The next day, morning.

The Grand Duchy was quiet as usual. However, today there was occasional noise as it was a rare day when both masters of the Grand Duchy were going out at the same time.

The Empire’s one and only Grand Duke had to go to the capital Vahalla to handle important matters befitting his position, and his wife Selene also had an appointment to meet her younger brother in Vahalla.

Coincidentally, their destinations overlapped, but as they did on days when parties they both had to attend were held, they could simply take separate carriages.

Selene saw the man getting into the carriage at the entrance of the Grand Duchy, but she didn’t think it would be a problem at all.

“What?!”

However, things in life don’t always go as planned.

“We have to travel in one carriage?”

Selene asked again, looking at the aide who was pushing up his glasses with bewildered eyes.

“Due to a recent accident, all other carriages are being repaired. We’ll have to move in one carriage, I’m afraid.”

Oh no.

Selene couldn’t hide her perplexity as she rubbed her fingers around her forehead.

The problem was that she had already said she would visit today, so she couldn’t postpone it.

What should I do?

It was a full 6 hours from the Grand Duchy to the capital. Obviously, she couldn’t walk, and there was no suitable place nearby to rent a carriage. And if she went on horseback, her body would surely be very tired when she arrived.

Unable to erase the look of difficulty, Selene opened the carriage door. Inside, he was examining documents.

Boreas, who turned his head at the sound of the door opening carefully, stared at Selene for a moment and then pulled his feet out of the carriage.

‘What is he doing?’

As she watched with questioning eyes, Boreas, who had already completely exited, gestured towards the carriage without looking at her.

He meant for her to get in and go, as he would give up his seat. When she understood the meaning a beat late, he was already turning to leave. He was trying to go to the mansion’s main gate.

It seems I didn’t manage my expression well, even though I tried my best. Selene grabbed the hem of his clothes, stopping him from turning back.

“Where will you get a carriage?”

“I can go on horseback.”

“It’s far to the capital. Even on horseback, it’ll take several hours.”

Boreas, who had been looking back and forth between Selene and the hem of his clothes she was holding, turned his body straight and looked at her with eyes that seemed to ask what she wanted him to do.

“Don’t go through trouble trying to avoid me, just ride together.”

“Won’t you be uncomfortable?”

“You?”

“No, you.”

Honestly, it was uncomfortable. However, for Selene, someone suffering a loss because of her was something she wanted even less than being in the same space with an uncomfortable person.

A little lie was better than feeling uneasy the entire time.

“I’m not particularly uncomfortable, so just get in and go.”

Boreas first boarded the carriage through the door Selene had opened. Selene, who followed, sat down opposite him.

The door closed and the carriage departed immediately.

* * *

There was no conversation between the two during the journey. Selene turned her eyes to the window, and Boreas looked at thin documents. Selene broke the silence that had continued for quite a while.

“I have something to say.”

“Say it.”

He responded immediately even while keeping his eyes fixed on the documents. In fact, he had long noticed the glances that had been stealing looks at him.

“How do I seem to you right now?”

She had wanted to ask this if such an opportunity came. Whether he would take it seriously if she brought up divorce.

If he thought it was a lie, when would he start to find her words credible. Even if he had ever thought about divorce at all.

However, it wasn’t yet the stage to ask so specifically. So Selene opted for light Q&A rather than deep conversation and sincere appeal.

“Still a crazy Grand Duchess?”

“That’s how it’s been all along.”

For three years now.

She seemed to know what the unspoken words meant.

“I’m asking how I seem today.”

Selene wanted to show him her appearance every day. So that he would realize that her coming to her senses wasn’t just a temporary whim.

She planned to talk about divorce only when enough trust had built up that no matter what she said, the answer wouldn’t be “you’re still crazy.”

So she asked. Whether the current her was a crazy Grand Duchess or an ordinary person.

Boreas, who had been staring quietly at Selene who had asked the strange question, lowered his head again to read the documents in the middle of speaking.

“You’re still strange… and saying useless things.”

Selene threw another question at Boreas, who had turned his gaze away from her again.

“Is there nothing that’s changed even a little?”

Changed. It was a topic that didn’t suit her to discuss. Boreas took off the glasses he had been wearing and put them in his vest’s upper pocket, then pressed the bridge of his nose firmly with two fingers.

“Whatever you do, you are you.”

“People can change. I’m a person too.”

“Do you think I don’t know that? I know it better than anyone. But at least today, you’re still the same.”

Those words sounded exactly like he absolutely didn’t believe her, so Selene closed her mouth. The thought of asking once more disappeared. But she hadn’t given up.

Let’s wait a little longer. Since she had changed anyway, there would be parts that would naturally become known even if she didn’t try to change deliberately.

And so the silence continued again.

* * *

The carriage that had departed when the sun was slowly beginning to rise arrived at its destination when the sun was high in the sky.

As befitting the capital that was the center of culture, fashion, education, and society, Vahalla was overflowing with carriages and people. Perhaps because of the fairly bright weather, the laughter of excited children could be heard even inside the carriage.

There’s a huge square in the center of Vahalla, and to the east of the square there are numerous potion shops.

The alley commonly known as Potion Street is officially called Hills. And in Hills was Leon’s shop where she was supposed to meet today.

Ginua Street 23. Selene raised her head after comparing the address written on the sign with her memory.

It had been a very long time. A two-story wooden commercial building unfolded before her eyes.

The exterior was a bit shabby but fairly neat, and a green sign was well hung under the brown roof.

After examining the building she was seeing after a long time up and down, Selene pulled the round doorknob.

Ding-a-ling.

Inside, which opened with a bell sound, various potions were placed on shelves, and red, orange, yellow, and other colorful drugs were contained in various types of medicine bottles.

Selene, who had entered alone after dismissing her guards, looked over those messily placed on the shelves.

“Welcome!”

When the bell sound announcing a customer’s arrival rang, someone pulled back the curtain inside the counter. It was a sturdy man with silver hair. He hurriedly approached Selene upon seeing her.

“It’s been so long. What happened all this time? Why didn’t you come?!”

The man with the same blue eyes as her carefully examined various parts of her body to an uncomfortable degree.

“I was too busy to have time to come. Calm down for now, Leon.”

“Do you know how worried I was? Sigh, really…”

Her only blood relative and younger brother, Leon, bombarded her with questions frantically and then tightly embraced Selene.

“You don’t think about me at all, do you? You don’t know how many times I held back from wanting to visit you. I was so worried.”

Selene, who was hugged by him, was about to push him away but ended up laughing at his chattering voice and patted his back.

“I’m sorry. I’ll explain what happened gradually. I can’t stay long today. I have to leave soon.”

“What? No way. You just got here, sis. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, how can you say you have to leave soon?”

“I came out with him today. I have to ride back together.”

The strength gradually drained from Leon’s arms that were hugging Selene. He grabbed her arms and pulled away, unable to hide his bewilderment as he asked again.

“Together?”

“Most of the carriages are under repair, so only one was left.”

“Ah… So that’s what it was? It’s just been so long since I’ve seen you. I don’t know anything about you, sis, anything. Why didn’t you reply all this time? I was so worried thinking something had happened.”

“I was just busy with various things.”

“These days… never mind.”

Leon couldn’t continue his words. Judging by his action of closing his mouth tightly after trying to speak, he must have been about to ask if things had gotten better between them but held back.

He probably thought her emotions might become agitated if Boreas’s name was mentioned during the conversation.

“You’re doing well, right? As long as you’re doing well, that’s all that matters.”

“Yes. I’m doing well.”

Why does it sound like a lie? Even when the whole world left one by one saying his sister had turned into a villainess, he stayed by her side.

Even when articles about her misdeeds getting worse day by day were worn out in the newspapers, to his eyes, Selene was just Selene.

She was consistent and unchanged. That’s why he was more worried. Because it seemed like she was pretending to be okay.

“Alright. Now that I’ve met you today, sis, I can finally sleep with both legs stretched out.”

“I really hope so. Your eyes look too sunken. Anyway, shall we get to work now? What happened with what I mentioned before?”

“Ah, come over here.”

Leon, who seemed to have just remembered, clapped his hands and approached the counter. When he opened the door inside the counter, a fairly large room appeared.

It was Leon’s private residence connected to the store. After seating Selene in a chair, Leon took out a bundle of papers from a drawer.

Leon spread them out side by side on the desk and pointed to the direction with his finger.

“On the left is the will that Uncle said our father left just before he passed away. On the right are handwritten letters that Father often sent us when we were young. What do you think? You can definitely see something suspicious.”

“I see.”

The handwriting was subtly different.

But the subtlety was to such a degree that one would have to use a magnifying glass to meticulously compare the slope of the lines, the degree of curvature, the size of the letters, etc., to notice the difference, so it wasn’t entirely strange that she only discovered the difference now.

Selene rested her chin on the corner of the table and closely examined the writing.

“According to the autopsy results at the time, the cause of death was presumed to be cardiac arrest. That’s what we were told. But there were more than one or two things that didn’t add up. Especially this will. If Father really wrote it, it means Father had already opened up the possibility of his own death, but there was no sign of that at all.”

Selene quietly listened to Leon’s words and nodded. The Philip Athensia they knew was the type of person who, if he had sensed his own death, would have given his children a hint in advance.

The fact that it was Selene’s uncle, Radex, who was by his side before he died, who found the will was also an uncomfortable point.

Selene placed her finger on the will placed on the desk and tapped the letters where the next sentence was written.

‘The next head of the Athensia family is determined to be Radex Athensia. All possessions of Athensia become his, and all territories of Athensia fall under his jurisdiction.’

The father they knew was neither so dull as to not know what situation his children would be in when he gave the position of family head to someone who was not his child, nor was he so cold-hearted.

Because they knew Father’s usual personality so well, they had constantly suspected that the will might have been fabricated, and as soon as some funds and foundation were prepared, they immediately started an investigation.

In the past, their meetings were cut off due to Selene suffering from increasing madness, so it was suspended. So they couldn’t reach a conclusion.

‘But now it’s different.’

In this life, she had to find the cause no matter what. Her gaze and attention were directed only at the paper presumed to have been written just before Philip Athensia, who had been a precious existence, died.

“Leon, can I take this with me?”

“Of course.”

Until then, she thought everything was happening within a not-so-surprising range.

Her relationship with Boreas Adrian was distant as expected, Radex Athensia was suspicious as expected, and Leon was worried about his sister as expected.

There was a difficulty that divorce might be harder than expected, but even that belonged to a predictable range.

“Ah, right. Remember I said some scent kept coming from you last time, sis? I found out what it was. It was Castro scent.”

That’s why.

“Huh? What did you say?”

She couldn’t understand at once and had to ask again when she heard unexpected words from Leon, who had been pausing for a moment.

“The scent has anesthetic components, so it’s used as a pain reliever. But because the scent is so strong, if you exceed the proper amount, it becomes a very dangerous drug. It causes hallucinations and in severe cases, it paralyzes thinking. It makes normal life impossible. It’s a kind of narcotic. Such a dangerous scent was coming from you.”

And the following words were of a kind she had never heard before, even including all her past lives. The shock it gave was so great that it was almost on par with when she realized her regression.

Selene retorted with eyes that couldn’t hide her bewilderment:

“…What?”