“I knew the twins would grow up this beautifully. I was aware of it.”

Vercheria and Groovy looked at each other with bewildered eyes.

Agnes blurred her vision, wondering if the two could be seen properly.

“To be able to apologize to you two before I die. Amazing. How grateful I am to you right now, you probably don’t know.”

Watching this from behind, Rosie, who had been observing, approached quickly and shouted into Agnes’s ear.

“Agnes! You have to tell the story from the beginning for them to understand. From the beginning. Got it?”

“Ah.”

Agnes nodded her head laboriously.

With blurry eyes, she recalled a day more than twenty years ago.

The day she left the palace with Princess Lawrence from the Contana Kingdom, a royal guest who came from Contana.

‘Just take one child. If you keep your mouth shut for the rest of your life, I can make you rich.’

“Everything was strange that day. I was a rookie learning to adopt a child by following the mountain monks. So everything was awkward.”

Agnes reached out with trembling hands, as if thirsty, to pour water.

Quick-witted Rosie filled her cup with water and handed it to her.

After drinking all the water, Agnes spoke again with a slightly stronger voice.

“It was a strange sight for me to see a birth mother with yellow hair and yellow irises in my lifetime, contrary to what the princess of the Contana Kingdom said. And unlike what the princess said, it wasn’t one child but two.”

Agnes looked into the air as if recalling that day.

“They were surprisingly beautiful babies. I still vividly remember them as if it happened right in front of my eyes.”

Then she seemed to freeze, as if falling asleep.

Rosie tapped Agnes’s hand as if feeling frustrated.

At that, Agnes, with a surprised face, blinked her eyes again.

“So what happened next?”

“The birth mother cried out to buy both babies. The princess of the Contana Kingdom gave a few coins to the birth mother and took both babies with her.”

Rosie swallowed hard.

“The princess brought the babies here and ordered the soldiers I brought to take one child to the underground prison and take the other child to the forest.”

“Unbelievable.”
In response to the shocking story, Rosie exclaimed in sympathy rather than Vercheria and Groovy, who were frozen.

“They were newborns, not even their umbilical cords dried yet.”

Agnes, still holding Vercheria and Groovy’s hands with her gnarled hands, looked down.

“I thought they must have died without a sound. They had no choice but to die. But to be alive like this, you’re the Absolute. Thank you. Really, thank you.”

“Sigh.”

Vercheria withdrew her hand, grabbed Groovy’s hand, and clasped it against her flat lower abdomen, exhaling a shallow breath.

As expected, her predictions were correct.

Even though it couldn’t be guaranteed that they were twins, in the end, all of Vercheria’s predictions turned out to be true.

Still, she hoped it wasn’t true.

Sold to Lawrence, she had lived confined, or rather, abused throughout her life. The years were painfully etched on her heart.

“Vercheria.”

Groovy was the same.

Though he had done nothing wrong, his life was difficult.

Vercheria narrowed her eyebrows in pity toward Groovy.

“There’s nothing wrong with any part of us. We didn’t even choose to be born.”

Groovy closed his eyes, with the same eyes as Vercheria, tightly shut.

When she realized that the world she had lived in was all a lie, Vercheria was captured by complex feelings.

It was sad and empty.

Groovy might be feeling similar emotions.

“Groovy.”

But he wouldn’t have to feel that way for long.

Vercheria would be by his side.

“Now that we know the truth, it’s time for revenge.”

“Are you talking about the person who callously sold us and the one who abandoned us?”

Groovy’s face turned fierce.

“Yes, Groovy. We have the right to do that.”

Vercheria and Groovy exchanged determined looks.

Just as the two were about to say goodbye to Agnes and leave.

“Oh no. I almost forgot the most important thing.”

Rosie, who had been watching everything, hurriedly returned to Agnes.

“Agnes!”

Suddenly awakened by the loud voice, Agnes, who couldn’t endure falling asleep due to too many words, opened her eyes wide.

Rosie grabbed Agnes’s shoulders and asked urgently.

“So, who was born first among the two?”

“Huh?”

“Who was born first between the two of them?”

Agnes, showing a few remaining teeth and grinning, chuckled and then raised her gnarled hand, pointing at Groovy.

“Thirty minutes. He was born thirty minutes earlier. The male child.”

Rosie nodded and laughed, then turned to look at the two.

Vercheria and Groovy were looking at each other with strange expressions.