Creaaak-

The warehouse door opened.

The girl who had entered this warehouse following Resban like a mouse caught in a trap stuck close to him.

Behind them were several soldiers.

They were deliberately dressed in black clothes with the emblem of the invading country, but it was obvious.

It was a work planned to kill without any mishap.

“It seems you’ve even made a new friend for a moment.”

“A girl good enough to be sold as a slave, but somehow ended up seeing something unsightly… tsk…”

Mocking laughter could be heard, but Resban did not react.

He merely looked at them with cold, piercing eyes too burdensome for a ten-year-old boy to possess.

The men drew their swords.

Killing a ten-year-old boy in shackles is easier than cutting tofu with a knife.

“We’ll send you off, and your friend will follow soon after. Grit your teeth.”

The sharp blade was right in front of his line of sight.

Resban did not close his eyes until the very last moment.

He would remember the faces of these demons until the end, and pray for their downfall even in the real hell.

Disgusting, filthy traitors, cowardly humans without even the slightest bit of spirit.

“……”

However, the final moment did not come, and Resban’s thoughts were not interrupted.

Because the approaching blade stopped midway.

And then there was a sound of the stopped blade snapping in half and falling to the ground.

Resban twitched his eyebrows.

Something incomprehensible had happened.

“…Your life is truly heavy even here.”

The voice he had heard comes from behind. The small footsteps exude a mountain-like presence in an instant.

The back of a silver-haired head is visible. The hair tie had come undone at some point, and silver hair flutters.

In a place without even a hint of wind, a blue energy is filled around that small back.

Is this a momentary dream?

“It must be because you took away my sins. Thanks to that, my life is peaceful and brilliant.”

However, the clear voice awakens from that illusion.

Resban could only stare at that back with a hardened gaze.

There is something tremendous within that small frame.

That voice is that of a child, but neither the tone nor the feeling is that of a child.

“Damn it! What the-!”

“…Uh… Huh? What are you…”

Those holding swords swung them, but the blades were blocked and could not advance.

Resban did not believe in God. What kind of God would allow the empire to be trampled upon?

But at this moment, he thought that perhaps his thinking had been wrong.

Or that the bystander had changed his mind on a whim.

“Kheuk-!”

Swords that no one’s hands had touched move horizontally as if they were living creatures.

This domain was no longer theirs.

As if she were a witch casting eerie magic, the girl controlled the swords at will just by extending and swinging her hand.

‘You are…’

They say that when one reaches the mysterious realm of a sword master, one can use everything in the world as a sword.

The ultimate power, seeing the vividly living sword, Resban’s pupils wavered.

“Kheueok…”

“Euk…!”

It did not take long for everything to be settled.

The warehouse interior, which should have been splattered only with Resban’s blood, was painted red with the blood of the men.

Everyone had fallen, and the swords were all stuck in the ground at once.

Like tombstones.

Even in this horrific scene, not a single drop of blood had stained the girl’s clothes.

“……”

The girl turned her head.

That gaze was completely different from the innocence of before. To the extent that one could tell it was a different person.

But it’s lonely. Resban felt a subtle sense of kinship in that gaze.

Those small lips moved.

“I’ll take responsibility.”

“…Who… are you?”

With a single gesture from the girl, the shackles were cut off like paper.

Staggering to his feet, Resban asked.

The child before his eyes could not possibly be an ordinary girl.

“A wandering spirit of the void with only hatred left in its bones. A spirit.”

The low voice sounds calm.

It seemed as if the universe was contained in the girl’s blue eyes.

“Don’t remember me. There was nothing good to remember about that woman anyway.”

Extending her white, slender hand gently towards the air, the girl said.

“The sins were all mine alone.”

Following the girl’s hand, unknown characters with a blue glow floated in the air.

They were different from the letters used in the empire.

“Please, be happy from now on. Elder brother Dokyoung.”

At those words, Resban felt a pain in his chest.

The girl continued.

“The only sunlight in my life filled with hostility and evil.”

The girl turned to look at Resban.

A faint smile had appeared on her lips.

**

“Esika, Esika!”

Esika opened her eyes to Resban’s cry.

She seemed to have fainted, and he was holding her in his arms.

‘He was elder brother Dokyoung.’

When she was a spirit of the Thousand Demon God Church, there was a man she had lived with like family.

Dokyoung, who was her father’s successor.

Perhaps Resban’s past life was that man.

She had thought their smiles looked similar… She was right.

When Resban was in danger as a child in Hasetsu, the spirit’s consciousness within young Esika had awakened and saved him. That was the content of the lost memory.

“…When I said I would take responsibility, that’s not what I meant.”

Tears fell down Esika’s chin.

“I meant for you to live well on your own.”

Resban stared at Esika with a hardened face for a long time.

Soon, with a small sigh, he wiped her tears and met her gaze.

“I remember now. What happened in Hasetsu.”

“……”

Esika looked at him with tear-filled eyes, leaning on Resban’s broad shoulder.

No, she doesn’t remember everything.

The only thing that clearly comes to mind about what happened when Esika was eight years old is… that burning, sorrowful feeling.

Esika had saved Resban, Dokyoung’s reincarnation, but felt tremendous guilt towards him.

As if watching a man voluntarily taking punishment in her stead… saying she would take responsibility meant she would take back that punishment.

‘Everything will become clear when the memory of death in the past life returns.’

Callian was the reincarnation of the emperor whom Esika had loved but who had betrayed her in her past life,

Esika herself was the reincarnation of the world’s most evil woman, the Thousand Demon Spirit,

And Resban was the reincarnation of Dokyoung, the only man she could trust.

Although Esika is the only one who remembers her past life, there must be a reason why everyone has come to live a new life here.

Perhaps if the final situation in which everyone died is remembered, it could explain that reason.

“As I’ve said before, I’m stubborn and selfish.”

Resban moved his lips with a faint smile.

“So regardless of what your true intentions were, I can only interpret them as I please.”

“……”

“I’ve heard your rejection well, and I respect your plans. But…”

What kind of man was Dokyoung?

He was of a quiet nature and always by her side.

When she said she would leave, he tried to dissuade her, and when she wouldn’t budge, he supported her.

And in the final moment…

“Spirit… I…”

At this moment, facing Resban’s golden eyes, she seems to hear his voice.

A voice of desperate regret, a voice of unwavering determination.

Resban continued speaking.

“Your rejection, I’ll make it so that I reject it.”

Resban was looking at her.

Under the moonlight, Resban’s coolly shining eyes and voice were unfaltering.

“The reason I want you is.”

A gentle, low confessing voice flows into her ears.

“It’s an irresistible force, Esika.”

Thump, thump, mischievously her heart beats.

What should I do with you?

What should I say to you?

Suddenly, he gently kissed her forehead.

She flinched around her eyes and slowly closed them. Her heart tickles and grows hot.

**

“…Grand Duchess?”

“……”

As the prison bars opened and Riona entered the cell, Yuri’s face hardened.

Riona sat on the chair in the corner with a cold expression, not even acknowledging Yuri.

Yuri stared at her blankly for a moment before suddenly putting on an urgent expression and going to the Grand Duchess.

She still hadn’t believed it until now.

That Klaus’s investment had failed and the family had gone bankrupt.

“Why did you come here, Grand Duchess?”

“Hmph.”

Riona turned her head as if she didn’t even want to mingle words.

“No… Why did you come here?!”

The red veins in Yuri’s whites of her eyes deepened.

At Yuri’s shout that seemed to be interrogating her, Riona looked up at Yuri with a fierce expression.

“How dare you raise your voice in front of whom?!”

“Did you really… Did you really lose all of Klaus’s fortune?”

Yuri’s voice trembled at the end.

“You didn’t, right? There’s no way, there’s no way that could happen, right?”

Yuri desperately denied it and asked Riona.

The corners of her lips trembled slightly.

Riona spoke to Yuri, irritated.

“Whatever happens to Klaus’s fortune is none of your business!”

At those words, Yuri furrowed her brows and burst out in anger.

“Why is it none of my business! This child in my womb is the Duke’s son! Klaus’s fortune is our child’s fortune!!”

“Ha!”

Riona looked Yuri up and down as if in disbelief and said.

“I knew you weren’t in your right mind, but you were dreaming foolish dreams. Even if lowly blood receives good seed, it’s still half mixed with the lowly, how could it become Klaus’s pillar?”

“……”

“Callian’s successor will naturally come from a daughter of high nobility. Even if you give birth to a child, it will be a bastard. I deliberately drove a wedge between that woman Esika and Callian to make it easier to divorce and drive her out later, do you think someone like you would be worthy in my eyes?”

Glaring at her as the arrogant tirade continued, Yuri opened her mouth.

“You’re of lowly blood too, aren’t you, Grand Duchess?”

At Yuri’s words, Riona’s eyebrows twitched.