"Mm..."
In her sleep, Emilia suddenly felt an indescribable sense of loss.
It felt as though something immensely important had drained out of her body, jolting Emilia awake.
Yet even after waking, Emilia could not suppress that feeling of something slipping away from within her.
"What's wrong...?"
Murmuring in discomfort, Emilia opened her eyes.
What entered her view was the bedroom ceiling.
Emilia lay curled up on the bed, clutching the blankets tightly in her arms as though grasping at something, never loosening her hold even in her sleep.
"Fang Li... is gone...?"
Panic immediately surged through Emilia's heart.
But then, that panic was overwhelmed by shame and guilt.
"I'm being so pathetic..."
That was right.
She was being pathetic.
Just because the person she depended on was not beside her, she had become this flustered.
Could someone like that really put everyone at ease and earn their support to become king, even if she were not a silver-haired Half-Elf?
Though she thought that, Emilia could not help feeling lonely.
"Where did he go...?"
Thinking of the embrace that had kept her warm before she fell asleep last night, Emilia tightened her hold on the blankets as if trying to reclaim that feeling.
The blankets were warm too, giving off a comforting heat.
But...
"It still doesn't feel like enough..."
Logically speaking, warm blankets should have been better at warming her than a person's body temperature.
Yet for some reason, Emilia felt that warmth was not enough.
Only in Fang Li's arms could Emilia feel the warmth that allowed her to relax completely.
Compared to that warmth, the heat brought by everything else was insufficient.
"Why is that...?"
Emilia did not understand the reason.
Although her actual age was already over a hundred and her apparent age was around eighteen,