Reizen lit a cigar on the deck.

For midwinter, it was such a clear day that the sky and sea blended into one. Under the long-absent sunlight, the man leaning crookedly against the ship’s railing exhaled a long stream of smoke with melancholic eyes.

Though the day was nice, the wind was quite cold.

On the ship returning to Sys, Reizen was soothing his burning heart with a cigar.

“Miss Melissa went to see a renowned physician.”

How fortunate that she was alive.

Hearing that the child was also safe, his held breath escaped in a long sigh as a smile emerged.

The pastor, upon learning that Reizen was the child’s father, spoke the truth with a more relaxed expression than before.

“She said she came to Tavania looking for her younger sister, but because strange people were chasing her, she couldn’t go to that house for fear of causing trouble to her sister. And that sister… turned out to be Miss Rael.”

The pastor’s eyes turned to Rael.

Rael clearly wasn’t the type to blend in with the pure-hearted villagers. Though she had moved there quite a while ago, she would screech and throw tantrums like an angry wildcat whenever villagers tried to help her, making her a voluntary outcast.

Hence, villagers had rarely seen her, so no one had thought of Rael when they saw Melissa. Besides, though the two looked very much alike, their auras were completely different.

Still, since it was clear to people that Rael was Melissa’s younger sister, everyone spoke only the truth without any sign of doubt.

“Miss Melissa? She would sometimes play dolls with our child. She didn’t look well. Though she didn’t say anything, the forest grandmother sent her back home thinking it would be difficult to give birth here.”

Thanks to this, Reizen could thoroughly inquire and get answers about how Melissa had lived there, what she had said, and what she had been thinking. And then…

“Let me have one too.”

It was when they were heading back to Sys, dragging along Rael whose hair was disheveled like someone who had just woken up in broad daylight.

Reizen’s eyes met briefly with Rael’s, but he pretended not to hear and took a deep drag of his cigar alone. At this, Rael, interpreting it as mockery, lit up with anger.

“You selfish brother-in-law bastard! If you hadn’t brought me like a kidnapping victim, I wouldn’t have had to beg for a cigar! Damn, you bring me without even time to pack and you can’t spare one cigar? Is it that precious?”

Reizen shrugged one shoulder and said.

“Mast fee.”

“Oh, is that so?”

Rael scratched her head vigorously while speaking sarcastically.

Glaring at Reizen with fierce eyes like an angry cat, Rael grumbled irritably.

“If you’re like this, I won’t cooperate. I won’t! I can find my sister just fine on my own! What will you do if your bait runs away too, huh?”

“Should I sew you up with a fishhook?”

“Are you serious?”

“Probably not a lie.”

“So you are serious?”

Looking at Rael who kept talking back to his every word, Reizen felt she resembled Clara. Though she looked like Melissa, it seemed Clara was wearing a mask inside and nagging.

At times like this, he realized that it wasn’t just Melissa’s beauty that he had liked. Though their appearances were frighteningly similar, they felt like completely different people.

Rael continued grumbling.

“My sister would have given me everything if I asked!”

That’s right. Melissa was problematic because she was too kind. Even knowing she would get hurt, she would give everything if others wanted it.

Reizen’s lips curved askew.

“Haven’t you always taken advantage of that generous nature?”

“You have a talent for making people feel like trash. That’s not it, my sister originally liked seeing me happy, you know?”

“Did you never think that might have been a kind person’s consideration?”

At his words while twirling the cigar in his hand, a blue vein popped up on Rael’s forehead. What had been half-joking before now seemed completely serious.

“And what did you do while my sister was enduring? You never said anything and just wandered around outside all day, did you think stamping your seal all over her body when you came back was enough to be a husband?”

“…What?”

“You exploited my sister’s kind nature more than I did! At least I apologized, but what did you do? You only emphasized sacrifice to my sister until the end, what did you ever do for her!”

Reizen’s face stiffened rigidly.

“Rael Grey. Watch your words.”

At that, Rael mockingly imitated his words exactly the same way.

“Ha.”

The man moistened his lower lip with his tongue and laughed emptily. His neck reddened like heating up, and he seemed about to say something but frowned and held back.

But given Rael’s characteristic of not knowing when to stop once she got started, there was no way she would stop. Rael approached menacingly with large strides and grabbed the burning cigar from Reizen’s hand.

“It should be… hot.”

As Reizen tried to pull the cigar away, Rael yanked it out completely like pulling grass and scattered the burning straw into the sea.

The ship swayed in the wind as fierce waves crashed in. The burning straw, hot as embers, burrowed between the two people while giving off smoke. Through it, the thoroughly angered woman shouted loud enough to make the ship depart.

Through the face half-hidden by hazy smoke came a voice resembling Melissa’s wailing.

“Do you know what gentle people like my sister want after enduring, enduring, and enduring more until they finally get angry? Just one word saying sorry!”

At those words, Reizen’s eyes slowly widened.

“If you made someone like that run away, I can’t even imagine how awful you must have been, really! That’s why I’m even more angry!”

Awful. You’re saying I’m awful?

It felt like being hit hard on the back of the head.

Reizen quietly blinked his clouded eyes.

“What are you going to do when you meet my sister if you don’t even know what the problem is? All the problems will repeat, wouldn’t it be better not to meet at all?”

The last words left quite a deep wound in Reizen’s heart. He bit his coral-colored lips and silently twisted his eyes in pain.

After briefly lowering his head in silence, the man let out a long sigh and took out a cigar from his suit’s inner pocket to give to Rael.

“What’s this. Surrendering?”

As Rael glared while breathing heavily in displeasure, Reizen lit it for her and said.

“Thanks for the lesson. The mast fee is expensive, so I’d like another one tomorrow.”

“What are you saying.”

Rael hunched her neck and made a grotesque expression. Still, she must have wanted the cigar as she took it, put it in her mouth, and even let him light it.

Looking up at the man carefully lighting it for her, Rael glanced at Reizen like she was seeing a strange person.

The next day, upon arriving in Glinford, Reizen immediately received reports on the domestic situation.

People who had been waiting for his return came to the port, bringing along a band to set off fireworks and give welcoming greetings before laying out their reports.

Once again, his schedule was packed without a moment to breathe. All sorts of information poured down like a waterfall, heavily weighing down and overwhelming the man regardless of his will.

Among them, the most notable was a photograph of Selheim and Melissa taken at some rural port.

“The Crown Prince is dead, they say.”

He knew that revolutionary remnants were hunting down and dealing with former nobles and royal family members like hunters. It was their way of venting anger that had been suppressed by the privileged class for a long time.

Some felt it was necessary for self-purification, but he didn’t feel particularly good about those arrows being aimed at Melissa.

Moreover, Melissa had previously said that whatever happened with the Crown Prince’s death would affect her. If she had witnessed Selheim’s death firsthand, there was no telling what emotional turmoil she might be going through now.

Reizen crumpled the photograph with dry eyes. In the distorted photo in his hand, Selheim was smiling. That face, touching Melissa’s hair and smiling faintly, was clearly that of a man in love.

A terrible thirst rose from within.

He unfolded the crumpled photo and traced the face of the woman whose back was barely visible. If she had just turned slightly to the side when the photo was taken, he could have seen even 0.1mm of that missed face.

Regretful, upset, and therefore even more maddening.

“Hah…”

Reizen buried his face in both hands. As he was letting out deep sighs three or four times like that, his secretary came in and handed him a letter, saying it was an urgent communication.

It was a letter from Emerson, who had taken leave saying she was going to visit her teacher in Bayern.