Evans thought about the pain Duncan had suffered long ago.

He thought Duncan had overcome it, but perhaps the unhealed wound had reopened and affected his mind.

Maybe he was acting more strange because his birthday was approaching.

After all, Duncan’s mother had considered the day of his birth horrible.

That’s why she had never once celebrated his birthday.

‘Now that I think about the reason for his sudden madness, it’s quite pitiful.’

Evans finally agreed with Duncan’s opinion.

“Yes. Master is truly cute.”

“Are you crazy?”

Wait, I gave the answer you wanted, so what’s the problem?

Evans was at a loss, not knowing which tune to dance to.

This won’t do, he needed to change the subject.

“Did you deliver the new watch to Guide Yerena well?”

“Yeah. Delivered it naturally.”

“That must be a relief now.”

“Yes, I feel alive. I’m satisfied knowing my darling is in the palm of my hand.”

Duncan, now in a good mood, whistled cheerfully.

The watch he gave to Yerena, claiming it was the first-place prize.

As she had suspected, it was indeed made by the blacksmith Esper who belonged to the Center.

They had no choice but to borrow his skills to create a watch with multiple functions.

Though they had glossed over it somehow, fortunately, Yerena hadn’t been too suspicious.

While he said it was a substitute for the communication orb, Duncan had a different reason for giving Yerena the new watch.

Duncan silently recalled what had happened recently.

How Yerena, lacking vigilance and caution, had gone to save Potas without thinking of the consequences. How she had been threatened by poachers.

His humming stopped abruptly, and Duncan’s mood plummeted in an instant.

‘If I had been just a little later… If I hadn’t happened to be in that area…’

Something too horrible to imagine might have happened.

Though Duncan pretended to be unfazed, he was deeply shocked by how close he had come to losing Yerena.

He didn’t want to feel that strange despair and loss again, like when he had faced her falling from the cliff.

After that, he became extremely concerned about her whereabouts.

He even lost sleep worrying that she, with her excessive kindness, might do something reckless again.

Already overwhelmed with opposing Benjamin and Rosie, Duncan felt like he was going mad when he couldn’t even sleep.

His head ached from the confusion and irritation, the first such feelings since escaping his suffocating past.

Unable to bear this anxiety, Duncan’s solution was a ‘tracking device.’

Though he wanted to watch over Yerena by her side, since he couldn’t do that, he at least wanted to know her current location.

He felt he could sleep peacefully if he knew where she was.

Thus, he created the watch he gave her today.

More precisely, a watch with a built-in tracking device.

Seeing her wear the watch made him feel relieved, as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Tonight, he should be able to sleep peacefully without worry.

‘Why am I so concerned? Have I grown too attached?’

Perhaps because he had gotten too close to her, second only to Evans, he even told her about his birthday.

His birthday, known only to Evans, had never been celebrated.

He had shared this unwelcome date with Yerena.

It wasn’t because he was shocked by her saying she would leave the capital. Duncan had anticipated their eventual parting.

Her stay in the capital was only until Jinjijo Transportation was established.

Yet when he felt their parting approaching, an indescribable feeling of wanting to hold onto her emerged.

Perhaps that’s why he unconsciously used his birthday as an excuse to buy time with her.

What was so special about a birthday anyway?

It was a day he wanted to erase.

‘Even though it’s my own heart, I can’t understand it.’

Before his heart grew more suffocating, he should check Yerena’s current location.

He felt his mood would improve again if he confirmed she was safe.

Duncan pressed his watch screen several times. Then, Yerena’s location appeared as a red dot on the empire’s map.

‘She’s safely at her office.’

A faint smile appeared on Duncan’s momentarily frozen face.

See, his mood improved again.

“Master. You’re making a bit of a criminal face right now.”

“What?”

“I’m worried this might be an invasion of privacy.”

“That’s not my intention. I just want to protect her.”

“……”

“Now she can never escape from me.”

Duncan’s voice carried an impatient obsession in those words.

Evans couldn’t talk back.

While he knew the Duncan who was indifferent to worldly affairs and only interested in making money, he didn’t know this Duncan who was obsessed with a woman.

He couldn’t gauge how to respond to this unfamiliar side of his superior.

At this rate, what he had worried about might happen soon. That thing where the two of them fall in love with each other.

Of course, unlike what he had thought before, Duncan might develop genuine feelings for Yerena.

In the past, Evans had predicted it would end with just Yerena having a one-sided crush on Duncan, not mutual feelings.

But his thought that the weight of their feelings would be different remained unchanged.

It didn’t seem like Duncan would love someone deeply, to the point of sacrificing his life.

Then who among the two would be the unhappy one?

Evans suddenly recalled Yerena from the carriage.

“What does Duncan like? What gift would make him blush and be happy?”

He vividly remembered Yerena asking this while unaware of her own blushing face as she mentioned Duncan’s potential blush.

‘I hope she doesn’t get hurt.’

Evans let out a heavy sigh.

Lately, working as Duncan’s assistant felt tiring.

***

In the Chelsea Center’s break room, the gathered guides and espers were too busy discussing what happened at today’s battlefield to actually rest.

“As soon as the new guide appeared, their eyes lit up, and they were completely smitten with the new guide!”

“They were in chaos, fighting over who would take the new guide. If that guide had appeared when we hadn’t killed the monster yet, some might have died.”

“They wouldn’t have cared who died. The new guide looked so much like ‘that woman’ they’d been longing for. How fortunate that no one died.”

At that moment, a guide who had just entered the break room joined the conversation.

He was a guide who hadn’t participated in today’s mission.

“Who are ‘they,’ the new guide, and ‘that woman’?”

One of the people talking answered in a low voice.

“‘They’ refers to the three espers of the Allen Knights. And you know that name that must never be spoken in Chelsea Center because of those three espers? ‘That woman’ is the owner of that name.”

“What? A new guide who looks like Lady Diana appeared?”

“H-Hey! That lady’s name is taboo!”

No one in Chelsea Center dared to casually mention Diana’s name.

If the three men of the Allen Knights caught someone doing so, they would pay dearly for it.

In fact, a few years ago, an esper who spoke about Diana in front of Lambert ended up nearly dead.

“That’s not a name you can carelessly speak.”

Lambert’s words from that day had spread from mouth to mouth, remaining like a legend in the center.

It could be called an anecdote proving Diana was the ‘Saint of Three Men.’

“Come on, there’s no one here to hear us. It’s fine, don’t worry.”

The guide who mentioned Diana’s name snickered.

Meanwhile, the esper sitting across from him turned pale.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Surely the three of them couldn’t have appeared…”

The answer came from behind him.

“Who are you to carelessly blabber Diana’s name?”

It was a chilling voice, like midwinter ice.

The guide belatedly realized a dark shadow had fallen over his head.

Someone had definitely approached silently and was standing right behind him.

The guide slowly turned his head to confirm the owner of the voice.