"All right, I made a profit."

As Shien sighed over this, Capeline looked at him with a complicated expression.

Back then, she had indeed strongly opposed Harvis seeking aid from the kingdom and having kingdom natives come save their country.

Though the kingdom was powerful, it was ultimately the empire's rival. Revealing their country's internal affairs to an enemy state and then asking it for help—who knew whether they might be letting a wolf into the house and inviting the kingdom to invade the empire instead?

Besides, as an imperial citizen, one naturally harbored more or less hostility toward the kingdom.

Thus, calling it a request for aid made it sound nice. Put bluntly, it was colluding with the enemy and betraying the country. If handled poorly, it could very well provoke the resistance of the entire empire.

The reason Harvis had fallen into his current predicament was also closely tied to his trip to the kingdom.

This showed just how absurd it was for an imperial citizen to seek aid from the kingdom.

Yet Harvis seemed to have chosen precisely because it was so absurd.

"After all, that Poisonous Consort would never expect us to make such a move."

That was what Harvis had valued. He wanted to catch Moro off guard.

But Capeline had still refused to agree.

There was no other reason.

She simply did not want to seek help from the country where that woman was.

They had been lifelong rivals, yet she was supposed to go before her opponent and ask for help. With Capeline's stubbornness and pride, how could she possibly agree to such a thing?

As a result, Capeline had never been able to reach a consensus with her older brother Harvis on this matter.

Yet during the time she had been imprisoned, her brother had already found a