It has to disappear. As if there was a time when such a sea did not exist.

Otherwise, if he does not erase this now… he will become unable to live without this sea.

His life, which had endured well from the beginning without a single drop of water, will collapse entirely.

“Save that honeyed words for my so-called father. That’s the real deception, Merche. You grew up as a noble from a young age. What do you know about someone like me, what do you even know to be yapping on about it.”

Rude crushed Merche’s sincerity with the sharpest and cruelest words he could muster.

Merche looked at him blankly, but their gazes no longer met.

“You came here on the family head’s orders anyway. If you’re done spouting off, how about you get a clue and do your job as a tutor. That’s what you’re here for.”

“…I apologize. I made an imprudent remark that upset you, Rude.”

Unconsciously, Rude searched Merche’s eyes.

The tranquil lake was blue as before, without even a ripple.

Suddenly, he felt relieved.

She didn’t seem too hurt by his words. In a momentary flash that he himself didn’t even notice, Rude felt relief.

It was a very brief instant, with no time to even look back on it.

Opening the textbook that had only been covered, Merche spoke.

“Let’s start with the basic greetings.”

Merche was a good teacher.

She personally demonstrated examples, as if copied from the text and illustrations in the textbook, and if there were difficult sentences, she explained them several times in a way that was easy to understand.

Rude was also not a bad student.

He had an unexpectedly good head on his shoulders, a perceptiveness he himself was unaware of.

He remembered what he saw once, even if imperfectly, and mastered what he saw three or more times perfectly.

He only struggled with gait and posture, but after practicing a few times, he quickly imitated it.

They were both desperate. The two taught and learned fiercely for their own purposes.

Rude didn’t notice, but for Merche in particular, it was a task she had to put her life into.

Even while teaching Rude without rest, she mentally recalled the conversation she had with Genovefa.

−I’ll have to change the deal. After doing the calculations, I have more reasons to kill you than to keep you alive.

−Why is that?

−You saved and treated my son, but you know too much about the family’s internal affairs and business, and you also have information about Rude’s origins. On top of that, you even helped Greta Martin escape. Greta Martin is a criminal who deceived Elizabeth and kidnapped my son. You knew that, yet you hid it for her.

She had thought Genovefa would find out that she had secretly met Greta Martin.

The guards she hired at the time were people who moved for money, so they must have readily opened their mouths at the money Genovefa gave them.

Even so, she had no worries about Greta Martin.

Mrs. Martin would not be caught.

The new settlement she and her family went to was the land of Venenum, where no outside pressure worked.

Even if traces were found, any path for Genovefa to catch Greta Martin had disappeared forever.

Under Genovefa’s chilling gaze, Merche was lost in thought again.

Putting aside all other issues and focusing only on the deal with her.

Although she spoke threateningly, Genovefa did not say she would break off the deal. She said she would do it ‘differently’.

−What do you want from me?

If there are more reasons to kill, it’s enough to add more reasons to keep alive.

When Merche asked, Genovefa smiled slowly as if waiting for those words.

−There are less than two months left until the heir announcement ceremony. By then, my son must become a plausible noble. At the very least, on the outside, he should know how to pretend to be one.

After delivering the introduction, he made the proposal. Although nominally a proposal, it was no different from a threat.

−Teach my son etiquette. No matter what other tutor I bring in, there would be no teacher as excellent as you, Merche.

Make Rude into a passable noble by the heir announcement ceremony. Otherwise, her head would fly off.

Merche took Genovefa’s hand at the edge of the cliff.

Even if what he held out was a knife to stab her, she had no choice. It was her only way.

Taking a break from the hours-long lesson, they took some time to rest.

Rude, already crushed by fatigue, collapsed into the chair as if lying down.

A servant approached between the two people sitting facing each other and set out biscuits and tea.

Placing a steaming teacup on the table for each of them, he divided the well-cut biscuits for them to eat easily.

Rude, who had been muttering in a low voice that his head seemed to be steaming, straightened his upper body and picked up a biscuit.

Crunch. The cookie made a lively sound as it crumbled in his mouth.

“When having refreshments, be careful not to drop crumbs.”

“Ah, please. We’re taking a break after using our heads to the point of dying, Teacher.”

“Etiquette is a habit, so it must be practiced as if it’s ingrained in your body without rest.”

“Yeah, yeah. What you’re saying is all correct, but I’m still a beginner and it’s not ingrained in my body yet. So, like, take it easy. Okay?”

Rude, who had already moved to the couch, stretched out his legs and crossed them.

Merche also felt there was no need to point it out further, so she didn’t add to her words and answered the previous question.

“I don’t remember exactly when I came to perform etiquette perfectly. There were several other subjects I was learning at the same time, so I also don’t know which one was completed first.”

“…I heard about it even without asking. They sat a seven-year-old kid down and educated them to death. If it were me, I would have overturned everything and quit long ago.”

Rude could have done that. He was the family head’s son, and at least his younger sibling’s life wasn’t being held hostage like hers.

What if Rude had grown up in this castle from the beginning without being taken away?

If the tragedy of 22 years ago had not happened and everyone had been at peace.

The girl who was dragged here after losing her parents wouldn’t have had to desperately try to fit in where she didn’t belong for over 20 years.

She wouldn’t have had to suffer from the alienation she wanted to turn away from, and there would have been no need to forcibly brainwash herself into thinking this was her place.

But what’s the use of such assumptions? The current reality doesn’t change.

Merche stopped thinking and looked around the room. This was a room solely for education.

Merche also had memories of receiving strict education here, surrounded by numerous tutors and books when she was young.

On one side of the room, harmoniously arranged with soft chairs, cushions, and couches, books sorted by type were neatly placed in wooden bookshelves.

“These are the books Mr. Hayton brought.”

“Ah. Don’t even mention that damn geezer’s name, just hearing it makes my head want to split.”

She knew just by looking at the composition and combination of the books.

These were brought by Hayton Linen, the tutor who had taught Merche history and basic knowledge.

While most of the tutors were temporarily dismissed to focus on the goal of acquiring etiquette and noble appearances, some of the teachers of essential subjects were still visiting the castle to teach Rude.

One of them was Hayton.

A former professor at the Royal Academy, Hayton loved history.

To be precise, the history of the Ifero Kingdom.

He was a scholar famous for fanatically believing in the kingdom’s founding myth, which the majority of the kingdom’s people assumed to be a fictional novel.

“Even if he’s senile, he’s a damn old man. Does it make sense to tell me to memorize all that mythical nonsense?”

“If you don’t memorize it properly, he’s the kind of person who won’t end the lesson even if it takes all night.”

“Yeah, that damn habit. Looks like you learned from that old man too. He’s a crazy old man. Out of all the old men I’ve seen in my life, he’s the most stubborn and eccentric.”

“The founding myth may seem like a nonsensical novel at a glance, but it’s fundamentally in line with the actual early history and essence of the kingdom. If you grasp the core, it shouldn’t be too difficult to memorize.”

Rude, who was lying sideways on the couch, propped his head up with one hand and yawned carelessly. Then he complained,

“What’s the core? If you know it so well, why don’t you explain it?”

“If you wish, I shall do so.”

Merche easily opened the topic.

“The beginning and origin of all things stem from the sea.”

The land of the sea. That’s what the people of the kingdom call the world they live in.

Although there were many countries and ethnic minorities big and small on the vast continent besides the Ifero Kingdom, they all lived with one fact deeply engraved in their bones without exception.

Obey the sea. Worship it. And fear it.

In a world where the sea occupies a much larger area than the land on which to set foot, the sea was God.

People worshipped the twin gods symbolizing the sea, Nilam and Nisha.

At the same time, they believed that the mysterious power existing in this land, the authority, was also a blessing from the sea.

Among the scattered authorities like grains, there were those that were particularly powerful while controlling specific divine beasts.

There were only six such authority families. They are the current meritorious families.

“It is said that the first king of Ifero was loved by the god Nilam. While some scholars view the first king as his incarnation at first glance, this is just one hypothesis and cannot be completely trusted.”

The first king of Ifero was the first ruler who reigned over all authorities.

Even the six families that instilled fear and awe in many people unanimously knelt before the one and only ruler.

According to the myth, he was personally sculpted by the twin gods and was born from the primordial sea in which he had been sleeping, and finally obtained great dominance after passing the sea’s trials.

“Does it make sense for a person to be born from the sea? That’s just bullshit.”

Rude grumbled, but Merche shook her head, saying it was unknown.

Myths are close to fiction, but not entirely fiction.

Because truth and fiction are mixed together, it exists as a myth.

“It is also said that a person with the authority of prophecy predicted the emergence of a second ruler decades ago. A prophecy that an even greater ruler than the first king would be born in the near future.”