Silence fell between Olivia and Cryer as they returned to the study.

It was because each of them was immersed in different concerns.

Olivia considered various options for what to do with Sugar, while Cryer…

“He said it changed.”

Even with Cryer’s sudden, unfiltered words, Olivia could accurately understand what he was referring to because he was gesturing around his collarbone area.

“He originally had a stigma, but it changed when Sugar was born.”

Meeting Olivia’s gaze with his deep crimson eyes, sinking even lower, Cryer quickly raised his body.

Though she still had bandages wrapped around her feet, Olivia didn’t mind as she confidently lifted her crane leg and placed her hand on his back, where vivid veins protruded.

“Yeah. He said the stigma transferred from him to his younger sibling.”

As Olivia spoke, she slowly lowered his hand without exerting force.

As her hand touched his, his hand, which had lost strength the moment it made contact, smoothly descended following her warmth, soon seizing the warmth with her hand.

For a while, Cryer, who had only held her hand, felt the air around him, which had stood stiffly, soften as Olivia withdrew her hand, lightly tapped his collarbone, and opened her mouth.

“There’s a problem with the stigma, but there’s something even more suspicious.”

A flame flickered in Olivia’s blue eyes as she lightly licked her lower lip with her tongue.

“The Levoir family made a ‘deal’ with the ancient god. So what about the wizard?”

“Ah, he mentioned the wizard. We need to find out how the wizard is entwined with the ancient god.”

As if confirming what she said, Cryer, understanding her intentions, added, “Right. The wizard and his daughter have been considered ‘priests’ who receive the ancient god up to now. But what if not? If they were just ‘dealing’?”

She repeatedly spun her fingers or constantly flicked her head while holding the clue in her hand, trying to figure out how to handle Cryer’s stigma.

Stigma, ancient god, deal, slave, wizard, substitute, price, and so on.

Specific words whirled around in Olivia’s mind and then concealed their forms in the mist.

Feeling that something was about to be caught but couldn’t be caught, Olivia impatiently tapped on Amrest as if to shake off her nerves before Cryer could speak.

“Basically, a deal requires something to be given and taken, right? So if the ancient god who made a deal with the wizard is going to receive ‘purification of the world,’ what would be the price the wizard received? No, didn’t the wizard die from the beginning? In that case, the ancient god’s trading partner is not the wizard but the wizard’s…”

“Enough.”

Olivia, who had been mumbling non-stop, or rather, seemed to be talking aimlessly, was silenced by Cryer’s hand before he could utter anything.
His rough and dry hand, which blocked her lukewarm breath, gradually and leisurely swept around her lips, wandering near her jaw.

“Breathe first.”

Only after hearing his words did Olivia consciously inhale and then exhale, shaking her head in frustration as much as she had inhaled.

“I’m too anxious.”

Without a word, Cryer reached out again in response to the sincerity that unintentionally popped out of her mouth.

Olivia, who was held tightly without resisting the pulling force, remained silent for a while.

She buried her face in his shoulder, suppressing her breath, lowering her head, and pushing away his chest.

She didn’t want to see his face now, or rather, she didn’t want to show her own face.

Since meeting him, Cryer had always been the one shaking, and Olivia had firmly held onto him.

But now, for the first time, Olivia was the one trembling.

“When I had the hallucination, at that time. I saw a guy aiming a sword at me and thought, ‘Failed again.'”

At that time, when the yellow star collapsed and the roar reverberated all around.

Olivia, filled with anger and resentment, gave up without sharpening her teeth, unable to continue.

In the end, she realized that the person in front of her was not Cryer, and shattered the hallucination and came out, but the vivid sensation of the sword’s edge at that moment stirred up her anxiety.

Would it happen again this time? Even though Cryer is by her side, will she fail again?

What comes next then? If there is a next… what to do if there is one?

If there is no next, she was afraid of the nonexistent, and if there is one, she was anxious about the existing.

Could she confidently remove the fetters that the man who had killed her over and over again had?

Unable to directly confront the existence called a god, she decided to face the wizard.

So this time, she resolved to survive without fail.

She pulled Cryer in for that purpose, but did it achieve something different from her previous life until now?

Even the traces of the ancient god she barely discovered were all products of coincidence.

Moreover, even those traces were not solutions to remedy the situation but only allowed for such speculations.

Perhaps it’s only natural.