Ria felt as if she was falling off a cliff, even though she was sitting in a chair.

She couldn’t understand what her mother was saying right now. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening to her.

“Your father and I didn’t have a child for a long time.”

There are many couples living without children nowadays, but back then, her parents seemed to have been driven to the point of making an extreme decision.

“Then, miraculously, we found you.”

A child abandoned on the stairs of an old building. They guessed it might have been a single mother who gave birth and ran away in fear.

Not knowing whose child it was made them hesitant to take her in, but they couldn’t leave a newborn to die, so they had no choice but to seek out a skilled fortune teller.

“They said if we took you in, we would have a child. And truly, Riu was born.”

They registered her birth and raised her as their own daughter. Surely, her parents must have felt some pity for the child’s situation.

Ria wasn’t a beloved child, but she wasn’t as mistreated as she had been there.

She never went hungry, graduated school safely, and after entering university, they even provided her with tuition and a place to live.

Even now, Ria doesn’t feel betrayed by her parents just because it’s been revealed that she’s not their biological daughter but an adopted one.

But why, of all things.

“Dad almost had a serious heart problem… and your first thought was about the inheritance?”

“You were too young to understand, but inheritance is such an important issue that even blood siblings often cut ties over it. I believe you’re not shameless enough to desire the inheritance even after knowing the truth.”

“…”

“We won’t ask for compensation for raising you until now. Isn’t that enough?”

There, she was a biological daughter but raised as an adopted one.

Here, she was an adopted daughter but raised as a biological one.

Though the situations were opposite, the sorrow she felt was strangely the same.

“Don’t you have anything else to say to me?”

“We feel sorry for you.”

“Sorry…”

Raising someone else’s child for 20 years is not an easy task. Ria’s mother probably isn’t exceptionally inhumane compared to others.

It’s just that in an emergency, she can only look after the child she loves.

‘Just like His Majesty… saved Herna.’

Isn’t it better now, at least, to have the justification of pushing her away because she’s not a biological daughter?

Thinking that way, her heart quickly calmed down.

“Thank you for raising me all this time.”

Ria finished signing and stood up.

“But you don’t need to take care of me anymore.”

“Ria.”

“I can’t think of you two as family anymore either.”

Ria left the hospital and got on a bus. The rectangular box flashing red lights disappeared into the dusty road as if being sucked in.

“Who is it?”

“Ah…”

Her mother had been busy running around, and it seemed she had even given up Ria’s rented room in the meantime.

Thinking the number key didn’t match, she heard an unfamiliar voice through the intercom, suggesting a new tenant had already moved in.

“I used to live here, but I came by habit. I’m sorry.”

Ria apologized and sat down on the emergency stairs near the elevator.

She had nowhere to go.

She had some emergency funds, so if she entered a goshiwon and found a part-time job on her own, she could manage to survive somehow.

But would it be meaningful to continue living like that?

‘I thought it would be reality when I woke up from the dream.’

Even what she believed to be reality was all just a dream.

An ordinary family. An ordinary life. Living as an ordinary person… everything was just an illusion.

“I hate it all.”

Ria huddled up, drawing her knees close.

“Now, I just want to disappear.”

In the stairwell where even the emergency light was off, Ria cried silently.

Then, something soft brushed against her ear and shoulder.

She wasn’t sure if it was her own hair or an insect. Ria waved her hand and huddled up again.

This time, a soft sensation landed on the back of her hand.

“Huh?”

Opening her eyes and looking at her feet, she saw a white feather had fallen.

A pure white feather emitting a faint light even in this darkness.

The window wasn’t open, and there was no way such a large bird could have flown into the building. As Ria looked around, she checked above the emergency stairs and felt her body stiffen.

There was a pitch-black passage as if that space alone had been cut out.

‘The Door of Farewell.’

A passageway connecting to another world that opens for those who desperately wish to leave this world.

However, unlike what she had seen in the Tower of Bravery, the scenery of the other world wasn’t visible. Beyond the door was complete darkness.

Except for a mysterious white horse shining brightly even in the darkness.

“We meet again.”

Ria picked up the feather that had fallen at her feet and stood in front of the door. The white horse’s saddle was still as clean as new, and white feathers were still attached under the saddle, just like before.

“You’re not an ordinary horse, are you?”

Even compared to Sonipes, who was also a white horse, this one had exceptionally beautiful fur and clear eyes.

It was strange that the saddle was pristine despite surviving in the forest for a year, and that it appeared and disappeared in the blink of an eye despite not having a particularly fast gait, but she didn’t suspect anything.

Because at that time, she didn’t know that there was nothing inexplicably mysterious in that world without reason.

“Have you come to take me?”

Ria took a step into the black door. In an instant, darkness enveloped everything as if erasing the surrounding scenery.

She approached the white horse in front of her and untied the straps securing the saddle.

With a soft sound, white feathers fell as the saddle shook and then fell to the side, revealing large wings.

“…So, these were your feathers.”

It had seemed strange that there were so many feathers under the saddle for birds just sitting there, but apparently, the wings had been folded and hidden under the saddle.

A white horse with a pair of wings.

A sacred animal that should only appear in legends.

Ria, no, Litania now knew the true identity of this animal.

“Are you the ‘Wishing Stone’?”

The Wishing Stone that granted Litania’s wish to leave Orbis’s side and led her to death.

The Wishing Stone that created a rift in that world to connect it with this one, trying to escape the repeating fate.

The Wishing Stone that sent Litania’s soul, who had become a newborn baby, to this world when Orbis turned back time to meet her again after she had left for another world.

“Now I understand. Why the ‘Door of Farewell’ urban legend arose when I was a newborn.”

The moment ‘Litania’ was born there, the Wishing Stone sent her soul to this world, and Ria’s current parents discovered her, who had gained a new body here.

The ‘Door of Farewell’ that appeared when they were on the verge of death handed them a newborn baby and then disappeared.

Probably, they hid the story about finding the newborn, and only the tale of the door spread through people’s mouths, solidifying into an urban legend.

“I was a person from that place from the beginning.”

Her ‘place to return’ was not the modern world.

The world she had to bid farewell to was not that place.

“This is truly farewell now.”

Ria looked back. The elevator and emergency stairs were no longer visible, consumed by darkness.

The world she had believed to be reality for 20 years no longer exists.

“It’s fortunate that I practiced horseback riding.”

As Litania extended her hand, the white horse folded its wings and positioned itself to make it easier for her to mount.

It was her first time riding a horse without a saddle, so she wobbled for a moment, but thankfully, her previous training wasn’t in vain, and she was able to properly find her seat.

“I’ll give you a name too.”

Litania held the reins of the white horse and said.

“Lapis.”

She grinned and shrugged her shoulders.

“Since my name means ‘prayer’, it seems fitting to name you, who is connected to me, ‘stone’. Do you like it? Lapis.”

Prrr. The horse snorted as its name was called.

She had thought Bain and Ferus’s naming sense was strange, but she was in no position to talk.

She was also terrible at naming things.

“Let’s go back.”

As Litania nudged Lapis’s side with her heel, the white horse spread its wings wide and galloped forward as if about to take flight.

A bright white star flashed in a cross shape, and then they disappeared as if escaping the darkness.

Emperor Ferus put down his pen and heaved a deep sigh.

The sun had already set, and darkness had fallen.

“There’s no end in sight.”

A dark shadow fell over his ashen eyes.

The movements near the border were unsettling.

The foreign tribes of other countries, who had not dared to go against the Beriberbium Empire out of fear of the Divine Dragon, began to struggle for survival when the Divine Dragon started flying over their territories.

That struggle was purely for defense, so what was directed towards the empire was not a threat but resentment.

However, now.

The divorce announcement, made to quell anxiety and resentment, instead gave them unnecessary arrogance.

It was enough to put such foolish ideas into their heads.

‘Damn it.’

Of course, even without the Divine Dragon’s protection, the Beriberbium Empire was the most powerful country on the continent. It wasn’t mere bluster that they had claimed to be the strongest for hundreds of years.

However, Ferus had only recently ascended to the throne and his support base was weak. Public sentiment wasn’t particularly good due to the annulment of the engagement between the Divine Dragon and the Imperial Princess.

If a war were to break out with neighboring countries in this state.

“Your Majesty. Shall I prepare your bedchamber…”

“No need. I’ll just rest my eyes for a moment.”

He dismissed the head servant and entered the bedroom alone.

His head was aching, and he didn’t want to think anymore. He needed time to forget the troublesome matters and rest for a while.

Ferus was heading towards the bed, following the light from the wall lamps, when he suddenly stopped.

He sensed a presence on the bed.

‘An assassin?’

If an assassin sent from an enemy country had sneaked into the Emperor’s bedroom, did it mean there was a spy within the palace? Or was it a betrayal by one of the nobles?

Ferus silently drew the sword hanging on the wall and approached the bed, not letting his guard down.

‘Strange.’

It was suspicious that someone skilled enough to sneak into the Emperor’s bedroom couldn’t even conceal their presence.

‘Are they planning something?’

Ferus gripped the sword handle tightly and pushed aside the bed’s canopy with his other hand.

“…?”

Curly brown hair and a fair face.

A delicate body that rose and fell with each breath.

The Imperial Princess, Litania, whom he couldn’t find a single hair of no matter how much he searched, was lying there.