Herdin, as well as Blair and Luth, looked on with surprised eyes at the child’s fierce refusal.

Then Asiel, with his tiny body, pushed Herdin into the inner office. He reluctantly allowed himself to be dragged along.

“Asiel, what’s wrong?”

“Luth hurt! Daddy no!”

Asiel’s eyes were on the verge of bursting into tears as he said this.

Herdin looked at the child with considerable confusion, then analyzed the situation to interpret the meaning.

Asiel was trying to keep Luth and himself as far apart as possible. Judging by his words and actions, Asiel seemed to think that he was hurting Luth.

“Why is Luth hurt?”

“Daddy said so.”

“Daddy didn’t hurt Luth.”

“No!”

But Asiel was adamant despite Herdin’s protest. His demeanor closely resembled that of his wife when disciplining a child for misbehavior.

Herdin, chuckling in disbelief, caught Blair’s eye as she laughed with amusement, and smiled as if conceding defeat.

“Are you trying to protect me from His Excellency? I’m touched―”

“No, Luth!”

Even Luth, who had been approaching with a moved expression, was stopped by Asiel’s stern command.

‘Come to think of it, it was like this last time too…’

It seems that Luth fellow had been feigning illness a lot in front of Asiel.

Herdin, not taking Asiel’s words too seriously, lifted the child up.

“Alright, I won’t bother Luth.”

Then he spoke to Luth, who was itching to approach but couldn’t get any closer to Asiel.

“You can go home for today.”

“Go home for today.”

The child mimicked Herdin’s words and tone without understanding what they meant.

Luth, who had been delighted at the prospect of leaving work early, lingered, asking ‘Can’t I just hold his hand once?’, but eventually left the office without any success due to Asiel’s persistent cries of ‘No!’.

Blair, who had been watching the situation with amusement from behind, finally approached her husband and son.

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything important?”

“I was waiting to see when you’d come, but this is almost too late. Come more often from now on.”

It was a joke, not a joke, spoken with sincerity, but Blair just smiled faintly. It was a wish unlikely to be granted by a wife who values propriety and responsibility.

Disappointing as it was, he decided to be grateful for her deviation from routine in this moment.

Just then, Asiel, cradled in Herdin’s arms, pointed with his small finger at a drawing on his desk.

“Ship!”

Herdin and Blair’s gazes naturally turned to where the child was pointing. What Asiel had pointed to was the design of the cruise ship that Luth had left behind just moments ago.

“That’s right, it’s a ship. A very big ship.”

Herdin answered kindly while stroking the child’s head, then remembered the plan he had thought of just before the two arrived and asked:

“Next month is Asiel’s birthday, how about spending it in Libren this time?”

“In Libren?”

“The ship will be completed soon, and I thought it would be nice to see it together.”

“Daddy made ship.”

At the sound of Asiel proudly chattering about his father’s achievement, Herdin added with a chuckle:

“Of course, I also want to show our son how cool his dad is.”

Blair gently met her husband’s eyes as he waited for an answer, then soon smiled and nodded willingly.

“Sounds good.”

There was no reason not to grant his wish to be a cool dad.

* * *

The family of three arrived in Libren three days before Asiel’s birthday. It was their first return since leaving after Asiel was born.

They spent the first and second days resting from their journey at the mansion, and on the third day, only Herdin went out to inspect the completed ship.

Tomorrow would be Asiel’s actual birthday.

The plan was to view the ship during the day and have a party in the evening, so he went ahead to check in advance.

Asiel, who had been reading fairy tales with Blair as usual or playing with toys, suddenly asked for Herdin as dusk fell.

“Where did Daddy go?”

“Do you miss Daddy? Shall we wait for Daddy with Mommy?”

The child put down the toy he had been playing with and nodded. Blair picked him up and approached the window where the mansion’s main gate was visible.

Looking at that scene, a memory from sometime ago suddenly came to mind.

‘Come to think of it, I waited for Herdin like this with Asiel in my past life too.’

The memory of that particularly cold and bitter winter was now filled with warmth.

Although she still couldn’t recall it with complete joy, she was no longer tormented by that memory. Like a diary from the past that she occasionally opened.

Blair explained a bit more to Asiel about Herdin’s absence.

“Daddy went out for a bit to prepare for Asiel’s birthday tomorrow.”

“Birthday? What’s a birthday?”

“A birthday is the day Asiel was born into this world. The day Mommy and Daddy were very, very happy. So it’s a day when many people gather to celebrate.”

“Will Daddy come too?”

“Of course he will. It’s our son’s birthday after all.”

Just as Blair answered that, the mansion’s gate opened and the carriage carrying Herdin entered.

Blair pointed out the window.

“Look, Daddy’s here.”

As they watched Herdin get out of the carriage, Asiel asked:

“But why didn’t he come before?”

“Before? When do you mean?”

Asiel’s first birthday party had been held very grandly at the townhouse in the capital. Throughout that birthday party, it was none other than Herdin who had held Asiel.

“Last year, Daddy built a small house in Asiel’s room as a present.”

But Asiel, thinking his mother didn’t understand what he meant, shook his head and added an explanation:

“No. Long, long ago. Daddy didn’t come. Mommy cried.”

“When did Mommy cry―”

Blair, listening to Asiel’s story, suddenly recalled a memory and became dazed.

If it was earlier than last year, could it be…

‘My lady, His Excellency says his schedule has been delayed. So this birthday will be just the two of you…’

Blair’s eyes began to shake violently.

“Mommy’s eyes are crying. Ati sad.”

On that day in the past, had Asiel thought her eyes looked sad when he looked at them?

The moment she heard the child’s story, the possibility became certainty.

“Ah…”

Tears that had been welling up in Blair’s eyes suddenly fell.

Now she understood everything.

Why Asiel in this life was afraid of Herdin.

And why he had grown faster than in the past life, why he was more sensitive.

Because he had already experienced these things once in the past life.

If he had become younger with an adult’s mind, he would have known he would grow up someday and endured that time patiently.

But Asiel was only two years old at the time.

If he had returned with memories in a two-year-old’s mind, he must have felt very frustrated by his body that suddenly couldn’t move as he wanted.

For a child, the only way to express that frustration was to cry.

‘And yet… Asiel always smiled when he saw me.’

From the moment he came back in time and met his mother again, the child had been constantly telling her with his whole body.

That he had also come back to his mother’s side.

That he loved his mother very, very much.

“It was you, baby. It was you…”

Even while giving birth to and raising Asiel again in this life, a part of her heart had been troubled by the thought of the child left alone in that time.

But the moment she realized that Asiel in this life was the same being as Asiel from the past life, an indescribable emotion swept over her.

Along with relief, feelings of pity and apology welled up for the child who had to go through two lives without knowing anything.

Blair stroked the child’s small back and round head repeatedly as she cried.

“My baby, how frustrating it must have been not being able to speak… I’m sorry I didn’t understand. You must have been so frustrated all this time.”

“Mommy, crying?”

Seeing his mother cry, the child’s eyes welled up too as he rubbed Blair’s eyes with his tiny hands.

“Mommy, don’t cry. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

The child imitated exactly what his mother did and said when comforting him.

Blair laughed through her tears as she soothed the child who was worried about her tears.

“These are tears of joy, Asiel. Mommy is fine.”

As Blair forced a smile, Asiel hugged her tightly. Blair embraced the child tenderly and whispered:

“Thank you for coming back to find Mommy, Asiel. Mommy loves you so much, my baby.”

My love. My life. My everything.

Having regained the reason for all of it, she was bound to be happy forever from now on.

With the two men she loved, who had become her everything.

* * *

The black mana surged throughout the room, and Blair and Herdin turned to ash and disappeared before Asiel’s eyes.

The child, watching this scene, crawled out of the cradle, whimpering.

“Mommy!”

Bright red blood stained the small feet of the child walking towards where Mommy and Daddy had been. It was the blood of Luth, who had just met his death at Herdin’s hands.

“It hurts. It hurts…”

Asiel remembered and repeated what Blair had said when he had fallen and hurt himself while walking once before, seeing blood coming from the wound on his knee.

When the red blood stained his feet, he became scared, as if he himself was in pain.

The whimpering child’s cries grew louder and louder. But the small feet toddling towards where Mommy and Daddy had been did not stop.

“Mommy… Daddy…”

The moment he finally reached the place where the two had been. The faintly remaining magic circle and black mana enveloped the child.

It was the scary magic that had swallowed Mommy and Daddy, but the remaining mana felt like Daddy’s, so it wasn’t too frightening.

Eventually, mana as gentle as Mommy’s touch wrapped around the child’s small body.

Asiel closed his eyes peacefully, as if falling asleep in Mommy’s arms.

And when he opened his eyes again…

He was in warm water.

The child was startled for a moment by the suddenly changed location, but soon remembered and felt reassured.

This was a small place from now faded memories.

‘Mommy!’

But Blair, whom he had been desperately searching for, was nowhere to be seen. He was about to burst into tears again.

− Baby.

A voice that seemed to hum through the water was heard. Very faint, but it was clearly Mommy’s voice.

‘Mommy?’

Blair was nowhere to be seen, but her voice was heard occasionally after that. Along with it, a warmth that seemed to gently embrace him was felt.

Asiel waited, listening to that voice.

In his faded memories, he remembered waiting patiently here and meeting Mommy.

Sometimes he thrashed about, unable to bear the stuffiness.

Then, one day when he had grown so big that the space in the water felt cramped. The space surrounding the child began to tighten.

At the same time, Asiel instinctively realized.

That if he went out now, he could meet Blair again.

With the sole determination to meet Mommy again, the child came out into the world after a long struggle.

When he finally came out of Mommy’s belly and regained consciousness, he felt the familiar smell of milk and the warmth of being held. At the same time, the longed-for voice was heard clearly nearby.

“Hello, baby.”

For some reason his vision was blurry, but Asiel noticed that the voice was the voice of Mommy he had longed for so much.

His body wouldn’t move as he wanted, and breathing was uncomfortable and awkward, but hearing that gentle voice calmed his anxious heart.

Asiel smiled brightly towards Mommy, whom he had met again.

Everything seemed like it would be alright if he was by Mommy’s side, who always held him tenderly.

And so, the child returned to his mother’s arms.