Strange. I wouldn’t make such a face. That’s not me. After denying it, I met eyes with an unfamiliar self.

A woman with a very familiar appearance eerily stretches her lips into a wide grin. She whispered.

‘You must love me. How can you love someone other than me? Rude should love me. Only I can receive his love.’

“…Stop.”

‘I can’t accept it. If the day comes when that man doesn’t love me, I’ll be the one who goes mad with anger.’

“Stop it. Please stop…!”

‘I want to possess him.’

That man must become mine.

As the blue eyes flashed with a glint, the illusion crumbled.

Staggering, I looked around to find it was her bedroom.

My weakened legs couldn’t support me. Sitting there on the floor, my dazed gaze floated in the air.

“…Ha.”

A bitter laugh escaped through my closed lips. Then, bowing my head, I laughed silently for a while.

I saw my inner self that I had been avoiding and denying all along. That ugly and gloomy thing, at last.

−I regret being kind to you.

The only reason I resented Rude. The reason I was disappointed in him and hated him.

Because he is special. Because I want to possess him, because I have a longing for him.

The reason I couldn’t just be kind as I had been to countless others. And the source of the particularly cold and icy attitude I had to maintain towards him.

I long for him.

Not being swayed by Rude, but swaying him. I want to possess him.

The ground I stand on crumbles like sand. With a sense of distant falling, the sound of waves circled my ears again.

Swoosh… Swoosh…

There was no painful ringing, no dizzying headache.

In the midst of an alien calmness, Merche closed her eyes.

For the first time, the sound of waves filling the world was pleasant to hear.

Rude scuffed the smooth floor with his shoe.

What’s with the summons first thing in the morning? For some reason, the old man who owns Benenum called for him.

“Um, bringing in a wolf is a bit…”

“What. There are snake bastards all over the place here too. Why not my wolf?”

The servant guarding the office entrance trembled at a single retort.

Though he understood the entire conversation, the unnecessarily clever wolf pretended not to notice. If only it didn’t have such useful power, I’d throw it out.

“It’s fine, so let him in! It’s not like it’s the first day a wolf has come and gone here.”

As the old man’s booming voice rang out from inside, the servant quickly opened the door.

Rude immediately stepped into the wide-open office. There was no sign of hesitation.

Walking leisurely as if he were the owner of this place, he plopped down on the well-maintained sofa.

He casually draped one arm over the back of the sofa and leaned to one side.

The wolf that followed him also settled near the sofa and lay down.

“I apologize for calling you out at such an early hour.”

“I’m glad you know that.”

“Your attitude is quite insolent, as I’ve heard. We both have much to do, so let’s get to the point.”

“Let’s do that.”

He was about to declare that we should only discuss the matter at hand anyway.

This old man is better than that old man in the north. Somewhat satisfied, he tapped the oily sofa leather with his fingers.

“I hear there was an incident by the northern lake last night. I’m told you were present?”

“…I don’t know where you’ve placed your eyes, but those eyes seem quite capable.”

“Just like that wolf you brought along. My snakes are quite clever too. In fact, there are more of them than wolves.”

Fair enough. In a land crawling with snakes, it wouldn’t be strange if some slithering snake somewhere had kindly reported it.

Rude quickly accepted this and lost interest.

Mariette observed him keenly without taking her eyes off him for a moment, then said with an expressionless face.

“Did something happen to Merche?”

“As you’ve heard. Her head must have gone a bit strange in the middle of the night, as I pulled her out after she’d been submerged in the lake for over an hour.”

“So. What I’m asking is if you know any reason why she would do such a strange thing.”

“The way you’re speaking sounds a bit crooked. What, are you suggesting I deliberately pushed Merche into the lake?”

“Even if you didn’t push her in, you might have made her walk into the lake of her own accord.”

“…Have you gone senile with age? Your delusions are severe.”

Deep creases formed on his flat forehead. His previously calm eyes had long since twisted into a fierce glare.

“My fiancée didn’t go in there to die. And our relationship isn’t bad. Be careful what you say carelessly, elder. You might get into big trouble once.”

“Did she tell you? That she didn’t try to kill herself?”

The raised eyebrow returned to its place. A sharp old woman. Are you trying to probe me?

Knowing her tricks, he couldn’t just fall for them. Rude, who had been lounging casually, sat up straight and leaned back properly.

“You said you have many snake eyes to place around. Instead of using a man who’s not even from this land, why don’t you use those snake heads you say are so clever? You have so many of them.”

This time Mariette laughed. She clasped her hands together and rested her chin on them, staring at him intently.

“Don’t you find it strange?”

“What? Doesn’t anyone tell you to speak clearly when you talk?”

“I mean Merche. I’m asking if you don’t find her strange.”

She paid no heed to Rude’s prickly tone.

Indeed, she had quite a way with people, befitting the shrewd owner of the land.

Her kind eyes, looking at him as if he were a child, were oddly unpleasant.

Rude stretched out his legs and crossed them, then put on a dull expression like a dead fish.

“Even so, you’ve adopted her into a branch family, so she’s almost like a granddaughter to you. It’s heartless to call such a young thing strange. I don’t know what you mean, what’s strange about my fiancée?”

“She was submerged in the northern lake, you say. Did the wolf tell you?”

“You already know everything, so why ask? It’s obvious that the eyes this side has are wolf eyes.”

He agreed roughly, but in fact, it was different. It wasn’t Nike, that wolf, who told him, but the wolf attached to Merche.

Shakar. The female offspring of his wolf, who was unusually attached to Merche.

She had always been unable to leave Merche alone, and when Merche tried to leave Lupinus, she immediately tried to follow, dragging along several of her pups.

Exasperated, he was about to deliberately tie her to his side, but changed his mind and released the subordination of that arrogant wolf. But with one condition.

−Make sure she doesn’t get beaten up and die somewhere. Don’t let her bleed either. You understand?

−Grrr.

−If anything happens, signal me immediately. I’m releasing your subordination, but I’m not untying the string connected to your head.

As with all divine beasts, the wolf’s mind is connected to the owner of Lupinus.

So when danger approaches or there’s something urgent to report, the divine beast can directly transmit its thoughts to inform the owner.

Of course, Shakar’s purpose was the same.

To stick close to Merche and guard her. To inform him immediately if anything happens.

When this lake incident occurred, Shakar immediately informed Rude.

Always invisibly guarding Merche’s side, the wolf sensed the danger as soon as she immersed herself in the lake.

However, this time Rude was the problem.

For days, his temper had reached its peak after being treated like a nonexistent person by Merche, and that night he was completely drunk.

Shakar’s signal? He couldn’t even receive it properly, probably sleeping outside somewhere.

Later, only when the anxious Shakar ran to him did he realize.

With a feeling of sobering up instantly, he flew there, but it was already late.

He arrived more than an hour after Merche had entered the lake.

“…But what of it? Is it strange that Merche was submerged in the lake?”

Rude threw out the question, having finished his unpleasant recollection.

Of course, it was definitely strange.

Why would a person in their right mind voluntarily enter a lake and stay submerged? And for as long as an hour.

−…If you’re talking about going to the lake, I didn’t try to kill myself.

Still, Merche had asserted it directly with her own mouth. At least Merche didn’t lie.

−…No. I don’t dislike you.

Except for that. No, that seems to have been something she didn’t even know was a lie, so it should be excluded.

Having rationalized it himself, Rude shook his head as if throwing a tantrum.

“Maybe she just wanted to soak in the water. The water must be cool since it’s winter.”

“For over an hour in the water? You really don’t find that strange?”

“……”

For a moment, his thoughts stopped.

Come to think of it, that’s right? How did Merche, that frail, fluttering woman, endure for an hour in ice-cold water?

“According to the snake I placed, she didn’t even raise her head above the water surface to breathe at all. For over an hour.”

Mariette added, as if driving in a nail. Only then did his mouth go dry and his mind start racing.

“…Old woman. What do you know to say such things?”

This old hag, she clearly knows something.

As his intuition struck his head, his eyes, which had been calmly settled, sharpened like a knife honed multiple times.

“When I first saw that child. That is, when Merche finally handed over the succession to Karla, from that time, I began to suspect something little by little.”

The old woman skillfully cooked up an old tale.

The young girl she first met after dedicating her entire life to Benenum.

A face that looked like it was dying yet terrifyingly harmonious, and her granddaughter with a bright face who proudly kept that child right by her side.