The meeting with the king was not a private audience.

That said, it wasn’t as crowded with nobles as it had been earlier.

Despite feeling like a lot of time had passed due to the long conversations I had with friends along the way, it had actually been less than a day since we returned from the underground of Lutetia. I had barely managed a short sleep, and since then, I’d been moving around the royal castle nonstop, meeting people without rest.

Sneaking into Charlotte’s room earlier certainly added to my exhaustion. But I couldn’t turn back time to recover my condition. If I did, all the progress I made in our conversations would vanish, rendering it pointless.

Given that only a few hours had passed, I assumed the kingdom’s nobles would have followed along and gathered again to debate intensely. However, when I entered the meeting hall to see the king, I was surprised to find fewer than half the people present compared to the morning session.@@novelbin@@

The noble who had argued with me earlier in the day was still there, but now he remained silent, lips tightly shut. Was this because the situation had become that urgent? Or was it because they now faced a problem only I could resolve?

Fortunately, the academy instructors were all present as well, though they stayed quiet. Still, having familiar faces in the room made things feel slightly less awkward.

The king sat on his throne as before—

“Ah, you’ve arrived.”

His greeting was accompanied by a face that seemed to have aged five years in just a few hours.

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