troubled.
“Kyle, as I always say, you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance.”
“No, it’s not about how she looks. Well, it could be a problem, but… Anyway, it’s not because of her appearance.”
Mahir smiled as I rolled my eyes.
“I’m not just talking about looks. She came from far away, so this country must be unfamiliar to her. At first, she’ll be too busy adapting to care about anything else.”
“…Brother, I appreciate you saying that, but that’s really not the problem.”
Mahir tilted his head again as he looked at me, who was speaking listlessly. I couldn’t bring myself to say that she was adapting so well that she thought of this place as her own living room.
“Do you think your personalities don’t match well?”
I just pouted as I looked at Mahir, who asked with a worried voice.
“Kyle.”
Mahir called me as I hung my head. When I glanced up, I saw his brow slightly furrowed.
“I’m just asking in case…”
“Yeah?”
“Did you guys fight?”
“……”
I was so surprised by those words that I stopped breathing. Come to think of it, my lip was torn yesterday from being hit, but I had forgotten about it.
“Who? With whom?”
“……”
“What are you talking about? Do you think I’m the kind of person who goes around getting beaten up?”
I tried to sound as nonchalant as possible, but his suspicious gaze remained. Mahir stared at me silently for a moment before asking.
“Then is it just a scratch from falling?”
“Huh? Oh, I fell.”
I couldn’t help but be flustered when the excuse I had been thinking of came out of Mahir’s mouth. I answered as if nothing was wrong on the outside, but I was screaming on the inside.
“Did you put medicine on it?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“……”
I didn’t know what to do with his meaningful words, so I looked around and found a teacup, which I quickly poured into my mouth.
“Cough…!”
“Drink slowly. I won’t ask any more questions.”
“Cough, cough… Cough!”
Mahir, who was patting my back as I kept coughing because of the tea getting stuck in my throat, asked.
“You didn’t hit her back, did you?”
“You said you wouldn’t ask!”
“No matter how angry you are, you shouldn’t treat a girl like that…”
“I didn’t hit her! I didn’t hit her! I didn’t hit her!”
Mahir sighed again as I shouted, giving up on everything. I kept coughing because my throat still hurt, and then the nagging started.
“That doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to get hit.”
“I know.”
I couldn’t bring myself to say that as soon as I let go of her hand after saying I wouldn’t hit her, she punched me in the face without hesitation.
“It’s your problem, so it’s hard for me to say anything more… Anyway, you know what I mean, right?”
“I know. I’ll do well so you don’t have to worry.”
I couldn’t let Mahir, who was already busy, worry about such trivial matters. As I sighed deeply, his large hand touched my head.
“You can make me worry. I’m just worried that there will be bad rumors going around.”
“……”
My nose tingled at Mahir’s kind words. I felt like clinging to Mahir’s back and whining all day long like when I was a kid. If I were just one year younger, I would have done it without thinking, but now I was almost seventeen and had just gotten married yesterday, so I had to be mature.
As I was steeling myself, Mahir suddenly remembered something and said to me.
“You know that Bellein is from the Western Continent, right?”
I was momentarily speechless at the familiar but unfamiliar name.
“I heard about it… Why are you bringing that up all of a sudden?”
“Oh, you haven’t heard.”
“Heard what?”
Mahir closed his mouth with a troubled expression as I asked, not knowing what was going on. I started to have an ominous feeling.
Bellein Calderia.
She was my mother who gave birth to me. She passed away not long after giving birth to me, so I had only seen her portrait a few times, and she was not in my memory.
The reason why my eyes were a bright color that Actans couldn’t have was because my mother was from the Western Continent. When I saw her portrait, her eyes were a light gray with a bluish tint, so it seemed like I had inherited them exactly.
“Why all of a sudden? Why are you talking about that?”
I asked urgently, feeling an inexplicable anxiety, and Mahir, who had been moving his lips a few times, said carefully.
“She’s a princess of the Calderia Kingdom.”
“Huh?”
“…Your Majesty must have thought of you when he saw the Calderia Kingdom.”
“……”
My head was so messed up that I couldn’t understand what Mahir was saying at all. I stared blankly at Mahir and said as if organizing my thoughts one by one.
“So Aegis is from Calderia?”
Mahir nodded.
“The reason Your Majesty suddenly told me to get married… So it’s because my mother is from Calderia… So… No, wait a minute. Then Aegis and I…”
The more the situation was sorted out, the faster my heart started to beat. And with the rising despair, I asked in a low voice.
“Don’t tell me we’re distant relatives or something?”
I was angry at Khalifa for even thinking that, but this was the biggest problem.
Please, please.
I was praying desperately in my heart, and fortunately, Mahir nodded.
“I looked into it, and that’s not the case.”
I couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief at those words. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t dumbfounded.
“That’s ridiculous, really. What would have happened if that were the case?”
Did Khalifa think that just because he was committing incest, everyone else would be okay with it? Anyway, he was a unique psycho.
“Is that all? He just saw me and thought of my mother, so he suddenly pushed forward with this marriage?”
“I guess so…”
“Should I ask him if that’s really the case?”
I couldn’t understand how his thoughts could lead to that with my common sense. Mahir became serious as I pondered and asked.
“No. It’s forbidden by imperial decree to mention Bellein.”
“Are there no records?”
Mahir shook his head again with a heavy face as I asked with a serious expression.
“I looked for them, but they’ve already been erased for a long time.”
“……”
I kind of expected that, but I felt deflated when I heard it directly. Why do the Actan royals like to hide and erase past records so much?
Why? Because they’ve done so many things that they feel guilty about.
I scoffed inwardly and asked myself, and then Mahir spoke again.
“And there’s something you need to know.”
“What else? What more do I need to know here?”
Mahir took out a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it to my lips as I frowned deeply and asked.
“Among the ancestors of the Calderia royal family, there is a different race.”
“……”
“As time has passed, the blood has become so diluted that it’s no different from ordinary humans, but sometimes… There are some particularly unique people who are born.”
“……”
It seemed that my lips, which had been injured, had burst open again when I opened my mouth a little too wide while talking. I felt a dull pain belatedly, but that wasn’t the problem right now.
“The previous king, who passed away just before the current one, was like that, and in the current generation… There is said to be one such royal, but I don’t know if it’s Aegis.”
I listened to Mahir’s words and asked with a blank expression.
“So that means there might be the blood of a different race flowing in my body too?”
Mahir shook his head at my words.
“Bellein was an ordinary person, but since there is such a thing as intergenerational inheritance, I can’t say it’s not possible at all. As I said, it’s so faint now that it’s not much different from ordinary people. And you’re not a direct descendant.”
I couldn’t tell whether I should be relieved or not at Mahir’s words.
No, that’s not what’s important right now. I quickly racked my brain to understand the shocking facts I had heard from Mahir.
“Even if I’m like that, that means Aegis might not be human?”
Mahir frowned and nodded at my words.
“Well… To put it briefly, that’s right. The probability is low, though.”
“……”
The probability was low, but since she might not be human, her ridiculous appearance started to make sense. I thought it was strange, but she wasn’t human after all.