“It was a perfect response, Your Excellency!”

Moren shouted unnecessarily cheerfully towards Sion, who had returned to the hall.

Sion glanced at Moren as if to say ‘what are you doing?’ and coldly passed by.

Though blatantly ignored, and despite his subordinates hurriedly averting their eyes, Moren was not at all hurt by this cold treatment.

‘Your Excellency, are you like this just because Ibi is gone…?’

Far from feeling hurt, he had to bite the inside of his cheek hard to keep from grinning.

Moren had returned from the recent Wisteria Festival with his inner affection and unrequited love for his superior greatly increased.

Your Excellency, who personally warned that Cassel trash for the sake of his subordinate’s dignity.

Your Excellency, who sent me to protect the pitiful saint candidate.

Our dear Your Excellency, who wistfully watched over Ibi.

‘Your Excellency, do you like Ibi that much? We were good too. We even went flower viewing together. I worked hard to help. But you abandon me like this just because Ibi is gone? Your Excellency…!’

Moren followed behind Sion, inwardly being clingy.

Perhaps due to his cheerful mood, Sion’s broad back suddenly caught his eye. Even without loyalty and respect, he was truly a splendid young man.

That’s why Moren always found it regrettable. All of that dazzling person who would be consumed by fate.

Moren knows well the life of Count Laurel.

They crush their bodies every month for the safety of the continent. After enduring to their limits like that, they barely escape that hell when a successor appears. Though they seem to spend a comfortable retirement afterwards, in reality they just wait for death in lavish mansions, empty like dolls.

The hero’s end was like burnt-out ashes, so Moren truly regretted the fate of Sion who would follow the same path.

But contrary to Moren’s expectations, his superior was not consumed by the border. Moreover, recently he has been showing even more unexpected sides.

‘Your Excellency, you’re dating, right? You met Ibi secretly without me knowing, right? I saw the secret passage in your room. You two met secretly through that, right? When did you get so close? What was that sound on the last day? Tell me. Let me know too, Your Excellency!’

Though he couldn’t show it outwardly, Moren was truly miserable on the first day of the Wisteria Festival. The Commander-in-Chief’s eunuch-like aspect of just staring gloomily at one girl from afar tore at his heart.

But when Ibi collapsed in the Commander-in-Chief’s bedroom, when the Commander-in-Chief called for him for Ibi’s sake, Moren was moved by this tremendous twist.

‘As expected of our Your Excellency, you were handling romance splendidly!’

Even thinking about it again made him want to cry. So Moren tensed his facial muscles as he entered the Commander-in-Chief’s office with him.

On Sion’s desk lay the report Moren had placed there in advance.

“This is the quarterly report on the border troops.”

Though he had just returned after staying out all night to break the typhoon, Sion wanted to review a few things before resting.

So he opened the report, suppressing his fatigue, but then furrowed his brow.

“Ah, excuse me. It seems my personal documents got mixed in.”

When Sion frowned at the wrong document, Moren explained as if he had been waiting for this.

“It’s a list of boutiques recommended by my younger brother. I asked for it as reference because I have occasion to give a gift to an unmarried woman.”

Moren waited anxiously for the Commander-in-Chief’s reaction while playing dumb like that.

Sion looked down at that document with interest and lit a candle. Then he burned that impertinent scrap of paper instead of Moren’s body.

“Ack…!”

“It’s noisy, so get out.”

When Moren screamed at having his loyalty trampled, Sion growled irritably. At that piercing gaze, Moren flinched and bowed.

‘Ah, Your Excellency. As soon as you parted from Ibi, you’ve become a heartless person again…’

But this too is love…

Though he was scolded, Moren withdrew feeling like he could fly.

And Sion, having chased away his adjutant, pressed his forehead and swallowed his irritation.

The sensitive Sion had felt Moren’s impure gaze for a while now. So he had wondered why he was acting like that, but to slip a list of clothing stores into the report…

Sion gritted his teeth, resolving to harshly tighten the discipline of the border. Then he turned his attention back to the report.

Just as the Tower Master rules the tower, just as the Grand Duke leads Laurel Castle and its vassals, everything here is under Sion’s control.

The border’s watchers serve only Sion. So Sion didn’t particularly hide anything related to Ibi from his subordinates including Moren. No matter what they knew, they would keep silent for Sion’s sake.

The border’s loyalty was this solid. However, this was not something that originally existed, but something Sion had cultivated himself over the past 2 years.

Sion put in quite a bit of effort to make the watchers perfectly his own. Now that he has formed his own legion, he sometimes thinks:

If he had had these people under his control 5 years ago, he wouldn’t have lost Ibi like that.

.

.

.

Sion, who had wished for death, barely recalled.

The task he had to do, the debt he had to repay, that man’s final request to protect Ibi.

So Sion somehow scraped together the crumbs of his heart. With the mindset of at least accomplishing that much, he got up again.

But contrary to the man’s instructions, Sion couldn’t go to Ibi right away. It was because of his father’s sudden death.

With the Grand Duke jumping to his death from the hall, numerous nobles came here. There was no chance to slip away in that complicated situation. Moreover, he didn’t have the presence of mind for it.

It was two weeks after receiving the man’s memories that Sion suddenly thought of Ibi while deeply immersed.

‘Should I go find her even now?’

The face of that child crying and holding onto the man floated before his eyes.

His heart raced along with it. It felt like the man was reproaching him for only now remembering Ibi.

But the conditions for leaving the hall were absolutely not right.

The man had said not to expose Ibi’s existence to Tienda or the tower. So if he moved now, he couldn’t avoid the eyes of the vice commander watching Sion’s every move.

Moreover, it was now time to prepare for Amanecere’s climate again.

The time that mad dragon sleeps is about a month. So when two weeks pass after Amanecere falls asleep, the hall prepares for battle again.

It was a situation where it was difficult to get away for various reasons. So Sion forcibly suppressed his anxious heart, recalling that Ibi was in a safe place.

‘Since I asked Madam Marso, it should be fine for about a month.’

In the end, Sion decided to go to Ibi as soon as the next battle was over.

But even this didn’t go as planned.

Sion had directly inherited the man’s experiences. So he thought he would be able to subdue Amanecere easily like him now.

However, when he faced Amanecere again with the vibrations from the east, Sion couldn’t do anything.

The dragon he faced with a clear mind for the first time was in itself a distant despair.

So Sion froze, forgetting everything, and was driven to the most desperate battlefield in history.

Sion rose and fell countless times to face the dragon. The dragon cruelly crushed the boy like that.

For the boy, it was an endless hell.

Their confrontation continued for over 50 days, and at the end of the long battle, the boy barely managed to bring down Amanecere. Then he was severely injured and couldn’t wake up for a long time.

It was after exactly a month that Sion opened his eyes again.

During that long time, Sion dreamed.

It was a dream of Ibi.

Ibi, whom he had never met yet but was full of in his memories, was a beautiful but cruel woman. At the same time, she was a lovely and cheerful girl.

When Sion, who had just opened his eyes, was chasing Ibi’s afterimage, an urgent voice woke him.

“Your Excellency, are you awake?”

It was the vice commander’s voice.

“You must get up. Amanecere will wake up soon!”

It was telling him to go out and fight right away. To someone who had just opened his eyes after being crushed by the dragon.

It was a harsh demand, but Sion wasn’t angry. He meekly accepted that this was his situation.

So he came to understand more.

The man who said that woman was his everything.

That pitiful human who came to consider the handful of compassion he barely obtained in an empty world as his everything.

Still, I won’t become like you.

Sion got up with his not yet healed body, muttering this to himself.

And this time, he brought down Amanecere in just three hours.

All that remained for the boy who had overcome his fear was the memory of killing the dragon, and now there was nothing in the world that could stop him.

Sion subdued the dragon and went straight to Ibi.

But when Sion arrived at the village with the rye field, Ibi was not there.

It had been just a week.

It was just a week before Sion’s visit that Ibi had disappeared from that village.

In that desolate empty space, Sion searched for Ibi in terror.

But it was impossible to search this vast continent alone and find the girl.

If he had been able to use the watchers like his limbs at that time, he would have had them search the continent thoroughly.

However, the cursed count was just a weapon, not an object of loyalty, and in the end, Sion couldn’t trust anyone and desperately searched for Ibi alone.

After 3 years like that, strange news came from Tienda.

It was the story of a girl named Ibi Ariate, beloved by Manyanya.

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.

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Sion closed the report. Then he stood by the window and looked at the watchers in the training ground for a moment.

The watchers under Sion’s command form the largest scale in history.

They are the only group that can freely travel between Tienda and Bis, and they are loyal only to Sion.

With this, preparations to conquer the tower are complete.

‘The remaining problem is how to get Ibi out…’

Sion frowned quietly, crossing his arms.

Ibi Ariate, who stubbornly insists on becoming a saint instead of just following along moderately.

So he was even thinking of quietly kidnapping and confining her, but a variable arose.

―Count, do you know what will happen later, the future?

That variable is Ibi’s insight that exceeds expectations.

Thanks to this, Sion found himself conflicted anew. Whether to take over Tienda and bring down the tower as planned, or wait for Ibi to unravel his secrets.

Sion tapped the window frame with his fingertips, weighing the pros and cons of the two decisions.

If Ibi solves his secret, a new path opens for Sion. A more peaceful path where he doesn’t have to use force against Tienda.

But that’s just a possibility, and to achieve the goal for certain, it’s better to carry out the existing plan. The preparations are sufficient, and he’s prepared to be called a traitor or dictator.

So there’s no need to hesitate now, but…

―I know well the preciousness of daily life. So I’ll protect your daily life too, Count.

Sion clicked his tongue in irritation at the voice that rose unbidden.

After a brief conflict, Sion muttered, pushing back the feeling of being toyed with.

If you’re late, I’ll confine you first, he said.

In the man’s memories, Ibi from a time that has not yet come was already the tower’s saint.

That Ibi was duly praised as one blessed by God, and died thirteen times.

Sion closed his eyes at the desperate memories the man had passed on.

Then, as if reproaching Sion who had come too far around, the man’s final request came to mind.

―So this time, be sure to protect her until the end.

Sion, of course, intended to do so.