“That would be nice.”

Edith unconsciously let out an honest answer and clamped her mouth shut like a clam. Without fail, Walter teased in a playful voice.

“Why would it be a good thing for you if I stay in the capital?”

“Just…… It would be nice to meet sometimes and have a meal together. When I leave the mansion, I’ll also attend the academy in the capital.”

Walter envisioned himself enjoying a meal with Edith, who would be studying as a student somewhere other than the mansion.

It seemed not a bad idea to find accommodation near the academy so that she could easily come.

“What about you, Madam?”

“I want to become a bureaucrat working in public health. That way, I might be able to treat more people than working in the clinic, right?”

Edith seemed interested in caring for more people rather than just treating one or two.

Her future hope matched the kindness he had seen so far. The warmth he felt when talking to her occasionally still gave off a gentle glow.

“You’ll do well. You haven’t given up hope even while trapped in the mansion.”

For once, his voice was not teasing. Edith also laughed and answered.

“Walter, let’s both get out of here for sure. I’ll do my best to help you get out too.”

“……”

“Let’s slowly find out who you are after we get out. We can meet sometimes and eat together.”

She turned her upper body halfway to meet his clear eyes. Walter did not avoid her gaze.

The moonlight and long eyelashes created long shadows over her watery eyes, and the reflection of himself in her eyes seemed to be trapped behind a dense iron grate.

“If you go with me, gladly.”

Walter envisioned the scene of crossing the mansion’s boundary side by side.

Although he had never kneeled in his life, it seemed not bad to lower his posture and step on his thigh to let Edith, who couldn’t cross the wall, climb up.

(This is a time separator.)

After finishing her outing and returning, Edith immediately took out a bag with Elick Berry as soon as she returned to her room.

‘It feels good to run fast for a long time.’

Thanks to the short freedom Walter gave her today, she felt she could live for a few more days.

She went to the tea table and started squeezing the juice into a cup.

‘Twelve drops are safe. No more.’

Then, she transferred twelve drops of Elick Berry juice into another cup with a teaspoon. She was exhausted from the precise measurement.

Edith added water to the measured juice and brought it to her lips. Knowing what would happen to her body after drinking this liquid, she wasn’t eager to do so.

But…….

“I’m a little curious about its efficacy since you say so. It’s not bad for the body, is it?”

Walter’s question and his casually tousled black hair were deeply etched in her mind like a painting.

He was worried about her.

It had been quite a while since she had felt that someone cared for her.

The director of the clinic and his wife were kind, but she didn’t want to worry them since they were already helping her so much. She always pretended to be okay, to be strong.
After losing Isaac, his only friend, and then Benjamin, he became desperate, not only for socializing but also for studying and earning money for a living.

Maybe that’s why. He preferred Walter, who seemed to really care about him, not Edith Lowell, who always pretended to be fine.

So he wanted to get out of the mansion as soon as possible.

“If you would go with me, gladly.”

As he said, together if possible.

‘I don’t want to hear that I lied to Walter, so I have to settle this within a month.’

Twelve drops of juice.

Exactly the amount of the side effects of Elick Berry that remained in the body for about a month.

Edith chuckled and gulped down all the drink in the cup. The taste was as shocking as the infamy that Elick Berry had at the clinic.

It felt like squeezing and swallowing the juice of a rotten, bitter fruit.

“Ugh……”

Her mood soured in an instant, but she held it in and emptied the cup.

And the next late afternoon.

After confirming once again that the Elick Berry was working well in her body, Edith knocked on Sophia’s bedroom door.

“Sophia. It’s Edith. I think I need to tell you…….”

Sophia greeted Edith with a somewhat disheveled face. As Whitman had all but disappeared, she had no other way but to use this blonde lady.

Since she had lost love, she must have the wealth so that the time spent in this mansion like a doll would not be in vain.

“Come in, Edith. I was shocked by the embezzlement for a few days, so I couldn’t take care of you properly.”

Sophia forcibly pulled up the corners of her mouth and let her prey in.

Edith told Sophia what she had been waiting for the most.

“I feel a bit strange. I feel like I have a fever or something… I wonder if I might be pregnant, as you said.”

“……!”

Sophia’s eyes, which had been cloudy and lost judgment all along, once again began to sparkle with desire.