Melissa dove into the crowd with quick steps.

The man behind her repeatedly rose on his tiptoes trying to get a look at her, making it clear he had recognized her.

‘To think someone would recognize me right after arriving.’

This moment rendered all her efforts worthless, having deliberately entered through a port far from the capital.

She recalled the newspaper contents she had seen on the passenger ship during her journey.

‘These days, many terrible things are happening to nobles on the streets.’

Fearing what might happen if her identity was revealed after drawing attention here, Melissa quickened her pace while watching her surroundings warily. But being unfamiliar with the port and inexperienced in traveling alone, the woman looked around unable to find any signs.

She needed to get out quickly.

‘Where is the way out?’

With her mind racing and so many people around, the small-framed woman was pushed this way and that. When she stood on her tiptoes and craned her neck to see the signs from where she stood, passersby looked closely at her face while walking by.

“Did you see that just now?”

A gentleman in a fedora glanced back while telling his friend about seeing a pretty woman.

Melissa pressed her lips together and pulled her hat down with trembling hands, lowering her head deeply. Her hands were damp with nervous sweat. Just when she was about to take a step anywhere while adjusting her grip on the heavy bag, she bumped right into a man wearing a bowler hat like hers.

“Ah!”

Due to the man’s sturdy build, Melissa nearly bounced backward. Fortunately, the man caught her waist to keep her from falling, but her face was exposed in that instant. At the same time, the heavy leather bag fell to the ground with a crashing sound of contents breaking.

The bottles containing medicinal ingredients must have shattered and made a mess.

She couldn’t bring herself to say thank you. Or sorry either.

Though a stranger was following behind her and her dominant thought was to grab her bag and run quickly, Melissa found herself frozen, staring into the blue eyes of the person she had collided with.

For a moment, the surrounding crowd seemed to move in slow motion. Sounds became distant, and the familiar face before her appeared to magnify, etching itself into her mind.

Goosebumps rose from her toes to the top of her head.

It was ‘that man.’

One of the two men she had tried so desperately to avoid.

“Mel…”

He recognized her instantly.

Melissa, suddenly coming to her senses, shook off his hand and picked up the leather bag scattered on the ground.

When she tried to brush past him, pretending to have mistaken him for someone else, Selheim took large strides forward and embraced her from behind. With a thud, though he had merely pulled her, Melissa was drawn to him like a magnet and settled into his arms.

Melissa’s face froze at the sudden physical contact. The man, in contrast, seemed overcome with emotion.

“You’re… alive…”

His tearful voice cracked like drought-parched earth.

“You… were alive… You were alive.”

Though their eyes had met only briefly, he looked terribly haggard. His once-red lips were cracked with scabs, and his skin was pale like Dracula who hadn’t seen the sun for ages.

Above all, both of Selheim’s hands that held her had swollen burn marks.

It seemed he hadn’t received proper treatment and had left them untended.

“You…”

Knowing it wouldn’t do any good to provoke him, Melissa tried to respond calmly. As she tried to naturally twist her body to escape his embrace, his hands tightened their grip making it impossible to move.

“Mel, Mel…”

The man’s voice, hissing like a snake, made her shiver. Her heart began to pound as her eyes reddened.

How could this happen? She had even jumped off a ship to escape this man, yet how could they meet again like this by chance?

Melissa felt devastated inside at the thought that her life-risking efforts had come to nothing. On top of that, the brand on her left arm that she had temporarily suppressed began to throb.

The grandmother had told her to use the medicinal ingredients as soon as she arrived in Bayern, but meeting the brand’s counterpart seemed to reduce their effectiveness.

Melissa tried to pull down his arms with force. Her suppressed voice leaked out.

“…Selheim.”

“Yes.”

“Let go. Please, I’m begging you.”

A ship’s horn sounded long. As workers unloaded cargo, a man called out “Miss!” getting closer through the fishy sea breeze.

Looking at his appearance with a modern camera in hand, he seemed like a journalist from the capital. Seeing the journalist approaching head-on through the crowd that moved like a school of fish, Melissa grew even more anxious.

“Selheim, let go!”

Though she spoke in quite a stern tone this time, he stubbornly just buried his face in her shoulder.

“Is the child healthy?”

The man embracing her from behind, curling around her, lowered his gaze. Looking at her noticeably rounded belly, that was all he managed to say.

To be honest, Melissa was scared. Afraid that if she was dragged away by him like this, she would be swallowed by the brand.

Though she was suppressing it with medicinal ingredients now, there was no telling what might happen if the brand manifested again.

‘I don’t want that…’

Melissa clutched her left arm where the brand was, pinching it while shaking her head.

She didn’t want to be bound by the brand’s restrictions anymore. Moreover, the thought of soothing the brand through Selheim was something she didn’t even want to imagine.

As she felt cornered, heat gathered in Melissa’s face, her eyes reddened, and intense anxiety flooded over her.

She scratched and clawed at Selheim’s arms while crying.

“Sel…! Please!”

He spoke tenderly while desperately holding onto the struggling Melissa.

“I know, Mel. That you hate me.”

“Stop it, let go!”

Melissa didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. After all, Selheim’s seemingly soothing words had always constricted her life like a spider’s web.

“You hate me enough to die, right? Yes, I know.”

You madman!

As she shouted and resisted violently, people’s gazes turned toward them. When her hat fell back revealing her face, the journalist who had been following Melissa from afar pressed the shutter with surprised eyes.

Flash!

When the photo was taken, Melissa cried out even louder.

“Let go, you madman!”

“…”

Selheim, who had been silently holding onto her clothes during Melissa’s struggle, lowered his head dejectedly. While he stood gripping her clothes so tightly they were tearing, onlookers began to gather around the two.

“Isn’t that Melissa Grey?”

“What? Really?”

“What’s she doing in such a rural place?”

“Is it really Melissa Grey?”

As curious people gathered creating a commotion, several angry men pushed through the crowd.

The men carrying longswords and guns appeared to be former revolutionaries based in the countryside.

Melissa recalled articles about how antipathy toward nobles had intensified in Sys recently, with nobles being beheaded on the streets and women being dragged away and subjected to terrible acts.

‘I have to escape!’

Melissa, her face turning pale, turned around while protecting her belly with her hands.

She shouted asking if he wanted them all to die together. As she tried to escape even if it meant cutting off Selheim’s hands, their eyes suddenly met again.

Selheim was crying silently.

Come to think of it, there were no knights around either.

Until just a month ago, she had been pursued by Selheim’s knights, but now none of those familiar faces protecting him were in sight. It seemed a hurricane had swept through this man’s life too…

Selheim spoke with his colorless lips, wearing an indescribable smile.

“Mel.”

His voice was half-buried in the commotion and hard to hear.

When he seemed to be gesturing for her to open her hand, she tried to pull her hand back warily, but the man smiled gently and grabbed her arm to pull her close.

As Melissa stretched out her hand in refusal, the man finally managed to place a small object in it and smiled faintly.

It was cold metal. When she opened her palm wondering what it could be, she found it was the cufflink she had given Selheim as a birthday present when they were young.

The silver cufflink had brownish-black marks suggesting it had been burned.

An item so damaged that even rubbing it hard with her fingers wouldn’t remove the soot. But the jewel set in the center remained intact and still beautiful.

“Why this…”

She had thought it was long lost.

“It’s a precious jewel, so it will help when the child is born. You can buy pretty clothes, or make delicious food. Just… think of me once when you do?”