“You remember me from when I was a newborn baby.”

Veronica stared blankly at the joyful face.

Though her face showed no emotion, no one noticed her slightly clenched hand trembling.

“Lord Harry has been sending his regards all this time, but I haven’t been able to show my face. Would you please tell him I’ll make time soon, Miss Veronica.”

“…Sure.”

Responding with a smile to those words, Count Loren said to Cassian, ‘I’ll also come to see Prince Asher soon.’ Cassian nodded again in understanding.

“Then, have a good time.”

Count Loren left the balcony with the same neat gait as when he arrived.

As Cassian watched him leave, Veronica’s voice flowed into his ear.

“You seem to know Count Loren well.”

“Somehow.”

“…Thanks to that.”

The small voice was barely audible. Cassian looked at her casually and was surprised.

“What’s wrong with your face?”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

“Your complexion… It doesn’t look good.”

It wasn’t just not good, her face had turned deathly pale. Was she really sick somewhere?

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

Though her calm voice sounded as light as if she were saying ‘I’m a little dizzy’, soon after Veronica actually dry heaved.

Cassian patted her back, wondering if the kiss was so bad it made her want to throw up.

Harry heard something pounding in his sleep. He immediately opened his eyes and got up from the bed, heading towards the door where the sound was coming from.

The noise was so loud that the door was shaking. Thump, thump, thump, bang, bang, bang bang bang!

“Veronica?”

When he opened the door, he saw Veronica standing with her fists clenched. As soon as she saw Harry, she rushed into his arms.

“Father. Father.”

“Veronica, what’s wrong? Why are you…”

Why are you shaking like this? Harry checked Veronica’s attire. She was in her nightgown and barefoot, as if she had come straight from bed.

Yet even though it wasn’t particularly cold weather, Veronica’s whole body was trembling. Her face looked pale at a glance.

“Did you have a nightmare? Hm?”

“Nightmare… Yes. I had a terrifying nightmare.”

‘It was so, so scary.’ Veronica muttered in a truly terrified voice.

Harry gently stroked her back sympathetically. He whispered kind words in her ear, ‘It’s just a dream, sweetheart.’

Veronica clutched at Harry’s back as if clinging to him. Feeling her touch so desperate, Harry held her tightly and patted her.

“I’m so scared…”

I saw that man. The one who ruined the Hardness family, who caused father’s death. I met that man. I’m so scared, father. Father…

“Father, I’m scared… Scared.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay. It’s just a dream.”

“How long do I have to have these nightmares…”

“It’s okay. Baby. Everything’s alright.”

“How long…”

How long must I live in this hell?

Veronica kept murmuring questions that wouldn’t reach even her beloved father.

Though her voice would soon lose strength, and the endlessly uttered questions would float in the air without answers and eventually disappear, Veronica could only desperately ask again and again.

Count Trier Loren was once a colleague who worked with Harry.

When Harry was part of the Imperial Knights, he developed quite a friendship with him as an apprentice knight and sometimes received guidance from him.

He lacked martial skills but was diligent and persistent.

However, due to his innate lack of talent for martial arts, he ultimately couldn’t be knighted, but instead he took up the pen.

He had a talent for scholarship, and combined with his cautious personality, he gradually gained recognition for his abilities and gained enough influence to attend council meetings.

Count Loren was a neat person. That didn’t change even when he became an adult. He maintained a good relationship with Harry even after becoming an adult.

The first time Veronica met him was when she was very young.

‘Nice to meet you, Miss Veronica.’

‘Veronica. You should greet him.’

Seeing the man with a friendly smile, Veronica hid behind Harry’s legs.

Harry then apologized, saying the child was shy, and Loren smiled understandingly without losing his smile.

Since Veronica avoided him after that, there was no opportunity to build a relationship between just the two of them.

Only after time had passed and she had experienced many things did Veronica seem to understand why her younger self had distanced herself from the man her father had told her was a good person.

Trier Loren appeared to be a kind man on the outside, but in reality, he was ‘acting’ kind.

He gained people’s favor with a gentle smile, built trust with his upright attitude, while hiding the dark and gloomy emotions inside him so that no one would notice.

They say young children more easily detect raw atmospheres, don’t they? Young Veronica had instinctively sensed it.

That he was a dangerous person.

Count Loren was a man whose outside and inside were completely opposite. He had a strong desire for power and was very greedy.

But due to his cautious nature and wariness in everything, he knew very well that it was better to hide the poison fangs he held inside.

So he built relationships with people while maintaining a sound outward appearance.

His way of dealing with people was so perfect that even Harry trusted and believed in him.

Citing the reason to raise a successor while he was still in good health, the Emperor ordered Harry Hardness to relinquish his position as captain of the Imperial Guard.

It was an order made out of caution against the public support he would receive as his achievements accumulated.

Around that time, having been left alone with a newborn baby who couldn’t even open her eyes after losing his wife, he gladly obeyed the imperial order.

The Emperor wanted him to stay in the palace and teach the apprentice knights.

It could be considered unfair treatment to take away his position, shatter his bright future, and then have him just teach apprentice knights.

Harry politely declined this. His attention was now focused on his young daughter.

After receiving various restrictions from the Emperor, he left the Imperial Knights. And he lived managing his family as the head of the Hardness family and cultivating the territory granted by the Emperor.

There was no lack in his life with the salary he received from the imperial palace and ample wealth.

Following the Emperor’s order, who was wary of his military force, he did not bring in any private soldiers except for a minimum number of personnel, and even turned away those who followed him down.

Despite being able to consolidate his power, he chose an ordinary life.

It was partly to appease the Emperor’s mood, but it also played a role that he was an unassuming person without desire for power.

It was Count Loren who denounced such a man as the leader of the rebels.

Veronica learned this fact when she was desperately trying to save Harry.

She thought it wasn’t something that happened overnight that the Emperor, who had been obsessed with Harry, suddenly changed his mind.

When she harbored doubts and dug into it, thinking there must have been a reason that completely flipped the fickle Emperor’s heart, she came to know about the existence of Count Loren in the process.

As far as Veronica knew, Count Loren had a long-standing friendship with Asher.

While Asher didn’t have any special connections with other nobles, he regularly met with Count Loren.

Count Loren often visited in person, and when he did, Asher welcomed him gladly.

Sometimes he would even postpone his meeting with her to follow Count Loren.

In Veronica’s eyes, Count Loren was like a father figure to Asher.

He had been by his side since childhood, so it was understandable. Just looking at how Asher sought Count Loren’s opinion when there was an important decision to be made showed how deep their relationship was.

‘You seem to know Count Loren well.’

‘Somehow.’

Surely he must be acquainted with Cassian as well, but did he brush it off? Come to think of it, Cassian had never shown familiarity with Count Loren.

Last time too, and as far as she remembered, he didn’t react as much as Asher when meeting Count Loren with her.

Asher always approached and greeted Count Loren first whenever he saw him.

Perhaps he’s trying to pretend not to know him publicly. Considering what they’re about to do in the future, it would be better to pretend not to know.

Veronica clasped her hands together. Her sweaty hands felt strangely cold.

Her heart was pounding. The emotion she thought she had gotten used to seemed to be showing its face again. As if telling her not to forget it.

While she was holding her throbbing head, the carriage hadn’t been moving for a while.

Puzzled, Veronica looked out the window but didn’t see anything strange. Just then, the carriage door opened and a guard appeared.

“What’s the matter?”

“It seems there’s a commotion up ahead.”

Veronica’s gaze turned to the road ahead where the commotion was said to be.

There really were people gathered as if something had happened. Veronica’s eyes widened as she looked there.

Veronica got out of the carriage and walked to the place where the disturbance was happening.

Two men were grabbing one man by the collar and shouting. And the man being grabbed was trying to calm them down with both hands raised.

“Lord Thomson?”

The man being grabbed by the collar was Lady Arin’s precious husband.

The eyes that discovered Veronica looked surprised.

When Veronica nodded to the guard, the guard approached Lord Thomson and forcibly removed the hands gripping his collar.

The men looked confused, scanning the guard up and down. Meanwhile, Veronica approached them and asked.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing, Miss Hardness.”

Lord Thomson came up to her and made excuses instead. Veronica’s gaze turned to the men behind his shoulder.

The men who had been fiercely picking a fight just moments ago looked alternately at her and the guard, then spat and turned away. The situation seemed to have been resolved.

Veronica picked up the glasses that had fallen to the ground and held them out to Lord Thomson. Lord Thomson smiled gratefully and put on the glasses. Seen up close, one of his cheeks was red.

“What happened?”