Ryoichi was secretly taken to the prison. Nervousness and fear occupied his minds.
'How to escape? How to survive?' These minds were whirling in his head. He still had a wish that saving the princess' life could weigh more than a disrepute without proof. Meanwhile, it'd better be some real unethical affair between those two brother and sister.
Then, a personal attendant came and talked to the jailor, "the prince requests the criminal to remove all his apparel, including the helmet. He's lost his rights of pride and those possessions, for now."
"But the queen is still demanding some information from this guy. Would that be killing him without the helmet? He seems to be suffering from the allergy."
"Fool! How dare you question the majesty! And it's only FOR NOW. Have allergy ever killed anyone before? None! It might just be another more effective way to make him surrender and provide info. Do it."
"Sure, as the prince wishes." The jailor answered, entered the water dungeon and began to execute the order.
"No! I can't breathe under water. I'll die without the helmet. The queen won't get what she wants, and she'll get angry to you all!"
"Nonsense, we're all ocean residents, and we all can breathe under water. A little bit of allergy will just make you suffer. It won't kill you if you provide the info as soon as possible."
Regardless of Ryoichi's resistance and words, the jailor took off his suit and helmet, leaving him naked and crouching on the floor.
At first, Ryoichi was holding the breath and closing the eyes, which made his face turn extremely red. However, only a few seconds, he couldn't hold it anymore. The water poured into his nose, ear, and mouth. He suddenly opened his eyes and body, just like the drowning person, trying to grasp something. However, nothing could he reach right now but the water and cold metal bar with moss on. His whole body was twitching like a dying dog. His eyes, now, could not see anything but some flashes back, from coming to this world to his previous life, from his only friend S to his dad, and to his mom, who he could hardly remember her face. Instead of abandoning him, this time his mom gently called his name: "Ryoichi, my little Ryoi, come to mommy."
Ryoichi also opened his arms to her, "mom, please take me home".
The queen Katharina was back to the Palace and working, besides stood the prince Jonathan.
"Why don't you just kill him, sister?" Jonathan seemed to be a little bit nervous.
"For what? Being suspected to seduce the princess? There's no proof. After all, he saved Fiona's life. We can't do that cruel thing to him. It's not good for the elite's reputation. I've received enough complaints about the stupid stuff our elite class has done."
"Then, what? What do you want to do to him?"
"I'm thinking."
Jonathan realized he could not convince her, so he pretended to leave. After walking out of the room, he instigated his attendant to the prison and kill him.
"Just take his helmet away and let him slowly suffocate." Thinking of that person might have taken advantage of his little sister, Jonathan would love to make him suffer before letting him easily die.
After the attendant left, the prince was about to go back to Katharina, and a messenger fish came. So he took it to the queen.
The queen took the message from the fish's mouth. It was from the hospital in a top-secret form.
It said: "Princess Fiona is pregnant for one month."
Katharina was furious and threw the note to Jonathan's face, "look what you've done!"
Jonathan picked it up and read through. His face turned pale.
"How.. how …"
He tried to rush to the queen, but was stopped.
"Kneel!"
"Sister!"
"Don't call me sister."
"Your majesty, I..This…How…"
The queen sat down and tried to calm down, "it's yours, right?"
"No, I… I didn't, I mean," he couldn't stop stuttering and cried, "I didn't mean to. Fiona, it's Fiona, I was drunk. I thought it was you, your majesty. I've been always loving you, sister. You know that, you just won't accept me!"
"I've told you I don't want that tragedy of the elder generation every happen again. So I won't marry you, my dear brother. And I'll only love you as my kin, not my lover. As for Fiona, I know she's fond of you, and she doesn't want that arranged marriage between our queendom and Pulchritudinem." The queen had a disconsolate expression on her beautiful face.
"So you already know it's me. Why do you still question that guard?" Jonathan was puzzled.
"I have my own intention. Firstly, Fiona cannot marry you."
"I won't marry her! My only love is you, Katharina, my dearest sister!" Jonathan interrupted.
Katharina glanced at him and then continued: "The scandal of taboo marriage cannot ever happen again. We can't afford losing the faith of the public or the curse of aranea. As for the Kingdom Pulchritudinem," she sighed, "if Fiona doesn't want to marry for conciliation, we'll also need a good reason."
"What if just assigning a random, I mean, a good person from the elite class to marry her?"
"Nonsense. The marriage was arranged after the kingdom confirming with us that there was no one in the elite class would ever marry Fiona. By the way, would anyone do that stuff to infuriate Pulchritudinem? Those bunch of suckers."
"So what's your plan?"
"I need someone, not elite, but just an ordinary person. He must be someone who can see Fiona, but not frequently, and falls in love with her with the first sight. Then, he is also strong enough to save her on one occasion, which made her inevitably admire and love him too. Fiona even used her death to threaten me to let them be together, so that I have to turn Pulchritudinem down with terribly sorry."
"Are you suggesting you're marrying Fiona to that guard?! No! I object!"
"Shut up. I've made up my mind."
"The elite won't allow you to do that!"
Katharina laughed, "as long as they don't need to take the responsibility of it, they won't give a shit about who becomes the target of Pulchritudinem's anger and venge."
"But, but you can't marry the princess to a nameless nobody! That's, that'll also be a joke to the public!"
"Of course, I won't let that happen. I'll name and knight him. After all, he saved the princess and deserved a HUGE reward."
Back to the prison, Ryoichi felt he was dying in mom's hug while the words of S popped out of his minds: "… it's like you're a baby in mom's womb … our ancestors have already been formed with a proper respiratory system … so we're born now to be able to breathe under water … you just have to conquer your fear …"
'Right,' Ryoichi thought, 'as I have reincarnated into this new body, I definitely have the capability to live like others. I just have to conquer my habitual thinking and accept the brand new living style under water.'
Realized that, instead of holding the breath and resisting the water, Ryoichi took a biiiiig breath and inhale in a large amount of water into his body. It's not the same as breathing the air, but it's unexpectedly not choking him at all. Then, he opened his mouth and breathed a few more times, and surprisingly found out that he had got with it! The water flew through his body, which automatically filtered and absorbed the oxygen, and ejected the redundant water. He was, right now, just feeling like a fish in water, literally.
At this time, a jailor with another messenger came to him: "Mr. guard R, the queen is requesting to see you."
Ryoichi was taken to the front of the queen again and kneeled.
"Guard R, do you know why I summon you?"
"I have no idea my majesty."
"Of course you know. You saved Princess Fiona's life, so I'll reward you."
"That would be my honor, your majesty."
"I'll name you and make you one of the elites. Besides, I'll marry Princess Fiona to you."
After hearing this news, all the elites in the palace were shocked, twittering around. Ryoichi was also surprised. A moment ago, the queen was going to behead him, while a moment later, she was marrying her precious sister to him?
He, and all the elites above the stairs, including Prince Jonathan, were thinking the same thing, 'huh, every dog just has its day.'