Cassian, who was looking at the pale-faced Yuriel, pulled his hand down with an expressionless face.

As the net covering Yuriel’s hair came off, her red hair flowed down softly.

Not stopping there, Cassian swept Yuriel’s red hair to one side.

Cassian’s slow yet gentle touch was both affectionate and forceful.

Yuriel’s body trembled aimlessly at the unexpected action.

“What… What are you doing?”

“From now on, go like this. Stop wearing this unsightly thing.”

There was no mercy in the hand that crushed the net with a snap.

Only after the seductive red hair draped over one shoulder did the young master return to his seat, seemingly satisfied.

After that, he picked up his pen again and started sketching.

As if nothing had happened.

It was bewildering. I felt once again confirmed that I was merely a doll moving as the young master wished.

I was filled with the desire to put my hair back into the net and hide it tightly, even now.

But… as always, Yuriel couldn’t move an inch.

Cassian looked at the empty space where Yuriel had disappeared, then shifted his gaze to the sketch he was drawing.

As that woman said, it’s too much of an exaggeration to call it a sketch.

It’s nothing more than geometric shapes made up of rough lines.

No one else would be able to think of that child when looking at this. Only that child would be able to recognize it.

Cassian rather liked that point as well.

Seeing the countless lines that make up the world, that child will now grimace greatly.

Because they will be reminded of this picture.

Won’t they think of me every time?

Then that clear face will contort even more.

Today too, that child who couldn’t give up their last hope in that fake medicine, trembled before me but still couldn’t say they wanted to leave.

A satisfied smile spread across Cassian’s lips.

Since they gave me such a joyful day, I should gladly repay them.

Holding scissors in his hand, he picked up the prettiest of the flowers the butler had personally prepared today.

Snap, as he casually cut off the branch, his face was expressionless.

On her way back, Yuriel asked Uncle Tom, who runs the herb shop, to brew the last medicine.

Her steps towards home with it were somehow weary.

Just as she stepped out again, someone urgently grabbed her.

Turning her head, there was Hael.

“Yuriel, something terrible has happened.”

As much as his urgent voice, anxiety was etched on his handsome face.

An ominous premonition flashed through Yuriel’s mind.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uncle Litorn has been taken to the lord’s residence. They say many knights came by.”

The fact that knights had come meant the situation was not ordinary. It meant that the lord had mobilized the knights just to arrest a mere commoner.

He must have committed some serious crime.

“Are you talking about that doctor?”

Although there was only one person with that name in this village, Yuriel asked again in disbelief.

At the very least, he was the only primary physician for the villagers.

She too had received a diagnosis for her mother’s medicine through him.

“Yes.”

Yuriel tried to suppress her ominous feelings and looked directly at Hael.

“What’s the reason?”

“Fraud. Apparently, all the diagnoses he’s given so far were lies.”

“Then mother’s medicine…”

Hael nodded sadly, looking at Yuriel who seemed about to cry.

‘To think mother’s medicine was fake…’

As her consciousness gradually blurred, everything before her eyes darkened.

Yuriel barely held onto her body that was about to flicker out and walked aimlessly.

Praying desperately that someone would tell her it was a lie.

As expected, the people of Alphonse were confused by this unprecedented event.

Yuriel’s voice, asking aimlessly if it was true, had no strength at all.

However, the villagers, already noisy with that story, answered perfunctorily and returned to their places.

Left alone, Yuriel collapsed to the ground as if screaming.

‘It can’t be.’

In fact, she had been suspecting for some time.

That the medicine had no effect.

She had believed that it would at least have a pain-relieving effect, but…

Thinking that even that might have been her mother pretending not to be in pain to ease her burden, she could only cry.

The memory of her mother telling her to return and get a refund immediately when she first saw the expensive medicine flashed through Yuriel’s mind.

Even while seeing her mother still coughing up blood, she had actually held a faint hope that maybe a miracle still remained.

But.

‘To think it was all a lie…’

Then had she been wasting time, deceived by those nonsensical words, consuming her mother’s last moments?

The feeling of having even the last piece of hope trampled was indescribably miserable.

Hael held Yuriel’s body as it twisted and fell.

“Don’t worry. There will be other ways.”

Despite Hael’s comfort, Yuriel couldn’t hear anything.

Her empty eyes made her look even more precarious.

The words that barely escaped through her teeth at the end were full of moisture.

The uncle who had given her the highest daily wage for the first time in the village, where she was undervalued due to her age, briefly crossed Yuriel’s mind.

“Uncle Brown’s family too…”

Yuriel’s bloodshot eyes couldn’t even finish the sentence.

Uncle Brown’s daughter had also been diagnosed with an unknown illness by that quack and eventually died.

Moreover, that quack had warned the villagers to be careful, saying the disease might be contagious.

Because of that, the villagers once avoided Uncle Brown, who had lost his daughter.

Not only that. As they thoroughly investigated the town’s long history and examined the diagnoses and results he had given, suspicions could only solidify into certainty.

Generally, Litorn dealt with patients whom other doctors in the town had diagnosed as having difficult-to-cure symptoms.

While giving hope that he could heal them.

Of course, not a single person was completely cured like Yuriel’s mother, Jane.

Nevertheless, patients once recruited by Litorn could not escape from him.

For there was no other doctor in this Alphonse who would not call them incurable patients.

So they all just clung to him as their last hope.

With their eyes covered.

The people of Alphonse were continuously noisy over this incident.

Meanwhile, the process of being summoned by the police for investigation and returning was repeated without cease.

The people of Alphonse approached the truth that might have been better left unknown, testifying as victims.

Uncle Litorn, who had entered the village in a sleek appearance and secured the position of Alphonse’s renowned doctor with seemingly benevolent words, thus fell to become a fraudulent quack.

Rumors spread that not long after Litorn was dragged to the lord’s mansion, an order of exile was issued.

The villagers, who had been seething with anger, rushed there upon hearing the news, but he had already left.

The incident, having lost its target of anger, was quickly subsumed.

The people of Alphonse now chattered that it was fortunate to have caught the fraudster at last.

Today, as on any other day, they visited the pub at dawn.

Located near the dock, this was a place where people often gathered to have meals before boarding ships.

As usual, after discussing trivial matters like how much fish would be caught, what the temperature was like, and how warm the water was, they maintained silence.

Among them, there was also someone who deliberately broke the silence by using others’ stories as a conversation starter.

“I wonder who reported Litorn?”

“Does that matter? Litorn is gone now anyway.”

“Shouldn’t we at least thank the righteous person who helped drive the fraudster out of town?”

“That’s true. The informant was probably someone who was recently victimized by that Litorn fellow, don’t you think?”

“I don’t think there was anyone like that recently?”

“Could it be Brown, who lost his daughter some time ago?”

The pub echoed with the voices of villagers engrossed in speculation.

Inside the kitchen, Yuriel scrubbed the plates vigorously while listening to those voices.

Unlike the Alphonse people’s guesses, the person who reported Litorn must be someone of high status.

If the lord’s knights swept through so quickly, it must mean that the pressure was quite strong.

The lord she had seen so far was never one to get involved in matters of the lower classes.

Unless it benefited him.

The only person in this territory who could subdue the lord of Alphonse.

Thoughts naturally extended to that young master.

Cassian de Blanchet.

That name always pops up unexpectedly from unforeseen places.

‘But why would he?’

Why would he go to such lengths to expel a single doctor who had nothing to do with him?

Recalling that desert-like gaze that viewed everything dryly, he didn’t seem likely to care much about others’ affairs.

However, thinking of how he enjoyed setting her up repeatedly and drawing eccentric pictures…

For that young master, expelling one such person might just be a form of amusement.

While being investigated and hearing the villagers’ voices over the past time, questions that hadn’t occurred to her due to the lack of reality slowly arose.

Finishing the dishes and barely saying goodbye as usual, she headed out towards the mansion where Cassian resided.

The arising thoughts filled Yuriel’s mind completely.

In fact, the person who had suffered the greatest damage from Litorn recently was none other than Yuriel herself.

She was the only one in this village living in constant anxiety with a terminally ill patient at home.

At most, the damage the villagers had suffered was limited to things like mistakenly brewing cold medicine as a stomachache remedy.

So unlike the villagers, Yuriel was reluctant to readily accept the fact that Litorn was a fraudster.

Even when the investigation ended and the police designated him as a criminal, she couldn’t easily accept it.

Because if she admitted that medicine was a lie, she would no longer be able to save her mother.

One might say that since her mother is still alive, they could somehow manage by finding another doctor.

Hael said he would try to find such a person, mobilizing all his connections in the capital, saying there might be a proper cure.

Even Hael still looked tearful in front of her. It meant he hadn’t found one yet.

What could she do about that?

There was no hope.

Should she resent the informant who extinguished even that single strand of hope?

Or should she express gratitude to that person for not letting her efforts and time go to waste?

In reality, Yuriel felt it didn’t matter either way now.

At this point, what difference did it make who the informant was?

However, that thought shattered as soon as she opened the door and entered.