“When was this?”

“It hasn’t been long.”

“Lead the way.”

“Understood. Our cooperative priest went with her, and several other maids followed, so don’t worry too much.”

Suppressing his boiling emotions, Carson stepped outside. He had been told that the road was impassable for horses, so he had to walk the mountain path. Just thinking about her carrying heavy water on this path every day made him feel as if his throat were constricting.

Upon arriving, Carson was faced with despair.

He saw people in the pitch-black darkness. Three women and a priest turned their heads toward a sudden bright light.

As Carson rushed over to inspect, he found three women sitting on the ground, unable to stand. But Ines was nowhere to be seen.

“What happened here?”

Recognizing Carson, Charlotte stepped closer in surprise.

“My Lord?”

Carson recognized Charlotte as well.

“Where’s Ines?”

Caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the lord, Charlotte calmly explained the situation. Four maids had gone missing, and two were stranded on a broken bridge.

After Ines rescued the two, she crossed the broken bridge again, and just before that, another maid walked off the bridge.

“So, Ines went back to rescue the last person?”

“It seems so. She led the maids to a safe point on the bridge and then went back…”

Furious, Carson grabbed the collar of the cooperative priest standing there.

“What were you doing here?”

The priest could only blink. He looked young and was trembling, whether from the pouring rain or from self-reproach.

“Going there now is… almost like committing suicide…”

Carson flung the babbling priest to the ground and swiftly grabbed a torch from someone standing behind him.

“What are you doing?”

Noah, who had been watching, shouted.

“I’m going to get her.”

Before Noah could stop him, Carson looked in the direction where Ines had disappeared. The moon, too, had lost hope and was hiding in the dark.

It was a miracle that these three maids had been rescued from there. As the priest on the ground had said, proceeding like this was nothing short of suicidal.

Wasn’t he new here?

No matter how agile he was, the chances of surviving in this darkness and rain seemed slim. Having made his decision, Noah blocked Carson’s way.

“You absolutely cannot go.”

“Move, Noah Timothy.”

Carson’s glare was fearsome, but Noah stood his ground.

“Then kill me and go. If I can’t protect you, I’m as good as dead.”

Though an adjutant is not a knight and won’t die for failing to protect someone, that was exactly how he felt right now.

From the moment he stepped into this place, the rain had started to pour mercilessly. Nobody else stepped forward.

If it became known that the emperor had died while rescuing a maid, no one here would be safe.

So, the only proper thing to do was to stop him.

But at that moment, Carson’s eyes, which had been filled with an overpowering momentum, began to waver like a lantern in the wind.

He was no longer looking at Noah. Raising his hand, Carson shoved Noah aside with force.

Surprised, Noah followed Carson’s gaze.

Far away, in the dark where even the stars and moon were hiding, a faint light was moving.
The light at first flickered like a dot or a thread, then at one point revealed itself like a candle.

The unhurried light slowly increased in size.

It was unmistakably a torch, becoming clearer despite the unease.

“Ines…”

Naturally, the first to recognize her was Carson. He wanted to rush toward the woman who had instantly filled him with dread, but his body wouldn’t obey.

She was unharmed.

Gasping for breath, he watched her take determined steps toward him; Ines was definitely coming out of the darkness, having rescued the last remaining person.

Against the pouring rain, Carson spoke as if extinguishing.

“Does that woman have flaws?”

Noah tightly closed his lips upon hearing his lord’s words. Indeed, many had mocked Carson, who didn’t show himself in social circles.

Waiting endlessly for a flawed woman who once attempted murder due to an unforgettable former lover—that’s what Carson von Raymond was doing, wasting his years.

“That woman… is she lacking to me?”

Unanimously, they all said that she was infinitely lacking for this beautiful and perfect man. Merely a foolish man blinded by a woman, even if he was the darling of the times.

“No, no. She’s too much for me. So overwhelmingly excessive that I can’t breathe.”

Ines held a torch in one hand and embraced a woman’s waist with the other.

Suddenly, she seemed delicate yet clad in light, appearing the strongest.

The woman in Ines’s arms could hardly stand. Carrying her had made it impossible for Ines to walk properly. Perhaps she had injured her legs while rescuing people.

‘Limp, limp, limp.’

The sight of a woman walking imperfectly while lifting a servant girl was breathtakingly beautiful.

With each step she took, it was like a stamp upon his heart.

It was a beauty that would only shine once at the moment of life and death, as if a goddess of war descended to Earth from legends.