Then the carriage suddenly stopped on the road.

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shall I check, Miss?”

“Sure, go ahead.”

The maid cautiously opened the carriage door and stuck her head out.

“Ah!”

At that moment, something outside the carriage caught the maid, yanked her out, and tossed her aside as if dropping her on the road.

It happened in an instant.

The door closed again, and the carriage quickly started running.

“Miss! Miss!”
The maid’s voice calling her faded away in an instant.

Karina felt dizzy. The speed of the running carriage was unbelievably fast, and the scenery outside the narrow window passed by in a blur.

‘What if I jump off and make a mistake?’

Karina didn’t know what to do.

After a while, the carriage, which had turned from a main road into a quiet and narrow alley, came to a stop at a certain place.

“Get off.”

“N-no.”

“Just follow quietly.”

Outside the carriage, another carriage was parked nearby.

“What is this? Where are you trying to take me?”

When Karina resisted from inside the carriage, a man forcibly pulled her out.

“S-Save me!”

As strong hands covered her mouth, Karina asked him.

Thwack!

It was then that the dagger he held in his hand swung.

Illeon walked through the capital’s night streets.

Even in the approaching early summer, the night air felt cool as it swept through the streets.

Recalling the path Elisia took when she ran to him, saying, ‘I lost my eyes again,’ Illeon walked aimlessly.

But no matter how much he walked, the tightness in his chest did not go away.

Elisia, who had decided to return to Hadumsha, changed her mind and decided to leave for a foreign country as planned.

Leave me.

It felt like a thousand needles were pricking his heart.

The determination to try even if he was alone became ironic.

What use would it be if Elisia left?

At least Leve and Mariela stayed at the Grand Manor instead of returning to the Viscount’s residence. However, Elisia, who was supposed to go back to the Duke’s residence, stayed at the Grand Manor without giving Illeon a chance to talk to her.

‘Because my mother wouldn’t know about Elisia and me.’

Almost all day long, Leve stuck to Elisia.

Elisia couldn’t remember him.

Even after coming to the Grand Manor, she was so unfamiliar that the butler Bernard was quite shocked.

Ambiguously, he asked Leve to give up his seat, saying he wanted someone he desired. Leve’s response was also vague.

A few days later. No, now it’s just three days later.

Elisia disappeared, holding onto the day she was supposed to leave.

Most of the time, she stayed in the room designated as a bedroom, saying she was praying. During the remaining time outside the room, Leve was always sitting next to her.

‘God doesn’t give everything.’

It takes away one thing.

He gained victory on the battlefield, losing his eyes. When he opened his eyes again, Rona was gone.

Now, he obtained Elisia’s heart but lost Elisia’s presence.

Perhaps this was a fair measure.

The god of this world was truly a merciless one without dreams or hopes.

That Elisia’s residence became a place so suffocating that even breathing was difficult was something Illeon had never imagined.

She was there, yet he couldn’t see her, couldn’t speak to her, and couldn’t touch her.

Is this how it should be, just waiting for her to go?

He kept wanting to catch her somewhere.
In that case, one would end up hating oneself and want to be taken to an unknown place to be hidden.

Such absurd thoughts filled his mind.

Illeon found such thoughts horrifying. If Elisia were to find out about himself feeling this way, it would be even more dreadful.

Obsession was not love. But love could lead to obsession.

It felt like Elisia, who used to whisper love to him, might still linger somewhere.

What was so clear disappeared so futilely.

Every time Illeon briefly encountered Elisia, his insides rotted and crumbled.

The sleepless nights continued.

Unable to sleep in the room where he used to lie down with Elisia, he walked the chilly streets every night.

Around dawn, he returned home and barely fell asleep for a few hours, as if he had fainted.

His unnecessarily healthy and superior body recovered in just a few hours, and when he woke up after a short sleep, his attention was always focused on Elisia’s presence.

Then it happened.

Ssslaaaash!

Something targeted him and swooped down.

Illeon instantly drew his sword and skillfully blocked it.

He felt a chill.

‘Surely this moment…’

Pahak!

A red smoke spread over the pitch-black night curtain.

‘Snow!’

Illeon closed his eyes tightly for a moment.

Thump, thump, thump.

Startled, he quickly got up with his eyes closed.

“Heuk, heuk.”

He, who was not easily surprised by most things, was stimulated by the trauma he just experienced.

“What is this…”

Illeon stopped himself from speaking.

He couldn’t protect his nose and mouth and couldn’t guard his eyes when it first happened.

Now, he reflexively closed his eyes to the red smoke, and as if the throat and chest that breathed in the air were burning, they became hot.

“…No.”

It was poisonous.

A strange sensation began to circulate through his body through the bloodstream.

“Like this…”

Soon, his head became hot from the inside. It felt as if he was holding a heated iron bar everywhere in his head.

“Aaargh!”

Illeon screamed in the cold night street, his head covered.

After a while.

As the pain subsided, Illeon slowly stood up.

“Why was I like this?”

With a perplexed feeling, he looked around.

“Where is this? I can’t know.”

More than that, he couldn’t remember why he was wandering outside the Grand Manor at this hour.

“Not a hallucination.”

Still, his head and chest felt tingling.

As if something, a part of himself, had been cut out.

Illeon rubbed his chest strangely with a feeling of discomfort.

Ggyaaaak!

A newly born scream of a woman was heard nearby.

Without hesitation, he ran towards the direction where the sound came from.

“S-Save me!”

The sight unfolding in front of him clearly looked like a kidnapping.

A hooded woman struggled, swinging a dagger, and dropped the knife after getting hit on the wrist.
Illeon did not hesitate and swung his sword towards the assailant.

“Eeek!”

“Aaaargh!”

In an instant, as the tendons of the shoulders and knees were severed, only Illeon and the woman remained in that spot.

The woman rushed towards him.

The hood covering her face was removed in the struggle.

The hair that spilled out of the black hood was as bright as silver in the moonlight.

He knew her.

Karina Drepain Harington.

With emerald eyes brimming with tears, she appealed to him.

“Save me. Please help me.”

Illeon involuntarily extended his arms and embraced the woman.

“Heuk. Heeheehek.”

Through their touching chests, he felt the trembling of the crying woman in his arms.

‘Was it you? Something I wanted to find.’

A little earlier, in the place where he strangely felt empty, it seemed like this woman was filling the void.

“…Don’t cry, Reina.”

A single tear fell from Illeon’s eyes.

“I will protect you.”