ETCHY 09

Chapter 09

Erich plunged Crescentia without mercy into deep desire. In the midst of it, the man’s jaw tightened as he bit down hard on his lower lip, as if trying to hold something back.

Crescentia’s frail body shuddered through the continuous climaxes. As she gasped at the sharp sensations and clung to his broad back, he cursed under his breath.

“Huff, damn it…!”

Beneath Crescentia’s body—more precisely, around Erich’s lower half—came the rustling sound of fabric. Then came the sound of something wet being gripped and shaken, *tak, tak*. He roamed his hands over Crescentia’s body while simultaneously moving them busily.

Because he couldn’t focus entirely on Crescentia’s body, Erich’s caresses grew somewhat rougher. Crescentia grabbed his roughly moving shoulders and shook her head.

“Pl-please…!”

“Please, what? Want more?”

Crescentia found herself nodding unconsciously. In her, who so nakedly craved the man’s affection, there was no trace of a princess’s composure.

But right now, none of that mattered to Crescentia. Only the peak. Only pleasure like rapture mattered.

Gasping at Erich’s tongue work, Crescentia trembled and convulsed. Strength flooded into her fingertips as she held him.

The moment she felt her climax, Erich too twisted his face and let out a low groan. Crescentia gasped for breath and moved her lips.

“Er…ich…”

Crescentia, who had experienced an intense waterfall of pleasure for the first time in her life, saw her vision flicker white.

And like that, she lost consciousness.

“…ady! …Your Highness!”

Beyond her heavy mind, as if covered with waterlogged cotton, a familiar voice reached her.

Crescentia laboriously lifted her eyelids. Her blurry vision gradually focused, and Hilda’s face came into view.

“You’re awake. Thank goodness.”

“…Hilda? Why are you here?”

“You weren’t coming out of the Grand Duke’s residence even as boarding time approached, so Anton and I came to fetch you. They said you went for a garden walk with His Highness the Grand Duke. Are you very tired? The garden must have been quite expansive.”

Hilda replied as if Crescentia’s question were the most natural thing in the world. At her composed demeanor, a chill ran down Crescentia’s spine.

Forgetting her fatigue, Crescentia bolted upright and looked around.

“Where… where is this?”

“Your Highness?”

“…No. Never mind.”

Crescentia looked around the unfamiliar room and murmured in despair. She was in a place that was neither the Grand Duke’s residence nor the Imperial Palace.

Furniture made entirely of wood, the room shaking intermittently, the splashing sound coming from outside the window, and the intense smell of fish and sea water.

All of it was sending her ominous signals.

“…Surely not.”

“Your Highness!”

Crescentia rushed out of the room with a pale, horrified face. Standing in the corridor, she gaped at the scene unfolding before her.

It was the sea.

The Carola Sea, with its blue waves rippling.

Crescentia was on a ship. Having parted from Erich without even knowing when they had said goodbye, she was moving away from him.

“We’re almost at Regina. I woke you because it’s almost time to disembark…”

Crescentia listened to Hilda’s explanation in a daze. She covered her mouth with trembling hands at the unbelievable reality. The pungent, salty smell of the sea stung her nose mercilessly.

Crescentia had ended up leaving her first love behind. Without even having a proper farewell with him.

“The princess has left, I see.”

In the Emperor’s office. David, seated across from his close friend, raised an eyebrow. Seeming pleased to have found something to tease about after a long time, he wore a constant grin.

“I didn’t see you with the princess at the party either. Looks like the persuasion failed, huh?”

“…”

“Persuasion? What persuasion?”

The young man with milky hair seated beside Erich—Count Florian Scheller—tilted his head. David kindly explained.

“I asked Erich to persuade the princess to withdraw the Regina Declaration.”

“Ah, that conservative declaration.”

“Yes. But what can you do? The princess went back to her country without a word. Our innocent Grand Duke failed, didn’t he?”

David said with a shrug. Though his words expressed regret, he didn’t seem particularly disappointed, as if he hadn’t expected much to begin with.

“You should have told him to seduce the steam engine instead. Then he might have succeeded.”

“That’s ingenious.”

“Besides, Erich barely met the princess a few times, right? How could he persuade her? It would have been easier to side with Marquess Janings.”

Florian, his academy classmate and business partner, was always talkative. David chuckled and played along with Florian’s joke.

Meanwhile, Erich, who had been silently reviewing documents despite his friends’ teasing, slowly raised his head.

As a cold air settled over his expressionless face, Florian promptly shut his mouth.

Had he gone too far?

The so-called old weasel, Marquess Gabriel Janings. The head of the conservatives and a pillar of the Senate, he was currently the biggest headache for Erich.

The head of the conservatives, who opposed everything related to the reformists, was now opposing Erich’s steamship business.

The reason was that if steamships were commercialized, there would be no place left for the conservatives.

Though it was a joke, mentioning that he should cozy up to the marquess was enough to displease Erich.

“I will acquire all of it.”

As Florian watched his reaction warily, Erich smiled leisurely and spoke. At the unexpected declaration, David and Florian’s eyes widened.

“Both the princess and the marquess.”

Erich took a sip of his black tea, cooled to the right temperature, and wore a refreshed expression.

Thanks to having thought of a way to simultaneously resolve the problems that had been complicating his mind lately.

The conservative-leaning princess.

And the conservatives.

If he could get just one of these two, the other would follow on its own. And one of them had already walked into his hands of its own accord.

“If I marry the princess, the conservative old men in the Senate who are obsessed with bloodlines will lose their minds.”

Damn bloodlines… Erich muttered to himself and smiled wryly.

The biggest reason the Senate and Marquess Janings oppose Erich’s business before anything else is that he is from Ezatz.

Erich was once ‘Erich Ezatz.’

‘Ezatz.’

Ezatz is both the surname given to illegitimate children of the Arthur Empire and a derogatory term for them.

Those who cannot inherit their parents’ houses, pitiful beings who live lives akin to slaves.

With the second son, the current Emperor David, winning the succession struggle, Ezatz disappeared from this land. But the deep-rooted discrimination against illegitimate children could not be avoided even for royalty.

For the conservatives including Marquess Janings, Erich’s background as an Ezatz was also the best tool to obstruct his path forward.

If he could just shatter that beautifully…

“Surely, you don’t mean…”

David was seized by a foreboding feeling and looked at Erich.

Erich von Peter was a man who stopped at nothing to achieve his goals.

To obtain the Senate’s approval, Erich had to act favorably toward the conservatives as well. Even though they were the ones who had treated Erich with contempt and trampled him to the point of disgust because of Ezatz, he had to appease them.

In order to completely eliminate the conservatives in the new world Erich would create.

Just as he was agonizing over what kind of act would be needed to open the hearts of those rigid old men, a suitable method came to him.

A noble bloodline that could bear him a legitimate heir to escape the tiresome bloodline controversy—the Princess of Regina.

A marriage with her—that ridiculous method.

*’Since I’ve already started playing with fire, it wouldn’t be bad to see it through to the end.’*

Having reached his conclusion, Erich let out a dry laugh and lit his cigar.