Contrary to the harsh words he had spoken, the actions he chose because he loved her only made him more miserable.

As soon as Cassel received the letter from Riena, he had a foreboding feeling. It was because Riena’s handwriting was uncharacteristically messy.

Yes, as if she had written it in a hurry inside a moving carriage.

Could it be that Johannes, who had learned of all of Cassel’s plans, was trying to whisk her away somewhere else?

Cassel was confident he could find Riena wherever Johannes hid her, but he was afraid she might come to harm in the meantime.

Cassel put the letter in his bosom and was about to hurry out to find Riena.

It was the moment he had just left his office.

“My lord! A message has come from the marquis’s estate!”

It was a message from the maid he had planted in the Belliard marquis’s estate in advance.

The maid said that Riena had disappeared and was nowhere to be seen. She also added that Johannes Belliard was also very angry and looking for her.

The moment he heard those words, Cassel felt as if all the blood in his body had turned cold. If it wasn’t Johannes’s doing, where on earth was Riena going?

“Deploy the manpower to find the young lady. We must find her before Belliard.”

“Understood.”

Cassel also personally rode his horse to follow her trail. Fortunately, he was able to find out where she was headed before Johannes did.

The place Riena was headed to was a bell tower located in the western forest. A secluded place where people rarely went.

Cassel spurred his horse there, trying hard to suppress his anxiety. He was more desperate than ever before. His black horse also seemed to have read his impatient air and ran fast without showing any signs of fatigue.

When the towering bell tower began to appear in the distance, and when he saw Riena standing on it, Cassel was already not in his right mind.

He shouted at the top of his lungs, begging her not to do it, but his desperate voice did not reach her.

She finally…

Cassel closed his eyes tightly, recalling the terrible sight he had inevitably witnessed.

“Why… Why did you do that?”

Riena, whose whole body was stained with red blood, looked up at him with a sorrowful face.

He didn’t want to admit it, but Cassel had no choice but to acknowledge it.

Unless it was ancient times when magic still existed, there was no way to save Riena now.

He couldn’t take her, who was severely wounded, to a doctor, and it was also impossible to bring a doctor here. Riena would surely breathe her last before he returned.

So all he could do was adjust her posture so that she could breathe a little more comfortably and watch over her final moments.

“If you were going to do this, you should have left with me instead. Why… Why did it have to be you…”

Riena didn’t say anything. Just breathing laboriously was already overwhelming for her.

Sorrowful tears fell on her face.

Riena looked at him and smiled with difficulty. Although she was dying, paradoxically, she looked happy.

She was gripped by a sense of liberation, finally escaping from this hell.

As Cassel was angry at himself for letting things come to this, Riena held his hand.

She couldn’t say anything, but he could read her heart through her straight gaze.

That she couldn’t bear to go with him because she cared for him, that he should forget about someone like her and be sure to live happily.

Riena eventually breathed her last in his arms. Cassel took her back to the mansion and personally held her funeral.

Although Johannes Belliard made a fuss, demanding that Riena be handed over, Cassel never let her be taken away.

Afterwards, Cassel took revenge on Johannes Belliard. Quite some time had passed, so he couldn’t properly find evidence that Johannes was involved in Count Dyke’s death, but he secured all the evidence of his abuse of Riena and other illegal circumstances.

When he finally thrust his sword into Johannes’s heart at the burning Belliard estate.

What Cassel felt was not exhilaration, but futility.

No matter what he did, Riena would not return. Even if he were to cut Johannes to pieces here, nothing would change.

Revenge was for Cassel, who was left alone in this world, and not for the dead Riena.

Anyway, after the Belliards disappeared from the empire, Cassel felt that everything was meaningless. He had been solely focused on Johannes, and suddenly it felt like he had lost his purpose.

The dead are dead, and the living must somehow go on living – people around him advised, but it didn’t resonate with him at all.

At that time, Amy, who pitied him, handed him a book. That was the book about legends he was holding now.

“Your Grace. In the ancient magic kingdom, there was an item that could turn back time.”

“……”

“Who knows? If Your Grace lives with hope, you may discover such a miracle.”

Amy didn’t say those words because she really believed in that legend. She was saying, “So don’t give up on the world and live on with strength.”

In fact, after reading that legend, Cassel gained hope. The legend described in the book was a nonsensical story, but he decided to cling to it.

Having found a new goal, he was able to move forward again.

People of the dukedom, including Amy, were relieved that he had regained his will to live, but contrary to their thoughts, Cassel’s will to live was flowing in a different direction.

In fact, he was rushing out to abandon his life.

It didn’t matter whether the power contained in the goddess’s dagger was real or not. The moment he found it, his life was scheduled to end anyway.

Using Winkler’s information network, he traced the remnants of the ancient kingdom and finally proved that the legend was true.

It took a long time, but he also found an artifact presumed to be the goddess’s dagger.

He made all the arrangements so that Winkler would not fall into chaos after his sudden death. He had appointed a successor and documented everything that needed to be done.

Without hesitation, Cassel plunged the dagger into his heart next to Riena’s tombstone.

Of course, he thought he would die.

“……!”

But he woke up again. He had severe pain in his left chest, so he thought he had survived and not died, but the valet who came to him was much younger than the last time he saw him.

It couldn’t be, but just in case, he asked for the date and found that he had gone back 15 years. It was before Riena was even engaged to Johannes.

Cassel was looking at the book that had gone back in time with him and Riena’s letter when he immediately rushed to the Dyke estate. It was the result of his instincts moving first before he could fully grasp the whole situation.

That’s how he met Riena again.

She was in deep sorrow after losing her father, but she looked much better than he remembered.

There were no wounds visible through her sleeves, and she had gained weight nicely.

And the moment he saw Johannes Belliard, who was staying at the Dyke mansion, Cassel had a premonition.

If he couldn’t properly deal with that man this time, he would face the same ending.

So that man……

Cassel, who had thought that far, reorganized the book and put it back on the bookshelf.

From what he had seen so far, it seemed that Riena was dreaming about the past.

At first, she seemed to have regarded it as a strange dream, but now she seemed to have doubts about it.

But Cassel couldn’t bring himself to tell her the whole truth. Not only was it an unbelievable story, but also because of the shock Riena, who was already confused, would receive from hearing that story.

He intended to confess everything that had happened so far after all the issues were resolved and she had regained more stability.

So now was the time to catch Johannes, that man.

“Riena! Riena Dyke!”

The countess of Dyke, who had been quietly staying for several days, came running in a hurry. At that time, Riena was studying dictation with Aaron and Noah.

“What’s the matter?”

The countess of Dyke flinched for a moment when she saw Aaron, but soon knelt on both knees in front of Riena.

“Please save me!”

Amy tactfully took the two children and left the study room.

“What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

The countess handed the newspaper she was holding with trembling hands to Riena.

Was the death of the previous Count Dyke really an accident? A man appears claiming to have killed the count with his own hands.

Riena’s hands also trembled as she read the headline.

‘What is this?’

Until now, she thought Count Dyke had died from falling off his horse. Coincidentally, the place where he fell was next to a valley, so she thought he had rolled down and lost his life.

She only thought that someone had done something to the horse, but she hadn’t questioned the cause of death.

‘But he was directly killed?’

Riena exhaled roughly and began to read the article below.

It contained information that a man named James Cutler, whom she had heard from Cassel a few days ago, had come to the guard and confessed.

Contrary to their plan, Count Dyke had survived after falling from his horse that had become agitated after eating the dessella herb.

He was badly injured, but not to the extent that it would be life-threatening.

James Cutler, who had been trailing him just in case, engaged in a physical struggle with the count and inflicted a fatal wound on him, then threw him into the valley to make it look like an accidental death, according to his statement.