“I know where your mother is.”

“…What did you say?”

Leon, asking again, felt a ominous premonition. When he reconsidered what bothered him, it was the fact that unrelated people and events were intricately connected like a spider web.

Someone who had never had a deep conversation with him claimed to know about his past. Mariela spoke about his past, which Leon couldn’t accept, and mentioned his father’s sword that he had secretly buried in a sponsored pit after putting it in a box.

“That… how did you…”

“It was on the day you went to the battlefield at dawn. I thought I couldn’t take it with me on the way to fight.”

It was true. Even the steward and the gardener in charge of managing the mansion didn’t know about it. Did she know everything, even that? How much did she know?

‘How far does she know?’

‘Is the ‘future’ written in that so-called ‘book’ really real?’

Endless questions swirled, but at the moment, all he could think of was rescuing Elysia.

“Until now, you didn’t say anything, and why did you speak now?”

In response to Leon’s question, Mariela replied with a faint expression of exhaustion.

“I’ve done everything to save that child.”

Mariela looked at him earnestly and said, “Maybe… maybe you can save her.”

It was the only untried method.

Without time to doubt or make strange remarks, there was no time to get angry. If Mariela’s words were true, Elysia was in danger.

He couldn’t afford to delay. If her words were not true, he thought he could question her when he came back from the Water Palace.

But remembering the scene he had to see at the Water Palace, his teeth ground again.

Seeing Elysia suffer without any answers, he wished he could take the pain for her.

However, when she regained consciousness, she recovered her lost memories and claimed not to know herself.

Moreover, what? She knew where her mother was?

The more he heard, the more astonishing words flowed, and he didn’t know how to react.

Looking at the sitting Elysia with a strange face, Leon could only say with a sigh, “That’s hard to believe.”

Princess Lev, her mother, was born as a woman, meeting all the typical Oder conditions. So she wandered freely around the continent.

“Mom, I mean, what did my mother say?”

In the meantime, Elysia calling the duchess ‘Mom’ was very irritating.

‘Elysia used to call her mother frequently.’

And she chose him.

However, because of the seemingly more profound connection between Elysia and Mariela, who was now close to her, the term ‘Mom’ was even more irritating. It felt like he was becoming more distant from Elysia as he got closer to Mariela.
“There is another world where a ‘book’ exists with my future written in it.”

“I see.”

Elysia lowered her head quietly.

“What are you doing?”

“I sincerely want to apologize.”

Leon was dumbfounded.

“Apologize?”

Why? Why, and what is he apologizing for?

“To inform the protagonist of the book about that fact is something I have never even thought about. It’s like breaking a taboo.”

“Why?”

“If you lived your life as predetermined, would you believe it?”

Leon felt a strange sensation in his head.

“If you could know your own future, wouldn’t you want to avoid bad things and only take the good?”

“I’ve never thought about it.”

“Destiny is predetermined. In this world, you can’t go against the flow. And if that changes, you don’t know what will happen as a butterfly effect. Possessors try hard not to disrupt that flow.”

“I see. But how should one accept this situation? Listening to you, it seems like this is a clear violation of the rules.”

Leon responded a bit crookedly. It just didn’t come out well.

“Mother just wanted me to live. She probably wanted to take me out of the original work.”

“That damn original work. Original work, you say. Should I believe such nonsense?”

“Your mother was imprisoned. It was a way for those who wanted to blind your eyes and couldn’t find another way in a dead-end.”

“What are you talking about? Who is that?”

“Someone who wants to become a god.”

A person who blindly makes the original work as if it were faith and dreams of becoming the absolute ruler here.

“Losing your sight was something that had to happen. He thrives on human desires. He impulsively urges to make you blind as you wish.”

Leon was somewhat stunned by Elysia’s words.

“But because you are an ‘Oder,’ it doesn’t affect you, regardless of poison or curse.”

He had never thought about it, but Elysia’s words were true.

In the Constance Empire, only very few stories about ‘Oder’ were known.

Things like slow aging, staying robust like when young, superior physique with black hair and red eyes, qualities of a swordmaster, and so on.

But in reality, it was a being slightly beyond the human category physically, and only those who directly gave birth to and raised the Oder over generations, such as the imperial couples, knew about it.

Leon’s body was not affected by poison or curses.