Sandes watched Erina talking to Bellodi and waited for a moment.

After the two hurriedly finished their greetings and Bellodi closed the door and left, he approached Erina.

Sandes felt sorry for Erina’s slightly gaunt appearance due to Connie’s death.

Erina, without saying anything in response to Sandes’ gaze, sat down in a luxurious chair and invited him to sit.

“Let’s sit down.”

As Sandes took his seat, a servant quietly knocked and entered, quickly prepared tea, and disappeared.

For a very brief moment, silence settled between the two.

“Erina.”

At Sandes’ call filled with concern, Erina held the cup of warm tea with both hands and spoke with a bitter expression.

“I’m fine, Sandes.”

In fact, Erina was not fine.

Connie’s death kept feeling like her own fault.

If she had just paid a little more attention to her safety, if she had listened a little more closely to the news from the Kingdom of Trumto.

Regret endlessly chained one after another.

Every night, she felt like going to kill Headton who killed Connie, and sometimes wanted to overturn everything and ruin the Kingdom of Trumto right away.

It was the first death of a close person since her parents, so it was harder to sort out her feelings.

Erina mourned for Connie, who had sadly departed, repeating between weakness and hardening of her heart every night.

She knew she had to move for Connie, who ultimately couldn’t bloom her flower bud.

She shouldn’t stay still to give the same despair to Headton and the people of the Kingdom of Trumto who led her to despair.

“Sandes, I was too selfish and retreating.”

“Erina.”

“While saying I would take revenge, I was considerate of the other side and too negligent about my own people. I was truly foolish.”

It was the same before the regression.

When Rose was making her into a villain, she should have acted even more wickedly as she wished.

She should have charged in like a madwoman, unable to use any other means.

It’ll be fine, someday they’ll see me properly, the truth will come to light.

They were all vain hopes and empty wishes.

When fighting a crazy person who doesn’t understand common sense, she should have become a villain they couldn’t even dare to face.

She had only made half-hearted resolutions, saying she would become a villain only in words.

Erina berated herself, looking at her reflection in the tea, and bit the inside of her cheek hard.

“So I’m trying to become ruthless so I won’t regret anymore.”

Erina’s golden eyes flickered like a raging fire.

Sandes quietly placed his hand on top of hers, which was tightly gripping the teacup.

“I’ll help you.”

His words made her resolution even firmer than any other words could.

Erina tried hard to smile at his consideration.

“Since we’ve met, I’ll tell you what I was going to convey by letter.”

“Is it news about the kingdoms?”

“Yes, that’s right. The Kingdom of Tula has become so financially difficult that they can’t even pay for regular imports, let alone smuggle out magic stones.”

As Sandes relayed the news about the Kingdom of Tula, Erina mentioned Sereni, who had grown much closer since Connie’s death.

“It seems Sereni has let go of her hand.”

“It seems so. After all, she was probably no different from a hidden source of funds for the Kingdom of Tula.”

“What about the Kingdom of Trumto?”

“His Majesty was enraged that a noble of the empire was killed because of Headton and raised it as an issue between nations.”

Erina felt somewhat lighter as it became visibly apparent that she was slowly tightening their necks.

“How did the kingdoms react?”

“The Kingdom of Tula is desperately trying to solve their finances somehow, but it seems they can’t do much. Trumto is not showing any reaction.”

“They might move soon since they’re cornered.”

“I’ll keep a closer eye on them, so don’t worry, Erina.”

“Thank you, Sandes.”

Erina smiled at Sandes and expressed her gratitude.

[This is the timeline separator]

Unlike the peaceful Erina, the gloomy atmosphere of the Asila Count’s mansion, where it was hard to even breathe, was as quiet as usual today.

Rose was getting impatient with the increasingly tangled situation lately.

There was no progress in any situation, and her surroundings became more isolated as time passed.

Her father, who had acted as if he would give even his liver, was trying hard to live alone, and Peiron had not contacted her since seeing the ancient book.

On top of that, the alliance of small kingdoms she had trusted was slowly crumbling, enough for even Rose to notice.

Moreover, Connie, the only one she trusted, ended up dying because of the second prince of Trumto.

She had marked her to keep as her closest confidant after everything was settled, but she died so futilely.

Connie’s death made her mood more depressing than she had expected.

Rose tried to swallow her gloomy mood and picked up the knife placed on the bedside table as usual.

The prophecies were slowly coming together like a puzzle.

She offered blood to the necklace whenever she had a chance, as the prophecies seemed like they would be completed soon.

Because it was no longer easy to obtain magic stones due to Connie’s death, she could only use the healing artifact once every few days instead of daily as before.

As a result, Rose’s mood sank even further as she saw her scars increasing again, just like before meeting Connie.

“Damn it.”

Sitting on the bed, Rose looked at the scars etched on her arm and made a new wound on top of them.

At the same time, as she raised it to put the flowing blood on the necklace, Rose covered her mouth with the oncoming nausea.

“Ugh!”

The blood scent, which was usually fine, was strangely pungent today.

With the constantly rising nausea, Rose bent her waist and repeatedly dry heaved.

“Ugh! Urgh!”

It felt like everything in her stomach would pour out at any moment, but nothing came out.

Rose clutched her stomach and suffered from the constant dry heaving.

Realizing it was because of the blood scent lingering in her nose, she threw the knife in her hand on the floor and turned her body towards the bed.

With trembling hands, she pulled the blanket behind her.

She wrapped the blanket around her arm dripping with blood and rubbed the blood on her hands vigorously, trying to get rid of the pungent scent, but the nausea didn’t improve.

“Hnngh.”

Feeling that something was wrong, Rose got up to call the maid waiting outside.

At that moment, her vision spun and everything turned white.

“An…”

The sound didn’t continue properly and scattered.

As her white vision turned black, Rose collapsed in front of the bed.

If it had been somewhere else, there would have been a tremendous sound, but unfortunately, a thick carpet had been laid on the floor yesterday at Rose’s request.

The maid waiting outside called for Rose while knocking, hearing the faint but constant dull sounds.

“Young lady.”

The maid was puzzled when there was no answer.

Usually, when she called her like this without being called first, there would at least be a cold reply saying she was calling unnecessarily.

Even an irritated sigh should have been heard, but the room was quiet.

Worried about the unusually quiet presence in the room, the maid, despite wondering if it was unnecessary concern, couldn’t overcome her curiosity and knocked again.

“Young lady.”

With the continued silence, the maid swallowed and said.

“Young lady, is something wrong?”

The maid finally felt that something was wrong.

The maid hurriedly opened the door.

Rose had collapsed in front of the bed, and blood was seeping from the wound on her limp arm, soaking the carpet.

“Young lady!”

The startled maid rushed over to stop the bleeding on her arm while shouting for help outside the room.

Another maid, Renny, who heard the sound from outside, ran in and looked at the room, then urgently approached Rose.

She took the arm that the maid was stopping the bleeding on and gave the maid a signal with an incomprehensible sound.

The maid, noticing Renny’s intention, hurriedly moved.

The quiet Asila Count’s mansion was turned upside down.

Count Asila, Barinen, who heard from the maid that Rose had collapsed, quickly called for a doctor.

After urgently moving to stop the bleeding on Rose’s arm and wrapping it in bandages, then laying her on the bed, Barinen brought the doctor who had rushed to the count’s mansion.

“Hurry and check!”

At Barinen’s urging, the doctor opened his bag and took out various artifacts and tools.

The first industry to develop when magic stones were activated was none other than the medical industry.

They discovered diseases that couldn’t be found before and improved diseases that couldn’t be treated, using all the artifacts they had been storing.

At the clinic, they charged patients for the cost of magic stones and proceeded with treatment smoothly, so they were not envious of the priests with holy power that existed during the magical era.

The doctor who arrived at the Asila Count’s mansion also hurried over on the condition of being provided with magic stones.

The doctor unhesitatingly took out and prepared the artifact.

Then Barinen nodded to the butler standing behind him.

The butler handed over the prepared magic stone to the doctor.

The doctor activated the artifact using the magic stone.

Unknown letters slowly appeared above the artifact.

“Hmm?”

At the doctor’s puzzled voice, Barinen urgently asked.

“What’s wrong? Has some serious illness been discovered?”

“May I ask why the young lady collapsed?”

The doctor glanced at the scars etched on her arm and the newly healed wound while asking Barinen.

Barinen, worried about damaging his reputation, spoke roundaboutly.

“They say she just suddenly collapsed.”

“Has she mentioned anything unusual recently?”

“Not particularly.”

Barinen actually didn’t know.

He hadn’t seen how Rose was doing recently because he had been busy looking around here and there, needing to figure out how to survive if everything she said failed.

“But why…”

The doctor hesitated for a moment before telling Barinen the reason Rose collapsed.