Around noon on a sunny day. Someone visited the Allen mansion.

The one who knocked on the entrance of the mansion was a man who identified himself as Jeffrey Curtis, the head of Allen Research Institute.

“Boss!”

He rushed toward the mansion owner’s bedroom on the second floor, making loud footsteps.

Bang bang bang!

“Open the door, boss! If you don’t, I’ll really break it down and come in!”

Right now, Allen Research Institute had been effectively shut down for days.

The cause was simple. The boss had disappeared as if he had evaporated.

Originally, his boss had the habit of not only checking all the employees’ work situations, but also insisting on conducting crucial experiments or developments himself.

The reason was a deep-rooted distrust in people; his boss was someone who couldn’t stand not knowing everything himself. This human skeptic had been working like that, overexerting himself and squeezing time.

Of course, thanks to that, it was true that the company ran smoothly without any hitches. Everyone at the research institute acknowledged that the boss’s personality had a great influence on Allen Company’s success.

However, that only applied when he was working like a workaholic.

The boss’s near-obsessive distrust became a great poison threatening the company as soon as he disappeared from the scene.

“Ah, really boss! It’s obvious that it’s not just the research institute that’s the problem, are you really going to do this?”

Jeffrey shouted in frustration.

Until just now, he had confidently said he would break down the door if he didn’t come out, but in the end, he couldn’t be as forceful as his words and just stamped his feet in front of the door.

“Are you perhaps sick somewhere, boss…? No, even if you’re sick, you should go see a doctor, not stay in there like that!”

For a brief moment, Jeffrey showed concern for the boss, but in the middle of speaking, he shouted as anger rose again.

Just as he was about to shout, ‘Are you trying to starve all the employees to death, you idiot!’,

The door flung open and Edward burst out.

Jeffrey froze in shock. He blinked like a carp, staring at his boss.

Edward, who had grown a dark beard after being cooped up in his room for who knows how many days, spoke with a haggard face.

“Doctor… Call a doctor.”

“What?”

“Ear, no, whether it’s a surgeon or internist, there are a few famous ones in the capital, right? Bring them all.”

“Boss, are you really sick? Why suddenly doctors?”

Jeffrey approached him and checked his complexion.

Now that he thought about it, he did look sick. Certainly, the situation didn’t seem strange now.

There was no Mrs. Allen in the mansion, and the boss was holed up alone in his bedroom, looking like this.

Even a neighborhood kid could easily tell something had happened between this couple.

“If I say bring them, then bring them.”

But whether he knew or cared about his concern, that boss was just throwing out whatever he wanted to say.

Jeffrey sighed.

He was really furious, but for now, it was important to get his boss to come to work.

Jeffrey spoke in a coaxing tone as if saying, ‘How could I not know better?’

“Yes. Whether we bring them or go see them, first wash up if you want to meet doctors. And after that’s all settled, you’re coming to the company with me.”

After throwing his demand at the boss, he pushed him on the back and shoved him into the bathroom.

Seeing him go in quietly without resistance despite his large build, it seemed like he had developed the will to act on his own.

After seeing the bathroom door close, Jeffrey quietly went downstairs to find the servants of this house.

The two visited any hospital or clinic in the capital that was either sizable or reputable, without discrimination.

Each time they left one place, the sun tilted a bit more, until finally they reached the time when gas lamps were lighting up the dark streets.

Edward trudged out of the last hospital.

Jeffrey, following behind him, asked.

“Really, Mrs. Allen can’t hear sounds? Perhaps forever like this?”

“…Yes.”

Edward replied dejectedly.

His wife’s sudden hearing abnormality.

Probably just like the late Mrs. Averitt, she too had lost her hearing.

Whether she intended to hide this fact from him, she showed a visibly flustered face as soon as he pretended to know.

She probably thought he wouldn’t know about Mrs. Averitt’s illness. Since his wife had never told him, she must have thought so and tried to hide it from him.

He had heard the story a few years ago. When they had their small private wedding.

Daniel didn’t quite approve of him. He still doesn’t know the exact reason. But even so, he didn’t stop their union, and after the ceremony, he even offered him drinks, saying they should have a chat together.

That’s when he heard it. How his wife’s parents had passed away, and what a painful memory it remained for his wife.

Daniel said, ‘I know this isn’t a pleasant story for you, but if Louisa ever brings up the topic of her parents, I hope you can be a husband who can fully comfort her.’ He earnestly requested, and I answered with a firm commitment that I understood.

But when he came to his senses, he found himself not only failing to comfort her but putting his wife in the same situation as her mother.

He truly felt ashamed. No, he didn’t even have the presence of mind to feel ashamed. He was so self-loathing that from the moment he opened his eyes until he closed them, a part of himself was tearing at his own chest, reproaching his incompetence and foolishness.

If it was the illness he knew, the culprit who had taken away his wife’s hearing was none other than himself.

How was his existence any different from his father, Benjamin Allen, to them, except that he hadn’t taken their money?

So he really hoped it wasn’t that.

Maybe his wife’s illness wasn’t that serious.

Perhaps it was just temporary, coming and going unnoticed like a passing cold.

With such hope, he sought out doctors.

He sought out all the doctors reputed to be famous in the capital and requested consultations, and most of them agreed to meet him upon hearing the name Allen.

There was only one thing he asked all of them.

‘She suddenly became unable to hear without any particular accident. Do you know of such cases?’

And the answer from all the doctors was the same.

‘It can happen due to stress even without major external injuries.’

‘It could be very brief, or it could last for days or months, and if exposed to stress for a long period without proper treatment, it might never recover.’

At those words, Edward felt a sinking feeling inside.

It was me after all.

It was me who broke my wife. It was my efforts. By being by her side, I ended up breaking her.

“Jeffrey.”

Edward, who had been trudging along, suddenly stopped. He muttered in a mournfully sunken voice.

“It seems I truly have the blood of a con artist flowing through me.”

“What are you suddenly saying?”

Jeffrey, who had been walking behind him, also stopped following him. That broad back looked particularly small and shabby today.

Edward looked down at his outstretched hands and said.

“Valeria was right. I clearly swore to Lord Averitt that I would be a husband who could comfort her, make her happy…”

His eyes turned red. He stared vacantly at the ground with his hotly swollen eyelids.

“It was all a lie. A scam. Not knowing my place, I recklessly made promises I couldn’t keep. How foolish indeed.”

“Boss.”

“How… foolish indeed…”

Edward clenched his fists and lowered his head.

The veins in his neck bulged noticeably.

He thought, breathing heavily as if in great pain.

The Allen name, the blood flowing through him, must surely be cursed.

No matter how much effort he made, no matter how much he struggled, the result was always to push everything into the abyss, such a curse.

He hunched his shoulders and covered his face with his large palms.

His efforts only made everyone unhappy.

Edward had lost his reason to live striving.

“Do you understand, Mrs. Allen?”

Professor Pierson, an old professor at the Tanasvarinian College Hospital, said as he pushed up his heavy rimless glasses.

Louisa nodded with a faint smile at the professor’s admonition.

That was what she had come here for in the first place. The only problem was that she couldn’t feel entirely at ease due to her physical discomfort.

The old professor, seemingly not quite convinced by Louisa, advised Daniel who was sitting next to her.

“You should keep an eye on her for a while. I’ll prescribe some medicine, so make sure she takes it properly with meals three times a day, and don’t just keep her at home thinking it’s dangerous, but let her do activities she wants to do in moderation and maintain a balanced lifestyle. Understood?”

“Yes, Professor. Thank you.”

Daniel bowed his head politely. Watching him, Professor Pierson clicked his tongue and said.

“I don’t trust either of you, you or your sister. Looking at you both, you seem to be doing exactly the same thing.”

“Pardon?”

Daniel questioned at the professor’s sudden remark. The old professor shook his head and muttered.

“Carrying the weight of the whole world alone inside, yet when it comes to others, how broad your concerns are, worrying about all sorts of things. How can you not be stressed living like that?”

“Professor.”

Daniel called him softly at Pierson’s lament.

Louisa, not understanding the situation, just looked at the two with an awkward smile. Then the old professor scribbled something again with his fountain pen on the paper he had been using to communicate with Louisa.