Looking around again, Favna realized something.

In this office, the only bathroom was the one connected to her bedroom. So whether Alte had meant it or not, if he needed to use the bathroom, he had to pass through her room.

Then she looked at the mountain of paperwork on Alte’s desk. It was already past one in the morning, the hour when people were at their most exhausted and sleepy. It really wasn’t strange for him to get a little muddled.

Honestly, she herself often fell asleep while playing on her phone at this hour.

Putting it all together... this really might have been a misunderstanding.

At that thought, Favna lowered her head a little in shame. Alte had already been more than kind to her, yet she’d still misunderstood him in a moment of impulse.

And judging by how he looked, he’d probably gone to wash up in the public restroom, right?

Favna opened the window and tried to check outside, but the night wind hit her head-on and made her shiver. She could only shut it tightly again.

“Mm... I’ll apologize properly tomorrow.”

Caught between inner conflict and guilt, Favna lay back down on the bed. This time, she made sure to put on her pajamas properly, then wrapped herself up tightly in the blanket, afraid of causing another farce like this.

But after covering herself up, she realized the door wasn’t closed.

So she had no choice but to get out of bed and shut it. But before she could even sit up, she noticed a figure appear at the entrance to her bedroom.

It was none other than Alte.

That scared Favna so badly that she hurriedly shut her eyes and chose to pretend to be asleep.

Even so, despite keeping her eyes tightly closed, she still left the tiniest slit open to secretly watch Alte’s movements.

Even knowing he wouldn’t do anything improper, Favna was still extremely nervous.

But as she peeked, she found that Alte only looked at her in silence. After sensing the temperature in the room, he walked to her bedside and spread his own blanket over her.

“It’s getting colder starting tonight, but the heating won’t be on until tomorrow. This should do for now...”

Alte’s voice was very soft, but Favna, who was pretending to sleep, heard it clearly.

After this captain covered her with an extra blanket, he left the bedroom.

He really didn’t do anything at all.

Oh, no, that wasn’t quite right.

Before leaving, he even closed the door for her.

That only made the guilt in Favna’s heart grow heavier. She kept her eyes shut, but no matter what, she couldn’t fall asleep. Her mind kept circling around how she was supposed to apologize to Alte.

She thought about it for a long time. She’d rehearsed it in her head who knew how many times, but in reality, Favna simply didn’t have the courage to actually say any of it.

And because she kept overthinking, it became harder and harder to fall asleep. She didn’t know how much time had passed before she finally climbed out of bed with her laptop in her arms and walked toward the bedroom door.

In the office, Alte had finished dealing with his work and finally had a tiny bit of free time for the first time in a while.

And what was this captain doing with his break?

Playing games.

Through the crack in the door, Favna saw everything clearly and couldn’t help blurting inwardly that this guy wasn’t human at all. He was basically a walking grind machine!

After such intense work, he still had the energy to play games. Even she, a shut-in dragon, couldn’t game nonstop for a whole day, let alone keep playing after work.

“Um...” At last, Favna gathered her courage and asked weakly, “Are you... playing a game?”

“Hm?” Alte looked a little surprised to see Favna, then answered, “Yeah. But you’re still not asleep?”

“I can’t sleep...”

Favna really wanted to tell him she was sorry. After all, what she’d done earlier really had been a pretty awful misunderstanding, hadn’t it?

It felt like it did count. Like she’d been way too self-conscious, and it would leave a really bad impression on anyone.

But Favna was timid and shy by nature. The apology stayed stuck in her throat. Her face turned red, yet no matter what, she just couldn’t force the words out.

When Alte saw her like that, he seemed to understand something and spoke first.

“The one who should be saying sorry is me. I’m really sorry about what happened earlier.”

As the Dragon Knight Captain, Alte was very good at reading people. With Favna’s timid personality, she was probably tearing herself apart inside right now.

That had been his fault to begin with, but this timid shut-in dragon was worrying herself sick over what others might think. That wasn’t a good thing.

“Since you’re awake too, want to queue up together?”

“Ah...” Favna froze for a moment, but still nodded. “Okay.”

It wasn’t exactly an apology, but in a way, it was a compromise. That awkward incident from before could more or less be considered over.

To give Alte a better gaming experience, Favna deliberately swapped out all her luxury gear for common gear. That way, one heal from her wouldn’t make Alte want to throw hands with the game’s customer support on the spot.

Their gaming session was relatively quiet. They only exchanged simple words here and there, and most of the conversation was led by Alte.

When the morning sun rose the next day, Alte killed the final boss, then looked over at Favna, who had already fallen asleep slumped over the desk. A slight smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

“You fell asleep halfway through? What kind of move is that?”

There was nothing else for it. Alte carefully scooped Favna up in a princess carry and quietly brought her back to the bedroom.

As for why he didn’t carry her on his back or support her while walking?

The reason was simple.

A princess carry was convenient, and it wouldn’t wake Favna up.

“Guess I should sleep too...” After carrying Favna back into the room, Alte pulled the curtain open just a little and looked at the rising sun outside. Helplessly, he said, “I only meant to stay up late, but somehow I pulled an all-nighter instead.”

Still... Favna wasn’t angry at him, so that was a pretty good outcome.

Because of the exhaustion from staying up all night, Alte didn’t wake up until the afternoon. In fact, he was only woken by a phone call from his little sister, Philo.

“I mean it, bro!” The person on the other end sounded extremely angry. Philo said resentfully, “Even if you’re living alone in your office, you can’t just completely flip your sleep schedule, okay?! How many times has it been now?!”

“Yawn~ There really was a lot of work, so I couldn’t help it.”

Alte really didn’t have much to say in response.

There was no way he could tell her that he and Favna had duo queued in the office and gamed all the way through the night.

It was better to just muddle through.

“Sigh...”

Hearing that, the anger in Philo’s chest gradually faded. She’d wanted to keep scolding him, but suddenly didn’t know how to continue.

In the end, she could only say,

“Fine. I’ll come by your office in a bit... Just don’t let me find out you stayed up all night because you were gaming!”

By the end, Philo’s voice was practically grinding through clenched teeth.

Before Alte could reply, she hung up.

At that moment, Favna came out of the bedroom, rubbing her sleepy eyes, and complained softly, “Alte, you’re so loud...”

“Sorry.”

At that, Alte could only admit fault.

“Then I’m going back to sleep for a bit... Keep it down.”

Still half asleep, Favna hugged her pillow and wandered back into the bedroom.

After watching her leave, Alte scratched his head.

Yeah... now he really needed to think about how he was going to explain to his little sister why Favna was living in his office.