Sched’s proposal easily bent the waist of the priest who had been standing tall.

“It was an honor to meet you, Lord Lester! May God always be with you…!”

He soon boarded the carriage, flapping his priest’s robe that was dirtied with soil and dust.

The coachman also hastily grabbed the reins and whip, sticking his buttocks close to drive the carriage.

The white carriage made a loud noise and disappeared to the other side of the square.

After confirming the priest had vanished, Sched’s eyes returned to Ive once more.

The child’s cheek was not just red, but bruised with a bluish color.

Due to the swelling on only one side, the two cheeks looked mismatched.

Indeed, it seemed right to have slapped the other cheek of that bastard one more time.

“Mister…”

At that moment, Ive took a step forward to him with her tiny feet.

Ive, whose tears had suddenly disappeared, stared at him intently.

In those eyes that resembled Louise’s, Sched pressed his temple firmly.

‘Ha, what the hell am I doing.’

Going this far for Eclas’s illegitimate child.

Sched could not understand his own impulse.

He just felt like his eyes were being turned inside out.

The moment he saw that bastard slapping a child who had nowhere to be hit, his blood boiled.

When he saw the little kid kneeling and profusely apologizing for her mistake, he lost his reason.

It was a momentary impulse.

‘I really must be going crazy.’

Getting angry over such a thing.

Lately, it seemed he was having more frequent instances of failing to control his impulses.

At that moment, a warm and soft sensation embraced his leg.

“Thank you, Mister.”

Ive had hugged Sched’s leg.

Sched was startled by the impromptu action of the little one who had clung to him.

“You…!”

“I was scared. That man hit me…!”

Thinking of what just happened, tears welled up again as Ive hiccupped and rubbed her tears and snot on his leg.

The little one who cried and snotted every time they met was very annoying and troublesome.

So, he lifted the tiny child up.

The light body was easily picked up with one hand.

“Crying makes you ugly. Looking again, you don’t resemble Louise.”

Yes. Louise was much prettier than this.

He muttered while brushing off the dirt on Ive’s knees.

The round and small knees had small scrapes, probably from rubbing against the stone while kneeling.

“No! Everyone said I’m pretty…!”

Even while trembling her chin from crying, Ive refuted Sched’s words.

Calling herself pretty with her own mouth.

Even in this situation, did she really have to make that correction?

Sched let out an unintentional chuckle.

And he flinched at the laughter that leaked from the corner of his mouth.

Laughing while looking at Eclas’s kid. Was he crazy?

He could not understand his feelings towards this little one at all.

At that moment, a firm hand grabbed his arm.

Sched saw a woman as tall as a pole restraining him.

It was a familiar woman.

Someone from the Bitel Merchant Association who had helped the Ideana business together with Eclas before.

She was not a Lupus, but she stood out for being unusually tall and unable to speak, so he remembered her.

“Isn’t it too hostile to treat someone who helped you out of a predicament like this?”

Sched glanced at her hand grasping his arm as if it would break.

When the priest was picking on her, he thought she was ordinary, but her grip was surprisingly strong.

Moreover, the shape of the calluses hardened on her hand was clearly that of someone who wielded a spear.

‘As expected, a new addition to the Bitel family…?’

They have quite a lot of hidden talents. Sinisterly so.

‘She must have kneeled before the priest to avoid escalating the situation.’

It was a wise choice for someone without power.

It was also a wise choice for someone with many things to hide.

“Since meeting like this is also fate, let’s go together. I was just about to go sightseeing in the city as well.”

Sched detached Grita’s hand gripping his arm.

Grita tried to resist as if in a battle of strength, but unfortunately, she was no match for Sched Lester.

It was quite ridiculous how she stubbornly persisted until her hand trembled from exertion.

She must have been quite angry that she lost in a show of force, as Grita’s eyebrows rose sharply.

If she knew how to speak, she might have already cursed him out, Sched thought.

However, it seemed Grita’s eyebrows were not visible to Ive’s innocent eyes.

“Is the bad man also going sightseeing?”

Ive looked at Sched with quite favorable eyes, perhaps grateful for his help.

Though being called a ‘bad man’ was a bit irksome…

“Yes. In case it’s dangerous again, I’ll… take you home.”

As Sched was answering Ive, his words trailed off at the end.

His gaze was fixed on Ive’s round knees.

The wounds on her knees that were faintly bleeding until just now had completely healed.

And her cheeks too.

The cheeks that were swollen with a bluish tint from being hit were now gradually subsiding, leaving only a slight redness.

‘This is definitely…’

For the past few years, he had done everything to find Riana.

Researching black magic was one of those things.

“I should also learn about that so-called black magic.”

He requested access to information about black magic at the temple.

He had made contributions in heretic hunting and had even been cursed by black magic.

Perhaps thinking it would be difficult to completely block a victim of a curse from accessing information related to black magic, the temple allowed him to access some information.

Of course, the pressure of the name ‘Sched Lester’ and his power must have also played a role.

Thanks to that, Sched was able to glimpse knowledge about black magic that was forbidden to the general public.

He pursued traces of black magic whenever he could.

He was not a scholar, but he was a tenacious and intelligent person.

“If you want power, learn.”

Just because he became the adopted son of the Lester family did not mean he could instantly turn from a slave into an aristocrat.

His adoptive father, Joseph Lester, educated him in order to adopt him.

It was not a long time for a slave to transform into a nobleman.

However, he doggedly carried out the tasks Joseph assigned him.

Literature, theology, philosophy, law, geometry…

On top of that, the way of speaking, tone, behavior, and etiquette used by nobles.

He devoured without hesitation anything necessary to blend into noble society.

“You really memorized all this in just a single day?”

Joseph laughed in amusement at Sched, who achieved results beyond expectations.

Being smart was one thing, but his greatest talent was his tenacity.

The persistence to see something through until it was done once he set his mind to accomplish it.

In addition, he had the appropriate shrewdness to strategize and efficiently achieve a single goal in various ways.

That was Sched Lester’s way of survival and his weapon.

Even in researching black magic, his survival strategy and weapon were effective.

He pursued traces of the Ideanas so persistently that he thought he might become a heretic himself.

However, no matter how much he delved, at some point, he hit the same wall.

It was because there were not many records left of black magic itself.

Nevertheless, there was clear evidence of black magic that he knew.

‘If one possesses black magic, their regenerative ability should be excellent.’

Shallow wounds on the knees would heal quickly.

Like how Ive’s wounds disappeared.

And one more thing.

“The cre-crescent moon pattern… Ah, are you referring to the pattern of the demon Mephistopheles?”

That pattern that was on Parmen and Louise.

Sched, struck by a chilling intuition, hurriedly pulled down Ive’s collar below her shoulder.

The child’s skin, white and fluffy like cream, was exposed under the sunlight.

And he saw it.

On the upper part of Ive’s chest, faintly but undeniably, there was a crescent-shaped mark.

“You…”

The same pattern engraved in the same position as Louise.

For a moment, Sched shifted his eyes to look at Grita.

Does that woman also know about Ive’s power?

Is that why she’s sticking close to her?

No. No.

That woman still doesn’t know anything.

If she knew Ive’s secret, she would have tried to stop him from approaching Ive from the beginning.

She would have desperately tried to stop him when he was checking the mark engraved around her shoulder.

But right now, Grita was expressing anger with eyes that didn’t understand why he was doing this.

Sched, having made a quick judgment, pulled up Ive’s collar to hide the mark.

At the same time, he was seized by an intense feeling of exhilaration.

As suspicion turned into certainty, his mind became vividly clear.

Louise. Her child is here.

The child who inherited her blood is in his arms.

“I heard this child’s mother died.”

Sched turned his gaze to Grita, hiding the trembling in his voice from excitement.

There was no need for her to answer in words.

A nod or a shake of the head would suffice.

However.

“Mom… died?”

The reaction came from the other side first.

Ive placed her hands on Sched’s cheeks and turned his head to make him look at her.

“Did my mom die…?”

The tiny lips like a cherry trembled.

At Ive’s pure reaction, Sched barely suppressed the corners of his mouth from rising.

The gaze was so pure that even his rotten and crumbling heart felt purified.

Right now, he didn’t even care about the fact that this child was the daughter of that damn Eclas.

“That’s what your dad said.”

Sched answered the pure child, feigning coldness.

Then, in an instant, the child’s face crumpled.

“Mommy!”

At the words that her mother had died, teardrops the size of chicken droppings fell from eyes resembling Louise’s.

At that, Grita roughly pulled Sched’s arm.

She was looking at him with a heated gaze, as if angry or flustered.

But what to do. Sched found this situation very enjoyable.

“I even took care of the priest for you, so it’s disappointing to be looked at with such eyes.”

Sched held Ive even tighter instead of handing her over to Grita.

“Mommy! I want to see her!”

Ive, tightly embraced by Sched, cried so loudly that his eardrums might fall out.

Sched felt his joy increasing with each drop of pure tears.

It was quite a villainous emotion, as the child said.

But he was willing to become a villain if it meant finding Louise.

“Your dad might have been mistaken, Ive.”

He gently comforted the child who seemed like she would break if he didn’t control his strength, and whispered.

He wiped the wet tears on her cheeks with his finger and smiled softly.

“So, shall we go see if your mom is doing well with me?”

A voice so gentle and soft that it was unbelievable to be Sched Lester’s voice gently permeated Ive.

The innocent child nodded her head vigorously.