When I came to my senses, I found myself standing in a large church inside the Imperial palace.
And inside the church were basically everyone I knew except for Araceli and her group.
Everyone were staring at me expectantly, their eyes sparkling with excitement and joy. Well, everyone but one person... But it would be a lie to say that I was the center of the attention. No, I was only half of it.
The other half - Eleanor - was smiling dazzlingly me at me. She donned white bridal attire, her hand held a bouquet.
Lost in her smile, I couldn't maintain focus and hear what the priest who was right beside us was saying. All my thoughts were alternating between how beautiful Eleanor looked and what the flying fuck I was doing here.
However, my confusion was fueled even more by Eleanor's whisper.
"Now I know why the previous me fell in love with you."
'BUT I FUCKING DON'T!'
Despite my thoughts, I still kept a smile while staring at Eleanor's flushed face. Her blushing face wasn't fake, and I was sure of it.
'How did this happen? What went wrong? The last thing I remember was me going to Kerud—'
However, my thoughts were interrupted once more by the words of the priest.
"You may now kiss the bride."
Before I could do anything, Eleanor leaned in and kissed me. As if making a statement to a certain someone, she deliberately didn't make the kiss brief. Instead, she took her sweet time sucking my lower lip and pushing her tongue in my mouth. Some bits of saliva dripped onto her white dress, but she didn't care.
I was starting to get intoxicated by the kiss. Now, I didn't want to do anything other than enjoying the sweet taste of Eleanor's mouth. After a while, our lips broke contact, and I started to regain my clarity.
The first person I looked at was Eleanor, who was whispering lovingly.
"Thanks darling. Thank you for giving me the will to live. As long as you're here for me, I can go through as many regressions as that God can throw at me. I love you..."
Something was terribly wrong, but I couldn't put a finger on what it was. Thus, I put the weird feeling aside and lovingly caressed her cheeks.
'Right, I remember now. The Emperor forced us to go on a lot of dates and somehow she fell in love with me.'
Our relationship was supposed to be akin to that of business partners, but who would have known that we would come to love each other over the years?
"Darling, you're finally smiling!" Elea suddenly spoke, snapping me out of my thoughts.
"I- I am?" I lightly touched my face. I could feel that the corner of my lips were indeed perked up into a smile.
Seeing my reactions, she chuckled.
"I'm glad you're enjoying this as much as I did. I was afraid that... our wedding would not be special to you since this is your second time doing this."
Leaning in and giving her a quick peck on the lips, I muttered softly. "There's no way our wedding wouldn't be something special to me, Elea. I will enjoy it no matter how many times I get to do it. I was just... trying to process everything before. No need to worry."
As Elea smiled yet again, the priest beside us coughed loudly and cleared his throat.
"Kuem! Sorry to interrupt your little moment, Imperial princess and Saint of Storms, but we have to continue with the ceremony."
Both I and Elea flushed in embarrassment upon hearing this. With steam figuratively rising out of her head, Elea meekly nodded.
"Y- Yes... let us proceed."
The priest smiled softly and picked up a leather-bound book on the pedestal in front of him. Opening the book, he uttered.
["O Supreme god Erchast - maker of Angels and Demons - please grant your blessing upon these two!"]
Unlike what one might have expected, nothing grand happened. No bright pillar of light descended, no sudden explosion, no nothing. That was, to everyone but me.
As soon as the priest finished his prayers, a translucent white screen that only me and Elea could see appeared. Since both I and her already knew what the content was, we promptly ignored it and gestured for the priest to continue.
Nodding, the priest took out a [Soundproof sphere] and activated it. He then took a dozen steps back to give us some space.
Now completely alone in this silent space, I whispered with the softest voice I could conjure up.
"I love you for eternity, Adeliast my love."
"Me too, darling."
And with that, I grabbed the [Soundproof] sphere and deactivated it. As soon as I did so, the whole church burst into a round of applause. Holding Elea— well, Adel's hand, I finally turned toward the wooden seats for the first time since the ceremony started.
On the top row, I could see Emperor Razos crying as tears and snots alike dripped from his face onto his hands. Right next to him was Empress Angelica, who was rebuking him for crying despite barely holding back tears herself.
Sitting next to the Empress was... my mom - Karin Gray. She wore a beautiful black dress, her usual long black hair was tied into a bun. Unlike Razos, she was smiling happily, her eyes curved like crescent moons as she did so.
'I'm so proud of you, dear.' I could hear her voice out those words.
Nodding at her, I then turned my attention to the row behind them. There I saw the Grand dukes, most of them looked less than amused. The only ones that were truly immersing themselves in this event was duke Freywright Pyrian and duke Smithian Duvyle. Oh, and viscount Nightshade was also thrown into it too. But she was too pressured by the prospect of sitting alongside with the dukes that I couldn't really tell what she was feeling from her stiff face.
I lost all my interests in the dukes who were mostly here for formality and paid attention to the people to their side.
Arthur... he was smiling while cheering for both me and Adel, blissfully unaware of the fact that I had just stolen his fated lover.
'He got Marie and Lucy anyway. He'll be fine.'
Marie was also celebrating cheerfully. While it seemed that she was celebrating for us, I knew the actual reason why she was so happy.
'You're glad that you have one less competitor now, huh? Just be honest with yourself. Arthur would still love you if you were to act like a crazy yandere anyway.'
I then noticed Raun. He was happy for me and so was Krista who was sitting right next to him. Also sitting beside Raun was Amelia who was burying her flushed face in her hands and peeking at us through the gaps between her fingers.
'Ah, she must still be flustered after seeing Adel kissing me like that. Can't blame her though. It was too passionate, even for me.'
Lucy was, well, Lucy. She would jump happily at anything so there wasn't much to talk about.
Evelyn, however, was the complete opposite. Resting her cheek on her hand, she looked absolutely bored. It was as if she was only attending this out of obligation just like the dukes.
Then, there was Ria, whose actions confused me. She wasn't excited, nor she was bored. Instead, she just stared at us while simultaneously heaving sighs of relief.
'Weird... but it's probably nothing.'
I then noticed Emily and Fovoth. Just like Amelia, Emily was still embarrassed to have witnessed Adel's kiss. But Fovoth... he seemed happy, more happy than anyone inside this church. He must have been even more joyful than Adel and I right now.
'Shit... I didn't expect promising to give him herbs from the royal treasury would excite him like that.'
But what was done had been done. He had helped me a lot during the past couple of years, and giving him some plants that were doomed to wither away unused anyway was the least I could do.
After checking everyone out, I turned back to Adel again with a smile.
"Let's continue."
"Yes, my darling."
As we took a step down the raised platform, Adel held the bouquet up high and threw it.
"Mine!" Krista shouted.
"No!" Marie similarly shouted as she jumped out of her seat. "It's mine!"
Time seemingly came to a stop as both Marie and Krista's hands were inches away from the bouquet. However, the one who ended up winning was neither of them. Instead, a small shadow suddenly jumped from behind the seat row and hugged the bouquet with both of its arms.
"Mine~ Thanks Sylph~~"
The shadow turned out to be Glacia, who had presumably used Sylph's powers to get to the bouquet first.
Ignoring Marie who was charging toward Glacia with bloodshot eyes and Krista who was holding the mad Elf back, I walked down the steps alongside Adel and patted Glacia's head.
"So you caught it huh, little lizard?"
"Nn! Hehe, daddy's hand so warm! And Aunt— I mean mommy's flowers smell so good!"
Hearing Glacia call Adel 'mommy' I suddenly remembered something.
'Wait, Adel isn't supposed to be her mom!'
What happened!? This didn't make sense! What—
But then, I suddenly noticed a lone figure sitting in a corner; The figure that had just suddenly manifested in the corner.
'No... it's more like I didn't notice her until now. Yes, that's right. She couldn't have conveniently appeared as I was just starting to doubt everything.'
Pausing my thoughts there, I stared at the figure - Sylvia. She donned a black suit, not as fancy as everyone's attires, but it was a formal piece of clothing fitting of a wedding nonetheless. Despite the apparent happiness displayed in her bright smile, the pain and sadness in her blank blue eyes told me otherwise.
Then, I remembered everything.
'That's right, there was a rumor of me and Adel having a child at that time. I would have been in danger regardless of whether or not that was true, so Sylvia chose the path that had the highest chance of ensuring my safety: Make Glacia my and Adel's daughter. I still don't know how that could have ever worked but... politics, I guess.'
I knew the reason why Sylvia seemed so sad. I wasn't dense like Arthur after all. I knew that she loved me; Loved me with all of her heart. And to be honest, I had affection to her too. However, my love with Adel came first.
'Just saying, if I could have 2 wives, I would make Sylvia mine too. But alas, members of the Imperial family must be monogamous.'
It seemed that Adel noticed Sylvia's sadness too, as she suddenly broke contact with my hand and rushed toward her. As soon as she got close to Sylvia, Adel pulled her into her embrace.
"Sylvia..." She whispered. "...I'm sorry."
"Eh? What for?"
"Don't you dare try to hide it from me..." Adel whispered as she looked straight into Sylvia's eyes. "...You're sad, extremely so. And I'm the reason for your sadness."
Hearing this, Sylvia couldn't hold her tears back anymore and buried her face into Adel's chest and cry.
Although her bridal dress was definitely ruined by Sylvia's tears, Adel didn't mind and began to stroke her hair to calm her down.
As soon as I caught up to them, Sylvia stopped crying and whispered to Adel. "No, I'm not sad. What are you talking about?"
'A lie.' Both I and Adel thought. But none of us dared to voice it out loud seeing that she was deep inside her own denial.
It was then that Sylvia finally noticed my presence. Calming down her shaky eyes, she quickly broke contact with Adel and bowed.
"I'll be going now. I've interfered with you guys' happiness too much."
She then hurriedly ran away from the church.
Adel tried to reach out to her, but to no avail. As she was about to abandon our wedding too and chase after Sylvia, I placed my hand on her shoulder and stopped her.
"Darling, let her go."
"And what? What if she does something reckles—"
"Serolris will look after her." I interrupted with a soft voice. "And no one here can catch up with her anyway. I'm sure she's using her Space magic to get away from us."
Hearing my reasonings, Adel gave up with much reluctance and turned back to me to bury her face in my chest.
...
"...and remember dear, use protection."
"What? Brother's married! Why would he need to use protection? Don't you want some more grandkids?"
"Oh, that's right, I forgot... Ignore what I said before, dear. Don't use protection, paint her insides with your color!"
"Now that's too obscene! Why are you saying that to your own son?"
"What? It's not like he's a kid or anything! He's 21 now!"
Using the moment when Krista and my mom were arguing with each other, I slipped out of the room. As soon as the door closed behind me, I heaved a sigh of relief.
"Haaaahh... I'm never getting into a room alone with the two of them again."
I then started to walk away. Before I knew it, I had arrived before my room. However, I couldn't enter my room since a certain someone was blocking my way.
"You're late." Adel frowned as she crossed her arm together with a pout.
I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment. "Sorry... I just escaped from mom and Krista."
"It doesn't matter." She said as she grabbed my hand. "Let's go."
Adel pulled me into our room and locked the door behind us. Before I could question her, she turned around and pulled me into her embrace.
"Do you have any idea how much I missed you? What were you thinking, leaving me to socialize with the nobles alone like that?"
"But I don't like politics. And besides... they looked like they were ready to tear me to shreds at any moment."
"That's your fault for choosing to love me." She chuckled. Her face then turned serious. "But that is no excuse."
"You're right... I don't have any excuses for what I did..."
"That's right. I'm tired and it's your fault. So you have to compensate for me by taking charge tonight."
"Taking charge of what?"
In response though, Adel grabbed both of my cheeks with her hands and craned her head up to meet my lips.