Arne loved all beautiful things in the world.

Of course, what he loved most among them was himself, but occasionally, things that matched his high aesthetic standards were discovered.

‘I thought even then that it was a face too beautiful to kill…’

Arne thought as he stared at Jella’s face while she sighed heavily.

‘Come to think of it, this woman fell for me before, didn’t she? To the point of blindness.’

Although the shell now was different from then, it was natural for the body to assimilate to the soul as time passed.

Therefore, this current body would gradually change to resemble his original appearance, just like the cult leader’s body had before.

Moreover, seeing how this woman kept paying attention to him and sticking close by, she must already like him.

‘Since this woman already likes me anyway, rather than sending assassins and using violent methods, wouldn’t it be better to charm her and make her offer me the holy grail?’

The power of enchantment was inversely proportional to the sense of discomfort felt by the target.

Since this woman already liked him, if he used those emotions, he could easily enchant her even with his currently weakened powers.

As that thought occurred to Arne, the corners of his mouth curved upward.

“Yes, I believe that.”

Arne interrupted Jella’s rambling.

“I understand that you weren’t trying to poison me.”

Seeing Jella’s face brighten at those words, Arne became even more convinced that she definitely liked him.

“Now then…”

Arne looked straight into Jella’s eyes and used his power of enchantment.

-Praise my beauty.

“……”

“……”

A brief silence passed.

“Um, customer?”

Jella tilted her head and asked.

“Were you about to say something just now?”

Flustered, Arne widened his eyes and tried enchantment once more.

-Hurry and praise my beauty! Whisper to me in detail, without hiding anything, how enchanted you were by my beauty!

“You seem to be straining your eyes. Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”

But Jella still showed no reaction. Far from praising his beauty, she was asking if he was sick.

A look of bewilderment crossed Arne’s face.

Even at his weakest, this had never happened before.

‘Ah, now that I think about it, this woman. Even back then at the chapel, her reaction was a bit slow…’

Could it be that she was slower to react than others?

But rather than being slow to react, it seemed closer to having no reaction at all.

After all, several minutes had already passed since his first attempt at enchantment.

‘Could it be that my power didn’t work on her at all back then either?’

That’s impossible.

Arne was flustered. No matter how weakened his power had become, this couldn’t be…

“Don’t you have any thoughts when you look at my face?”

“Pardon?”

“My face! I’m asking if you don’t have any thoughts when you look at this face!”

“Ah…”

Jella finally seemed to understand what he meant and nodded.

Then, with a rather solemn expression, she suddenly grabbed Arne’s hand.

Flinch.

While Arne startled at her suddenly approaching so aggressively, he was inwardly smirking with a ‘Well, of course’ attitude.

“I feel truly sorry every time I see your pale face. You must have been in a lot of pain, right?”

“…?”

“Although it was partly your carelessness for not properly reading the precautions, I’ll still compensate you. Because I’m a conscientious pharmacist.”

“……”

Arne was left speechless.

Looking at this perfectly handsome and beautiful face, that’s all she had to say?

‘What exactly is this woman?’

Arne stared at her with a dumbfounded expression.

At that moment.

The sound of someone ringing the pharmacy bell was heard.

***

In the cold air.

An elaborate carriage passed through the street.

People who casually looked at the carriage were surprised to discover the man riding on it.

On the tall carriage with its roof wide open, Emperor Niel was resting his chin languidly with the gentle smile they always loved.

As it wasn’t a day with any special events, people were puzzled but happily cheered at the unexpected imperial procession.

Niel smiled at them and fingered the hard object inside his pocket.

It was already the end of winter.

Soon it would be March, and spring would come.

Suddenly, Niel smiled as he recalled the afterimage of her waving her black straight hair under falling cherry blossoms.

I remember all of our times together, every single moment in detail.

I wonder if she remembers too.

At that moment, a cold snowflake fell on his cheek.

Niel slightly frowned and looked up at the sky.

“Snow…”

He unconsciously murmured as he watched the falling snow.

Niel also remembered.

Her twentieth birthday.

The day he had finally planned to escape with her soul.

Five years ago.

‘It’s snowing.’

Niel thought absently as he watched the snow falling from the sky.

Across from the rebel gathering point where he stood, her castle was visible.

Perhaps because of the Emperor’s birthday, it had been bustling with loud music and fireworks since the previous night.

The falling snow was heavier than expected. It would likely accumulate after the afternoon, but there would be no hindrance to the plan.

Tonight. After opening the dimensional gate using the rebels gathered at the meeting point as sacrifices, he would run across that snowy field to her.

And he would take her soul to another dimension.

He would take her away forever to another world, not this world that was unworthy of her love.

It was extremely regrettable to have lost Yuria. He had only meant to frighten her for constantly crossing the line, but he hadn’t expected her to run away.

However, he had already obtained all the necessary information from her. How to open dimensions, how to separate souls, how to be conceived as a new life in a new dimension.

Using people’s lives to separate souls and cross dimensions seemed like demonic sorcery from old tales, but…

This world would disappear anyway, the moment she went berserk, and these souls would find peace with her death.

He was merely making their deaths come a little earlier, for a more valuable cause.

He knew it was inhumane and immoral.

But from the beginning, it was something he had started without seeking anyone’s forgiveness.

Tonight. After just this one day, he would bid farewell to this wretched world.

Niel stared at her castle with an expressionless face, then turned away.

The plan went awry that afternoon.

“Your Grace! Your Grace!”

Marquis Clarence, who was serving as the rebels’ chief of staff, urgently sought him out.

“What is it, Marquis?”

Niel turned to face him with his usual gentle smile and asked.

“The atmosphere in the imperial castle is unusual!”

“Unusual how?”

“It seems the Emperor has been assassinated!”

Pause.

His face quickly hardened.

Who had what happened to them?

“Just now, a spy we had planted brought news… Your Grace? Your Grace!”

He couldn’t believe what the Marquis had told him.

“Your Grace! It’s dangerous! If you go alone…!”

“Your Grace!”

Ignoring the voices trying to stop him, Niel rode his horse toward her castle.

In the gloomy atmosphere, people who had not joined the rebels and remained by the Emperor’s side until the end came out to the main gate to greet Niel.

The man standing at the very front bowed his head and offered Niel the Emperor’s golden crown. It was the head servant who had served her most closely, someone Niel was also acquainted with.

“We have been waiting, Lord Niel. Her Majesty was executed by Lord Cail.”

“……”

“All the remaining court people have agreed to support the new sun. So please, be merciful and…”

“……”

But the voices of the courtiers begging him for their lives did not reach his ears.

“…Where is she?”

He barely managed to squeeze out the words, and the head servant guided him somewhere.

The hallway, where only intermittent sobbing echoed desolately amid the silence, was bleak and barren. A sinister air flowed, as if someone had just died.

Thump, thump, thump, thump…

His terrified heart had been beating violently since earlier.

Just as he felt like he might suffocate from the gloomy atmosphere flowing through the imperial palace.

“This way.”

The elderly head servant guided him through the large hall of the imperial palace ballroom to the innermost part, the Emperor’s terrace.

“During the noisy birthday banquet, Her Majesty left with Lord Cail. When it was time to set off fireworks and they hadn’t returned, I became worried and entered despite the rudeness…”

“……”

“We estimate she died in the morning. The body has not been touched as we intended to hand it over to the rebels.”

“……”

Unlike his calm steps with tightly closed lips, Niel’s insides were indescribably tumultuous.

She died?

Who killed whom?

Nonsense.

He knew better than anyone how Cail Aleret looked at her.

He couldn’t not know.

That man had always made Niel Alpenhayer feel a slight inferiority; he was undoubtedly his greatest ‘rival in love.’

There’s no way that man would have killed her.

So all their words were lies.

He couldn’t believe it until he confirmed it with his own eyes.

Yes. It’s an absurd lie. That she died. It can’t be… It can’t be…

But, the moment he discovered her body.

“Ah…”

Niel stopped in front of her body, his lips trembling.

Her body was sprawled on the cold terrace. Covered with thin snowflakes that had been falling since morning.

People said they deliberately hadn’t touched her body until he arrived.

For them, their Emperor, who would have been their shield, was dead, so they probably left her in this cold place out of fear of angering the rebels and suffering consequences.

Thud.

Niel collapsed in front of her body.

He reached out with trembling hands and brushed away the white snow piled on her body.

Her pale face was revealed.

His heart sank with a thud at that cold face without a trace of warmth.

“Why, why in such a cold place…”

He murmured, his lips barely moving with words that escaped in hushed whispers.

“Why are you alone in this cold place…”

The faint murmuring gradually turned into gasping sobs.

“Jella. Jella. Jella…”

Niel hurriedly brushed off the remaining snowflakes on her body.

Then, a painful wound was revealed on her chest.

The mark of the red blade had pierced precisely through her heart.

Niel closed his eyes tightly and opened them again.

His thick Adam’s apple painfully undulated.

No way. Jella… If only, if only you had waited a little longer… If only you had waited just one more night… That would have been enough. Why. Why. Why…

Niel embraced her and wept silently in that place for a long time.