“Your Highness, the Duke of Klement, that is.”

“What is it?”

“He’s gone blind again.”

At Lorie’s words, Elishia sprang to her feet.

“What do you mean? Blind?”

“I told you last time that they were recruiting people at the Duke’s place, right? My friend was working there.”

“So?”

Lorie was startled by Elishia’s vehement response, having seemed unmotivated in everything for several days.

“My friend had been working there for a while. They were saying there’s plenty of work at the Duke’s, and then suddenly, he quit. When asked why he quit, they said that His Highness can’t see again. It seems that they’re letting go of the employees just like before.”

“He can’t see? Why? What’s the reason?”

“That, I don’t know.”

As Elishia insisted, Lorie trailed off, seemingly losing courage.

“……That’s impossible.”

Elishia turned pale.

He was fine just a few days ago when he came to propose. How could this have happened all of a sudden? The reason he didn’t come must have been because I rejected the proposal.

‘Leon can’t see.’

It was an impossible event. His life should have been paved with a smooth path only available to the protagonist after he opened his eyes.

Elishia looked out of the window.

She saw the guards walking back and forth with their backs to the garden. It was because Mariella had increased the Duke’s escort and security, extremely anxious since black flames had erupted in Elishia’s room.

‘I have to go.’

But there seemed to be no way. To sneak out of the Duke’s residence….

“Ack!”

Lorie frowned when she splashed dye on her apron while stirring it.

“Oh. It splashed. Miss, may I change my clothes? I need to soak it in detergent.”

“Lorie.”

“Yes?”

Elishia looked at Lorie with an earnest expression, her face adorned with a very faint smile.

“Please do me a favor.”

A moment later, Elishia left the mansion, wearing a maid’s dress borrowed from Lorie and hiding her hair tightly under a bonnet. It was late at night, and the gate that the servants went through wasn’t strictly guarded, so she was able to slip out by hiding behind a tree and avoiding them a few times.

Elishia ran down the road where no carriages were going since it was late at night.

The development had changed.

Leon had gone blind again.

That content was nowhere in the original work.

‘It must be my fault.’

She ran, gasping, her breath catching at the tip of her chin, and she stopped.

‘It’s because I gave him the medicine.’

How desperately she had waited for the missing Carina.

And the moments that had bothered her.

When she saw the petals fall in the rain.

When she saw the ruined medicine and thought it was nothing but a failure.

She thought she couldn’t give Leon the medicine.

It didn’t look like a medicine that would cure him properly.

“It’s okay. I said I’d try hard to drink whatever you brought.”

As she thought of Leon, tears flowed freely.

No, it’s not that. It really was strange.

I should have stopped him from eating, it seemed burnt. The color was strange, the smell was strange, so I should have thrown it away.

The hesitation was because his warmth enveloped her hesitating hands, holding the cup.

“Just the thought that you cared for me is enough.”

Again, tears fell like a torrent. Leon ate that medicine because she gave it to him.

Knowing it would be painful and hard.

She had done something she could not take responsibility for. Although she said she would stay by his side, she had left Leon in pain.

He had only just recovered his eyesight, and now he lost it again.

“Because of me.”

It was the result of her meddling without knowing even a bit about the subject.

If the heroine had given it, this wouldn’t have happened.

She should have brought Carina to him somehow.

Elishia, blaming herself, ran towards the Duke’s place.

Tears flowed without a blink, running down her cheeks.

Following her footsteps, small droplets of water were left on the stone pavement instead of footprints.

(This is a time separator.)
Heading toward midnight, the Sun Palace was wrapped in stillness.

The Emperor was on his knees.

His shadow, reflected in the candles that danced as if to go out in the night wind, grotesquely grew large and then faintly slimmed, repeating the process.

“With the five gods and Oder.”

The Emperor offered a solemn prayer.

“Lead us to the glory of Oder, who ascended to the divine throne.”

In the Constans Empire, the founding myth was worshipped.

Like Oder, who ascended to the divine throne after death, being reborn as a divine being when life was over was the ultimate pursuit of faith.

“Wash away all our suffering and humiliation.”

The Emperor’s expression, as he prayed seriously, seemed drained.

“On the day of death, please allow my soul to stay by Oder’s side.”

Around the time the Emperor’s prayer ended, someone entered the Sun Palace without a sound.

Another shadow was added to the Emperor’s shadow flickering in the candlelight.

“Quite touching.”

At the sound of a man’s voice, dressed in black robes, the Emperor bowed his head.