“Oh, you misunderstand, Captain.”

Johnny stood up on trembling legs and desperately waved his hands. However, Demian’s reaction was cold.

“What’s the misunderstanding?”

“That, that’s…”

“That you tried to kill that woman?”

Upon the blunt question, Johnny, judging that Demian had not heard their conversation in detail, nodded his head vehemently.

“That woman kept threatening me to give her money, so I did that in a fit of anger without realizing it.”

“That’s a lie! I’ve never once demanded money!”

Sisel, who had been crying in Arasila’s arms, shouted in a wronged voice.

“I just wanted Sir Pattinson to admit his wrongdoing…!”

“Shut up, you lowly thing! Who wouldn’t know that you slandered me because of money?! People like you would do anything for money!”

Johnny, shutting Sisel’s mouth with sharp daggers for words, looked at Demian again. His complexion was desperate as he nervously rubbed his hands together.

“Captain, it was truly my mistake to wield a blade. However, I had no choice. I even went to the Magic Tower’s prison because of that thing’s slander, and as a knight, I was so ashamed that I couldn’t…”

“What’s truly shameful is your current appearance, Johnny Pattinson.”

Demian coldly retorted, cutting off Johnny’s mumbling words.

Johnny stiffened his body, feeling that Demian’s eyes looking at him had changed. Sweat soaked his armpits and back from the tension.

“I will listen to that woman’s words myself and make a judgment, so shut your mouth.”

“…!”

Demian, suppressing Johnny who tried to protest with just a glance, shifted his gaze to Sisel.

Realizing that she finally had a chance to speak, Sisel swallowed dry saliva. Arasila gripped her shoulder as if to encourage her.

Soon, Sisel opened her trembling lips.

“The truth is, Sir Pattinson… was the lover of someone I followed like an elder sister.”

Sisel was an orphan. The only person she could call family was Rose, who she met on the streets after being abandoned just like her.

The two did the same work, lived together, and were as close as sisters. To Sisel, Rose was practically her entire world.

Then one day, the Red Stallion Knights appeared in the village near the border where the two lived.

Their presence brought a great sense of unfamiliarity and liveliness to the village. The village women admired the young and healthy knights who were hard to see usually.

The knights sometimes came to the shop where the two worked to drink, but unlike the other women, Sisel was not interested in them.

Most of the knights were nobles. They were beings that commoners could not dare to look up to. Especially a woman who worked in a tavern like herself.

“Sisel, you seem indifferent even when you see the knights?”

“There’s no point looking at a tree I can’t climb. You shouldn’t show interest either. Got it?”

“Oh, this girl. As if I were a child.”

Rose laughed as if stating the obvious. Sisel was relieved by her joke-like words that she too knew her place.

However, at some point, Rose began to act strange.

She smiled more for no reason, frequently went out late at night, and hid something she was looking at alone when Sisel came.

Feeling that something was off, Sisel questioned her several times until Rose finally confessed that she had become a lover with a knight.

“Sister, are you crazy?! Dating a knight! Do you think we look like people in their eyes?”

“Don’t say that, Sisel. Jo is different from the others! He truly loves me.”

Rose carefully persuaded the wildly agitated Sisel.

She said Jo was someone who had never come to the tavern because he didn’t enjoy pleasure like the other knights.

The place they met was on a bridge over a creek, and while accidentally stumbling and nearly falling in, he saved her and they fell in love at first sight as if by fate.

He was a sincere, pure, and kind person that could be trusted.

When she insisted like that for days, Sisel had no choice but to relent. However, she wasn’t completely reassured, so she asked Rose to introduce that knight to her directly.

“Jo said it’s still too early to announce our relationship…”

“Who said to gather people and make an announcement? I’m saying to just show him to me. Once is enough.”

This time, Sisel persuaded Rose. Rose nodded her head after much contemplation.

Rose said she and the knight usually met at dawn to avoid others’ eyes and enjoyed dates in secluded places.

Then one day, when that knight came to their backyard at Rose’s request, Sisel coincidentally woke up and appeared in front of the two, pretending to have just woken up.

“Jo, this is my sister Sisel. We’re not related by blood but she’s no different from family.”

“Hello, I’m Sisel. Nice to meet you for the first time.”

Sisel greeted politely. The knight was visibly flustered, his face turning beet red.

His discomfort was so evident that Rose comforted him.

“Sisel is a trustworthy kid. You know how tight-lipped she is, right?”

Only after Rose comforted him like that for a few minutes did the knight open his mouth.

“…I’m Johnny Pattinson.”

That was the first meeting between Johnny Pattinson and Sisel.

Judging that Johnny was not bad since he didn’t speak roughly or act violently like the other knights, Sisel truly stopped interfering with Rose’s romance.

Rose happily dated Johnny. Although it was a secret romance that no one but Sisel knew about, she had no complaints.

Because…

“Jo said he’ll take me to the capital, Sisel. Let’s go together! We’ll start a new life.”

“If I go too, Sir Pattinson will dislike it.”

“No, he said he wants to become closer with me. This is a secret, but he’s even thinking of marriage!”

Since Johnny always promised her a further future, Sisel couldn’t complain.

Sometimes Sisel felt an inexplicable anxiety rising up when she looked at Rose, but she didn’t dare voice it.

If Johnny Pattinson truly loved Rose enough to overcome the gap in their status, she didn’t want to interfere with Rose’s happiness.

“When we get settled in the capital, I’ll definitely call for you too, so wait. Sisel, you’re my sister. Let’s live a new life together.”

Rose smiled, full of dreams and hopes. Her eyes shone like stars as she dreamed of a new life.

However, in the end, she never made it to the capital.

“Aaack! Rose unni!”

One day, she suddenly took her own life.

Sisel, who discovered her body, wailed. She held the cold body and wept loudly.

Johnny did not attend Rose’s funeral. Even after sending a letter informing him, he heartlessly returned it and showed no reaction.

When Sisel barely managed to hold the funeral alone and returned, Rose’s room had been robbed by thieves, leaving hardly any of her belongings intact.

She spent her days immersed in the despair and sorrow of losing her only family. She couldn’t even do her work properly, lost in despair.

Then, when she was eventually forced to leave the house she lived in with Rose due to unpaid rent, it happened.

While cleaning every corner of the room in preparation to move, Sisel coincidentally found Rose’s diary and a pendant necklace hidden under a wooden floorboard beneath her bed.

‘Why are unni’s things here…?’

Thinking she had belatedly found Rose’s memento, she happily opened the diary. And she learned a shocking truth.

「March 20th.

Jo had a fiancée. Even though he said he loved me… He was actually just playing with me.

Unable to contain my anger at the betrayal, I confronted him about this fact, but he brazenly came out with it.

He sneered and mocked, asking who would truly love someone like me.

My heart felt like it was being torn apart.

I, who believed in you, your words, your love, was a foolish and stupid woman.」

「March 25th.

Jo informed me of our breakup.

He even threatened that he wouldn’t let it slide if I went around blabbing about our relationship.

How can he be so cold-hearted after betraying my feelings like this.

I told him I couldn’t back down like this out of a sense of injustice.

Even if Jo thought of me as a toy, I’m also a person with a heart and emotions.

I can’t just get hurt and retreat like this.」

「April 2nd.

I received a pendant necklace as a gift from Jo.

Sadly, as he held out the necklace to me, he told me to die.

He said not to tarnish his honor as a knight and obstruct his future.

I’m so sad I can’t breathe. The man I once loved so much now wishes for my death…

What should I do.」

And Rose took her own life at dawn between April 2nd and 3rd.

Sisel, only now learning the reason for Rose’s suicide, was enraged. She wanted to get revenge on Johnny Pattinson, who had toyed with her only family and driven her to death, no matter what.

However, it was not easy for her, a commoner, to take revenge on Johnny, a noble.

As her anger and resentment only continued to build up, the news of Arasila and Demian’s marriage was announced.

「Marriage with a mage? Does Demian Vandermir have no pride as a knight!」

The newspaper criticized Demian, a knight, marrying Arasila, a mage, as distasteful.

Reading that article, Sisel learned that getting involved with magic was a dishonorable thing for a knight.

A good way to get revenge on Johnny came to her mind.

‘It would be an even bigger blow if he gets tied up in not just magic, but black magic, right?’

Sisel diligently investigated black magic in her own way and devised a plan to frame Johnny for using black magic.

She deliberately chose the last day he met Rose to write the accusation. Since he would have no alibi, having gone out to meet her in secret, he would surely be unable to testify properly.

‘The honor and future as a knight that you wanted to protect so much that you even told Rose to die. I will destroy it all.’

As Sisel left the accusation at the Magic Tower, she vowed. Even if she had to bear the brunt of divine punishment, she would make sure Johnny Pattinson paid for his crimes.

She would make sure everyone knew of his sins.

Sisel, finishing her long story, lowered her head, her lips trembling.

As memories of her hardships in coming all the way to the capital with the sole purpose of getting revenge on Johnny flashed by, her emotions welled up.

Johnny clenched his fists so hard his hands turned white. Now that things had come this far, he too had nowhere to retreat.

“That’s right. I had an affair with Rose in secret and broke up with her after my fiancée found out. But is that such a big mistake?”

“Sir Pattinson! Elder Sister Rose died because of your lies! It’s no different from you pushing her to commit suicide!”

Sisel shouted, her eyes turning red. How could Johnny Pattinson be so shameless even in this situation.

Rose ultimately chose to leave this world because he told her to die…

“I didn’t know she would actually die! Suicide is also one’s own choice, isn’t it? She died of her own will, so why are you making a fuss at me!”

Johnny retorted, his neck bulging with veins. Sisel was shocked and lost her soul at those words.

She had hoped he would at least show some remorse. She had come here with a futile hope, wanting to believe that Rose’s happiness in receiving his love was not a lie.

She had hoped Johnny Pattinson would sincerely regret and repent, even now.

But Johnny was not such a conscientious man. Both then and now, all he cared about was solely his own future and life as a knight.

“Captain, it’s not my fault that someone committed suicide. Even if I said something that could be seen as encouraging it, I didn’t directly kill her, so how is it my wrongdoing!”

Johnny pleaded to Demian, looking at him. He feared being kicked out of the Red Stallion Knights because of this revelation.

“Punish me however you want according to the knights’ internal regulations. But please don’t abandon me like this. No matter what, for the death of such a woman, it’s not enough to obstruct the future of a knight like me…!”

“Sisel, can you hand me that pendant necklace?”

Johnny, who had been clinging to Demian almost out of his mind, abruptly stopped talking. He hurriedly whipped his head around.

Sisel was taking out the necklace from her pocket and handing it to Arasila.

“No!”

Seeing that, Johnny rushed to snatch the necklace, but was immediately stopped by Demian.

Blocking Johnny’s body with his sheath, Demian spoke firmly.

“Move and I’ll cut you down. I don’t give warnings twice.”

“…!”

Johnny, well aware of Demian’s personality, could not move. He was a man who would really cut him down.

Arasila, receiving the pendant from Sisel, narrowed her eyes and examined it carefully.

The pendant sparkled white under the moonlight. However, only the front was like that; the back did not reflect the light.

“From the moment I first saw this pendant, it gave me an ominous feeling. I’ve developed a bit of a sense for detecting wicked energy after recently coming into contact with a black mage.”

Arasila drawled, taking out a handkerchief and rubbing the back of the pendant. Johnny’s complexion turned almost as if he were about to faint.

Wiping away the part that had been painted over, a small, black magic sigil was revealed.

Arasila raised one corner of her mouth obliquely.

“Sir Pattinson. You actually did use black magic, right?”