Young Ibi had seen it only once.

The sight of the astrologer crying.

It was a summer night. In the deep dawn when everyone was asleep, Ibi woke up for a trivial reason.

It was exceptionally hot that day. So she went to the window to open it and heard a low moan.

Hearing the suspicious sound, Ibi unknowingly suppressed her presence and peered out the window.

She could see the astrologer standing by the window of the room across.

Unaware that Ibi had woken up, and oblivious to her peeking, he was clinging to the windowsill, crying silently.

Looking up at the pitch-black night sky, he wept endlessly with his hand over his mouth, as if deeply saddened by something.

Surprised by this sight, Ibi returned to her bed. Then, forgetting the heat, she pulled the blanket over her head. Somehow, it felt like she had seen something she shouldn’t have.

‘Is he sick? Did something happen?’

Ibi somehow felt scared. Even though she hadn’t seen anything terrible, she was suddenly frightened.

At that time, Ibi couldn’t know that this feeling was similar to a child’s emotions upon seeing their sick mother.

Ibi spent the night wide awake, not knowing why.

However, the next morning, when she met the astrologer again, he was as kind as ever, so Ibi pretended not to know and smiled. Because it seemed like everything would be alright if she did.

Why is that incident coming to mind now?

“When will you return if you go?”

The astrologer smiled awkwardly at Ibi’s question.

“Don’t go.”

“Ibi.”

“Don’t go, don’t leave me alone. If you must go, take me with you!”

The long-standing anxiety finally became reality.

Ibi had sensed it for days. That the astrologer was trying to leave. That he was preparing for it.

“Where are you going, why are you going?”

The astrologer doesn’t lie to Ibi.

If there’s something difficult to answer, he just smiles faintly and remains silent. Just like now.

At that smile and silence, the color drained from Ibi’s face.

An unfamiliar pain struck her like a push from behind. The name of that pain was a sense of loss.

Ibi thought this situation was nonsensical.

You said we would live together. I clearly said I didn’t want to, but you insisted. You made me feel safe enough to rely on you.

So what am I supposed to do now that you say you’re leaving?

“Listen to me.”

As Ibi turned pale and gasped for breath, the astrologer grasped her delicate shoulders.

“There’s an important matter. That’s why I must go. I’m absolutely not abandoning you.”

“Then why don’t you say you’ll come back?”

The astrologer was once again at a loss for words.

“You’re not coming back? Where on earth are you going?”

Ibi asked, trembling with anxiety, but the cruel astrologer didn’t give a single satisfying answer.

“If you must go, at least show me your face.”

Ibi desperately said to the astrologer. But this too was a request he couldn’t grant.

Faced with these repeated rejections, Ibi felt black despair.

Ibi was afraid he would disappear forever.

Even now, Ibi knew nothing about him. Not his face, not his name, not even the reason why he took care of her. So she felt utterly miserable. Despite the certainty of being loved abundantly, it felt like a hole had been punched in her heart.

“I might be a bit late. So someone else will come instead. That person will explain everything when they arrive. Ibi, don’t cry. Okay?”

As Ibi bit her lip and tears fell steadily, the astrologer wiped them away, trying to comfort her.

But those words brought no consolation to Ibi.

Someone else?

Out of all the countless people in this world, you’re the only one I can open my heart to, so what do you mean by someone else, by a replacement?

“Then at least tell me your name.”

If you don’t come back and I have to search for you, I’ll ask everyone I meet for your name.

Ibi couldn’t bring herself to say these words. She had to quickly close her mouth to swallow her sobs.

But the astrologer understood what Ibi didn’t say. So he let out a faint sigh between his teeth.

At that clear resignation, Ibi could no longer hold back and burst into tears.

“Please don’t go, stay by my side.”

Ibi clung to the astrologer with the feeling of standing on the edge of a cliff.

The astrologer embraced Ibi affectionately. But his kindness was rather like poison.

If he was going to abandon her when the girl fell asleep exhausted from crying, he should have been cruel instead.

He comforted Ibi gently until the end and then vanished like a mirage.

As if he didn’t want to be a bad person despite doing the worst thing in the world, he teased the child and left.

So when Ibi opened her eyes the next day, unable to believe his empty space, she cried for several more days.

If it was going to be like this, he shouldn’t have shown her anything from the start.

Neither kindness, nor warmth, nor loveliness, he shouldn’t have shown her anything. If she hadn’t learned those things, she wouldn’t have known the coldness of the empty space.

He taught the child who had always been alone the sadness of becoming alone, and then disappeared.

He was an unreasoned salvation that came into Ibi’s world, and her greatest wound.

.

.

.

Five years have passed since the girl, who came to hate those who give and take away, vowed never to rely on anyone again.

Ibi Ariate, who stood firmly alone as she had vowed in her childhood, was now looking at her blazing mansion with mixed emotions.

‘This bastard……’

Watching her home burn fiercely with the goal of total destruction, Ibi recalled a certain bastard without a moment’s hesitation.

That bastard was none other than Cassel Montra. The great nobleman who had declared war on Ibi.

‘So this is how you’re going to play it……’

Yesterday morning, Cassel Montra hurriedly left Tuha’s villa right after meeting Ibi.

He seemed to be in a rush to settle something that was bothering him, but who would have thought he’d commit arson on someone else’s house?

‘Did he think there was evidence or records unfavorable to him in my house?’

That could be the case, or it might just be a simple act of venting. Unable to directly touch Ibi due to the Tower’s surveillance, he might have just started a fire instead.

Ibi was quite angry, but she calmed herself with a deep breath. Then she turned to the dozens of maids standing beside her and asked.

“Is everyone uninjured?”

In response to Ibi’s question, the neatly dressed maids answered with their hands instead of words.

―We’re fine.

―But the wife of butler Dies is still in those flames……

―We tried to save her, but the fire spread too quickly.

The maids conveyed the sad news with sorrowful faces. Then they added:

―Our deepest condolences to the butler who has become a widower.

―Finally, an opportunity for us.

―Don’t let your guard down yet, porcelain doesn’t burn easily.

“……Aren’t you all teasing too much?”

At Ibi’s reproach, the maids burst into laughter.

Of course, no sound came from their mouths. But their bright expressions, the shapes of their mouths, and the trembling of their shoulders were so vivacious that one might have mistaken it for hearing laughter that wasn’t actually there.

These maids, who were busy teasing the butler’s love for teacups while the mansion was burning right in front of them, wore white bands around their necks.

This mark, recognizable only to those who knew, was evidence that they had been imprisoned in the Tower’s underground.

―Please be sure to tell the butler.

―We’ve buried his broken lovers in a sunny spot.

―And tell him to stop his wandering and return to a human woman.

Moreover, their treatment of Dies was peculiar as always.

These women, who brightly laughed while teasing the mansion’s only male butler, were once the underground girls who sang with their bodies bound.

They came out of the Tower’s underground with Ibi two years ago.

However, that doesn’t mean they share life and death with Ibi like Dies does.

Two years ago, while making a bet with Rohika, Ibi demanded that the girls imprisoned with her be released. The idea was that since she was doing the purification anyway, what need was there to keep them locked up?

Of course, underlying this request was the calculation that devoted helpers were needed to establish a place in Tienda’s social circles.

And Rohika, fully aware of Ibi’s hidden intentions, readily released those girls. While doing so, she said this:

―You are free. Whether Ibi becomes a saint or returns underground, I’ll let you go. However, if Ibi disappears from my sight, you’ll all return underground.

Thanks to this, Ibi’s relationship with these women is somewhat peculiar.

These women are comrades and fellow warriors who were imprisoned in the Tower under the same circumstances as Ibi.

They are beneficiaries who came to enjoy freedom thanks to Ibi’s rebellion.

At the same time, they are secret agents reporting Ibi’s every move to the Tower Master.

―It seems someone deliberately set the fire.

―We’ve taken measures to prevent the fire from spreading to other places.

―Who do you think did this?

“I think it was Marquis Montra.”

Ibi calmly answered the maids’ questions. The maids responded just as nonchalantly.

―Shall we contact our sisters working in the houses of the Marquis and his vassals?

―We’ll find out who he hired for the arson.

―We’ll also investigate the Marquis’s movements.

Seeing the efficient maids, Ibi smiled brightly.

The number of girls who sang in the Tower’s underground was in the hundreds.

When they came out of the Tower’s underground, a slight trend swept through Tienda. It was an extremely aristocratic trend of employing pale-skinned, voiceless girls as maids.

So many nobles brought the underground girls into their households. Not knowing whose eyes and ears they really were.

“Yes, and please also check on the movements of Grand Duke Laurel and Duchess Bayen.”

These maids are Ibi’s colleagues and comrades, beneficiaries, secret agents. And they are Ibi’s eyes and ears planted everywhere.

Ibi never relies on people. Instead, she trusts. She trusts the cunning habit of humans to live for their own positions and selves.

That’s why Ibi also trusted these maids. After all, it’s most advantageous for them too if Ibi becomes a saint and exerts influence in Tienda.

Although they don’t share the same fate, the underground sisters were good helpers for Ibi.

Having lost her mansion to fire overnight, Ibi had nowhere to stay immediately.

In the past, she might have tactfully sought refuge with a nearby noble, but now it was difficult to do so because of what she had done at the Wisteria Festival.

While a kind and innocent saint candidate might have been accepted, no noble would take in Ibi, who had confronted Marquis Montra and even had her house burned down.

So Ibi inevitably ended up entering.

“You’ve got some nerve crawling in here.”

The lair of the ruthless Sedro, the Manyana Tower.

As Ibi was unpacking in an empty room of the Tower, a certain esteemed person, having heard the news of Ibi’s arrival, personally graced this humble place.

“I heard Ibi caused trouble. I should have had Miel teach you manners after all.”

It was Miel Sedro, a girl with emerald eyes sparkling with venom.

Miel entered the room, but Ibi spoke indifferently, pretending not to notice her.

“I think I’ve said this before, but honorifics really don’t suit you.”

“You’re not one to talk, are you?”

Miel laughed as if dumbfounded. It was a sweet yet vicious sneer full of irritation.

Rohika’s cousin and the next Tower Master, Miel Sedro, was someone Ibi knew even before she appeared in Tienda’s social circles.

They had quite a long history of bad blood as the future Tower Master and a slave imprisoned in the Tower’s underground.

“A saint, with your background? Why don’t you just give up now? Then when Miel becomes Tower Master, I’ll take care of you. Of course, I’ll dispose of your dog.”

“Can you leave? I’m busy.”

“There’s no place in this Tower where Miel can’t be.”

When Ibi told her to leave, Miel instead crossed the room to Ibi’s side. Then she kicked over Ibi’s bag, which hadn’t been fully unpacked yet.

“Everything belongs to Miel. So why can’t you understand your place?”

As the bag tipped over, Ibi’s clothes spilled out.

Instead of getting angry at the sight, Ibi bent down to pick up her clothes. Miel then stepped on Ibi’s garments.

“…Can you move your foot?”

“More importantly, Miel has a question for Ibi.”

Pressing down on Ibi’s clothes with her small, pretty shoe, Miel asked in a voice mixed with laughter.

“Are you wagging your tail at Sion because you know you can’t become a saint?”