Despite her rather solemn resolution, nothing particularly worrying happened that Aeli needed to be concerned about.

The servants would show minimal interest, as if checking whether she was dead or alive, and then disappear repeatedly.

Above all, the daily life of a four-year-old child who couldn’t leave the mansion and played alone was excessively monotonous.

At most, it was just going back and forth between her original room on the second floor, the study, and the attic where she was now.

‘Wait. Isn’t it not that there are no problems, but that everything from start to finish is a problem, so I didn’t notice?’

Thinking about it again, Aeli furrowed her brow and tilted her head, wondering if she had become dull.

It was hard to believe that this was even an improvement.

How was it after she first decided to stay by the child’s side?

[Adi, are you going to stay here today too?] [I’m not allowed to go outside?] [No, I’m not necessarily talking about going outside, but…]

At the very least, staying cooped up in the room seemed a bit much.

Aeli couldn’t help but worry about the child’s amount of exercise, as she didn’t even think about going outside the attic.

If she hadn’t earnestly persuaded the child to do something, anything, it probably wouldn’t have changed much until now.

At an age when she should be running around playing, she wasn’t even walking properly, let alone running. It was quite a shock to Aeli.

‘When I was about that age, I rolled around in the garden and ended up eating ants, making everyone sweat.’

While that wasn’t necessarily ideal, Aeli still thought her son was excessively static for his age.

No matter how you looked at it, this could only be explained as the effect of being confined all this time, right?

So Aeli would take the child on light walks around the mansion every day, occasionally visit the study to read books, and spend the remaining time teaching the child how to read and do simple arithmetic.

[Do you really know everything in this book now?] [Yes.] […You’ve only been learning to read for three days?]

In the process, it was inevitable that Aeli had to try hard not to fall victim to the chronic disease of parents, the “my child is a genius” syndrome.

In fact, even objectively, she had noticed that he was extraordinary, but she didn’t particularly show it.

There was no one to show off to anyway, and she had no intention of burdening a child who was only four years old.

“Ria, Ria.”

-Oh, yes?

And so, like any other day, after taking a short walk with the child inside the mansion.

It was the day when she had stopped by the room on the second floor to gather paper, quill pens, and ink, and returned to the attic.

The child, who had been playing by doodling something unrecognizable with black ink at the desk, suddenly turned around and hesitantly opened his mouth.

“Today, there’s a fairy outside…!”

-…A fairy?

Confused by the sudden, incomprehensible statement, Aeli rolled her eyes following the child’s gesture. She saw the window on one side of the attic.

As if she had just been right next to the window, Aeli’s eyes, which had turned back to the child after taking in the scene at a glance, were filled with questions.

-Is there a fairy at the window?

“That’s not it…!”

As if frustrated, the child tapped his small fist on his chest and said.

“They said when flowers bloom, it means fairies have come!”

The child, who seemed to have calmed down a bit after taking a nap that day and started using polite speech again, got up from the chair he had been sitting on until just now and stood with both palms flat against the window.

Suddenly, as a brief memory from her childhood flashed by, Aeli unknowingly let out a sigh.

[Aeli, did you know? Fairies come and make flowers bloom.] [That’s a lie. I saw it in a book. It said they bloom when it’s the flowering season.] [……]

It was the same as what her mother had said once.

True to the words, it did seem like flowers had bloomed outside today…

‘I don’t think I’ve ever told that story anywhere.’

How does he know that? Was it actually a playful thing that adults typically say to their children?

Aeli, who had been pondering while carefully recalling her memories, soon dismissed it as unimportant. Since Mari had grown up with her, maybe she had told the child.

Anyway, childhood innocence should rightfully be preserved… Aeli played along appropriately.

-Hmm. That’s right. Seeing the flowers bloom, it seems a fairy has come, doesn’t it?

It had been exactly 31 days since Aeli stayed by the child’s side as a ghost, with a week left until the child’s fifth birthday.

The child, who had made eye contact with Aeli, fidgeted with his fingers and opened his mouth.

“But… if it’s a fairy… wouldn’t it be hard to come all the way here?”

-Huh?

“Because it’s so high up…”

-…Ah.

I know what you want.

Seeing him discreetly checking her reaction, Aeli awkwardly averted her gaze.

Due to the large garden, the attic at the top was the best place to see everything at once, but being so high up meant the flowers couldn’t be seen in detail.

But going down to the first floor meant only part of the garden was visible, blocked by trees.

‘Are you asking me to catch a fairy or something because you want to see one…?’

That was it. At a glance, it meant he wanted to see a fairy or whatever it was, but couldn’t, so he wanted her to do something about it.

However, there was a very big problem with this.

‘No, I’d have to catch it if it existed. How can I create something that doesn’t exist…?’

Aeli racked her brain again. Her writing skills, which had been failing throughout her academy days, were improving day by day as she raised the child.

Aeli, who had clumsily come up with an excuse, opened her mouth.

-Well, I can’t catch anything, so wouldn’t it be difficult? Look, I pass through the bed and window.

“But they said fairies don’t get caught by human hands either.”

-……

“You fly around just like the fairies… Can’t you?”

-……

Strictly speaking, she was floating rather than flying.

One might say it’s the same thing, but it was quite different. Butterflies and bees fly, but ghosts can’t fly.

…How did she know? Well, she didn’t really want to know either.

Aside from speed, she couldn’t go above a certain height.

-Then let’s do this. Since we shouldn’t carelessly catch fairies, I’ll go down instead and see what they look like and tell you. How about that?

“…I want to see too.”

-How about Adi waits until you’re a bit older and sees with Dad when he comes? If Adi sees the fairy first, Dad might be sad that he was left out.

“…Dad…?”

Hmm, was this too much?

Seeing the eyes filled with disbelief, Aeli had to spend a long time coaxing the child, scratching her cheek.

-Adi. Adi?

“……”

-Umm, to check if there’s a fairy, shouldn’t I go down first?

“…Can’t you just call the fairy here?”

-Huh?

“What if you leave me and run away…”

Seeing the child rolling his eyes anxiously, Aeli finally let out a small exclamation, realizing she had carelessly forgotten. It was because of her thoughtlessness.

Apparently still uneasy after the roof incident last time, the child had been inseparable from Aeli for the entire month, like a baby koala clinging to its mother koala.

Of course, since she was a ghost, he wasn’t really clinging to her, but he followed her around just as much.

‘He even asked if I was still outside every 30 seconds when I was bathing.’

If there was no answer for a moment because she was thinking about something else, he would rush out with a pale face and a tearful expression. With his thoroughly soaked appearance, anyone could tell he was in the middle of bathing.

Feeling her chest tighten as if something had settled on it, Aeli tried to hide her complicated feelings and spoke.

-…Then how about this? I’ll go out through the window and come back through the window so Adi can keep watching. You should be able to see the whole garden from here, right?

“……”

-Will you count to 300 in your head? We learned how to count numbers last time, remember?

“……”

-Hmm?

“…You have to come back quickly…”

Aeli, who had finally succeeded in negotiating, nodded lightly and then left the attic.

Turning around to check, she saw the child standing with both palms pressed against the window. His mouth was moving as if counting numbers, causing the window to fog up slightly.

Hmm, it was very cute.

‘I’ll have to use my imagination to figure out what they look like.’

If it really doesn’t work out, she could just say the fairies had gone home for the day and weren’t visible.

Aeli headed towards the garden, imagining various scenarios in her mind. Her thoughts had long since been sold to the child’s birthday, which was a week away.

‘I want to give a gift, but is there no way?’

Just as Aeli was starting to withdraw some of the anger she had felt towards the servants, who had seemed particularly busy since yesterday, perhaps preparing for the birthday.

As Aeli’s steps slowed down as she approached the garden, the voices of the servants rang in her ears.

“What, really? That’s why we’ve been so busy?!”

“Ah, shut up! Don’t you even read the newspapers? The whole empire has been talking about it since yesterday!”

“No, this war was supposed to drag on for a few more years. How did it end so quickly!”

“The Duke suddenly pushed forward a month ago. That’s probably why it ended quickly. I heard it was the Duke who took the head of the Kingdom’s military leader.”

The voices that had started from behind the annex gradually grew closer until faces appeared. Seeing that they were unfamiliar even to Aeli, they seemed to be people who had been staying in the annex from the beginning.

As the conversation continued uninterrupted while walking towards the main building, Aeli soon learned the real reason why the mansion had suddenly become so busy.

“Still, from there to here should take at least a few weeks, is there a need to hurry this much?”

“…They say he took a warp. It’ll be three days at most from now.”

“……”

Aeli stopped in her tracks on her way to the garden, shocked by the news.

-So, the reason for being busy wasn’t because of the child’s birthday, but….

Because of Lutis’s return?

…I swear, this was a scenario I had never considered.