As if there were no problem, the man, or rather, the brother, spread his arms wide towards Sugar.

“In the end, the fate to become a sacrifice wasn’t mine but yours!”

Sugar clenched their mouth shut. Now that they knew the truth, they didn’t want to mix more words.

In fact, mixing words wouldn’t have made a difference.

“If a proper sacrifice had been offered, our family wouldn’t have collapsed like this! Only one person in that era! Just one person sacrificed, and by now, the name of the empire would be Levoir, not Bolshevik! So, even now, I’ll offer you as compensation! O god!”
In that moment, Sugar’s dying, crimson eyes swirled wildly, and between lips that barely moved, emitting only faint breaths of various colors, a word escaped.

“Damn god.”

Though a voice so small that even the child might not hear, it echoed loudly in Cryer’s ears, who was leaning against the wall beyond the door.

The next moment, without seeing the door opening, a chilly breeze rushed in, ruffling Sugar’s hair menacingly. The man, with shoulders dislocated, stretched his arms wide, [SFX] shivering. As if thunder and lightning, after seeing the limp arms, a sound of something breaking accompanied the pain that surged, and the man screamed with his mouth wide open.

“S-Stop it! Uwaaah! Uwaaaahhh! Aaahhh! Ah…”

“Noisy.”

“Ugh!”

Blocking her ears and frowning, Olivia’s single word made Cryer, with a punch to the man’s solar plexus, collapse with his eyes turned over. Following Olivia’s contemptuous tap on the man, Cryer immediately kicked him to a corner of the room.

Finally, Olivia lifted Sugar, covered the mark, held the child’s shoulders, and made eye contact.

“What do you want to do?”

Though not specifying anything, Sugar could understand the omitted words.

What to do with the beast that cannot be called the brother lying there.

“I… ”

The child didn’t cry, but the throat seemed choked, unable to utter a single word. However, Olivia didn’t comfort Sugar. She didn’t say it was okay, and she didn’t mention that the words spilled by the brother were surely insincere.

Sugar was a child, but not a fool. Uttering meaningless words wouldn’t make any difference.

Olivia simply waited. Until Sugar opened their mouth on their own.

For Sugar, a moment felt like an eternity.

Finally, a voice flowed from the child’s lips.

“Treason.”

“What?”

“Please judge me for treason.”

At Sugar’s words, when Olivia tilted her head, Isaac, who was pressing the man’s back with his knees, with round fox eyes, said,

“He did mutter that he’d become Levoir, not Bolshevik, with his mouth.”

“Treason, huh.”

At Cryer’s harsh words, Isaac, shaking his shoulders, tied the man’s missing arm a bit tighter, as if squeezing it.

If such a level of pain couldn’t open his eyes, the man didn’t even twitch upon Cryer’s striking words.

After the man’s fate was decided too simply and swiftly, Sugar clutched their clothes, bowing their head deeply.
There were no tears flowing down from the cheek and dropping from the chin, but intermittent irregular sounds of inhaling indicated that the child was forcibly holding back tears.

Watching the child in such a state, Olivia gently wrapped her arms around the small, trembling shoulders.

For a moment, the child’s shoulders jerked, but quite stubbornly, the child did not cry.

Olivia, too, did not utter words like “cry if you want” or “you’ll feel better if you let it out.”

People have different ways of dealing with their emotions, and speaking out might sound like imposing tears on them.

She waited patiently, just as she did before Sugar entered this room, sharing warmth with the child and waiting.

In the meantime, Isaac carried the man out, who was hit by Cryer, and Cryer, with sunken eyes, stared at Olivia and Sugar.

His crimson eyes were flickering.

Reflecting on the man’s loud utterance even audible from outside the door, Cryer closed and opened his eyes deeply.

At the moment he was about to speak, he made eye contact with Olivia, and seeing her nod, Cryer simply closed his mouth.

“Ugh.”

Uttering a short groan reflexively due to the child’s seemingly lifeless weight, Olivia blinked at the sudden disappearance of warmth.

“Where should I put them?”

Cryer, who was now holding the child, asked as it seemed the child had passed out.

“In another room, this room is, you know, a bit…”

“Are you planning to stay in the palace?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

Olivia did not immediately decide the child’s fate. Moreover, she didn’t even ask.

Unlike clearing away the garbage, determining the child’s future was something that required careful consideration, no matter how much time it took.

Sweeping away the strands of hair that fell on Sugar’s forehead as Olivia embraced them, she whispered, “Now, take a rest.” The moment those words settled on the child’s blue hair tie, somehow Sugar’s expression seemed much more relaxed.