“The atmosphere in the mansion was more solemn and quiet than ever.

Especially inside the bedroom, akin to the calm before a storm, an eerie ambiance lingered.

Clad stood by the window without uttering a word.

Leaning casually, his face, unlike just a few months ago, was remarkably clean yet simultaneously pallid.

Beneath his elongated eyelashes, his drowsy eyes stared outward without a blink.

Butler Gustaf took out the pocket watch he had tucked away.

In the past, it was the time when Clad’s eyes flickered most sensitively, a moment invaded by pain that struck him like a sudden night sky assault, making it hard to discern whether he was human or a monster.

That time has become so quiet now.

However, quiet didn’t mean peaceful.

Gustaf, watching the maids and guards who left the mansion with torches and those pursuing them, ultimately couldn’t stop them.

“Your Excellency.”

Gustaf felt as if Clad stood on a precarious cliff.

How much time passed in this way?

The fragile and cold stillness shattered abruptly as emptiness began to pour when the rain finally started.

“Your Excellency!”

Clad Yufreese, who had silently gazed into the darkness, finally opened the bedroom door and stepped outside.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

The farthest the carriage could go was not much farther than a white forest.

Having run out of money and bidding farewell to the carriage, Yvan, constantly walking, heard only the priest’s testimony that he headed north.

‘Let’s live together for a lifetime.’
‘Wherever you go, I will take you. So don’t think you’re alone.’

“Louise….”

Regret poured out with a white breath. Yvan’s mind went blank, unsure of what to do.

Even if he had to do everything outside Clad’s eyes, he should have brought up Louise’s story.

If only he had known he would part with Louise so emptily.

Why did he hide Louise, so afraid?

“Louise!”

Calling out to the unresponsive ghost.

Yvan wandered through the forest like a madman.

Beyond one forest, there was another. Damn it, a cold winter forest where the snow had yet to melt.”
Yvan unknowingly wandered around, following the unfamiliar carriage tracks, not realizing that frost was forming on his hands and face.

It wasn’t until a brief moment that his consciousness returned.

It was when the brilliant sunset glow began to spill over the unfamiliar forest towards her.

“Your Excellency…”

Suddenly, Yvan thought of Clad.

The shoes he had recently bought for her seemed to have come off somewhere, and she found herself barefoot.

Only now did Yvan look closely at his hands and feet. They were swollen, as if about to burst like frozen before.

Looking back at the way he came, very far away, the top of the black mansion could be vaguely seen.

Yvan paused for a moment.

It felt as if someone had poured boiling water over his frozen body.

Soon, it would be dark.

No matter how much he delayed the time of pain, when the night deepened, Clad would be locked in agony.

Even though he firmly promised to go to his room every day when the sun set…

She quickly wiped away the tears falling like raindrops from under her hood.

“Let’s meet again tomorrow.”

Biting her lower lip until it bled, she comforted herself by breathing roughly through the open lips.

After searching for Louise barefoot, what else could she do?

She needed more money to rent a carriage and at least one guard to accompany her.

If asked what she was looking for, what would she answer? She had to find out some ridiculous excuse overnight.

With the growing anxiety on his shoulders, Yvan, trembling jaw, walked towards the black mansion.

His bare feet stung against the rough ground.

Whenever the chilly wind passed through the forest, he shivered and looked back.

With every desperate glance hoping that Louise’s baggage carriage might pass nearby, regret oozed out.

Shooosh .

Still stumbling along the snow piled up like a hill, Yvan stood under a tree for a long time to avoid the shower pouring down with darkness.

The surroundings soon became as dark as just before the darkness covered, and the cold he hadn’t felt while begging half-crazed rushed over like waves.

Chilled to the bone in the freezing cold that could make teeth clash, Yvan, wrapped in the cold, sat down, wiping away tears as they dripped only onto his wet face.

Tears hanging on the tip of his nose streamed down with raindrops under his lowered head.

Everything had gone wrong.

He thought he had saved Louise from being handed over to Felicia, thought he hadn’t burned her.

It wasn’t true.

It had been a while since Clad, who became a new family member, promised not to look at her pain.

Instead of taking him outside, he couldn’t even keep the promise.

‘Even if you run away, you’re still in my palm. Dare you run away without knowing gratitude?’ ‘Pretending to be great, crawling in on your own, claiming to have nowhere to go.’ ‘Try going out again, someone will come looking for you.’

Before manifesting his abilities.
Unable to endure the persecution from his cousins, when he briefly escaped from the Feliciase Mansion.