“If you ask who saved me……”

Could I have avoided it if I had pretended to be unconscious longer?

No. It’s an unavoidable question.

A corpse with my sword stuck in its chest was found dead in the Grand Duchess’s chambers. And I am the only witness who saw the intruder who slashed the assassin that even the knights guarding the Grand Duke didn’t know existed.

“That person is……”

The Grand Duke and Captain Leo await my answer.

What should I say?

“……Solas Moretti.”

If I can’t come up with a perfect lie, shouldn’t I at least reveal half the truth?

“What?”

Captain Leo looked at me with a dumbfounded expression. His voice cracked high at the end, as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Solas Moretti…… you mean the Imperial Knights Captain?”

Since I saved myself, I spoke the truth.

Leo opened and closed his mouth several times before finally continuing.

“That person is, uh…… dead, Your Highness.”

“I saw him. Captain Solas Moretti saved me. He took the assassin’s sword and stabbed him in an instant.”

“Ah…… Is that so?”

Leo turned to the Grand Duke with an incredulous expression, seeking help.

“That’s what she’s saying, Your Highness?”

“What did he look like?”

Instead of telling me to shut up and stop talking nonsense, the Grand Duke asked me to say more.

“Well…… He was this much taller than me,”

I raised my free hand, spreading my thumb and index finger wide.

“His eyes were green like those tree leaves over there,”

As I pointed my index finger at the fresh green leaves in the vase, the Grand Duke’s blue eyes wavered slightly. And then.

“His hair was a fiery red that reached his waist.”

The wavering eyes soon grew wide.

It’s understandable to be surprised, since you know Solas Moretti’s true appearance. You must be amazed at how a mere dancer from a medicine peddler’s troupe wandering the North would know that secret face.

“And?”

The Grand Duke’s voice trembled slightly.

“His complexion was as white as paper. It was pale and white as if it had never been touched by sunlight. His lips were as red as blood.”

The Grand Duke tried to hide his inner turmoil and asked me with a gentle expression.

“……What did Captain Solas say to you?”

As the Grand Duke continued to seriously respond to my words, Leo shook his head.

I could see him inwardly screaming, ‘Not only are you listening to such nonsense, but you’re even playing along with it. Have you gone mad?’

“Hmm. He revealed that he was Solas Moretti and left immediately.”

“Is there…… nothing else you remember?”

The Grand Duke’s face hardened. His eyes narrowed. Blue flames sparked in his gaze as he looked at me appraisingly.

Was my explanation lacking?

Hmm. Am I about to arouse unnecessary suspicion again? He had already misunderstood me as an assassin sent by the Emperor when we first met.

I need one decisive statement that the Grand Duke can’t help but believe.

“It was a woman.”

“……!”

The Grand Duke stared at me, holding his breath. His expression showed he was too shocked to think of any more questions.

Seeing the Grand Duke’s face turning pale, I felt a moment of regret. Did I shock the patient too much?

“Puhah!”

Leo couldn’t hold back anymore and let out a loud laugh.

“Solas Moretti, that monster, a woman? You need to say things that make sense.”

“You asked who saved me, so I just told you what I saw, Lord Dominici.”

“Don’t you treat the wounds Solas inflicted on His Highness every day? Our lord is already a monster. And you’re saying the higher-level monster who wounded this monster is a woman? Ahaha. I apologize, Your Highness. It’s not funny, but I can’t stop laughing.”

“Leo. Get out.”

The Grand Duke coldly rebuked Captain Leo.

“I still haven’t heard who saved Her Highness, Your Highness.”

“Bi has already answered.”

The man who seemed like he would stab himself in the neck at his lord’s command didn’t seem willing to back down this time.

“Your Highness. The one who killed the assassin infiltrated the Grand Duke’s residence without anyone knowing! They used the Imperial Knights’ swordsmanship!”

“And?”

“Though they may have saved Her Highness, they are dangerous. As Your Highness’s guard, I must catch them. We need to find out how they sneaked in here and how they knew about the assassin. They must have been sent by the Emperor-”

“They weren’t sent by the Emperor.”

I understand Leo’s concern, but. I couldn’t stand him suspecting that I was sent by the Emperor, so I snapped at him before I knew it.

“How would Your Highness know that?”

“Didn’t I say I saw with my own eyes!”

Even though a superior had raised their voice this much, Leo remained unyielding, perhaps because it concerned the Grand Duke’s safety.

“The one who killed the assassin is an incredibly skilled person. Judging by the swordsmanship, we absolutely can’t say they’re unrelated to the Emperor. They might even be using some kind of shapeshifting magic to casually wander around the Grand Duke’s residence.”

Though I was stung by his sharp observation, I calmly cut off his words and emphatically relayed an eyewitness account that no one would believe.

“The one who killed the assassin and saved me was Solas Moretti. That’s all the truth you need to know, my lord.”

“That can’t be all. It’s written all over Your Highness’s face. There’s clearly something more you’re not saying.”

Leo’s eyes sparkled sharply as he pressed me, like the Imperial Palace’s chief investigator.

This guy, I’ll have to be careful of him from now on. He’s no ordinary person.

The Grand Duke stared at me for a moment before taking my hand. My small hand fit snugly into the Grand Duke’s large one.

The Grand Duke’s complexion looked worse than before. Sufficient sleep is essential for a patient. I should shut up that persistent Leo now.

“Yes. You’re right, Leo. Come to think of it, this was.”

“This was what?”

Leo looked at me with expectant eyes.

“A miracle!”

I spoke the truth that I could tell.

“Pardon……?”

Leo opened his mouth wide and tilted his head back, letting out a low sigh.

The Grand Duke just stared at me with a complicated expression that was hard to read.

Could it be that he has pieced together all the fragments of what I’ve said so far into a perfect puzzle, and realized that I am a being with Solas’s soul?

I don’t know.

“A miracle! God must have bestowed a miracle upon the pitiful soul wandering without a body.”

If I don’t know, I’ll keep going.

“How could I know God’s profound intentions for why Solas Moretti, who was killed in the Imperial City, came all the way to this distant North to save me of all people? But isn’t it the foolish desire of lowly humans to try to understand the meaning of miracles?”

Leo stared at me with his mouth agape. The will to press further seemed to have disappeared from his expression.

Well. My words about it being a miracle aren’t entirely wrong, are they?

If this is truly a miracle. I now know for certain where this miracle is leading me.

The Imperial City, Blanc Casa.

Where my lost holy sword Flamma is bound by magi in a glass tube.

The place where the Grand Duke’s final footsteps will eventually lead.

Where the Emperor who found, established, and finally erased Solas Moretti awaits.

“That’s right. It’s a miracle. A miracle saved me.”

And that miracle will come as an unavoidable punishment to someone, a disaster that will destroy their existence.

Sooner or later. Certainly.

*

In the grand conference room of the Imperial Palace in the Imperial City of Blanc Casa.

Emperor Justin Della Ponti sat askew with his arm propped on the armrest, glaring disapprovingly at the high nobles and ministers of each department who had been urgently summoned to the cabinet meeting.

“Coma disease. Is that really even a disease?”

The first thing the Emperor encountered upon returning to the Imperial City was the sound of grief and sighs from the families of “coma disease” patients – those who had fallen into an inexplicable comatose state throughout the imperial capital.

“Perfectly healthy people suddenly lying down like they’re dead and just sleeping? You still don’t know the cause or how to wake them up?”

Graziano Bocelli, the Duke who was the head of the cabinet and financial officer, let out a long sigh.

“It’s inexplicable, Your Majesty. This coma disease does not discriminate between men and women, old and young, rich and poor, high and low. As Your Majesty says, it’s doubtful whether it’s even a real disease.”

Duke Bocelli’s regretful gaze fixed on one empty seat.

It was said that even the grandson of Duke Novato Spinola, who had taken on the role of a benevolent mediator in the cabinet meetings full of talk and trouble, had fallen into a coma and was unable to wake up.

Even young babies who had not yet begun to babble could not escape the coma disease.

“The number of coma patients exceeded eight hundred as of yesterday’s count. It could surpass a thousand in a few days……”

“Solutions. Tell me solutions.”

“Some are suggesting holding an exorcism ritual at the Great Temple……”

Duke Bocelli was the only one who dared to speak in front of the Emperor. Even he looked very uncomfortable having to talk about solutions that were not really solutions.

“Exorcism?”

“There are rumors circulating that this must be the curse of someone’s deep grudge falling upon the imperial capital……”

“Is that ‘someone’ perhaps referring to Lord Solas Moretti?”

As the Emperor’s beautiful brow furrowed fiercely, the nobles’ breaths grew quieter.

“……That is correct.”

“How pathetic.”

Justin ran both hands through his brilliant golden hair and let out a deep sigh.

“Solas Moretti’s soul has gone to a good place.”

Duke Bocelli gazed at Justin pensively.

His tired gray eyes seemed to say that this was not something an emperor who had given an unjust death to a loyal subject should be saying.

“The corpse of Solas Moretti that was hung on the city walls disappeared suddenly.”

“Someone who mourned him must have taken care of it.”

Justin had felt deeply relieved when Solas’s corpse disappeared from the city walls.

On that day when Solas’s soul vanished from the Imperial City, carried away by the wind of Aeri.

The emperor, unaware that the Archmage had also taken away and buried her cold body, could only guess that one of Solas’s subordinates who were still being pursued had retrieved it.

Every night, after wandering in search of traces of Solas, the place he would eventually end up was the city wall where Solas’s cold body had been hung. He would linger there until dawn, unable to leave.

He had been grateful to whoever had ended those horrific hours when he could only helplessly gaze up at the soulless body, unable to even bury it with his own hands.

But now all that remained was deep regret and lingering attachment.

If only he had known. If only he had caught the person who took her away and asked. At least then he would know where Solas’s body was resting.

When he thought of that heartless woman who had disappeared without leaving a trace of her presence by his side, he wouldn’t have to wander with a vacant gaze, not knowing which sky to look at.

“The public sentiment is uneasy, Your Majesty.”

The melodious voice of the beautiful blonde Empress Dowager filled the conference room.

“Something is needed to soothe the anxious public mind.”

Justin’s indifferent blue eyes turned to the Empress Dowager entering the conference room.

‘Of course. It must be time for Mother to make her entrance.’

Behind the Empress Dowager came the High Priest Grato Comboni, and Carina Pioni who quietly folded her hands and lowered her eyes.

The Empress Dowager’s deep purple eyes gently swept across the assembly.

“Whether it’s true that Solas’s ghost is causing the coma disease or not. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that the people believe it.”

The Empress Dowager spoke to the High Priest as if reciting pre-arranged lines.

“It’s urgent to calm the public sentiment, so let’s hold the exorcism ritual at the Great Temple. You’ll help us, won’t you, High Priest Comboni?”

The High Priest, looking like a fat snowman in his white priestly robes, bowed deeply with a grin.

“How could I refuse, Your Highness the Empress Dowager.”

“Of course Your Majesty agrees as well?”

Whatever ulterior motive she had for orchestrating this, Justin suppressed his rising smirk and nodded seriously like a properly dutiful son.

‘Our mother is especially beautiful when she’s having bad thoughts.’

The emperor could guess why they had appeared in the conference room discussing measures for the coma patients without even hearing it. They were probably the culprits behind the coma disease.

And he thought.

The justification Mother puts forward when she’s plotting something is never the real reason.

The nobles in this conference room now would probably guess that the Empress Dowager is trying to push the Great Temple and the Holy Maiden candidate to keep the nobles in check.

‘She always hides her true dark intentions behind.’

What could be the real reason for putting over eight hundred innocent people in a comatose state?

“Mother’s will is my will.”

Justin answered with a reverent kiss on the Empress Dowager’s hand.

Whatever the Empress Dowager’s true intentions were, Justin actually didn’t care much. Whether eight hundred people fell into a coma or not. Whether a thousand died and were buried or not. He felt no sympathy for those who would suffer unjustly.

Justin finally spoke the words he had intended to say since entering the conference room.

Now that the Empress Dowager was here too, it was the perfect time to drop this bombshell.

“Speaking of public sentiment, I’m thinking of convening a Great Noble Council.”

The conference room, which had been murmuring about the exorcism ritual, suddenly fell silent.

“A Great Noble Council?”

A crack seemed to appear on Sophia the Empress Dowager’s beautiful face with a cracking sound.

Justin Della Ponti smiled like an angel in a holy painting, gently creasing his eyes.

“Yes. A Great Noble Council. A gathering of the lords of the East and West, North and South. Wouldn’t bringing together all of Mother’s troublemakers in one place for a scene of reconciliation and love be the shortcut to soothing public sentiment, haha.”

He had pondered the entire way back from the North. How to make Yuriella Ielheim come to him willingly and prettily on her own feet.

And as always, he found a way.

A fairly plausible justification that even his esteemed cousin brother couldn’t refuse.