Inside the temporary meeting site, there was nothing lavish at all—just a long table and a few chairs.

And yet, despite how crude and ordinary those chairs were, Lorne, the mighty Lion King who had always prided himself on fearing neither heaven nor earth, hesitated and did not dare actually sit down.

It was not because the chair was scorching hot, nor because he had some terminal illness that would kill him the moment he sat.

Rather...

“This... this wouldn’t be appropriate, would it?”

Lorne’s cheek twitched as he looked toward the several young beauties who had all spoken at once.

“How could I possibly sit first? Th-this goes against proper etiquette.” 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Just look at who was standing before him.

The Empress of the Empire.

The Saintess of the Church.

The Swordbearer of the Silent Bureau, whose status was enough to stand on equal footing with his own.

And then there was that mysterious maid, whom even he could no longer quite read.

At the very least—at the absolute least—even that Judgment Archbishop standing off to the side should outrank him in seniority, shouldn’t she?

The Judgment Archbishop looked young and carried an air of mystery, and almost no one knew her true age, but Lorne refused to believe someone could become the Church’s sharpest blade without a certain depth of years behind her.

So although, in terms of seniority and strength, he was definitely not the last person here who ought to take a seat, he absolutely should not be the first one either.

Especially not when so many major figures were personally inviting him to sit first.

He, Lorne Campbell, was lowly and insignificant...

“Your Grace is my elder. If it’s only a matter of sitting first, what would be wrong with that?”

Liya blinked her bright, watery eyes and asked with pure innocence.

This was exactly when the importance of a persona became clear. At the very least, Celicia could never possibly play dumb in this sort of situation with such an adorably blank expression.

“No, no. It’s only an ordinary meeting. There’s no need to care about that sort of thing.”

Lorne wiped away sweat. His mind was turning faster than it ever had before, and he hurriedly seized on the improvised nature of the meeting itself as his angle.

“Whether someone’s senior or not isn’t important right now. Business comes first, business comes first. You all sit, please, sit first...”

“I see...”

Liya pursed her lips rather regretfully, then secretly shot another glare at those shameless little temptresses.

She had clearly been planning to use this chance to score a huge wave of favor with Muen’s father. After all, what parent wouldn’t like seeing his son with a gentle, beautiful, kind, and well-mannered girl?

By contrast, any normal person would absolutely never want his son mixing with some sadistic iceberg, some vicious woman obsessed with brewing strange potions all day, or some dangerous maid who only ever thought about fighting and killing!

Looking at it that way, her advantage as a cute and gentle girl was practically unbeatable. If not for the obstacle of her Saintess身份, she might already have gained Your Grace’s approval and become part of the Campbell family by now!

But who would have thought... the hope was lovely, yet these shameless hussies were all aiming for exactly the same thing she was.

Damn it. Where was your pride? Your dignity? All of you hold such exalted status, and yet you’re deliberately lowering yourselves to flatter someone else—where has your # Nоvеlight # self-respect gone?

Liya ground her silver teeth together so hard they nearly creaked, wishing she could erase every last one of those obstacles with her glare alone.

But unfortunately, now that Muen’s father had steered the conversation toward business, as the Saintess, she could not keep tangling endlessly over this kind of romantic private matter.

Besides, perhaps the ability to handle official affairs properly was one part of earning approval too.

Liya exchanged another look with the other sharks and saw that they had apparently all made up their minds to call a temporary truce and deal with business first, so she said nothing more and walked toward the long table.

“Haa...”

Seeing that, Lorne finally let out a breath of relief.

Goddess above—even when several Grand Dukes of the demon race had attacked him at once, he had never felt this tense.

He truly had no idea how that brat Muen usually handled things. How had he still not been hacked to pieces by those women with cleavers?

Still, thankfully, as the source of Muen’s excellent genes, the current situation was still completely within the range of what he could handle...

“Oh, right.”

Before the others had fully sat down, the Judgment Archbishop, who had remained silent for quite some time, suddenly smiled and clapped her hands, then asked at the perfect moment:

“Sir Lion King said the ladies should sit... then who, in your opinion, is actually qualified to sit first?”

“!”

Lorne’s expression froze instantly. He turned toward the Judgment Archbishop in disbelief.

Archbishop, you...

Just like before—those women over there only wanted to outdo one another, but you, Judgment Archbishop, are you actually trying to get me killed?

When exactly did I ever offend you? We’ve never even met before!

You bastard!

A storm of fury rose in Lorne’s heart, but he did not have the time to vent it, because the moment he turned his head...

he saw several burning gazes bearing down on him once again.

In truth, rank itself did not matter much to these women. What mattered was the hierarchy as understood by the father of the man they loved—that is, the hierarchy as Lorne saw it.

When their statuses were so close that none of them could easily use that as decisive proof, then recognition within that hierarchy might very well represent a deeper sort of recognition in his heart.

That was a bottom line none of them would yield on.

So not only Celicia, Liya, and Anna stopped and turned back—even An, who had always shown deep respect for Master Lorne’s status, now had a sharpness in her gaze.

“Lord Campbell / Your Grace / Duke Campbell / Master... what do you think?”

“...”

There was no killing intent in any of them. All of them were merely asking in voices that seemed gentle on the surface, and yet a kind of deadly danger was spreading through that cramped temporary room.

The war that had only just died down flared up once more.

And Lorne, standing squarely in the middle of that battlefield, was nearly choked senseless by the smoke.

He possessed power enough to split heaven and earth, and he was the famed Lion King, yet at this moment he did not even know how to answer such a simple question. He felt as fragile as some little housecat anyone could knead at will.

He had never felt so powerless before. It almost seemed as though his heaven-bestowed Crown was no more than that—almost not worth mentioning. In fact, at this moment, Lorne would rather have traded it away in exchange for a solution to this romantic battlefield.

My good son... I underestimated you.

His beard trembling, Lorne could not help squeezing two invisible tears from the corners of his eyes.

To survive until now in a pond full of sharks, to somehow resolve this kind of battlefield crisis who knew how many times... you have long since surpassed your old man.

For House Campbell to have an heir like you—well, maybe it’s not quite a case of ancestral graves belching auspicious smoke, but our forefathers have surely opened their eyes at last.

So... where the hell are you right now, you little bastard?

Why am I the one suffering through this?

This damn battlefield isn’t mine!

...

...

“Ah-choo!”

After sneezing, Muen rubbed his nose and looked up at the sky in confusion.

“That’s strange. Is someone thinking about me?”

Dark clouds thickly covered the sky. There was no blue above, no sun to be seen.

Nor was there any way to see through that heavy curtain of heaven the person who was currently missing him.

“Is it Celicia, Senior Anna, Liya, An... or Ariel?”

Muen shook his head and muttered with a smile,

“Forget it. No point thinking about it. It can’t possibly be my old man, anyway. He’s probably too busy basking in the joy of meeting his future daughters-in-law to spare a thought for me.”