“Humans are solitary creatures, Astrid. When I’m gone, the only one who will protect you is yourself. But you have that strength within you. I raised you to be that kind of person.”

Astrid recalled her father’s final words.

“You were wrong, Father. I have no strength at all.”

But she had to survive. As a vague, overwhelming fear threatened to crush her, Astrid clenched her teeth to hold herself together. Her lips, blistered from the pressure, cracked open, and crimson drops like flower petals formed at the corners of her mouth.

“Astrid! Make your vow!”

The priest presiding over the atonement ritual was merciless in his urgency. Under that relentless command, her tightly sealed lips finally opened.

“…As a sinner who has lost her husband, I, Astrid, vow before the divine to repent for him throughout my life. So that his soul may rest in eternal peace in the realm of the gods, I swear to live a life of prayer and penance.”

The moment she completed her vow, Astrid collapsed before the coffin in an act of penance. Onto her back fell the green thorned vines—a final step in the ritual of atonement.

The ritual symbolized the deceased’s kin or close friends casting thorny vines to assist the widow in her penance. It was customary to remove the thorns for symbolic purposes. Yet exceptions always existed.

“…Ah.”

The thorny vine thrown by Fabiola struck Astrid’s back, drawing blood. Gasps and murmurs rippled through the late Count’s relatives.

“How pitiable. A child who once had everything is now reduced to nothing but a burden.”

“Even so, sending one’s niece to be the second wife of a decrepit man, practically a corpse, is madness.”

“Well, even a half-dead husband was better than none. Now that he’s gone, what will become of her?”

“What else? The children who awaited the Count’s death won’t share even a speck of dust with her. She’s sure to be cast into a convent.”

“If the late Duke Bowell saw this from his grave, he’d weep blood. Were it me, I wouldn’t rest until I avenged the daughter wronged by my brother.”

The woman pitying Astrid quickly clamped her mouth shut. She had felt a sharp gaze upon her.

Fabiola Bowell.

The only daughter of the newly titled Duke Bowell and the girl who had taken Astrid’s place as a noblewoman. Fabiola glared at the foolish group of women with an intensity that was hard to believe belonged to a mere fifteen-year-old.

“Fools. All talk with no substance. Without their husbands’ titles, they’re no better than commoners.”

Fabiola turned her attention away from the women without hesitation and looked down at Astrid.

“Astrid, how pathetic you are.”

Fabiola intended to remember this day for a long time. It was the day Astrid, once the jewel of the mighty Bowell family, was reborn as a nameless pebble.

Astrid, who once had a warm heart, wisdom, and an unyielding character, had been cherished as “Bowell’s Jewel.”

That Astrid was no more.

‘When will this ritual end? I wish for a piece of buttered white bread, a warm glass of milk, and a deep sleep. Nanny Vivian… Everyone, are they doing well? I’ll never see them again, will I?’

Astrid struggled to keep her fading consciousness intact. No matter how grueling it was, the atonement ritual had to be completed properly.

A widow who failed to conduct the ritual with dignity could not enter the convent.

Leaving behind the Bonn estate, the Bowell family, and seeking peace within the convent was Astrid’s only wish after losing her father, her nanny, and all the people who had once surrounded her.

Drip.

“…Ah.”

It was then that a cold raindrop fell upon Astrid’s small, fragile shoulder.

Whether the skies were mourning the count’s death or pitying Astrid’s predicament, they shed tears in slow, steady drops.

Umbrellas began appearing above the heads of the noblewomen attending the ceremony. Husbands, servants, and maids held the umbrellas high, shielding them from the rain. Only As, bereft of any form of protection, stood alone, drenched by the relentless downpour.

“…Disgusting. They treat her like a criminal just because she’s a widow. Typical Hestian behavior.”

A lone figure watched the scene from afar.

Although tied together by mutual interests, neither Duke Bowell nor the Holy Nation held any appeal to him.

That was to be expected. To the people of Croatan, who valued strength above all, notions of gods and atonement were nothing more than incomprehensible drivel.

Rain darkened the shoulders of the foreigner observing the pitiful ceremony of the wretched young girl. Until the wretched ritual ended, he did not move an inch.

The rain, which had seemed like it might stop at any moment, only ceased as the atonement ceremony concluded.

Women who lost their husbands were required to wear white garments for the rest of their lives. The pristine white symbolized the washing away of their sins, urging them to atone endlessly.

Astrid’s ceremonial attire was in a pitiful state. Her mourning clothes, smeared with muddy water and bloodstains, reflected her current plight.

“…So hot.”

Though the rain battering her body had been cold, As felt unbearably hot. Her burning head made it nearly impossible to think straight, yet she carried out the ceremony with quiet resolve.

Barefoot, she trudged through muddy paths, enduring the mingled gazes of pity and contempt. She kept walking.

It was only when she reached the tiny, dim attic assigned to her—a space swarming with rats and insects—that she finally collapsed.

The humble attic of the Bowell estate soon turned into a feverish hell.

***

A man ran a hand roughly through his dark hair, letting out a sigh. It was a habit of his whenever he was troubled.

He felt utterly foul. All because of the repulsive ritual the Hestians called the atonement ceremony.

“Tsk. And they call us savages.”

Frowning slightly, the man muttered a curse.

The Hestians, who so often ridiculed Croatans as barbarians, were themselves a truly barbaric people.

Their arrogance and hypocrisy, justifying and even sanctifying collective violence against a young girl, made him sick.

Though he wanted nothing more than to leave Hestian lands and never look back, he had an important mission to accomplish.

His goal was to secure a marriage with Lady Fabiola Bowell of the Bowell family.

The man’s name was Caleb Lionel.

As the sole heir of Grand Duke Cliff, protector of the Croatan Kingdom, he was the commander of the Cliff Knights, guardians of the border. He was also the king’s nephew and a contender for the throne.

As Grand Duke Cliff’s successor, Caleb bore the responsibility of safeguarding Croatan. This required constant battles against monsters, and securing an advantage in those battles meant obtaining the potions produced in Hestian lands.

“Without a marriage alliance, they would never hand them over so easily.”

The Bowell family held the largest stake in Hestian potion manufacturing.

Lionel and Bowell.

Marriage was the bond that would unite the two families, and Caleb had already been engaged to Fabiola Bowell.

A year ago, the sudden death of Duke Bowell and the succession of the current duke had resulted in a change of fiancée.

To Caleb, such details were trivial and posed no issue. Yet, for some reason, he felt reluctant about his engagement to Fabiola.

“It may be meaningless to say this now, but I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed,” his mother remarked.

“What do you mean?”

“Your former fiancée, Astrid. She was such a bright and lovely girl. I first saw her when she was around ten years old, and I thought immediately that she would make a fine match for you.”

“…That doesn’t sound like you. What’s so impressive about a ten-year-old child? It’s all in the past.”

“I suppose I’m getting sentimental in my old age. It won’t be long before I pass the title of duke to you.”

“Mother!”

“Seeing Bowell Duke’s death reminded me. I spoke out of turn. But poor girl. To have been sent off to that old count as though she were being sold the moment the duke died…”

Perhaps it was because of his mother’s uncharacteristically sentimental words. Caleb couldn’t understand her.

He had never been curious about the young fiancée he’d never met, nor did he care about anything outside his duties to the knights and his estate.

It didn’t matter to him whether his former fiancée had married someone else or what kind of person his new fiancée was.

His sole focus was on securing an advantageous negotiation to obtain the potions and leading the upcoming monster campaign to success.

Though it would cost them some of the mana stones abundant in the Cliff territory, Caleb considered it a small price to pay for mass-produced potions.

The potions of Hestia.

It was a precious elixir of life that could extend the lives of knights on the battlefield. To obtain it, he was willing to sacrifice something as trivial as his marriage.

After all, it might even be a profitable bargain for someone who spent most of the year away from his estate. If the lonely duke’s daughter, unable to endure the barren land, eventually filed for divorce—it would be a matter to address when the time came.

There was nothing to worry about. Then why did this filthy feeling persist?

At a time when he needed to focus all his energy on capturing the hearts of Duke Bowell and his daughter, unnecessary thoughts were clouding Caleb’s mind.

“Damn it. This is driving me crazy.”

The image of a small, fragile girl—her feet bare and muddy, her body curled up tightly, her slender back shivering with rain and blood—kept lingering in his head.

“What does an ex-fiancée I’ve never even met have to do with anything?”

Caleb forced himself to erase the lingering images from his mind. He didn’t want to waste his emotions or time on meaningless thoughts anymore.

He concluded, perhaps too conveniently, that it was just an inappropriate sense of chivalry or a feeble sense of justice, buried deep in his heart, surfacing.

Otherwise, there was no reason why his otherwise sharp logic, capable of providing clear and simple answers to everything, would fail him now.