Chapter: 398

She will meet her father if she stays here.

Fritz took the lead and headed for the stairs.

This is the outer palace of the imperial palace used as a banquet hall, so the balcony was on the upper floor.

“Fritz.”

As they were heading up the stairs to the balcony upstairs, someone called Fritz.

Looking back, he was one of Fritz’s old friends.

“Princess Astelle. It’s been a long time. I heard that you have returned to the capital, but……”

Fritz’s friend blurred the end of his words as if embarrassed.

Even after hearing that Astelle came to the capital, he couldn’t come and say hello, probably afraid of what others might say.

Like Fritz, his friend was also treated coldly in society.

In the past, a small number of prestigious nobles, so-called great nobles, occupied the social world.

The ladies who reigned as queens of the social world were always the mistresses of the prestigious dukes.

But now the great nobles lost their power, and the remaining families barely survived.

Of course, he must have been a cold meal in the social world. [T/N: cold meal refers to something that has been abandoned]

“I’ll be upstairs.”

Astelle walked away so the two of them could have a conversation.

She was going up the stairs and there was someone coming down from above.

She was a maid holding a bowl.

It seems she is carrying food.

Astelle grabbed her skirt and went up the stairs without a second thought.

It was about halfway down the stairs when the maid stopped to make way for Astelle,

“Ouch!”

The maid with the bowl lost balance, stumbled, and fell on the stairs.

As the bowl tipped over, the soup in it splashed in all directions.

The maid fell on the floor and begged for forgiveness.