Huh, prince actually held himself back. Sort of.
Like others have said, the time skip does feel out of place, even unnecessary. 2 years isnt a whole lot of time to majorly change the setting or narrative of the story, and while it would take time to build helga's business and capitol, the manga has never been that strict withkeeping time before, so they could have well just fudged a few months over a cuople of chapters