Oh no! Why did this person come at this time!
Ileina and Elashia both bounced up from the bed like two startled kittens.
"This..."
Hearing Adeline's knocking, Elashia and Ileina looked at each other awkwardly.
"How about... we tell her we're busy right now?"
"Busy... what could we be busy with..."
Her small face flushed red, Elashia looked at Ileina with embarrassment:
"What kind of business... could make Adeline leave openly..."
"And... as one of the core leaders of the future human alliance, we can't just send Adeline away for our personal matters..."
"True..."
Ileina, whose small face was as red as Elashia's, lowered her head.
As the Holy Princess, how could she put personal matters above national affairs...
"Then... I'll go open the door."
"Mm."
Elashia nodded and began tidying her somewhat disheveled hair.
...
"I just went with Caroline to visit most of the state-run grain stations in the Holy Capital, then... uh... did I come at a bad time?"
Adeline, who keenly sensed something was off, looked at Ileina and Elashia.
They... seemed... somewhat strange?
Not only did both their small faces bear strange blushes, but... Ileina seemed to inexplicably have a strange resentful aura about her?
Adeline remembered this feeling—she had only felt it from Ileina once before...
That time... on an unbearably cold night, Caroline, who had just finished a meeting and left headquarters, accidentally took Ileina's white scarf...
Then... Ileina, who usually went along with Caroline, suddenly became full of oppressive presence in that instant...
Caroline, being stared at by Ileina's oppressive gaze, was directly scared into hiding behind Adeline, whom she usually avoided at all costs...
After this incident ended, Caroline and Adeline finally learned—that scarf was a gift from Elashia.
And now... she didn't seem to have made any mistakes...
Adeline thought in her mind, and a strange idea appeared—could it be that while they were conscientiously fulfilling their duties... the leaders were having a romantic moment?
This... shouldn't be possible...
Adeline quickly dismissed this thought in her mind.
How could that be... after all, they had just said they would inspect the Holy Capital together...
Adeline and the others had just finished inspecting the Holy Capital not long ago, and knowing they would meet again soon, how could they suddenly start being romantic...
Thinking this way, Adeline became more convinced—it was an illusion, definitely an illusion.
"Not at all... Lena was just discussing the future reconstruction of the Holy Kingdom with me, your timing is perfect..."
Feeling somewhat guilty, Elashia shifted her gaze to Ileina, not daring to look directly at Adeline.
Seeing this, Ileina immediately responded to Adeline as if she had just realized:
"Right! We were just discussing the Holy Capital reconstruction!"
Mentioning this, Ileina pretentiously continued fabricating:
"Where were we talking about just now..."
"I think we were still discussing Holy Capital grain price controls..."
"Princess Ileina, Your Majesty Elashia... actually, I didn't come to discuss state affairs."
Seeing the situation was normal, Adeline's usually serious face suddenly became somewhat helpless.
"Actually... I came to find you to talk about Caroline..."
Adeline lowered her head.
"I feel... she's definitely hiding something very heavy from us..."
"I've had this feeling since I first met her..."
"Whenever I bring up her past background, she always uses the same unchanged standard phrases to repeatedly emphasize that she's just an orphan who grew up eating from many households..."
"But... I feel something's wrong."
Speaking of this, Adeline's always serious pretty face became even redder.
"If it were really like that, with her personality she definitely wouldn't think of going to the slums only now... and she absolutely wouldn't refuse to let me go with her to see the people who raised her as a child..."
"This..."
Ileina said somewhat puzzled:
"I think... this should be quite normal."
"No one wants a big leader following them around when they're returning home in glory."
"No, Princess Ileina, it's not like that."
Hearing Ileina's words that were very similar to Caroline's, Adeline firmly shook her head.
"If it were ordinary people, maybe it would be so, but... I feel she would absolutely not be like that with me."
"For example..."
Speaking of this, Adeline looked at Elashia with her pretty face that was already shy enough to clearly see the deep crimson color.
"Just like... Your Majesty Elashia definitely hopes His Majesty the Iron Emperor could meet with Princess Ileina more..."
"Ah?" x2
Both Ileina and Elashia were confused.
This statement... seemed to contain quite a lot of information...
However, Elashia, who knew about their relationship, was the first to react.
"That is to say, Miss Adeline thinks... Miss Caroline is hiding something from us?"
Hearing that someone finally understood her meaning, Adeline hurriedly nodded.
"Right, Caroline must be hiding some major issue related to her background!"
Adeline earnestly nodded.
"But... what problem could she have?"
Ileina looked at Adeline somewhat strangely.
"If I remember correctly... she seemed to join the Holy Tribunal Army when she was twelve?"
"Before she was twelve..."
Speaking of this, Ileina also instantly realized!
"Wait! If she was really an orphan before... then she absolutely shouldn't have lived in the slums, but should have been adopted by the church!"
Regarding orphans, the Holy Kingdom had a relatively complete management system!
Unlike Elasia where the government specifically established an agency to adopt orphans, orphans in the Holy Kingdom were basically adopted spontaneously by the church!
And unlike Elasia's orphanages' passive adoption of orphans, the Holy Kingdom's church would actively search for wandering orphans in society!
Thinking of this, Ileina realized—she had gotten used to staying in Elasia, and when she returned to the Holy Kingdom she encountered war, so she actually didn't have sufficient understanding of the Holy Kingdom during peacetime!
As an orphan, Caroline should have been adopted by the church, but why would she say she grew up eating from many households in the slums...
The Holy Kingdom wasn't Elasia! The church was supposed to actively shoulder the task of raising women and children!
Without very strong reasons, why would the already impoverished people in the slums bypass the church and actively raise Caroline to her teens...