The gentle, soothing touch was quite affectionate.

“It’s nice to have mother. You’re acting spoiled after so long.”

Yuriel inhaled the familiar scent in Jane’s embrace, swallowing her tears.

Her rapidly pounding breath slowly steadied, and her heart found its rhythm again.

Only then did Jane release Yuriel from her arms.

As if she had forgotten something, Jane moved hastily, muttering about her absent-mindedness, and piled something onto a tray.

“El, try eating this.”

Yuriel’s gaze shifted to see the tray filled with green fruit.

The beautifully plated green grapes looked tantalizing even just to look at, boasting their fresh pulp.

“Come on, eat, dear.”

As if she had expected this, Jane plucked several grapes and pushed them into Yuriel’s mouth.

As always, only one grape made it into her mouth.

“Just watching you eat makes me full.”

“Don’t say such things.”

In the end, after some banter, they began sharing the grapes one by one, and soon the bunch was gone.

Her mother repeatedly tried to give her more to eat, only to be caught and eat them herself.

Throughout this, a smile never left her face.

Her mother picked up the last grape and popped it into her mouth.

“It’s so wonderful that your superior is fond of you.”

A bright smile spread across her mother’s face.

Caught off guard, Yuriel bit into the grape, and a sweet aroma spread across her tongue.

Meanwhile, her mother turned around, brought something, and set it down before her.

“Take this with you to give to them.”

A deep purple liquid sloshed in the glass bottle placed on the floor.

It was the grape wine her mother had been brewing since coming to the capital.

When her mother’s memory started to fade, she would occasionally do incomprehensible things, and this wine-making was one of them.

The reason her mother brewed grape wine was simple.

That person. Her biological father.

Who on earth was that person, to emerge so vividly in her mother’s fading memories?

While repeatedly adding that she was worried there might be shortcomings due to the limited ingredients available, her mother never lost her smile.

Overwhelmed by indescribable emotions as she watched her mother, Yuriel changed the subject as usual.

The topic swiftly shifted from her father to Vincent, and then to their daily lives.

Her mother’s words, which often spilled out stories of the past, now contained the future.

Places she wanted to go with Yuriel, things she wanted to eat together, stories of Yuriel’s future husband, her mother standing beside her at the wedding ceremony…

Her mother’s smile, now tinged with a healthy complexion, was as bright and beautiful as sunlight.

Throughout watching this scene, Yuriel felt a heaviness in her chest, as if something was blocking it.

As much as it was heavy, a terrifying emotion washed over her like a tidal wave, constricting her breath.

What if her mother withered away like that flower in her dream?

What if it wasn’t just a nightmare, but a premonitory dream?

Even after that, time continued to flow relentlessly.

Every night, that man appeared in her dreams.

He would just stare at her without uttering a single word.

With a mocking smile plastered on his face.

When she woke from the nightmare, cold sweat would pour down like rain.

If there was any consolation, it was that she usually woke up before her mother.

By the time she finished tidying up, dawn would arrive.

The faint light of dawn was always beautiful, but that time had now become a source of fear for her.

The quiet dawn, with not a soul stirring, was the perfect time for complicated thoughts to nest.

‘What if he decides not to give me the medicine?’

‘What if he says someone like me is no longer useful?’

What would she do then?

Yuriel fervently prayed that such things would not happen.

It was miserable and arduous that everything hung on his whim, but there was no choice but to wait.

She thought about writing a letter, but quickly dismissed the idea.

This recent incident had occurred because she had needlessly provoked him when he was content to leave things be.

So… it would be better to just stay still.

Recalling his cold sneer, Yuriel found it burdensome to even pick up a pen.

If she couldn’t be his source of amusement, she wished to be erased completely from his memory.

She hoped that he would forget even the fact that he was giving her medicine.

And so, the next day, and the day after that, Yuriel went through her ordinary days.

During the day, she carried out her duties as an administrative official and worked on the projects left by her superior.

The evenings were filled with daily routines spent with her mother.

It was a series of days no different from any other.

The only difference was that with the magic tower’s vacation season approaching, she had a bit more free time.

Yuriel spent that time with her mother.

Like an ordinary mother and daughter, they went shopping together, ate meals together, talked about their daily lives, and laughed.

These utterly ordinary, common days were blindingly cold and beautiful to her.

As if they were moments that would never come again.

‘If only I could live like this forever…’

With each passing day, that wish grew stronger.

Just as much, the suffocating feeling that constricted her heart also grew.

As the time for her mother’s medicine to arrive drew nearer, the fear swelled into a wave as big as a house, engulfing her.

And before she knew it, that time had come.

At the point when a month had almost passed.

As always, her mother’s vitality began to fade from this point on.

Looking at the date marked on the calendar, her head turned stark white.

As if someone was draining the blood from her head.

Blanchet’s underling had never once violated the specified date.

That fact made her heart pound even more anxiously.

What should she do if the medicine didn’t come today?

Lifting her dazed gaze, Yuriel mechanically organized the documents and, out of habit, headed towards Vincent with the papers she had poured over for the past few days.

Vincent, looking at the pale Yuriel, glanced at the documents she handed over.

In the neat documents, which should have been free of mistakes, there was a blatantly incorrect number.

A very simple mistake.

“You, when the probability is 70, and you input fifteen hundred, what do you get?”

“It shows an accuracy of 1050 zones.”

In the document Vincent opened, there was a zero missing.

Yuriel’s face hardened as she noticed it.

“I’m sorry.”

Of course, it wasn’t a big mistake. Just a simple notation error.

Vincent wasn’t trying to point it out either.

As Vincent looked up, his view was filled with Yuriel’s pale face.

Vincent was concerned about Yuriel’s appearance, which had been like this for days.

Yes. She had been in that state ever since that day.

Since the day she showed up looking like a drowned rat.

Occasionally, the administrative staff would gossip about Yuriel and some man.

How interested they were in other people’s business.

That the man was handsome, that he seemed to be from quite a wealthy family.

The ‘take it or leave it’ stories of these people who always bred rumors were always the same.

Vincent wasn’t interested in such things at all.

He would have continued to be so if that kid hadn’t been sitting there looking deathly pale for days.

“Is something going on these days?”

“No. I’m sorry.”

The sparkling eyes of this child when she was first assigned to him flashed through his mind.

Just as she had said in that interview, eager to work hard no matter what she was asked to do, no, even more so, this child had sparkled.

Where had that spirited administrative assistant gone, the one who had confidently dropped in front of him the documents that none of her predecessors had managed to process?

Compared to the time when she would tirelessly sparkle and occasionally make presumptuous remarks, now…

A dying figure stood before him, withered and twisted.

Moreover, until just now, she had been fidgeting and repeatedly checking the clock.

Something was definitely wrong.

It must be a situation she couldn’t bring herself to talk to him about.

“You can go home for today.”

Why was she sitting there, trying to be considerate when it was already past time, tsk.

Despite thinking he shouldn’t care about such things, Vincent found himself concerned without realizing it.

As Vincent shook his head, his gaze fell on the bottle of grape wine Yuriel had given him recently.

Looking at the bottle that was already showing its bottom, he added softly.

“Tell your mother I enjoyed it very much.”

Having said that, Vincent stepped outside as if he had finished his task.

In reality, he had hurriedly moved his steps, thinking he might say something unnecessary if he kept looking at those tired eyes devoid of any color.

As he passed through the corridor, the chatter of the administrative staff reached Vincent’s ears.

“That wench has quite a pretty face, doesn’t she?”

“She acted all high and mighty, but in the end, she’s just after some noble man, I guess.”

“Who knows, maybe she got in here by selling her body or something.”

The vulgar jokes that followed, accompanied by snickering, were explicit.

A chilling sensation struck the back of their heads.

The most perceptive of the three administrative officials was the first to notice Vincent and barely managed to regain his composure.

The other two also turned their heads towards their colleague who was standing dazed.

Vincent looked at the three people, who were gradually freezing up, with an expressionless face.