“I can see why you all hate the Evanoffs…” Yue murmured, thinking of Sevastyan Evanoff left a bad taste in his mouth. How could he do that to his family? To his mother in particular…

“Oh, that’s not all they did,” Viktor murmured. He was tense as he began to speak again. He had been pretty relaxed as he spoke before but now he was more serious.

—

Vikentiy didn’t have to worry about getting a bride. Especially since everyone just accepted his return to high society easily. He immediately began to get people desperately wanting their daughters to marry him.

He didn’t really care though. He wasn’t interested in marriage and he was actually starting to get very bored of this world.

“Compared to the world in the dungeons…this is terribly boring,” Vikentiy murmured to himself.

He spent his time going to balls and clearing every dungeon he came across but it was all incredibly boring. He was beginning to regret taking out the Evanoff family in one go. It would’ve entertained him more to kill them one by one.

“Lord Ivanov.” Vikentiy turned to face the voice and found a familiar man speaking to him.

“Grand Duke Belov, it’s been a while.” 

Grand Duke Belov was a nephew of the Tsar. He was very wealthy and very well known. Vikentiy had met him when he was young and attending the academy he ran.

“It has.” 

They spoke for a while but Vikentiy was a bit distracted. A small woman was standing behind him, socializing with her own circle. He was distracted because although the women in that circle were constantly staring at him, they all seemed discouraged and like they had no plans of speaking to him.

The Grand Duke noticed his curiosity and moved to the side to show the back of the small lady behind him. He patted her shoulder and she turned around after finishing her sentence.

“This is my Daughter, Avelina, you two are the same age.”

There was a little secret about Vikentiy, the only secret that he didn’t take to the grave. He was never really looking at people.

He could sense their gazes, their emotions, and their expressions but ever since his pupils turned red in the dungeon, he had never seen anyone’s appearance like others would.

Avelina Belov could’ve looked like anything. She could’ve been hideous, she could’ve been terribly plain, and Vikentiy Ivanov would not have cared.

All Vikentiy saw in a person was their core. And he couldn’t care less if you had a paper core. If you were useful to him overall then it didn’t matter but people with beautiful cores were a different story. Especially someone with a core as beautiful as Avelina’s.

Back then people knew very little about core types and core levels. Only so many mages had existed and only so many great mages had existed. People weren’t even sure they’d seen the highest core type yet. People only just started learning about them and how to examine them so only a few types were known. Vikentiy knew quite a few more types than other people though.

Before he entered the dungeon he was constantly praised by mages for his Ember core, It was among the highest level cores ever seen. After he returned no one had looked at his core. No one except Avelina Belov.

Her icy blue eyes glowed as she looked over him, she had just been curious about him because of his unnatural appearance and because of the legends behind his name but when she looked at him she saw much more than she probably even wanted to see.

“Avelina? Are you not going to greet him?” Grand Duke Belov quickly murmured as he noticed his daughter’s rude gaze.

“You are–” Vikentiy caught her gaze as she began to speak and he grinned, cutting her off. He knew, just as he was examining her, she was also examining him.

“You are very beautiful, my lady.” Vikentiy took Avelina’s hand and kissed it with a small smile.

“...Thank you, It is a pleasure to meet you,” Avelina murmured.

She continued to stare at him for a while.

“You have very unique eyes, Lord Ivanov.” She said and glanced at her father who seemed to be looking at the two with a very pensive expression.

“Ah, this is just an effect of the dungeon, as is my hair,” Vikentiy said, “If it unsettles you I can make it not noticeable for a while.” 

Vikentiy made his pupils change into a more normal color, the shape stayed the same but there was no red hue. As he did that, his vision also shifted into a more normal way of seeing. He wasn’t surprised when he saw that appearance-wise, Avelina Belov was still gorgeous.

She didn’t smile, she was rather stoic but that expression suited her well. She looked beautiful, with her lips pressed to a line and an air of royalty. Vikentiy’s smile widened as he looked at her. 

‘What perfect entertain--’

“You don’t need to do that, I find it intriguing,” Avelina murmured, her expression only changed slightly. She seemed suspicious of him and it only served to entertain him even more.

‘Truly perfect’

–

“Lady Avelina…what do you think of Lord Ivanov?”

“...He intrigues me.” That was all she could say to that.

From the first glance she took at him she realized that this man was something special. Of course, you didn’t need insight to know that. Vikentiy had always been ‘unnatural’, from when he was the golden child of high society as Vikentiy Ivanov and especially now when he was the Hero of the Dungeon.

He was unnaturally tall. He had unnaturally colored hair, unnaturally colored eyes. He was unnaturally powerful and worst of all he was unnaturally Lucky. Everything seemed to always go his way. Everyone seemed like they were under his spell.

“Avelina, Avelina~” 

Avelina didn’t question it anymore, how every time she stepped out of her home she would stumble upon him or how he made their relationship grow every time they met without fail. She felt like she was being swept away by him. He hadn’t cast a spell on her though.

She had heard a rumor, a rumor that if Vikentiy Ivanov told you to do something you would do it without hesitation. Regardless of if you wanted to. She hadn’t felt like she was being forced to do anything though. She worried that it would soon start though.

“Vikentiy Ivanov, just what are you trying to do?” Avelina asked him bluntly. She wasn’t someone who would sugarcoat her words.

“I’m trying to woo you.” Vikentiy was also rather blunt when he felt the need to be. 

Avelina stared at him, she often found herself wondering what people saw in her. Wondering if her face was truly enough for them. The face of a woman who doesn’t smile, the face of a woman who is neither gentle nor motherly, is this truly what people thought of as beautiful?

“Why?”

“Because–...” Vikentiy paused for a second. Avelina had a legendary core, which was the reason he was at first interested but he had quickly come to the realization that his reasons had changed.

“I want to make you, Queen of Everything,” Vikentiy said and smiled.

Avelina stared at him, speechless for a while. She had a feeling this man had gone a little crazy in the dungeon and she feared that it might’ve spread to her as well. She didn’t hate those words.

 “Treason..?” She murmured.

Vikentiy just laughed in response, “If that’s what you want, sure.”

Avelina stared at him for a while in silence. She looked into his eyes, this would be the chance to back out if she didn’t like what was going on. She knew that well. If she backed out now, he wouldn’t chase her, that was what she could tell from his eyes at that moment.

“...Go the traditional route.” 

That was her invitation for him. ‘Court me properly’.

Moving slowly wasn’t exactly something the Ivanov family would ever be known for. Vikentiy’s courtship of Avelina started immediately. Just as men and women in high society feared.

Vikentiy was obsessed with Avelina, and everyone knew it. The Evanoffs knew this and it drove them insane. How could the man who killed so many people in one night be at the beck and call of a simple woman? Yes, Avelina was beautiful but how could someone like Vikentiy bow to beauty?

–

“...Moral of the story, he was completely infatuated with her,” Viktor said, quickly shortening his story. He could go on and on about how the two of them were in love in their own weird way. A lot of things from that time weren’t recorded but almost as if to spite his descendants, Vikentiy made sure all about their love story was preserved.

Yue didn’t know how to feel about Vikentiy Ivanov. On one hand, this was the man that tried to remove his eyes and on the other hand, this was a guy who had been betrayed by the people closest to him and left to die in a place that no one even understands. He is cruel and ruthless and then he flips around to being a normal human being who is in love with another human being.

“And because he was so obsessed with her, the Evanoffs made her a target. It was light assassination attempts for a while but then they got married and it became more serious and more often.” Viktor explained, “When she was pregnant she pretty much couldn’t leave his side because of all the attempts.”