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*

He kept wandering around me, saying ticklish things. It didn’t just end with words. He would come close as if about to kiss me, and sometimes he would embrace me and cry.

This must be one of two things.

Either Cail likes me. Or he’s become strange in a different way from Yupheon and has turned into a fickle man who says flirtatious things to any woman.

The latter makes more sense.

Whether Cail has recognized my identity or not, it’s impossible that he likes me.

Because the Cail Aleret I remember never showed such signs in front of me.

He always remained by my side only as a polite and obedient knight.

‘Right. It’s absurd that Cail would like me. Perhaps he just became strange after Yuria disappeared like that, unable to handle his grief…’

I stopped.

My thoughts couldn’t continue.

Because…

‘I dislike that woman.’

‘Because that woman, you…’

‘She kept trying to slander you.’

Once again, I recalled Cail’s voice from this morning when he held me and said those words.

Cail said he waited for me all night in the snow just to tell me that.

Why was he so blind and desperate?

Could it be that he really…

‘Likes me?’

Just as my thoughts reached that point again.

‘When will you pounce on me?’

‘I am ready.’

‘Command me. I will help with your preparations.’

I remembered Cail’s voice as he stroked the inside of my wrist while whispering those words.

Flush!

As heat suddenly rushed to my face and improper thoughts began to form, I quickly shook my head.

In the midst of this confusion, I arrived at Count Pluna’s mansion.

The butler, who had looked suspicious when told I was here for a sick visit, guided me to the Count’s daughter’s room after I explained that I was actually a very capable pharmacist.

Many doctors and pharmacists had already visited but couldn’t find the cause. They only speculated it might be an unknown epidemic since many others had collapsed simultaneously, not just the Count’s daughter.

“Sister…”

Felitz grabbed the hem of my dress with worried eyes. He seemed frightened by the explanation of an epidemic spreading among young women.

“It’s alright.”

I reassured him and followed the butler into the Count’s daughter’s room.

Next to the Count’s daughter lying quietly on the bed, I saw the Count sobbing.

I paused.

I sensed something strange from the Count’s daughter who was said to be infected with the epidemic.

I could tell instinctively.

‘…This is not just a disease.’

***

I left the Count’s mansion with a serious expression.

It was no wonder the doctors couldn’t find the cause.

The Count’s daughter wasn’t simply sick.

‘Life force was draining from the Count’s daughter’s body.’

Eventually, she would die as her life force gradually diminished.

Who could have done this?

Where was the drained life force going?

Handling life was the authority of the god Arne.

Could it be related to the Grand Temple?

But why would the Grand Temple?

What were they trying to do by collecting young women’s life force…

I stopped.

I thought of Yuria who had been summoned to the square yesterday.

And the Count’s daughter had collapsed around the same time Yuria was summoned yesterday.

Of course, there was no evidence. It might be too much of a stretch. But…

‘What if they needed young women’s life force to summon Yuria?’

Just as I thought of a certain man who wanted to protect Yuria more than anyone else…

“Pretty one.”

The very man I had been thinking about suddenly appeared before me. He asked with his eyes curved prettily.

“Did you sleep well?”

“…!”

I grabbed him without thinking. Yupheon looked surprised for a moment, then smiled gently with curved eyes.

“Wow, are you greeting me this enthusiastically? I’m getting so excited.”

“It was you, wasn’t it?”

I cut off his words sharply, and he tilted his head.

“Hm? What was?”

“Count Pluna’s daughter…!”

“Who’s that?”

Yupheon blinked his eyes innocently as he asked back.

“The young lady of this house!”

“Ah, so the young lady of this house is Count Pluna’s daughter.”

“Did you really not know?”

“No.”

“Then why did you come here?”

As he nodded as if he really had nothing to do with the Count’s daughter, I narrowed my eyes and asked.

“I just came to see you?”

“Why me?”

“You didn’t meet me yesterday. Said you were tired and went to bed early.”

“….”

My mouth closed shut for a moment.

“Are you not tired anymore?”

He asked with a gentle smile, then suddenly made a concerned expression and stroked my eyes.

“Here, your eyes seem a bit rough. Have you not been sleeping well?”

“….”

“Even if you have a lot on your mind and things are complicated, you need to sleep well, pretty one. If it’s difficult, I’ll help you. Just tell me.”

Though his voice seemed playful and mischievous at first.

“…”

It was gentle. The way his hand carefully stroked my eyes. His concerned eyes as he looked at my face.

Come to think of it, in my previous life too, until Yuria appeared, he was always consistently gentle to me alone.

I remember.

At seven years old. We skipped class together. More precisely, I had persuaded the innocent Yuphe to run away with me.

We were giggling while thinking about His Holiness Johannes who would grab us by the nape of our necks.

‘Have you heard? About the princess from Shunaibel.’

‘They say she’s a witch who ate her parents. Why would His Holiness take in such an ominous thing…’

‘What if that witch eats us too?’

I accidentally overheard passing apprentice priests gossiping about me.

A witch who ate her parents.

I already knew people called me that. So this much was, well, familiar. I was just a bit embarrassed that Yuphe had to hear it.

I turned to him trying to smile as if nothing was wrong.

Hug-

Yuphe suddenly embraced me tightly.

‘Yuphe…?’

‘Don’t listen to such mean things.’

Yuphe, looking more tearful himself, covered my ears with his tiny hands.

As I stared at him with wide eyes, pearl-sized tears started falling from Yuphe’s eyes.

‘Are… are you crying?’

‘Hic, sob…’

‘Why, why are you crying, Yuphe?’

‘Those kids, hic, said, sob, said mean things.’

‘But why are YOU crying…’

‘Sob, hic, waaah…’

‘…’

It felt strange.

Because it was the first time. The first time someone had cried for me…

Against the background of the setting sun, he cried bitterly for a long time.

I think I might have teared up a bit watching him too.

I wasn’t the type to seek petty revenge against people who gossiped about me. I would have had to take revenge on too many people anyway.

But I did go to punish those apprentice priests for making Yuphe cry.

However, somehow they were all already seriously injured in their arms or legs and could barely stay in bed.

When I told Yuphe about this, he said innocently:

‘Maybe an angel took revenge for us.’

‘What kind of angel would take such revenge?’

I scolded him in disbelief, but Yuphe just giggled.

I remember pressing around his eyes with my hands, amazed that these were the same eyes that had been streaming with tears like a leaky kettle.

Anyway, the memory of him crying for me that day was very impressive.

That’s probably why I felt even more hurt when he later turned his back on me.

His gentleness, which had been mine until he turned away from me, became Yuria’s when she appeared.

His gentleness that ebbed away like the tide in an instant was a cruel remnant of the past that I wish I had never known.

But why do I feel that same gentleness from long ago in the way he treats me now?

I stared at him and asked:

“…Why did you want to meet me?”

His lips curved gently.

“To tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“I hate that woman.”

I stopped.

‘Wait, this…’

Suddenly I had a strange sense of déjà vu.

“Really. I never liked her. I always wanted to kill her.”

For some reason, I felt like I had heard something similar this morning.

“Don’t tell me, by that woman…”

“Yuria, that woman from yesterday.”

“….”

No way.

Have I been found out by this side too?