Sianna lowered her head and covered her face with her hands. Gilrod glanced at his daughter who was about to cry like when she was young, then looked ahead again. He had spoiled her too much, making her incredibly ill-mannered.

Being with her constantly made him feel suffocated to the point of bursting. He moved closer to the castle wall to avoid making any careless mistakes.

As he inhaled and exhaled, his daughter’s mumbling became clearer. Gilrod, irritated to the tips of his hair, turned around. Sianna had buried her face in her hands and was saying something as if comforting herself.

Mixed with the sound of the wind, her barely audible words took this form: It’s, it’s not that I’m doing anything wrong. You, you always say the same thing, what can I do.

“What did you say?”

Sianna replied, still with her head lowered.

“I, I just said thank you.”

Thank you for always being the same. And Sianna raised her head. Gilrod met her round brown eyes peeking through the gaps between her fingers still clinging to her face.

It was then that he felt a terrible dull pain at the back of his head.

Gilrod staggered as he tried to turn around to identify the sudden attacker. But the strong hand that grabbed the nape of his neck was a bit faster.

Gilrod, lifted up, struggled. But the hand that seized him did not budge.

The rough hand threw him over the castle wall as he could only gape in shock. His daughter watched his fall to the end with round eyes that resembled her mother’s.

That was Gilrod’s last memory.

“Fa, Father! What should I do!”

Elbert, the assistant of the Nebel family, stared in surprise at the young lady who suddenly came running down the stairs like a madwoman. As far as he knew, she had just gone up to the castle wall with her father, the head of the family.

Though it was an unusual thing considering their father-daughter relationship, anything can happen on a drunken night, right? After confirming that they had gone up the stairs, Elbert was about to do a final check of the castle before retiring for the night.

It was then that the messenger sent to the Kirios Mountains returned.

“I have something urgent to tell the head of the family.”

I’m not sure how rushed his schedule was, but the complexion of the man who dismounted and immediately sought the family head was very pale.

Seating the man who looked like he might die at any moment near the fireplace, Elbert was in the middle of climbing the stairs to announce his arrival.

He encountered the young lady when he was halfway up the stairs.

Grabbing him tightly, she muttered frantically with a pale face.

“Fa, Father fell into the moat! He, he suddenly staggered… I think it’s because he drank too much earlier!”

As she spoke, her pupils were dilated as if she had taken some drug.

Her eyes were so wide that only brown pupils seemed to float on her pale white face, a completely different appearance from what he knew. The young lady Elbert remembered was close to an idiot who was so intimidated that she couldn’t even properly wield her own status.

But the situation was too urgent to pay attention to the change in tone of the young lady he usually ignored. Elbert hurriedly pulled the bell rope prepared in the corridor. He ordered the young servant who soon came running:

“Tell all the servants to go down to the moat immediately!”

Not long after, the family’s knights discovered a body floating in the moat.

The man who had been ordering them around until just that day had become a pale dead old man. His completely crushed skull proved that he had died instantly upon falling.

The young lady had clearly said that the head of the family had fallen into the moat. Though he hadn’t seen the situation directly, Elbert could accurately deduce what had happened.

In fact, the doctor had advised the family head several times to reduce his drinking. Saying that if he drank like when he was young, the blood vessels in his head could burst and he could die early.

The family head, like most men his age, did not heed the doctor’s words. Even tonight, he had drunk wine. He had another bottle despite already having had alcohol with dinner in the banquet hall.

Looking down at the corpse that appeared nauseous, Elbert racked his brain on how to handle this sudden tragedy.

It would have been enough of a headache at any other time, but now there was even a guest from another country in the castle. The man who was said to have Brinwell royal blood mixed in was brought by the family head to marry the young lady.

“Is, is he dead?”

Startled by the sudden voice, Elbert turned to his side. The young lady was standing behind him, though he didn’t know when she had arrived.

He sighed at the appearance of a presence that would not be helpful in this situation. His head was about to explode just from the family head’s death, and a woman who would only whine was exactly what he didn’t need.

He advised the woman who only knew how to stay locked in her room crying or getting scolded by her father:

“Young lady, please return to your bedroom.”

“El, Elbert, I’m asking you.”

And the woman looked at him straight with a pale face. When her trembling fingertip pointed exactly at the corpse, Elbert felt a strange chill.

“Is, is he dead?”

Wait, were the young lady’s eyes always that black? Elbert frowned, confused by the woman’s unwavering gaze that seemed too steady for someone who had just seen her father’s corpse. It was then that the knight standing behind the young lady took a step forward.

“Does a servant of the Nebel family dare to ignore the words of their master?”

“What are you saying? Why are you…”

Elbert frowned, irritated by the knight’s casual informal speech.

Though his status was a bit lower, he was practically second-in-command in the Nebel family’s castle. He was not someone to be addressed informally by a mere knight.

But the moment he saw the knight’s red hair, Elbert realized that she was a member of one of the Twelve Elder Families. He remembered hearing that the direct granddaughter of the former head of the Chesa family was the captain of the queen’s knights.

No matter that he was the family head’s assistant, he was no match for someone from the Twelve Families. True to his sensitivity to status and hierarchy, Elbert softened his attitude and said:

“This is a matter of the Nebel family.”

“And I came here in charge of guarding Miss Sianna Lekre-Nebel, the only direct descendant of the family.”

The knight, who was a full head taller than him, looked down at him with arrogant eyes.

“Now that the former family head has died, do you not know who the master of the family is?”

Late at night, Ophelia looked down from the pitch-dark castle wall. Behind her stood Dahel holding a lamp.

Usually, it would have been well past the time for the castle gates to close, but now they were exceptionally kept open until late. It was because she was waiting for someone.

Anika, who had gone outside Edegrun to do the task Ophelia had assigned her some time ago, had been out of contact since then. It was strange, as she hadn’t left on a long journey.

At another time, she might have just let it pass, but somehow she had a bad feeling. It seemed like her nerves had become sharper since Starlet’s death, but there was no harm in paying attention to ominous feelings.

Ophelia sent someone to the inn where Anika was supposed to meet with the lords to find her. But the answer that came back was that the southern lords had already dispersed several days ago.

When it became certain that something had happened to Anika, Dahel started to worry.

“Lady Anika was not on good terms with the surrounding lords.”

He said that they, who originally allied with the former Lord of Rohos, Taeran, held a grudge against Anika for unilaterally cutting ties and reporting them.

“There were even people who freely came and went to the lord’s castle.”

Dahel, whose body had grown larger than in his previous life but whose speech showed more childishness, looked at her with earnest eyes.

Ophelia, not intending to be complacent either, contacted the lords Anika was supposed to meet. Replies came back from two who were closest, saying that on the last day they saw her, all the southern lords had gathered to receive hospitality from an Egelbaum merchant.

-When we parted, the Lord of Rohos was quite drunk, so her servant probably took care of her.

The letter added that it might be a good idea to investigate in the direction of accidents that happen to drunks.

Of course, she didn’t blindly believe the words of the lords who were said to be on bad terms with Anika. But finding out what had happened to Anika was the priority, so Ophelia sent people back to the inn where she had stayed. This time, the intention was to inquire about accidents that had happened to drunks in the vicinity.

And that messenger was expected to return today. Since the schedule was tight, Ophelia decided to keep the castle gates open a little longer for the messenger. Salode agreed to this as well.

“Someone’s coming in over there!”

It was then that Dahel, holding the lamp beside her, shouted. As the night was dark and her eyes couldn’t see well, Ophelia furrowed her brow. Indeed, as he said, a person on horseback was entering through the castle gates.

“Let’s go down now.”

Ophelia turned around and started quickly descending the stairs. Dahel also moved his steps hurriedly, one step ahead of her.

When they finally arrived on the first floor of the castle, Ophelia encountered the messenger rushing towards them. The woman, still not having caught her breath, stood before them and said:

“The Lord of Rohos is dead.”