/
Smith was left speechless despite giving a polite and succinct response without any fillers.
He felt uneasy about presenting the gift he had meticulously prepared, only to find out that she didn’t fancy it.
Consequently, Smith decided to switch to a different topic.
“I heard you’re not participating in the upcoming hunting competition. So you sent me those things
”
“She said she would be participating.”
As Smith was speaking, Ainar cut him off with a smirk on his face. Although Smith was clearly fuming with anger, he tried his best to remain composed and focused on Lyna, ignoring Ainar’s interruption.
It was evident that Smith was eagerly anticipating Lyna’s response, but she had no intention of satisfying his expectations, not even in the slightest.
“Your Highness.”
“Hm? Yes.”
Smith leaned forward slightly, appearing to listen attentively to her words, but he had to take a step back soon after.
“I heard you say ‘If you don’t call her immediately, I’ll personally take your neck!’ What were you going to do after that?”
It was Lyna, not Ainar, who posed the question that Smith desperately wished he could erase regarding the authority for summary execution. As Lyna was someone who could not be ignored, Smith was left without words, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly, unable to answer accurately or even utter a single syllable.
What could he say?
As a prince with the power of instant execution, it was not something he could say to the head butler of the Bolsheik family in their mansion, even if it meant tearing his mouth apart.
Lyna was well aware of this and directly asked Smith the question herself, knowing that it would be quicker to cut him off rather than allow him to ramble on with unnecessary words.
Although he was a powerless third prince, as long as she did not act, she could not forcibly remove him from the mansion. She could have simply left him and gone on her way, but Lyna did not want to provide him with any unnecessary opportunities.
Even before her regression, Lyna had a clear understanding of the kind of person Smith was: a man who was ambitious, cunning, and willing to do anything to gain power.
‘You will surely become an emperor who will be remembered throughout history!’
In the past, when Lyna was blinded by love, she had been preoccupied with packaging all of Smith’s flaws as admirable qualities fit for an emperor, despite being fully aware of them. As Lyna’s lips involuntarily twisted with sarcasm towards her former self, Smith’s expression grew stern.
Smith’s pride had already been shattered, leaving him in a pitiful state. He felt backed into a corner and assumed that Lyna’s sarcasm was directed at him. Despite his urge to lash out, he did his best to restrain himself and spoke up.
“Let’s leave it at that since nothing happened. And you said you’re participating in the hunting competition. Then, get dressed accordingly.”
However, Smith’s patience, which was already hanging by a thread, snapped at Ainar’s following words.
“What are you trying to cover up? Lyna asked. You should give a proper answer.”
“How dare you call Lyna by her name
!”
Despite all of Smith’s efforts to feign ignoring Ainar, it was evident that it was all a facade as he screamed and attempted to grab him by the collar. However, his attempt failed as Ainar swiftly dodged his hand by twisting his body to the left.
Smith stumbled awkwardly but was able to quickly regain his balance due to his well-trained body. Lyna, who had been observing his futile attempts, refrained from laughing at him. To her, individuals who held no value, whether they danced naked in front of her or walked on fire, did not deserve a response.
With his face flushed with humiliation, Smith swung his arm at Ainar.
“Get out of the way!”
It was purely coincidental.
“I told you to move!”
As Smith swung his arm, he did not attempt to hit Ainar with full force. He was not foolish enough to do something so overt, Smith was intelligent enough to avoid making such an obvious mistake, unlike earlier.
However, very unluckily, the moment Smith swung his arm wide, a hard box that could not come out of his pocket due to Lyna’s refusal popped out.
It wouldn’t have mattered if it had just popped out.
“Danger!”
The box flew precisely from the corner towards Lyna’s face.
Thud.
The sound of a hard object hitting something echoed through the room as Smith swung his arm. To his relief, the hard box had hit someone’s face, but it wasn’t Lyna’s; it was Ainar’s.
For Smith, this was a tremendous relief, and perhaps even an opportunity to get rid of Ainar once and for all. However, before he could fully consider his options, Lyna’s voice interrupted his conniving thoughts.
“Your Highness, the Third Prince.”
“Uh, yes?”
“Please leave now.”
“What? No, Ly
”
As Smith attempted to respond to the unexpected request, his throat constricted upon meeting Lyna’s gaze. Her eyes had grown so dark that they appeared almost black.
“I will cover up the incident where you tried to invoke the summary execution authority.”
Lyna whispered as she took a step towards Smith.
“Get lost now.”
Despite being something one should not say to a prince, Smith was left speechless in the presence of the intense atmosphere emanating from Lyna. He left the scene as if fleeing, unable to find the words to respond.
After Smith departed, only two people remained: Lyna and Ainar. Ainar’s forehead was bleeding, likely from the sharp corner of the box, yet he raised an entirely different topic as if he were not injured at all.
“Weren’t you deliberately catching Smith’s slip of the tongue to avoid giving him any excuse? He might have escaped now, but Smith would come up with any excuse based on what you just said.”
“Is that what matters now?”
“Huh?”
Lyna let out a faint sigh and gazed into Ainar’s eyes. Her eyes, which had previously been as dark as the depths of the ocean, now shimmered like a clear sea, as if their prior darkness had been a deception.
“Your forehead.”
“Ah.”
Ainar eventually reached up to touch his forehead, but Lyna promptly grasped his arm and pulled it down.
“There’s blood.”
“It’s not like my head is cracked open and blood is pouring out. So
”
Gently, Ainar took hold of Lyna’s chin and raised it slightly.
“Don’t make that face.”
At his words, Lyna reflexively rubbed her cheek and replied.
“What face did I make?”
“Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t any kind of face.”
Ainar refrained from commenting on how Lyna seemed to be holding back tears while gazing at his bleeding forehead. Instead, he offered her comforting words, causing Lyna to blink and release a laugh that sounded like the elusive tone she had only heard during her early childhood when her mother was still alive.
Though she was no longer a naive child who could easily be swayed by such gestures, Lyna willingly decided to let it pass. After all, it was Ainar who had been injured while trying to protect her.
Lyna lowered Ainar’s hand, which had been holding her chin, and proceeded to retrieve the bandages.
“Let’s start with treatment first
”
“There’s no need since it’ll cause a commotion if people find out that the second prince got injured after coming to Bolsheik Mansion.”
It sounded very reasonable and plausible, but it didn’t work on Lyna.
“What does it matter? Sit down.”
“Lyna.”
“I’ll do it myself, so there won’t be any commotion.”
“Your
self?”
Lyna, who pulled Ainar’s arm to make him sit, pushed back his hair that had fallen onto his forehead and answered.
“Yes. I’ve done a lot of these simple treatments in the borderlands.”
“Borderlands? You’ve been to the border areas too?”
As Ainar asked, Lyna’s hands paused for a moment and then became busy again.
“Ah
 it was before the regression. Anyway, it’s helpful to have learned it.”
Upon hearing Smith express his desire to achieve a meritorious deed, Lyna departed for the border where localized conflicts were occurring. She spent a significant amount of time there, neglecting even her familial responsibilities, in an attempt to find a solution for Smith.
However, the outcome was clear: every effort Lyna made failed, and it was Jane who welcomed her back to the family, having nearly secured the heir’s position during Lyna’s absence.
It was a past that had vanished before her regression, a future that would never come to fruition, and a time that Lyna wished to forget. Nevertheless, the knowledge and skills she had gained during that period proved to be quite useful.
As Lyna inspected Ainar’s wound and her breath brushed against his forehead, his body stiffened briefly.
“You won’t need stitches. It’s just a small tear, so disinfecting and applying ointment should be enough. You won’t need to wrap a noticeable bandage around it either.”
“That’s
 a relief. I guess it’s because the box that flew at me was small.”
“The box?”
“Yeah. The small one that was in Smith’s possession
 There it is.”
Following Ainar’s fingertip, a square box with sharp corners came into Lyna’s view.
Before she knew it, Ainar had slipped out of Lyna’s hands, picked up the box, and shook it.
“Judging by the rattling sound, it’s something smaller than the box. Now that I think about it, he said it was something you liked.”
“I don’t like it anymore, whatever it is.”
“At least let’s see what it is
”
Ainar, who was about to open the box, closed his mouth at Lyna’s continued answer.
“Because it was in the hands of His Highness, the Third Prince.”
Lyna added in a gloomy tone, turning her head away and casting her eyes upon Ainar, whose shoulders were intermittently trembling.
“Ainar?”
When she called his name, Ainar’s trembling became a bit stronger, and Lyna lowered her head and spoke.
“Just laugh.”
As soon as Lyna’s permission fell, Ainar’s unrestrained laughter pleasantly vibrated the air.
Lyna, who had been watching Ainar laugh as if there was nothing to complain about, soon found an indelible smile spreading across her lips.
As the laughter subsided, Lyna pointed at the box and asked.
“But didn’t you say this box was in the Third Prince’s possession?”