Although there were still a few minutes left and Kane had intended to wait, Altina insisted it wasn’t necessary. She stepped forward and knocked on the door of the Queen’s office.
*Knock, knock, knock.*
“Your Majesty, Lord Kane has arrived.”
“…Come in.”
“Yes… Please enter, Lord Kane.”
As a cold and dignified female voice echoed faintly from within the room, Altina took the initiative to push the door open. She stood to the side, gesturing for Kane to enter first. Once he was inside, she closed the door and remained outside to wait.
Having prepared himself mentally beforehand, Kane followed suit.
As he entered the room, Corellia, who had been sitting at her desk handling government affairs, temporarily set aside her work. She rose and walked around the desk to approach him.
Corellia looked no different today than she had during their first meeting. She still wore that impressive daily attire — a solemn and magnificent royal gown. Beneath the dress, her ankles were clad in black silk stockings, and her white high heels, engraved with the royal crest, matched her hair color. Even the soles of her shoes appeared to be a shade of icy blue.
Her exquisite face was a mask of frost, and her thin lips were painted with icy-blue lipstick. The matching eyeliner surrounding her clear, cold eyes made her gaze look sharp yet somehow sexy, causing one’s heart to race for two different reasons.
Just having Corellia approach like this made Kane feel a bit uncomfortable. He instinctively wanted to step back and distance himself from this cold beauty who seemed dangerous in every sense of the word.
Fortunately, Corellia did not get too close. She stopped about 1.5 meters away, so Kane didn’t actually have to retreat.
“…How have you been resting these past two days, my other-world self? Do you have any complaints?”
However, he couldn’t exactly relax. The words spilling from the Queen’s icy-blue lips remained somewhat elusive.
Because her voice lacked significant inflection, carrying only the coldness and assertiveness of a superior, it was impossible to tell if she was sincerely asking or putting pressure on him.
“Thanks to you, I’ve rested very well.”
Since there truly was nothing to find fault with, Kane didn’t need to speak against his conscience under the Queen’s pressure.
He simply offered a polite smile. Even facing the Iceberg Queen, he didn’t change his usual demeanor or show any signs of nervousness.
“…That is good. Since you can still maintain such a composed attitude, it means things aren’t too bad. After all, at this point, even if you said you wanted to return to our usual room to rest, it would be difficult to arrange. That room is now our daughter’s room.”
Should he expect nothing less from a Queen who was technically the same person as himself? Facing Kane’s response, Corellia casually mentioned that the room they had shared back when they were the crown prince was now occupied by Princess Edwina.
While her phrasing felt slightly off, if he thought about it carefully, she wasn’t technically wrong.
Thus, Kane decided to ignore that part and spoke with a hint of helplessness, “If that’s the case, then don’t ask in the first place. The room I’m staying in now is already the best guest room in the palace. If I said I wasn’t used to it, would you really have Edwina give her room up for me, Your Majesty?”
“…Corellia.”
“…Hmm?”
Kane had intended to tease the Queen slightly, but he didn’t expect her to just stare into his eyes and coldly state her own name. For a moment, he was confused.
‘Why call out her own name? Don’t tell me she wants me to call her that…’
“…Just call me by my name, Corellia. Hearing myself from another world address me as ‘Your Majesty’ is truly unbearable. So, just use my name.”
So that was it.
“No, that would be too impolite. I am merely a prince from another world’s kingdom, while you are the sovereign of this world. How could I address you so directly? It’s truly inappropriate.”
Kane couldn’t just start calling her by her name just because she asked. If the maids or other servants overheard, wouldn’t the misunderstanding deepen?
Therefore, Kane immediately shook his head and declined the Queen’s suggestion with a smile.
“…This is not a request; it is an order. Since you acknowledge me as the Queen here, why do you not obey my command? Are you intentionally trying to violate the Queen’s order so that I will punish you?”
Unfortunately, Kane’s smile quickly froze.
Corellia had suddenly made a rather domineering statement in the same cold tone as before.
Whether it was a personal habit or not, she casually flipped her silver-white hair, which had blue highlights underneath. Her icy-blue eyes were filled with an indisputable coldness and strength.
Kane was stunned.
Wait, what? Was there really a need to get so fixated on a form of address?
Was being called “Your Majesty” really that uncomfortable? Did she feel like he was mocking her?
Come to think of it, didn’t this feel like déjà vu? Two days ago, when he first met Edwina, the Princess seemed to emphasize how he addressed her as well.
Even though they weren’t blood-related, were there actually such similarities between mother and daughter?
“…Even so, you still insist on calling me Your Majesty? Fine. I didn’t expect my other-world self to be such a pervert. Then I shall punish you as you wish. For now, let us start by stepping on your shoes.”
The most ridiculous part was that while Kane was still dazed, Corellia continued talking to herself as if she hadn’t received a response. Then, with her cold, beautiful face set, she began walking toward Kane with elegant, confident strides.
Judging by her words, she intended to approach him and use the heel of her shoe to step on his foot to inflict pain.
Kane didn’t dare stay dazed any longer and quickly protested, “Wait, don’t label people as perverts so easily! I understand. I will call you by your name, so please, have mercy… with your foot, alright?”
Even though Kane reacted quickly and spoke up the moment she lifted her foot, Corellia still took several steps before stopping.
The distance between them had shrunk to about 1 meter—a very close distance for Kane.
Furthermore, Corellia had no intention of letting Kane off that easily. She crossed her arms beneath her ample, maternal royal bust and spoke coldly.
“…It’s not ‘you’ in the formal sense, but the casual ‘you.’ I don’t require this of you in public, but speaking to me with that forced tone in private only displeases me. Since you are not a pervert, my order shouldn’t be that difficult to execute. Don’t you agree, Kane?”
“Phew… I understand, Corellia. It was indeed my fault for making you feel displeased. Please allow me to apologize.”
Since she had put it that way, and considering the Queen wasn’t entirely ignoring his feelings, Kane had to yield.
He originally intended to bow and apologize to her like a subordinate, but under the Queen’s cold gaze, he eventually changed it to a normal nod of apology, the kind used between friends.
There was no helping it. Even if they were the same person, their statuses were different now. She was the Queen, and he was the visitor, not the other way around.
“…It is nothing. It is fine as long as you recognize your mistake.”
Seeing Kane forced to treat her as an equal under her “tyranny,” Corellia’s expression remained unchanged. She simply moved her thin, icy-blue lips and let out another characteristically firm statement.
She wouldn’t care if it were anyone else, but since it was Kane—the version of her from another world—she held high expectations.
Otherwise, she wouldn’t have done something so unlike herself.
‘…Speaking of which, I haven’t been exposed, have I? Should I test him?’
Just as Corellia was about to open her icy-blue lips again to ask a certain question, a spirited and cheerful young woman’s voice suddenly rang out from outside the room.
“Ya~ Good afternoon, Your Majesty! And the other-world Majesty! I’m here to visit~”
—