“As for lovers… That’s one thing. But can’t I even be your friend? I feel quite hurt.”

“Then tell me what you want. I’ll call you that.”

Clang!

But this time, Helena was the one to push him first.

Ian’s spirit, which seemed to have subsided at her raised voice, became bold again.

“I never even imagined we’d barely be more than strangers!”

“Don’t be so presumptuous as to think I’ll always speak and act as you expect!”

“It’s not presumption, it’s confidence. As someone who has spent time with you and observed you!”

“Then keep clinging like an annoying tick and be confident as you please!”

Helena’s body flinched momentarily at the words that burst out like a landmine she had stepped on.

She didn’t mean it.

“…An annoying tick. Is that how you’ve thought of me all this time?”

She was angry at herself.

She was angry at herself for not accepting him without overthinking. How pathetic she felt, panicking and trying to run away at the mere thought of giving a piece of her heart.

When Helena swung her sword without saying anything, Ian, taking it as an affirmative answer, tightened his grip.

Helena also gritted her teeth and held on, not wanting to be pushed back. The sound of blades grinding against each other grew increasingly intense.

Helena was disappointed in herself and at the same time resented Eugene.

Why did you make me a coward trembling in fear of betrayal? Making me only want to run away.

‘Preventing me from properly facing that good person.’

She was truly angry. Now it was anger directed at Eugene, not herself.

You, who took everything from me and now try to take even that man’s place,

‘I hate you.’

Was it due to the rapidly expanding and contracting muscles? The small anger that started like lighting a wick burned all the nerves in her brain and rushed to the extremities.

Clang, clang!

Like an electric current, it flowed to her fingertips and toes, then converged. All the blood flowing through every corner of her body was boiling.

‘This is strange. It’s too hot.’

Finally, when her arm and sword stretched out in a straight line felt as one.

Whoosh!

The energy that had wrapped around to the tip of the blade burst forth.

The sword aura that is said to emanate only from those who have reached the pinnacle of swordsmanship. The aura of a Sword Master.

Helena inhaled sharply, startled by the sensation she had never felt before. Ian reflexively deflected the direct aura.

The aura, roughly deflected by the blade, headed straight for where Sakin and Plum were sitting.

“Watch out!”

As soon as Helena’s sharp cry escaped her throat, Plum grabbed one of the shields lined up beside him.

The aura, intensified by mixing with the wind, struck the shield like lightning.

Crack!

The shield split in half as if paper being torn, falling to either side with a thud, revealing Sakin clutching his greatsword with wide eyes.

Waving away the dust with his hand, Plum shouted.

“Hey, keep your lover’s quarrel in check!”

Normally, she would have immediately corrected such a statement. But Helena was too preoccupied processing the sensation of the sword aura that had swept through her entire body. It was a small miracle that occurred like an accident.

“Did you see that? I, I… used sword aura.”

Ian, having grasped the situation, also looked surprised.

He looked once at Helena, who was taking in and letting out heavy breaths, then at the remains of the shattered shield, and back at Helena again.

“Well done.”

The tone was slightly twisted for it to be pure congratulations. Seeming to realize this himself, he added.

“I mean that sincerely.”

Then he turned around, wiped his sweat with a towel hanging on the fence, and slid his sword into its sheath.

“But aren’t you the one being presumptuous? You don’t think I’ll never leave you, do you?”

Helena swallowed dryly. His words made her throat feel rough, as if sand had been sprinkled on it.

“Since I’m an annoying and irritating tick that’s of no help, I’ll be going now. You like being alone so much, you should live alone for the rest of your life.”

From the moment he turned around, he walked away without sparing even a glance.

Helena stood still in her place, watching his broad silhouette grow smaller. He was angry with her.

‘…I didn’t say you were irritating.’

She felt a little resentful.

That evening, Helena sat on the bed with her knees pulled up, resting her chin on them.

Despite the joyous occasion of finally taking a step towards the realm of Sword Master, she wasn’t particularly happy.

Whether she closed her eyes or opened them, the morning’s events kept replaying.

‘I… know too.’

That he and she were more than just barely beyond strangers.

‘But what can I do when acknowledging that is even more frightening.’

“Aren’t you the one being presumptuous? You don’t think I’ll never leave you, do you?”

Her mouth went dry again at the line that was now echoing in her head for the thirty-eighth time.

Nothing was more frightening than giving affection to someone who would eventually leave. Even more so if ‘love’ preceded that affection.

But she didn’t want to cut off her relationship with him abruptly either. She didn’t want to do that anymore. She didn’t want to be alone again.

Although still afraid, she could endure this much when thinking of him.

However, for Helena, who didn’t know how to untie a tangled knot without cutting it, the current situation felt only daunting.

“Sakin, you liar… You said he wasn’t the type to tangle knots in the first place.”

As she was quietly venting her resentment in a soliloquy, there came a cheerful knock on the door.

“Sister! It’s me!”

Helena lifted her head from between her knees and got up from the bed. Even as she stumbled towards the door, the knocking continued a few more times.

Before the hinges could even creak, Lily burst in. The first thing that caught Helena’s eye was an unexpectedly peculiar attire.

A star-patterned cloak that dragged on the floor due to its ill-fitting size, a fedora that covered her forehead and kept slipping down, and frameless glasses barely perched on the tip of her nose.

With a rather solemn expression, she adjusted her glasses and boldly announced the purpose of her visit.

“Hello! Swift and accurate delivery service! We deliver anything, be it words or objects! We’re offering a free service for first-time users! Would you like to try it?”

A momentary look of confusion crossed Helena’s face.

“Delivery… service?”

But she soon caught on to Lily’s intention. She felt a bit embarrassed that their cold war had been so obvious even to a child’s eyes. Yet she also felt a ray of sunshine piercing through the dark clouds that had hung over her mind all afternoon.

It might be a bit pathetic to receive help from a child, but since it was an ambitiously prepared service… A child’s small hands can sometimes more easily untangle knotted threads.

Helena bent down and gently pushed up the fedora that had slipped down to Lily’s nose bridge. Then, meeting the bright, sparkling eyes revealed, she asked.

“Nice to meet you, Problem Solver. I have a knot I’d like to untie. Would you help me?”

The free time given after dinner was leisurely. Usually, at this hour, Ian would have been focused on necessary tasks, with a map spread out before him.

The reason he came to Instantia wasn’t solely to find Helena. There were things he needed to find along with her.

The 1st Prince who had toppled his own father and ascended to the imperial throne against the laws of nature.

Beelzebub Roel Knight Fevenheim.

Officially, the former emperor’s death was attributed to the worsening of a chronic illness, but everyone in the imperial palace knew of Beelzebub’s involvement.

As soon as he became emperor, he began to implement tyrannical policies as if he had been waiting for this moment.

Ignoring the cries and wails of the starving people, he aggressively expanded the territory. He was a man who lived for the desire to dominate and conquer.

His ruthless offensive escalated day by day, and that year, Ian appeared. Ian joined forces with the factions opposing Beelzebub and cut down his brothers one by one.

He paved a path with blood and finally reached the throne.

But Beelzebub wasn’t there. Only the cold imperial crown lay lonely under the moonlight.

He thought Beelzebub had disappeared, valuing his life.

Until he reappeared leading rebel forces, just as Ian had done.

“So we meet again, little brother. Have you been playing nicely with the crown, being a good boy like mother told you? Oh, I forgot again. Your mother-.”

“Hah.”

Ian exhaled deeply, shaking off the deepening reminiscence. With hands stiffening, he struggled to unfold the map and grasp a pen.

It was a map marking Beelzebub’s force movement routes and sizes discovered so far.

‘The situation has gotten out of hand while I was trying to set the state affairs right. I need to cut it off at the root before it becomes uncontrollable.’

It seemed Beelzebub hadn’t prepared perfectly from the start either.

Even after revealing himself, he only engaged in intermittent confrontations of a defensive nature. At the end of that, the fact discovered was that his financier was in the Eastern Empire.

Beelzebub’s confidant and the rebel army’s chief of staff, known as Cheshire.

Although rumored to be the person Beelzebub trusted most, no one knew his true identity.

Neither his face, voice, nor age. Not a single detail was known.

‘I suppose anyone who knew is already dead.’

Like a cat hiding in the shadows, he was very secretive and cunning. At the slightest hint of danger, he would immediately cut ties and vanish. It took years just to find out where he had made his base.

This summer, a strand of fur Cheshire unusually left behind. The source of the enormous funds transferred to a shell company was Instantia. Ian had come here following that lead.

Of course, he couldn’t deny that Helena was the main reason. He had no face to refute if accused of losing reason to a blind sense of gratitude, if not love.

But she was the woman who made time flow again after it had stopped. There was no way he could forget her.

So that’s why his hand was now gripping his own hair instead of the pen.

“Stupid bastard, why did I say such things…”

Ian rubbed his scalp with his fist as if pulling weeds. The self-deprecating words came out easily. Even after several hours, the self-reproach digging a tunnel showed no signs of stopping.

Knowing full well what being alone meant to her, he had, vilely and pettily, almost threatened her with it.

“How wretched. So wretched.”

Ian lowered the hand that had been ruffling his silver hair and buried his face in it. Helena’s face kept flickering in his mind every time he thought he might forget.

Her expression as she hesitated at his words. Thinking of that moment, he felt he deserved any punishment. Even falling into the fiery pit of the abyss seemed like a lenient treatment.

Ian muttered as if sighing.

“Where would I even go?”

The only place I want to stay is by your side.