Louise stood there frozen in place at the knight’s words.

“I shouldn’t be saying this to a heretic… So this is just between us.”

Hedrick awkwardly scratched his cheek, and Carlyle remained silently tight-lipped.

“Thanks to you, we survived.”

As Hedrick bowed his head, Carlyle who was standing next to him also quietly bowed his head.

The heads of the knights, who were always upright, were gently bent toward her.

At that moment, a tear fell onto the back of Louise’s hand.

“Ah…, I…”

Louise hurriedly buried her eyes in her sleeve. Tears kept overflowing. Even pressing them with her fingertips, they wouldn’t stop at all.

She had doubted all along.

I was living so hard, but it felt like I was going backwards.

When everything fell apart despite my efforts, when my very existence was denied, when an unwanted fate shook my life.

At those times, I wanted to ask someone.

Am I doing well?

Do my efforts have meaning?

Was my life worth something, even a little?

“Thank you… both of you.”

Louise said to Hedrick and Carlyle, swallowing her tears.

Then Carlyle held out a handkerchief to her.

“…Until now, I’m sorry.”

Louise looked at his face with tear-stained eyes and let out a small laugh.

He still had a clumsy, blunt, and expressionless face.

Honestly, she had disliked him a bit.

But now it seemed like it didn’t matter at all.

Surprisingly.

He wiped the splattered blood from his face with the back of his hand and raised his stiff neck.

The smell of blood vibrated in the dark night.

The ‘Valley of Crouching Winds’, located in the northeast of Paradel.

Cold winds blew along the deep ravine, and strange cries echoed through the valley.

Sched had been heading north along the cliffs of that valley for days.

This place had long been famous as a den of monsters.

It was also a place where he, as a slave, had been dragged to hunt monsters many times.

Sched recalled the stories his brothers shared in terror when he was a child.

“Brother, why do we have to clean this place! The monsters in the valley rarely even invade the village!”

“The master likes this valley. Monsters are dangerous, so…”

“Then are we not in danger? Can’t we just deal with the monsters coming out of the valley…!”

His brothers always feared entering this valley.

Sched was the same.

A deeply cut ravine, cliffs blocking both sides, a one-way path with nowhere to run.

Even thinking about it now, it was the worst terrain strategically.

Abandoning the high ground and fighting monsters that could freely climb walls in a buried lowland.

He didn’t know when he was young, but now he understood.

Forcing the Lupus slaves into this valley by the Ideanas was a kind of pastime or experiment.

Otherwise, they couldn’t have demanded such ignorant tactics.

Fortunately, he was no longer weak enough for such tactics to matter.

As he dryly wiped his face, the bloodstains faintly smeared.

Stepping on the corpses of monsters piled up in the valley, he headed north again.

Sticky blood clung to his feet.

There was only one reason he came here.

To find the missing Desiderata.

“Brother, why does the master keep visiting that valley?”

He had been curious for a long time.

Why did Felix Ideana keep visiting this valley full of only monsters?

Why did we have to risk our lives every time to pave the way by fighting these monsters?

At such times, Parmen would answer.

“There is a secret prayer room in the valley. The master goes there to pray for the young lady every time.”

“Why, when there is a temple?”

“Well… I don’t know what the higher-ups are thinking either.”

Sched had stubbornly devoted his teens to the Ideana family.

That’s why his long-standing intuition was even clearer.

As far as he remembered, Felix Ideana was a person with a lot of greed, but also a lot of fear.

‘Why did Felix even drive out Dietrich, who was helpful to the research, from Ideana?’

After he learned that Dietrich was Lucifer, he questioned Felix’s choice.

For the smooth progress of the experiment, Felix should have held onto Dietrich as Ideana’s exclusive priest by any means.

But he didn’t.

‘Instead, he was the first to drive Dietrich out of Ideana territory.’

Dietrich was transferred too early from Ideana to another territory.

Dietrich seemed to believe it was the order’s decision, but Sched’s intuition was different.

As Dietrich’s influence in the black magic research grew, Felix would have felt a sense of crisis.

That the power of immortality might pass to Dietrich first.

The two were collaborators in research, but conversely, they were also rivals competing for the research results.

The two must have been anxious while studying black magic.

The fear that the one who first reaches immortality might kill the other and monopolize that power.

So, Felix gradually became reluctant to show the Desiderata to Dietrich.

― Felix Ideana is getting more and more arrogant. Since he safely stored the Desiderata, he says to ask for permission in advance if I want to see it? He seems to have forgotten whose hands the research has been done by so far. Not knowing that all the contents are in my head anyway…

The research that started with each other’s greed was clearly becoming slightly off-kilter.

Sched remembered.

During the period when the relationship between Dietrich and Felix was getting strangely twisted, Felix tried to visit this place more often.

Therefore, he came here with an intuition close to certainty.

The missing latter part of the Desiderata is here.

The only problem was that he had not yet found Felix’s prayer room that Parmen had mentioned.

Sched raised his head and looked up at the sky.

Stars were embedded as if pouring through the crevices of the valley. The moon that had risen above his head was already setting beyond the valley.

Three days had passed.

Above the star-studded cliffs of the valley, vivid lights appeared again with huge shadows.

His body was heavy from constantly fighting monsters.

But he gripped his sword upright again.

‘Louise…’

Two days. He only had exactly two days left.

A large carriage was seen stopping in front of the mansion in Paradel.

The flag with the eagle emblem holding a golden scale fluttered in the light of dawn.

Louise nervously swallowed her dry saliva.

The person who opened the carriage door and got out before the coachman could open it.

Not dressed up splendidly like a viscount, nor pretending to be rough and simple like Egon.

“Leah!”

Calling Louise’s other name, he hurried his precious steps and ran to her.

His light brown hair was somewhat disheveled, losing its neatness.

“Viscount…”

The moment Louise tried to greet him, Eclas hugged her tightly.

Louise’s eyes widened in surprise and she froze.

“Do you know… how much I worried?”

Eclas’s voice was choked with emotion.

Louise bit her lower lip and pushed him away, taking a step back.

Louise couldn’t meet his gaze.

Giselle judged it would be good for Eclas to take care of Eve as he was the ‘father’. But Louise couldn’t be sure.

He wasn’t Eve’s real father, and the period of the oath he had signed a few years ago was coming to an end.

He had no obligation to take care of Eve anymore.

Not his own daughter, but another man’s child.

Moreover, no one would want to take in and raise a child who uses black magic.

“Viscount, I…”

“You don’t need to explain. I came knowing everything.”

Eclas smiled bitterly.

He had keen-eared birds, and also had Giselle’s letter.

They conveyed all the facts to him more accurately and objectively than Louise.

Louise clenched her fists at his calm reaction.

“Aren’t you angry or disgusted…?”

Her chest felt shrunken as she inhaled the cold morning air.

So, strictly speaking, Louise had committed a serious fraud against him.

Because she had hidden a fatal secret when signing the contract.

As a seasoned merchant, it wouldn’t be strange for him to insist on compensation, citing the fraud and the investment he had made so far.

But he still approached her without hesitation.

“Why should I be angry and despise you?”

Eclas asked back.

He was also disappointed by Louise’s reaction.

Was I that untrustworthy? I thought I had done my best in my own way.

When he deliberately showed a hurt look, Louise’s eyes wavered.

“I came here to stop you.”

“Stop me…?”

“To tell you to stop following Giselle.”

Eclas held her with a stubborn look in his eyes.

Louise felt a hot heat rising inside her solar plexus at that affectionate gaze.

I see. There are still more people who care about me.

There will be people who stay by Eve’s side even without me.

Louise smiled faintly as she looked at the bright morning sunlight.

“Thank you.”

Truly.

At her calm and composed greeting, Eclas’s brows furrowed deeply.

“…Have you really made your decision?”

The meaning of refusal and parting was evident in her words of gratitude.

Louise deliberately smiled brightly and nodded.

As if telling him not to shake her any further.

As if she didn’t want to have this conversation anymore.

That bright smile was so terribly cold that it froze Eclas’s mouth.

“And Eve, please take care of her even without me.”

“…How selfish of you.”

Louise simply remained silent at Eclas’s reproach.

She had nothing to say.

I’m sorry, but facing farewell, for Eve’s sake, I’m going to be shameless.

Things like saving face and self-esteem were nothing if it was for the child.

Eclas thought that if he had to cite the reason why the devil was attached to Louise’s name, it should be because of this cruelty.

He habitually reached for the gold coin in his pocket and grasped it in his hand.

The lukewarm metallic surface rubbed against his fingertips.

“Indeed, I can’t force your choice.”

He conceded to Louise’s choice as if resigned.

A comfortable smile settled on Louise’s lips.

One by one, things were being sorted out well.

But leisure gradually spread in the red eyes looking at her.

“Alright. Do as you wish, Leah.”

He had raised the corners of his mouth into an arc at some point.

Louise had never seen a more unsettling smile.

“Viscount…”

“Instead, I’ll have to be a bit selfish too.”

A refreshing smile blowing over the clear morning air.

“As you know, I can’t live taking a loss.”

Louise had no idea what he was thinking at all.