“You still!”

“Let’s go, Revil.”

Erina couldn’t wait for the hesitating Revil and took the child’s hand to lead him.

“Hey, hey! Erina, don’t come here!?”

Erina hurriedly left her seat, fearing that she might do something before executing her plan at that monstrous voice.

“Erina!”

Erina didn’t stop walking at Mirea’s unpleasant voice.

The anger inside felt like it was about to explode.

Knowing she had to endure for today and for what comes next, she walked almost running.

With the carriage waiting at the mansion’s main gate right in front of her, she was startled by the heavy breathing from below and stopped.

In her haste to move quickly, having lost her senses, she hadn’t been considerate of the child who couldn’t walk as fast.

“Sorry, are you okay?”

As she tried to let go of Revil’s hand, feeling apologetic, the child trembled and held her hand tightly.

From the trembling at her fingertips, Erina sensed that Revil didn’t want to go back there again.

“Do you want to come with me?”

Without needing to explain in detail why she had called the child there on purpose, or why she had hurried to escape to this place, Revil seemed to have noticed everything.

Revil’s head nodded quickly up and down.

Erina knew painfully well how hard it is to endure moments when you have to stay in a place you don’t want to be, feeling like your insides are turning just from breathing.

That’s why she couldn’t let go of Revil’s hand.

“Alright, let’s go.”

At those words, Revil’s tense expression softened.

Erina took Revil to the carriage and seated the child opposite her.

The carriage started as soon as it confirmed that the two were seated.

Erina was staring blankly at Revil’s soft light brown hair swaying with the gentle rocking of the carriage.

“Are… are you okay?”

Startled by the soft, quiet voice, Erina found herself asking back.

“Huh?”

“Your face…”

At Revil’s words, the stinging, tingling pain she hadn’t noticed due to her anger suddenly hit her.

When Erina carefully touched her slapped cheek, she could tell that the ring had caused a wound.

Erina stared indifferently at the blood lightly staining her hand, then took out a handkerchief and wiped it.

“I’m fine.”

“But the blood…”

“Really, I’m okay. In a little while, that old man will be in more pain than this.”

Seeing Erina’s smiling face, anxiety settled on Revil’s face.

Looking quietly at those crimson eyes, so similar that one could believe he was truly Peiron’s son, Erina felt her heart stirring.

Because of those eyes, even when she didn’t want to pay attention, seeing the child’s face that looked like it might crumble at any moment made her care again.

How contradictory.

“I’m leaving. I don’t know when yet, but I will.”

Revil’s wavering eyes looked at Erina for a long time before bowing his head deeply.

The deep resignation in that posture was pitiful, but it couldn’t be helped.

Revil was the heir to the Iolls family, and she had vowed to no longer be involved with anything related to Iolls.

Silence suddenly fell inside the carriage.

The soft hair hiding Revil’s face as he bowed his head looked like it might drip with tears at any moment, just like the day she first saw him.

The carriage traveled for a while in that state and arrived at its destination.

“We’ve arrived, madam.”

As the door opened, Erina looked at Revil and got out of the carriage.

“Will you stay in the carriage?”

At those words, Revil’s head snapped up, and she saw the child hurrying to get out of the carriage.

“N-no.”

“Alright.”

After Revil also got out of the carriage, the coachman said he would return later and left the place.

Looking ahead, Erina saw a small, quiet village come into view.

It was an impressive place with a small hill next to the village and a stone mountain behind the hill, so large it was difficult to gauge its size.

The place Erina wanted to go was that huge stone mountain.

Erina moved quickly.

As she walked fast, she slowed her pace a little, feeling the small movements behind her.

Taking a detour around the wall instead of cutting through the village, which would have been longer, they arrived at the edge of the stone mountain.

Facing the stone mountain, Erina discovered ancient language engraved on one part.

Although the presence of ancient language alone would have certainly prevented scholars from leaving this place alone, the stone mountain appeared untouched by human hands.

As if by chance, there were only a handful of houses in this village, and with almost no people coming and going, most of those who saw this place didn’t know whether it was ancient language or a picture.

Moreover, although the stone mountain was quite large, it was considered the most useless place in the empire, so almost no one visited it.

In the original story, Rose, unable to bear Erina’s wickedness any longer, runs away from the mansion and catches a public carriage, asking to go anywhere.

As it happened, the carriage driver had business in this village, so they came here.

Rose gets off the carriage and comes here without hesitation, as if she knows there’s something in this stone mountain.

Later, Rose tells people it was a ‘coincidence,’ but no matter how much Erina pondered the original story, it wasn’t a coincidence.

Coming here without a moment’s hesitation and easily obtaining what the stone mountain held, despite the method being unknown, it couldn’t possibly have been a coincidence.

“Revil.”

“Yes.”

“Rest here for a moment.”

At those words, Revil showed unease.

“I need to look around this area for a bit, that’s why. I won’t go far.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Only after receiving confirmation did Revil seem reassured, and he held out both hands.

“I’ll hold the parasol.”

Erina couldn’t hide the smile that naturally emerged.

Perhaps thinking that if he held onto the parasol, she might come back even if she wanted to leave.

“Here.”

Carefully receiving the parasol as if it were something precious, he hugged it tightly to his chest.

“I’ll be right back.”

Watching the child nod, Erina stood in front of the part engraved with ancient language and counted her steps internally as she walked to the right.

‘One, two, three… Here’s ten.’

Having moved exactly ten steps, Erina placed her hand on the stone wall.

The cold sensation seemed to course through her entire body from her hand.

Taking a deep breath, Erina closed her eyes tightly and opened them, internally reciting her name.

‘Erina, Medelia. Erina Medelia. I am.’

A strange sensation was felt at her fingertips.

“Erina Medelia.”

At that moment, the stone wall touching her palm rippled like a water surface with a droplet falling, and a transparent circle grew from her palm as its center.

From a point to the size of a palm, from palm-size to as tall as Erina, and then the circle grew ten times larger than that.

The stone wall occupied by the transparent circle wobbled and disappeared as if it had melted away.

In an instant, the stone wall that had existed in front of Erina vanished, and a large oval-shaped entrance that looked as if it had been deliberately made appeared before her eyes.

“Ah.”

Erina hurriedly ran back to where Revil was.

Although Revil looked startled by the sight of Erina running towards him, Erina’s eyes were fixed only on the stone wall where the ancient language had been engraved.

The large ancient language inscription had changed to the Imperial Common Language that any citizen of the Asilium Empire could read.

The mana stone mine that many had longed for and waited for had chosen its owner.

Not as Rose Iolls, but as Erina Medelia.

In the original story, Rose justified her adultery to everyone by obtaining this mana stone mine.

Claiming that her relationship with Peiron was a love ordained by God.

As seen in the ancient language, scholars and priests claimed that the mana stone mine was a place imbued with divine power.

The reason was that artifacts, the only way to use lost magic, were powered by these mana stones.

The Pechenia continent, where the Asilium Empire was located, had lost its magic after the Mado Era, but artifacts believed to have been created by magicians still existed.

Artifacts were objects imbued with magic that allowed even ordinary people who weren’t magicians to use magic.

However, the period when artifacts were active was not long.

This was because the mana stone mines that powered the artifacts were discovered only once every few hundred years, and the quantity was extremely small.

The size of the mine depended on the size of the mountain containing the mana stones, but looking at the records of historical mana stone mines, most were only hill-sized mountains.

In the original story, Rose Asila obtains a mana stone mine of historically recordable size.

As many claimed it had divine power, the name engraved on the mana stone mine was absolute.

That’s why in the original story, Erina is divorced very quickly and legally, despite divorce being rare in the Asilium Empire.

But Erina, knowing the original story, already knew the truth that scholars and priests reveal in the very last part of the original story.

In the process of an ordinary hill or mountain transforming into a mana stone mine, the name that naturally comes to mind of the person who discovers it becomes engraved.

In the original story, Rose intensely imagined the moment she would become Rose Iolls while facing this stone mountain.

Rose later tells priests and scholars that it must have been because Peiron was her destined man, but no matter how one thought about it, she clearly seemed to know everything.

In the original story, Rose claims she stumbled upon this village by chance, but she directly explained this place to the coachman and headed for the stone mountain instead of the village.

In addition, she acted without hesitation, knowing that she had to move ten steps from where the ancient language was engraved and think of the name she wanted to be inscribed.

The fact about the name engraved on the mine, which Rose claimed was determined by God, was revealed by scholars and priests near the end of the original story, when Erina was dying.

But now, when all those people don’t know that fact, Erina, like Rose in the original story, has gained the power of the imperial family to kick away the Iolls.

How ecstatic, even just imagining it.

She no longer had to live at anyone’s mercy.

She no longer had to endure living with a husband who proudly boasted about his adultery and disrespected her, nor did she have to hope for her family to take her back after a divorce.

Overwhelmed by that fact, Erina collapsed to the ground.

“Ha, haha.”

She had taken away what allowed Rose in the original story to claim that her love with Peiron was a fate determined by God, and what had allowed her to quietly dispose of Erina.

It was Erina Medelia who had done this.