Hello, Readers! I am celebrating my birthday with extra chapter updates, so please enjoy this special chapter release of 4 bonus chapters! 🥳

(Lurelia’s Birthday Bonus – Update 3/4 🎉)

♡ To all readers who purchased these chapters before my Birthday: I can’t express this enough – Thank you for your support. (*ˊᗜˋ*)/ᵗᑋᵃᐢᵏ ᵞᵒᵘ*

***

The acrid smell of burnt and wet soil enveloped my entire body.

I held my breath, hugging Cer tightly to my chest, curled up into a ball, and crouched down.

However, even after waiting for a while, the debris didn’t bury me.

Slowly raising my head to look around, I saw six spears of light forming a triangular pyramid frame, surrounding Jusepe and me.

“…A barrier?”

Between the spears, something like a glass wall, rippling gently like the surface of clear water, was blocking the falling earth.

Realizing that this was Jusepe’s Divine Power, I gritted my teeth and glared at Jusepe, who seemed completely at ease.

If you had a method, you should have said so, instead of talking about fate and scaring me to death!

“Your Eminence, is this what you call fate?”

“I’ve blocked the debris, but we don’t have enough time. Who knows when we’ll suffocate from lack of oxygen?”

As always, he doesn’t give an inch.

I irritably sat down as far away from Jusepe as possible.

I don’t know how much time has passed.

1 minute? 10 minutes? Maybe even an hour.

Although a faint light was leaking from the spears of light, being silent in a place sealed off from all sides like a coffin was driving me crazy.

Despite having fully prepared myself for this situation.

I gently stroked Cer, who was peacefully sleeping in my arms, unaware of the situation, while sneaking a glance at Jusepe.

He was sitting with his back against the barrier, one knee raised, in an unusually disheveled state.

Unlike usual, there wasn’t a trace of a smile on his face, but he didn’t look like he had given up either.

He just seemed too detached from all of this.

‘Come to think of it, Jusepe can’t even see this light right now.’

Knowing that speaking would consume oxygen faster, I still couldn’t help but open my mouth.

“Your Eminence, when will your eyesight return?”

He answered without opening his closed eyes.

“Lady Blanche, you often speak as if you can see the future. How do you know my eyesight will return?”

‘What a foolish mistake I’ve made.’

In <Hirome>, Jusepe acted as if there was nothing wrong with his eyesight. So I thoughtlessly assumed he would recover his sight and spoke accordingly, but from his perspective, it must have sounded strange.

Fortunately, Jusepe didn’t press the matter further.

“If I pray to God at the temple, it will slowly recover. Of course, that’s assuming we make it back alive.”

“You’re being pessimistic. Didn’t you see this situation in your prophecy? A future where we all survive. Isn’t that why you sent Sir Penadel ahead?”

“I’m sorry you interpreted my words that way. I simply made a rational decision.”

What?

“I judged that we couldn’t save everyone here, so I chose to sacrifice the few for the many. Among those present, the one who would be most helpful in the future was your escort knight.”

“And that ‘few’… includes yourself?”

“If it can save many lives, gladly.”

I was left speechless by his fairness, placing even his own life on the scales.

“So if you have any confessions to make before dying, I’d be happy to hear them. Lady Blanche, you’ve especially accumulated more sins than others, so it might take quite a long time.”

He’s been sarcastic since earlier, hasn’t he?

‘As if he knows about Belinda’s past.’

Without looking at him, I spoke coldly.

“I don’t believe in fate or prophecies. As you said, I’m a non-believer who doesn’t believe in God. So no matter how much you say it’s my fate to die, I won’t believe it.”

This was as much a statement to myself as it was to him.

Living as Belinda here, I’ve been constantly striving to change Belinda’s ending.

In doing so, I ended up changing Vivian’s future, saving the Rat boss who was supposed to die, and helping Cheshire resolve his misunderstanding with Keith.

Believing in prophecies or fate would be denying all of that.

However, on the other hand, I could understand Jusepe’s mind, filled with faith in God.

This world was structured to make it easy to believe in God.

When you pray to God, you receive an answer in the form of Divine Power, and if you disbelieve, that Divine Power disappears.

Therefore, faith itself was almost proof of God’s existence.

I continued speaking firmly, as if defying that God.

“If you believe in God, there’s no room for human will. It means all of this is God’s will, but isn’t such a life too meaningless?”

For the first time, Jusepe reacted to my words.

He opened his eyes and looked directly at me.

Although our eyes couldn’t have met, for some reason, I felt for a moment as if he was seeing right through me.

“That’s not so much being a non-believer as it is…”

Instead of finishing his sentence, he shook his head with a faint self-deprecating expression.

“Never mind. I’ve heard the non-believer’s excuse well. If you ever stand trial in a holy court, I recommend refraining from such statements.”

That really is at the end of every sentence!

Just as I was about to snap at him, my temper flared up.

<Bel!>

Suddenly, Sugar poked her head out from beyond the barrier.

Despite appearances, Sugar, being a sacred being, passed through Jusepe’s barrier without issue and fluttered over to me.

<Bel! A bunch of smelly humans have come! Sugar’s piggy bank is here too!>

It was the news I had been waiting for so desperately.

***

A group of villagers and priests who had come on pilgrimage climbed the collapsed mountain with shovels and tools in hand.

They dug out the debris in an orderly manner under Lionel’s direction, but the wet soil was too unstable at its foundation.

“Sir Knight! If we dig like this, there might be a secondary collapse. We can’t carelessly dig…”

But the villager’s words were cut short.

Thud.

From where Cedric’s sword was thrust, frost began to form, and the mound of earth that seemed about to crumble at any moment froze solid.

After that, people began the rescue operation in earnest.

Thanks to Cedric, they could estimate where Belinda and Jusepe might be buried, and the monsters Belinda had tamed gradually narrowed down the location.

But even as time passed, they couldn’t find the missing persons.

For some reason, Ber and Rus couldn’t sense the exact location of their sibling.

As if some holy power was blocking between them.

Moreover, the range of the landslide was so wide that even if they tracked the location, finding people buried in the debris in this darkness seemed too reckless.

Resignation slowly spread like mist among the group.

Meanwhile, Cedric silently did his job, repeating the same thought.

It’s okay. It will be okay.

But when the tip of his scabbard, hardening the ground with aura, hit a rock making a sharp sound, a sharp regret pierced him.

No, actually, it’s not okay. I shouldn’t have left like that then.

Cedric hasn’t regretted his actions many times.

After that incident four years ago, he has always made choices he wouldn’t regret.

Leaving Belinda’s side despite his uneasy feelings was also because of that.

He understood with his head that Belinda’s words were right, that leaving her was the best and only way to save even one more person.

But why does he regret it even though he did the right thing?

Thud.

The scabbard sharply dug into the ground.

It was dark all around, and as if digging up a grave, people dug the ground silently without exchanging a word.

It seemed like this night without dawn would continue forever.

‘I can’t think like this. I mustn’t lose my reason.’

Pessimistic and dark emotions would make the curse of the demon clinging to Cedric’s soul even stronger.

Just as Cedric was concentrating on freezing the soil solid to prevent the debris from collapsing, clearing his mind.

“Sir Knight! Here, over here!”

Leo, who had joined the rescue party late, spotted Cedric and ran over, panting.

On the child’s wrist, sweating profusely, floated something like a compass made by magic.

Leo knelt down where the needle of that compass pointed and began digging the ground earnestly with bare hands.

“The magical tool Lady Belinda gave me is pointing here.”

“Ratchet, let me dig there…”

As Cedric tried to stop the child, Leo spoke as if he couldn’t hear his master’s words.

“She said she would come back. She told me to come find her if she didn’t return.”

“….”

“So I just need to go find her. She said she would wait. Lady Belinda has never lied to me. We-well, she did lie about making sherbet from snow… and about seawater…”

Leo seemed to choke up for a moment, biting his lips hard, then rubbed his eyes roughly with his dirt-covered hands and concluded bravely.

“But she doesn’t lie about really important things, so she definitely said she would come back.”

Those words seemed to bring Cedric back to his senses.

He stood beside Leo and checked where the compass needle was pointing.

“Yes, I’m sorry. I didn’t trust your master.”

How long had they been digging like that?

Ting.

Something heavy tapped the fingertips.

A blurry figure was visible beyond what seemed like a transparent barrier.

Just then, as dawn broke, illuminating what was buried in the ground.

Squinting slightly as if dazzled by the light, Belinda looked up at them, perfectly fine without a speck of dirt on her, and said fiercely.

“Who dared to get dirt on my Ratchet’s hands?”

Unable to hold back, Leo rushed in, almost falling, as soon as the barrier disappeared.