A red line quickly formed on the back of Kasha’s hand, and thick drops of blood welled up.

“Ah…!”

She frowned at the unexpected pain.

Anthony, who had been huffing and puffing, finally calmed down from his excitement, as if startled by the sight of Kasha’s wound.

“That’s why, why did you provoke me…!”

He mumbled something incomprehensible, bit his lip, and abruptly turned around to enter the greenhouse.

“…Follow me. There’s medicine inside.”

Kasha silently followed behind him. For a moment, she thought about running away, but it was obvious that Anthony would catch up to her in no time anyway.

The inside of the greenhouse, which she carefully entered, was dark and the air was damp. The interior was decorated with a consistent taste, like someone’s hideout, and exuded a very secretive atmosphere.

On one side, there was even a small field for growing various medicinal herbs. Although most of the plants had withered and died due to the lack of recent management.

The other wall was filled with a large lab bench. Glass flasks, test tubes, and experimental lamps were scattered about, and there were quite a few thick volumes of herbology books and notebooks.

In another corner, there was an old but comfortable-looking chair and a long bench. Judging by the antique atmosphere, it seemed that the items used by Larisa during her lifetime were left as they were.

Kasha could easily imagine Anthony holed up here alone for several years after his mother’s death.

A teenage boy who couldn’t even go to the academy and whose only activity was, at best, strolling in the garden.

He must have tried to find something he could do, whatever it was. To find the reason he was alive and breathing in this world, to prove his worth.

The thought that Kasha’s room before the regression or the tower where she was imprisoned alone would have looked this desolate if someone had seen it made her feel strangely uncomfortable.

“Why are you looking around so closely?”

Suddenly, Anthony snapped irritably. He seemed very nervous about letting someone into the intimate space he had kept private for so long.

“Apply this. The wound will heal quickly.”

Anthony threw something. Kasha barely caught it and examined it. It was a green ointment contained in a small, round jar. She thought Anthony might have made it himself in this lab.

“What, are you afraid it might be poisoned?”

As Kasha quietly smelled the ointment, Anthony gave a distorted smile, as if in a hurry.

Watching that anxious-looking smile, Kasha silently scooped up the ointment and spread it over the wound.

If Anthony wanted to harm her, there was no reason for him to use this method anyway. It would be much cleaner and simpler to just reach out and strangle her neck.

‘Rather, it might be better to accept small favors now and open his heart.’

Besides, the feeling of the cool and soft texture seeping into the wound was not bad at all. As Kasha quietly applied the ointment, Anthony became silent instead. Noticing his curious look at her reaction, Kasha spoke in a nonchalant manner.

“The bleeding stops immediately. Did you use angila leaves?”

Angila is a herb commonly used as a hemostatic. Kasha also remembered seeing angila near here during her first meeting with Anthony and diligently harvesting its leaves.

“It’s a mixture of angila, alarak feather grass, and malcalyptus.”

Anthony’s eyes, which unexpectedly gave a sincere answer, seemed to have lost some of their madness and regained their original light. Focusing on those eyes, Kasha calmly continued.

“I see. That’s a good idea. Alarak feather grass has excellent calming effects, and malcalyptus is the best for reducing inflammation.”

At Kasha’s rather specific praise, Anthony’s face turned slightly red. However, he quickly erased that expression and spoke in a commanding tone.

“…That’s not why I invited you here to talk about such things. Sit down. I have something to say.”

Kasha glanced at the chair Anthony pointed to and sat down without a word.

For a while, a tense silence hung between the two.

Anthony was biting his thumbnail with a violent intensity that made the onlooker feel anxious.

It was an action that the neat and delicate Anthony of the past would not have done, even if he was sensitive. The same went for his violent behavior of blasting the door earlier.

‘The curse of madness that was placed on the Grand Duke must have returned to Anthony.’

Kasha thought with a heavy heart. Then, Anthony abruptly raised his head and said something out of the blue.

“Kasha. You can’t go anywhere now.”

“…What did you say?”

Kasha asked back, doubting her ears.

She thought, at best, Anthony would interrogate her about the return of the Demon Stone’s curse or threaten her.

But out of nowhere, he says she can’t go anywhere. Is this also a kind of threat? Or maybe he’s just babbling whatever comes out of his mouth due to the madness.

“You want revenge on that bastard Nigel anyway. I’ll help you with that. You know. That I have that kind of power. If you can’t believe it, should I show you?”

However, Anthony was quite serious. He was talking nonsense, and then suddenly tore off a part of the bench he was sitting on. Under his superhuman strength, the high-quality wood that had aged for many years was torn off like a sheet of paper.

Kasha exclaimed, dumbfounded.

“Anthony! Stop it. Are you going to destroy this space too?”

Anthony threw the piece of wood in his hand, irritated by her reaction.

“Shut up. I was just trying to show you my strength. And I told you not to call me Anthony! I’m Wolfbane, different from the guy who used to be cooped up in a place like this, gloomily fiddling with herbs that no one cares about!”

As if he was getting excited again, the corners of Anthony’s eyes twitched erratically. His body, swollen with inhuman muscles, heaved as if he were bellowing.

Kasha became anxious. The fear that the beastman with monstrous strength might get excited and attack at any moment swept over her. She realized that the person in front of her was no longer Anthony, but only the beastman Wolfbane.

As soon as she recognized her fear, her head turned white and her fingertips trembled. Anthony’s face, or rather Wolfbane’s face, engulfed in the darkness of the greenhouse, began to feel more and more terrifying.

Kasha clenched her teeth. And she acknowledged her fear.

‘It’s natural to be afraid of such an opponent. Because madness is the realm of the uncontrollable. But I only have two and a half days left. To resolve the situation within that time, I must convince Anthony.’

Kasha thought of Leon. The man who was willing to face death to protect her. She thought about how much she wanted to protect him too.

She tried not to forget that the beastman in front of her was the younger brother that the man had devoted his boyhood to protecting.

Gradually, the fear subsided and the situation began to appear as it was.

In the meantime, Anthony had become even more excited and was overturning the lab bench. The flasks and experimental lamps shattered, creating a tremendous noise.

The more the greenhouse turned into a mess, the more excited Anthony seemed to become. Occasionally, he even gnashed his teeth at Kasha. But Kasha noticed that his behavior was somewhat unnatural.

Even though he was so angry that he didn’t know what to do, he never approached Kasha beyond a certain distance.

It was a very different pattern from when he first appeared at Gillistin Castle in the form of the beastman Wolfbane, or when he suddenly put his hands on her body in front of the greenhouse earlier.

‘Why?’

Suddenly, an assumption came to her mind.

‘Could it be……’

She, who had been lost in thought for a moment, deliberately called out to Anthony in a loud voice.

“Anthony.”

“I told you not to call me by that name!”

He approached, stomping as if he couldn’t stand it, and punched the glass wall of the greenhouse near where Kasha was standing with his fist.

Bam. Clang.

The shattered glass scattered in all directions. However, Kasha looked at them expressionlessly and slowly raised her head.

Noticing that her deep pink eyes were emitting a particularly clear light, Anthony rather faltered and took a step back.

Kasha stared at his anxious expression for a moment and then quietly opened her mouth.

“Anthony. Do you know that your father… is badly injured? He’ll probably have to rely on the temple for the rest of his life. He won’t be able to walk again.”

Hearing her words, Anthony seemed a little surprised, but soon snorted exaggeratedly.

“What do I care. That kind of person.”

“…I see. So you placed the curse on him? Because he’s the kind of father who deserves such a thing?”

“What… did you say?”

When Kasha casually revealed the truth, Anthony looked a little flustered. But he soon seemed to remember that she was the one who broke the seal on the Demon Stone.

“So what? Wasn’t that your purpose in separating the Demon Stone’s curse in the first place? To punish those despicable and selfish people.”

Kasha opened her mouth to refute, but Anthony kept talking without giving her a chance to speak.

“That person always looked down on me. He never treated me like a human being. But he’s my father. My parent! Can a person who is treated like a useless freeloader by their parents every day grow up properly? It’s all because of my father that I ended up like this!”

“…….”

“Even my only hope, entering the academy, was shattered because of my father’s nonsense. It was the only way I could become a useful person!”

Anthony clawed at his own face as if in agony. He didn’t seem to care at all that his sharp nails were digging into his flesh.

“I did everything I could. I even holed up in this damn place alone and studied herbology like an idiot… to show that there was something I could do even without magical powers!”

“…….”

“But it was no use. So I have no choice but to do this now.”

“Anthony.”

Kasha called his name again, but he didn’t seem to hear anything. His once bright green eyes stared blankly into the void.

“It’s strange.”

“…What is?”

“Now I’m much stronger than Leon, I’m much more powerful, but why… why is there no one by my side?”