"It seems our Mr. Karon truly did not know about this."0

"Yes. My position is still too low. Matters concerning the upper levels of the church are not something I have access to."0

Through the reflection on the elevator doors, Ophelia glanced at Karon standing beside her with a hint of curiosity. She found this man interesting. Setting everything else aside, the way he openly admitted his low status without the slightest emotional undertone made people feel inexplicably at ease. It was because this was not resignation or self-mockery, but something natural, as though he were unbound by the constraints of status.0

The young master from the Chief Archbishop's family, the man who had invited her to dance earlier during the banquet, had spent the entire dance talking about the various arrangements his grandfather had prepared for him. He was a completely different sort of person. There was nothing particularly objectionable about him, but he carried a faint trace of greasiness, much like the Veyn dishes Ophelia was familiar with.0

Karon, on the other hand, always gave her a refreshing impression. Talking to him put people at ease. This was because Ophelia had already stepped beyond the confines of traditional social class. She had never known what it meant to struggle for survival, and given the unique status of Darkmoon Island, while she was aware of the prospect of a political marriage, neither she family nor the island faced any pressing or urgent need for it.0

When a person is unburdened by immediate, visible pressure, their sensitivity on an emotional level tends to sharpen. So rather than Karon simply appearing refreshing to her, it would be more accurate to say that she had sensed in him a certain similarity in temperament.0

But Ophelia would never pursue that line of thought, because she did not believe that a mere member of the Whip of Order could possess a state of mind equal to her own. Nor could she possibly know that the one who had...0