Here, whether she rebutted angrily or trembled, it would only fill his satisfaction.

At her reaction, he would be possessed by the illusion that he seemed to have sharply penetrated her hidden desires and hit the nail, or that he stimulated her inner inferiority complex and made her feel disqualified.

And in the end, he would feel a vulgar sense of pleasure.

‘A dirty, vulgar sense of pleasure.’

How can he get pleasure in pestering someone weaker than himself, making them fall into a state of inability to come back?

‘Isn’t that.. really perverted?’

While she was thinking, Roman suddenly approached closer before she could even know it. Levisia would be lying if she said she couldn’t feel the overwhelming pressure under his towering shadow. That had been his intention from the beginning.

He grinned with laughter. And beyond that devilish smile was clear ecstasy.

“Be thankful. Yeah? Since I gave you advice before you defiled the imperial family’s name by going somewhere and falling to that level,”

he said, pressing his pointer finger against her forehead.

“Stay in your lane.”

Her head nodded back slightly at every touch of his finger. Then she took one step back before he could do it again.

Oh, now she had room to breathe under the hovering shadow. When Levisia exhaled, Roman wiggled his eyebrows while looking at his finger hovering in the air.

“You—”

“You think you know me more than anyone else?”

“Say what?”

“You didn’t have to follow me like this and threaten me under the false pretext of advice. It’s a futile effort of yours.”

A smile was seen gathering on his face. Levisia tilted her head as she looked straight into his eyes.

“Oh, you said you weren’t following me, right? Yes, though I passed the stairs a long time ago and only Elizabeth and I are staying on this floor.”

She kept her eyes on his slowly separating lips. It would be nice if a wasp flew in there.

‘He’s going to explode soon.’

Roman’s skin from his neck down started to boil red. If he was a volcano, she could guarantee that he was seconds away from exploding at this very moment.

“You.. How dare you..”

Levisia, surprised, cocked her head back.

‘Whoa, this is kind of fun.’

She could say that she suddenly had a craving for something while watching the anger build up quietly in his face; a craving to make him even angrier. Levisia thought it would be fun to make him boil a little bit more here.

It was only a while ago that she had thought this person who felt pleasure in harassing others was like a pervert.

‘No way, my hidden..’

The moment the familiar melody came to mind, she hurriedly extinguished the spark that had bloomed in her heart.

No, no, I can’t. She shouldn’t open her eyes to such guilty pleasure.

She tried to gain the same composure and reverence as a Buddhist monk who trained to be a guru, a believer who prayed.

Thus, when she saw the beet-red Roman, watching him like a forest fire across the river, she brought up what she wanted to say the most.

“At that moment, I did what I was able to do.”

Just because she was used to being looked down on didn’t mean it was fair. Just because she was used to it didn’t mean she understood it.

‘This worm can wiggle, surprisingly.’

But even so, she will look like easy prey to a jackal. That she knew.

A smile gradually showed up on Roman’s face, who had remained frozen. And finally, the glow returned to his face.

“How dare you.. What on earth can you do on your own—”

She, however, dosed the flame with cold water as soon as she discovered it.

“It was the same thing as eating and sleeping.”

“What..?”

“What I mean is anyone can do it. It’s very obvious. And no one pretends to be a great person just because they ate or slept a little.”

This time, she didn’t find his stunned face amusing.

“On the other hand, you don’t skip meals or avoid sleeping just because you’re incompetent.”

Someone would be laughing at him now because he was stupid, asking why he didn’t know this.

But Levisia didn’t want that. That couldn’t be.

Why? Because even she didn’t know.

“I mean.. I had to do it whether intentionally or unintentionally, and of course, I had no choice but to do it.”

She thought that a weak person like her should stay still. She thought it would be a relief if she didn’t cause any inconvenience while stepping up when she couldn’t even take care of herself.

All right, maybe that wouldn’t be right in most situations. No, it would be right.

However, that was a situation that even she could not have turned a blind eye to. There had been someone weaker than her; someone who had desperately needed her help.

Still, Levisia hesitated. She conflicted and thought it didn’t have to be her.

However, she realized it since it was just around the corner. That it wasn’t anything special; that it wasn’t something special people could do.

She had only chosen the normal thing, like a normal person, that anyone would do.

“I made a normal choice that anyone would make. That is all I can do.”