Chapter 8 (Part 1)

Grace opened her eyes in her own body and immediately saw Becky crying as she looked at her. Feeling apologetic, she spoke.  

“I-I was just worried about you, Young Lady! Huhhh!”

“Enough, enough. I said I’m fine, why do you keep crying?”  

Grace, who entrusted Becky to another maid as she couldn’t stop her from crying, turned to see her mother, Amelia, standing silently behind her. Grace gave a sheepish smile.  

“……”  

Even so, Amelia, who was staring at her expressionlessly, did not return her smile.  

Grace, feeling uneasy, smiled again at Amelia, who continued to look at her with the same expression.  

“……”  

Even after this much effort, Amelia did not smile at her daughter, not even once.  

Feeling a strange sense of discomfort, Grace cautiously asked.  

“Mother, is something wrong?”  

Amelia, who had been staring at her daughter with unstable mana, sighed deeply and spoke.  

“Take the day off from work and rest today.”  

At her words, Grace burst into laughter as if she had heard a funny joke.  

She laughed so hard that tears formed at the corners of her eyes. Wiping them away, she replied to her mother.  

“Mother, how can I do something even a low-ranking knight wouldn’t do?”  

“……”  

“I’m still a commander, after all. I need to fulfill my duties.”  

At those words, Amelia stared intensely at her daughter’s chest, near her heart.  

It had been two days since Grace returned from the shelter. Not even three days had passed.  

During that time, Grace had stopped breathing twice, collapsed more times than that, and exhibited inexplicable behavior whenever she woke up.  

And the more it happened, the golden mana emanating from her grew thicker.  

It wasn’t a good sign.  

“If you’re intent on worrying your mother, then do as you please.”  

Saying this, Amelia stood up.  

Grace, watching Amelia’s upright and disciplined posture, sighed and flopped onto the bed.  

Then, grumbling, she spoke.  

“Fine, fine. What should I do now, Mother?”  

Looking at her daughter’s face, full of complaints, Amelia let out a faint smile.  

She approached, lowered her head, and kissed Grace’s forehead, speaking in a gentle voice.  

“Just take a nap like this. I’ll watch over you.”  

At Amelia’s words, Grace smiled bashfully.  

Grace obediently pulled the blanket up to her chin and closed her eyes. Then, as if she had never mentioned going to work, she fell asleep.  

‘Should I call a healer?’  

As a knight who had surpassed her limits, Amelia could tell that her daughter was not her usual self. If not for her keen senses, no one would have noticed that something was wrong with Grace.  

Perhaps someone from the Priest lineage, who wielded holy power, might notice.  

‘But healers are fundamentally part of the Imperial Family.’  

They belong to a special category of professions registered and managed by the Knight Order.  

Moreover, all the high-ranking healers had recently been dispatched. Only a few intermediate healers and mostly lower-ranked ones remained.  

‘I’m not even sure if an intermediate healer could resolve this. Would I just be making Grace anxious for no reason?’  

Amelia, watching Grace sleep soundly with steady breaths, quietly left the room without making a sound.  

The moment Amelia stepped out, Becky, who had been crouching and waiting by the door, jumped to her feet.  

“Madam!”  

Amelia, looking at Becky’s tear-streaked face indifferently, gave her an order.  

“Tell the butler to come to my room.”  

“Pardon? Ah, yes, I’ll go right away!”  

Amelia, watching Becky hurriedly walk in the opposite direction, slowly made her way to her office.  

A feeling that this issue wouldn’t be easily resolved brushed past her mind.  

‘I hope it’s just needless worry….’  

Amelia thought of the face of her dearest friend.  

They had once been inseparable, but after marrying into opposing factions, they could no longer openly express their friendship.  

‘Does Charlotte know about this?’  

Once considered the Empire’s greatest Priestess due to her immense holy power, Charlotte suddenly lost her abilities, becoming a representative figure of tragedy.  

Unlike others, Amelia knew that it was due to pregnancy and childbirth, but she pretended not to know.  

It was what her friend wanted.  

She had heard that Charlotte’s first daughter, Delia, had been identified as possessing holy power even greater than Charlotte’s.  

She also heard that Charlotte was overjoyed at the news.  

‘She gave everything she had, foolishly.’  

Thinking of her foolish and naive friend, Amelia let out a small sigh.  

Since then, no child with such strong holy power had been born. Instead, her unexpected second son had been born with immense magical power.  

That was Leonardo Fernandez. 

‘By the way, I heard the second son of the Fernandez Duke’s family rarely goes home.’  

It was possible that Charlotte hadn’t even seen her son since his return from the subjugation. If that were the case, she wouldn’t know if anything was wrong with him.  

Amelia sat in her office chair, lost in thought.  

“Madam, I was told you were looking for me.”  

The butler’s voice came from outside, accompanied by a knock.  

Amelia slowly lifted her head and told him to enter before straightening her posture.  

“Send a letter to the Lady of the house of the Fernandez Ducal Family.”  

At her words, the butler bowed deeply.  

“What color should the letter be?”  

Amelia, after a moment of thought, answered decisively.  

“Red would be best.”  

For a moment, the butler hesitated, unable to respond immediately.  

Sending a letter of a color they had never sent before could potentially escalate into a conflict between families.  

Amelia, guessing what the butler was thinking, urged him.  

“What are you doing, standing there idly?”  

Only then did the butler snap out of his thoughts and respond politely.  

“I will ensure it arrives as quickly as possible.”  

To this, Amelia casually replied as she flipped through some documents.  

“No need to rush.”  

“Pardon?”  

“As long as the letter is red.”  

Unable to grasp the Lady of the house’s intentions, the butler simply bowed and left.  

Once he was gone, Amelia set down the documents she had been holding and sighed.  

“Why is it that things never go as planned when it comes to children, Charlotte?”

Recalling something Charlotte once said to her, Amelia closed her eyes.  

She could only hope it wasn’t something serious.  

***  

Leonardo quietly observed his Master, who, despite being over 130 years old, still appeared to be in his middle age.  

Just as knights who surpassed their limits aged slowly, mages with immense magical power were the same.  

Watching his Master conduct magical formula experiments without saying a word, Leonardo stood up from his seat.  

“I’ll take my leave now, Master.”

At the disciple’s words, Master Moment’s eyebrows twitched. It was a signal of displeasure.  

Leonardo, fully aware of this, deliberately bowed exaggeratedly and turned his body. He could have taken the initiative to bow first, but this time, he didn’t want to.  

‘It’s obvious that he called me to talk about Sir Lowell anyway.’  

The one feeling frustrated would bow first. Leonardo believed it would be his Master. And it had to be.  

Just as he opened the door to leave, Moment spoke.  

“I hear you’ve been associating with the mad dog of the 2nd Knight Order lately.”  

Hearing Grace’s other nickname, Leonardo turned his head. Then, as if he didn’t understand what was being said, he asked again.  

“What do you mean by that?”  

Moment laughed deeply as he looked at Leonardo, who was feigning ignorance.  

It was blatantly obvious that he intended to act as if he knew nothing, no matter what was said.  

Moment found it both irritating and, in a way, very mage-like.  

A mage who never reveals the cards in their hand and instead desires to take all the cards the opponent holds—a vile nature.  

Yes, in some ways, it was even a little pride-inducing.  

It meant his disciple was a mage among mages.  

“If even a recluse like me, holed up in the tower conducting experiments, hears such rumors, doesn’t that make them true?”

Moment asked without even glancing at Leonardo.  

Leonardo, still holding the doorknob, turned only his head to look at his Master. Then, as if it was his Master who was being strange, he replied.  

“Do you, by any chance, find meaning even in passing winds, Master?”  

It was as if he were saying that even if meeting Grace were true, it was nothing more than a passing breeze. Moment, displeased, could only respond.

“…You insolent brat.”  

If it’s merely a breeze, what more could he say? Even if that weren’t his true feelings, he himself had said it was just a “breeze.”

Moment, out of words, raised his hand, and Leonardo, once again bowing his head, tried to leave.  

As his disciple’s back was turned, Moment spoke lightly.  

“A woman’s grudge is long and deep.”  

That unexpected statement made Leonardo involuntarily turn back to look at his Master. He couldn’t believe those words had come from him.  

But Moment said nothing more, as if that was all he had to say, and didn’t call Leonardo back again.  

“…I’ll take my leave now.”  

As Leonardo stepped outside, Moment finally looked at the closed door.  

Though his disciple had pretended it was nothing until the very end, how could a Master, who had watched his disciple for decades as if he were his own child, fail to read even a single glance?

Leonardo was already consumed by obsession.

“What a foolish thing.”  

Moment could only hope that his disciple’s obsession wasn’t too strong.  

Because that was the one thing he couldn’t allow.