Ten years.

Of course, I am very grateful to have endured this far.

However, human greed is endless, so one keeps wishing for a little more, just a little more.

‘If only you could stay with us a little longer, Arwen…’

Even while smiling at the child growing up as brightly as the sun on this island, anxiety suddenly welled up in their hearts.

“Several years… We can hold out until then, right?”

Delphine murmured with a deeply sunken face.

Ioan hugged Delphine’s shoulders as she wiped away tears, gently comforting her.

Lin’s expression was also dark as she watched the couple.

Arwen was growing up more cheerfully and vigorously than anyone else.

However, the reason that was possible was thanks to the dedication of Delphine and Ioan, who came to this small island to escape all temptations and storms.

Would Arwen be able to grow up so cheerfully even after experiencing the great pain of losing her parents at a young age?

Lin had no confidence.

As a godfather, he would be loyal to the child for life.

However, he also knew well that no one could replace the existence of parents.

“…Everyone is doing their best.”

He spoke words of comfort to the crying Delphine in a low, sunken voice.

“We have no choice but to wait without losing hope…”

At that moment, suddenly, the sound of rustling leaves came through a slightly open gap in the window.

However, the three people lost in thought did not notice.

At the same time, in a forest on Rinosa Island.

“What the! Why are the trees so big and dense here!”

A boy who had lost his way in the jungle-like forest was wandering around.

The boy took out a small jackknife from his bag and grunted, trying to cut through the vines blocking his way.

“This darn thing…! If I can just cut it away…!”

The name of the boy who came to the island on a boat with Lin was Cale.

Originally living as the son of a stable keeper, the boy believed he was ‘just Cale’ and lived that way for 13 years.

However, not long ago, his foster father who raised him was badly injured in a carriage accident.

What the father revealed to the boy on his deathbed was a shocking truth.

The fact that he was the illegitimate child of the emperor of the Astrax Empire that collapsed 10 years ago.

In other words, he was not just Cale or the only son of a stable keeper, but ‘Cale Astrax’.

After burying his father, the boy spent three days sitting blankly in the empty house before packing his bags and abruptly leaving the peninsula.

It was because he had no courage to live alone in this house, which held memories of his father.

Like that, with the help of merchants, he barely crossed the Antes Mountains to the northern continent.

It was a completely new world.

Unlike the empire that had been isolated on the peninsula for three hundred years, there were trains making loud noises as they passed by, and trams and automobiles filling the streets.

“I don’t know what your story is, but be careful, kid. This is a place where you’ll lose your nose with your eyes wide open.”

The words of the merchant who took pity on him and gave him a ride on the baggage wagon were correct.

While struggling, being deceived, and suffering in the sophisticated but barren city for half a year, the naive boy had somehow turned into a vagabond of the streets with dead eyes.

The boy, driven by evil, finally reached a twisted conclusion.

‘All of this… is because of that woman.’

If it weren’t for that woman, he could have lived in a large palace, enjoying luxury.

The boy, who lost his livelihood and was driven into a corner in an instant, mustered his last dying strength and headed to Rinosa Island.

It wasn’t very difficult to find out the information that the saint, the goddess of the holy mother war, lived here.

It was already a well-known fact throughout the continent.

Here, I will avenge my family and father.

As for what happens after that… I don’t know. I was going to think about it when the time comes.

Anyway, he had such an important mission, but…

Cale shouted, his face full of fighting spirit, as he held onto the tough vines.

“This darned thing… can’t stop me…!”

Because I, I am a person who has inherited the noble imperial bloodline and must avenge my family…!

That’s when it happened.

“You can’t cut jikdu vines with such a small knife. You didn’t know that?”

A somewhat indifferent tone, contrasting with the cute voice.

Startled by the sudden sound, Cale hurriedly raised his head to look, but there was nothing in front of him.

Then the voice called out melodiously.

“Look up.”

When he craned his neck further upward, he saw a girl sitting on a high tree branch, swinging her two legs.

The tropical sun was too dazzling for the boy from the peninsula.

That scorching sun was shining behind the girl’s back.

However, what captured his heart more powerfully than that sunlight was the girl’s emerald-colored eyes, clearer than any jewel.

Cale muttered blankly with a face that had lost its soul.

“…An angel?”

No, she wasn’t.

The girl climbed down the large tree with a somewhat unimpressive appearance for an angel with wings.

Then, with a disheveled appearance, she spat out words to him.

“What’s this, why is a little kid alone in a forest like this?”

“Little kid!”

Then Cale immediately flared up and shouted.

“You clearly look younger than me! Why are you, a little kid, alone in the forest?”

“I may be a little kid, but I know this area well, so it’s fine.”

The girl answered, blinking her uniquely colored eyes.

“Of course, normally I shouldn’t come this deep alone. …There’s a bit of a situation right now.”

The girl’s expression darkened a little as she added the last words.

Come to think of it, although she had a bold expression, her small eyelids seemed a little red and swollen.

Did this child also lose her parents like me?

If not, why is she crying alone?

He felt a little worried about the girl.

The adolescent boy from the countryside blurted out his thoughts like this.

“…What’s this. Were you crying?”

“No, I wasn’t!”

Then the girl shouted right away, as if her pride was hurt.

“I wasn’t crying! I was just climbing a tree!”

“Is that so? You’re not lost on your way home?”

“No…!”

The girl, who was about to retort, suddenly muttered with a lost expression.

“The way home… Well. Maybe I have lost it…”

Hearing those words, the tension in his body, which had been tense, suddenly dissipated.

Cale sat down, leaning his tired body against a large tree.

The hut where that woman, the enemy of his family, lives is definitely around here…

Is it because of these suffocatingly dense trees?

Or because of the sun that is so intense it makes you dizzy?

He definitely thought that once he arrived on Rinosa Island, everything would be resolved, but no.

Strangely, his heart felt even more lost now that the opportunity for revenge against his enemy was right in front of him.

The girl said she had lost her way home, but what had he lost?

Now he has no father, no home, nothing…

The girl, who had been staring at Cale, plopped down and sat next to him.

Cale, who had been looking around for a moment with an inexplicable rising embarrassment, suddenly blurted out.

“…Shall I help you find your way home together?”

“It’s fine. I’m not that much of a fool.”

“…”

Cale just kept his mouth shut at the girl’s calm answer.

He had thought that a tropical island would just be annoyingly hot, but sitting under the shade of a tree like this was quite cool.

The dense trees that he thought were scary also felt cozy when sitting and watching them with someone by his side.

The boy, who had been closing his eyes as if savoring the occasional breeze, suddenly uttered.

“…I’m on my way to take revenge on my parents’ enemy.”

He had never told anyone before, so why was he saying this?

In fact, it was because he was afraid.

During the past six months of living on the streets, he prided himself on having tried everything, but not murder.

In fact, not only murder, but the boy had even refused to do the common pickpocketing out of conscience.

…Can I really take that woman’s life?

To him, who was deep in thought, the girl answered nonchalantly.

“Parents’ enemy? …Well, I wouldn’t let it go either if someone took my mom and dad away from me.”

He thought she would dissuade him, saying revenge was bad, so it was a bit unexpected.

Cale asked, as if he was really curious.

“How would you not let it go?”

“You may not know, but I have a wider network than you think. I know many high-ranking peo… No, anyway, I know many people in high places.”

The girl clenched her small fists and shouted.

“I’ll ask the adults to take revenge for me!”

It sounded like an answer that was both unlike a child and more like a child than anyone else.

Do people always answer like that when they have reliable adults around them?

“The Holy Emperor always says that forgiveness and mercy are important, but what’s wrong with taking a little revenge when I’ve lost someone precious to me?”

The girl said matter-of-factly.

“I love my mom the most in the world! I like my dad almost as much! You must be the same, right?”

At the girl’s question that sounded like it was a given, Cale hesitated before answering.

“…No, actually I don’t even know what my biological parents look like.”

“Huh? Really?”

Cale answered, a little crestfallen at the girl’s greatly surprised reaction.

“Yeah. My birth mother passed away while giving birth to me, and my father abandoned me because my mother was a maid.”