Sometime later, Lothur entered his room with a peaceful look on his face, wishing he could lie in his bed and sleep until the next day.

After his ‘full’ recovery and resolution of the situation with Annaliese, Viktoria had allowed him to return to this room. She had no interest in keeping him in her residence for too long.

So, this man was back in his humble room, where he barely had space to train.

But since it was already late at night, Lothur was not interested in training today, even more so considering the ‘exercise’ he had just done.

With this in mind, right after changing his clothes, he lay down on his bed and closed his eyes.

Pa!

But as trouble always comes at the worst of times, just as he was about to fall asleep, his door was slammed by someone.

“Hell. Who knocks on other people’s doors in the middle of the night?” He asked aloud, making an angry expression as he looked at his door.

“Lothur, it’s me. Open the door.” Viktoria said in a low voice, but enough for him to hear her perfectly well.

“Tsk!”

After that, he opened his door as his eyes squinted in the brightness of that hallway, trying to observe the beauty dressed in an elegant blue outfit. “Viktoria, what do you want now? Couldn’t this wait until dawn?”

Viktoria then ignored his inelegant questions and entered that room uninvited. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒆𝒕

She sat on one end of his bed and said. “My parents wanted to have dinner with you earlier, but I couldn’t find you. Where were you?”

Lothur ignored her question and asked her what the problem was. “What do your parents want from me? Is your mother not satisfied with annoying me once a week, by any chance? Does she want to increase the frequency of our meetings?”

“Tsk!”

“Don’t you dare say that again!” She stood up from where she was, looking at him warily. “If anyone hears you saying that, you won’t even need strangers to beat you up. She will come here to finish you off!”

But Lothur did not show any regret. Instead, he closed his eyes and smiled at the beauty holding one of his arms. “So? Why are you here?”

“Have you gotten used to sleeping in the same room as your husband and couldn’t stand the longing?”

“You have a vivid imagination…” She laughed, knowing that getting angry at his comments would not solve the situation. “But that’s okay. You kept dreaming about it.”

“In the meantime, I came here to warn you about a problem.”

Lothur’s eyes widened upon hearing this, with him finally coming out of his sleepy state to look at her meaningfully.

He then listened. “In a month, we will have the Province Conference, a meeting of the local powers that takes place every 20 years.”

The Province Conference was actually a competition between the local powers that could guarantee advantages based on the final ranking of the organizations participating in the event.

Among these advantages were the right to vacancies in the Morning Star Academy, the exploration of mining and agricultural areas, and even the privilege regarding certain taxes levied by the imperial family.

The local academy was a competitive place, where many people entered through its rigorous selection process. However, noble organizations always had more people with qualifications to enter that institution than there were places offered through selections.

As such, gaining a good placement in the Province Conference could guarantee a more significant number of a given family’s talents entering that institution.

On the other hand, even though families had their territories, the entire empire belonged to the Leopoldine family. Each noble house just took care of smaller parts of that vast state for that power.

At the end of the day, each noble family had to pay taxes and report possible developments to the imperial family, who could make demands and collect taxes at any time.

Of course, this did not happen according to the emperor’s every wish. After all, taking everything from his vassals, demanding more than should, or coveting certain items too much was the formula for rebellions.

But even though there were laws that provided that families could stay away from imperial punishments, there were ways for this state’s rulers to distribute more or less power to those organizations.

Among them was the administration of some exceptional regions, which were granted to the organizations that demonstrated the best performance in the conferences of their respective provinces.

Because of these and other minor advantages, families like Viktoria’s valued such an event highly!

Viktoria looked significantly at the man in front of her and said. “We thought you wouldn’t have to participate in this before, so I never said anything to you.”

“But as we tried to register our members without your presence, we were barred by other local families.”

Lothur understood what she was about to tell him and felt a headache.

“We didn’t have anything to do. The competition is simply too important to risk our participation. So get ready to accompany us to this event in the next few weeks.”

He pressed his jaw hard and faced that woman face to face. “And how am I supposed to participate in this competition? Are there mortals in this? Will I have to fight, or are there different tests regarding that?”

Lothur already knew what the Province Conference was since the primary content of his geopolitics classes was precisely about Linn Province.

But he did not know how the final ranking of that competition was determined.

“Sigh…”

“It’s hard to say. That could vary. But in any case, even if you have to fight, just give up after you get on stage.”

“It’s not like it will make any difference anyway…” She looked away as she said that.

“Good!” Lothur commented without showing his discomfort at having to hear such words.

She watched him for a moment, finally realizing something Annaliese had told her earlier.

“Is there something else?” He asked as he realized that she did not seem intent on leaving.

“What were you doing to have been so late? In fact, these past two days, you have not stayed at my residence as you had promised. So, what have you been doing?”

Upon hearing such questioning, Lothur simply walked to his bed and lay down, intending to sleep.

“If you have nothing more to say, close the door after you leave…”

He looked at her already lying on that bed, and laughed. “Of course, if you want to join me, I won’t mind.”

Lothur did not like this woman’s questioning, which made it seem as if he owed her something as if he was her subordinate. But in his view, accepting this behavior from her by answering her questions was like encouraging her to continue behaving this way.

Thus, instead of being honest with her, he preferred to keep silent so as not to encourage her to continue with this approach.

“Lothur!” Viktoria walked over to his bedside and watched him intensely, wanting to teach him some good manners.

But seeing his relaxed expression, of one who was about to fall asleep, she clasped her hands tightly and left that place in a hurry, indignant that he did not obey her.

‘That bastard!’

‘How can he behave like that? Before he acted as if he was ready to answer me anything I asked!’

‘But now… Now!’

“I have to do something!” She muttered as she entered her residence, heading towards her training place to release some frustration from dealing with that uncontrollable man.

‘He needs to return to my control! Otherwise, this will only get worse!’

And while Viktoria was thinking of ways to get Lothur in line, he was already sleeping peacefully in his room, dreaming of what he would do to Elke in the future.