Latieana has disappeared.

After she was sucked into the mirror, the cave collapsed as if an explosion had occurred, and not long after, the entrance from which monsters emerged closed shut. Edan screamed her name until his voice grew hoarse, clawing at the earth like a madman until his hands bled.

“Damn it! Latieana! Latieana—!”

But Latieana did not return, and darkness swallowed the surroundings. Even the faint remnants of light completely faded away. Shortly after, raindrops began to fall from the sky. In the desert, rain was nothing short of a blessing. Edan stood drenched under the downpour, staring endlessly at the spot where Latieana had vanished. Beneath his bowed head, a single tear traced his jawline and fell.

“You don’t know her?”

“No. Who is she? Is she someone you know, Your Grace?”

It was after returning to the North and fighting a fierce battle. Edan stared at Ruben incredulously.

“You seriously don’t know Latieana Merigold? You?”

Ruben frowned as if deep in thought, but soon shook his head side to side.

“I’m sorry. I don’t recall her.”

“Ha.”

Edan roughly swept his hair back. It wasn’t just Ruben. Maximus of the Temple, Emperor Killian and Hillstain of the Imperial Court, even Dante—all of them had forgotten Latieana. As if she had never existed at all, she vanished from everyone’s memory.

Due to the overwhelming flood of monsters unleashed within half a day, the Empire was buried in darkness. Both gifted individuals and ordinary knights were indiscriminately thrown into war. Naturally, the potions stockpiled in the Temple vanished rapidly, and the Temple’s priestesses, overworked and exhausted, began to die one by one.

“Are you really refusing treatment?”

Even while suffering excruciating side effects, Edan persisted solely on potions.

If it were said that the Empire had only one remaining priestess, and thus only one person could receive healing, that person would be Edan. His gift was that powerful—and its side effects equally severe. Yet Edan absolutely refused healing from the priestesses. No, he didn’t even seem interested in recovering at all—as if he had become addicted to the pain.

“Your Grace! This isn’t a battle lasting a day or two. You know full well this war might stretch for years! Just accept the healing!”

“I said no.”

“At this rate, even potions won’t be enough. You’ll definitely relapse into that unbearable agony from before!”

“I know.”

“Then why are you acting like this?!”

“Exactly. So stop nagging me.”

Despite Ruben’s persuasion, Edan didn’t even pretend to listen. Ruben alone burned with frustration over his inexplicable behavior.

Not long after, a letter arrived from the Temple. They urgently requested his presence for an important matter.

After fighting monsters until dawn, Edan arrived at the Temple looking utterly exhausted. Located at the mountain’s core, surrounded by stone, the Temple was virtually the only place untouched by monster attacks.

“We were deeply worried since you’ve refused the priestesses’ healing all this time. But look, Your Grace—a miracle has occurred!”

The moment Edan saw the tree, he exhaled faintly, his eyes crinkling helplessly.

“This has strong healing power?”

“Uh… y-yes? No—I mean, yes. Absolutely.”

The priest who had led him to the tree was flustered by Edan’s sour reaction. After conducting several simple tests, the mages confirmed this tree’s healing power far surpassed that of any previous High Priestess. Especially, it resembled the extraordinarily potent potions stored before the monster invasion—but its healing power was even stronger. Those who consumed its fruit could be completely freed from their agony.

When this was reported to Emperor Killian, he immediately ordered Edan to be informed. He declared Edan would surely rejoice, since the power was so immense he wouldn’t even need direct healing. But Edan’s reaction was impossible to read.

He looked as if he might be happy—or annoyed—or on the verge of tears. A subtle, ambiguous expression. Logically, happiness made the most sense, so the priest concluded Edan was simply overwhelmed with joy. He handed Edan a glass vial containing fruit harvested from the tree.

“Please try it. You’ll no longer suffer from side effects.”

After swallowing the fruit Edan was given, he simply raised his hand and covered his eyes.

“Damn it.”

A low, rasping voice was heard. The priest, bewildered and clueless, misinterpreted the reaction as emotional gratitude toward the fruit’s overwhelming potency, and quietly backed away while stealing glances.

“P-please… take your time leaving.”

After the monster invasion, a rumor spread among gifted knights: The reason Duke Edan slaughtered monsters so ferociously was because he had gone mad from the agony caused by his gift’s side effects.

Yet logically, this made no sense. If it were truly due to side effects, he would have hesitated to use his gift—or accepted direct healing from priestesses. But Edan did neither. He used his gift recklessly, as if deliberately plunging himself deeper into pain—yet still refused the priestesses’ healing.

Occasionally, some refused direct healing—but only while still retaining rationality. That made Edan’s case even more puzzling. Though he never showed it, his pain had already reached a level where losing sanity would be unsurprising.

Standing alone in the vast garden, Edan stared fixedly at the white tree. An ordinary tree would take hundreds of years to reach this size. This dazzlingly white tree—so bright it could be called blinding—stretched countless branches outward, each adorned with innumerable petals blending white and pink.

Though no wind blew, the tree occasionally swayed its branches as if dancing, scattering a warm, pearly light that shimmered with every movement.

It resembled Latieana’s cherry-blossom hair—the soft, fluttering, curly pink strands seen from behind.

From then on, Edan visited the tree daily for a while. He killed monsters with a mechanical, expressionless face, fought until his sword slipped from his blood-slicked hands, then staggered beneath the white tree. There, he ate one fruit and stared endlessly at the tree with an unreadable, tranquil expression.

Gazing at the gently swaying pale-pink petals, he remembered Latieana with a face on the verge of tears.

***

That year, and the next, the North was gripped by bitter cold.

Even the lightest breath produced white vapor—it was a winter so frigid your entire body felt frozen solid.

“I’m sorry. We found no trace again.”

At Ruben’s report, Edan’s crimson eyes darkened.

“I see.”

Edan spoke calmly, as if he’d given up on everything. But immediately after,

“Then search elsewhere.”

Speaking as if stating the obvious, he tightened his grip on his sword.

“Keep searching. If she’s not in the Empire, search foreign lands until you find her.”

“But it’s already been over a year. Half of that was spent excavating the collapsed cave you mentioned…”

“So, Ruben—are you saying you can’t go any further?”

“It’s not that—I mean, whoever we’re searching for, if they were inside that cave, they’d already be…”

Ruben kept trailing off at the end of his sentences.

He understood the desperate longing driving Edan to search for a woman no one else knew—so he couldn’t bring himself to say the final words. Of course, if ordered, he’d carry it out repeatedly—but he genuinely couldn’t comprehend Edan’s madness. He’d known the Duke since childhood, yet never seen him like this. Edan had always been coldly rational, calmly analyzing situations and logically devising solutions. It made no sense—why couldn’t he accept the obvious fact that anyone trapped in a collapsed cave would certainly be dead?

“Then find her corpse.”

Edan coldly tossed out the words before charging toward the monsters.

He decapitated a grotesque, four-armed monster that even four or five knights struggled to subdue, then pierced its abdomen in one swift strike.

Blood gushed like a waterfall, drenching Edan’s body. The metallic scent of blood enveloped him completely.

How many monsters had he killed by now?

Wiping monster blood from his lips and spitting, Edan’s eyes gleamed unnaturally. In this cold so severe that water turned to ice dust in midair, his crimson eyes—alone engulfed in heat—glittered with madness.

No matter how many dozens, hundreds, or thousands of monsters he slaughtered, his excitement never faded. Edan rarely dwelled on regrets—but now he wondered if he’d killed the witch too easily. Shouldn’t he have torn apart every bone, every nerve, inflicting unbearable agony? Would that have lessened this pain even slightly?

The last thing he’d seen was the mirror vanishing. He remembered it vividly. He’d excavated the cave only to search for traces of the magic circle. After six months, the cave’s collapsed floor was finally exposed—but there was no trace whatsoever.

Still refusing to give up, he summoned mages from the Mage Tower to track her. The mages discovered the magic circle’s energy had flowed toward the monster entrances—and stretched outward toward the Temple’s white tree.

Even if you’re dead—even if only your corpse remains—come back. In a world without you, I cannot live the peaceful, happy daily life you wished for.

Latieana, come back.

***

“…I’m sorry. We couldn’t find her.”

“Then search elsewhere.”

Edan still pursued every trace of Latieana, and Ruben, obeying his orders, wandered the world searching for a woman who might not even exist.

Then one day, summoned by Killian’s rare invitation to share tea, Edan arrived at the Imperial Palace—and froze, his lips tightening coldly at the sight of the woman before him.

“Hello, Your Grace. I am Princess Ilia of the Western Kingdom.”

Time had passed. It was right after the official declaration of peace. The spring Latieana had wished for had not yet arrived, but peace had come to the Empire. Days so tranquil—free of monsters, war, and agony from gifts—that they felt almost boring. It was the kind of life one could only dream of. Yet without Latieana, those days held no meaning. And now his brother had concocted this pointless event.

“She’s my friend. She insisted on meeting you.”

His brother’s wife—Empress Venika, formerly the Northern Empire’s Imperial Princess—smiled brightly. It was inevitability disguised as coincidence.

“I’ll have tea prepared in the garden—please join us soon.”

The princess, blushing shyly at Edan’s smile, covered her chest, curtsied, and pinched one side of her dress before turning away with the Empress. Once they vanished from sight, Killian whispered into Edan’s ear.

“Doesn’t she match your ideal type? Not pink, but red hair and blue eyes. Right? And she’s beautiful. A true beauty.”

Are you insane? Did marriage rot your eyes? The only beautiful woman in the world is Latieana.