Without any particular order, they all started rushing out at once.

“My Lady! Where are you!”

“Lady Piert!”

Just as the frenzied group was about to run out of the villa.

“……Could this be the lady you’re looking for?”

Asked someone standing at the back gate of the villa.

The knights and employees were so startled they stopped in their tracks.

‘What is this? A person?’

He was an intimidating, frighteningly handsome man with an icy demeanor.

As they just stared blankly at him, Helix slightly furrowed his brow.

“I asked if this is the lady you’re looking for.”

The people who had been dazed by his appearance finally looked behind him.

Someone wrapped tightly in a robe was being carried on his back. The luxurious robe and the long platinum blonde hair peeking out from beneath it – it was unmistakably Leah.

The maids and the physician rushed forward, almost in tears.

“Oh my, My Lady!”

“She’s asleep.”

“What are you all doing! Quickly take our lady from him!”

At the head maid’s scolding, the knights who had been standing dumbfounded rushed forward. Helix, who had been carrying Leah, handed her over while saying:

“She seems to have eaten something suspicious.”

Then he pulled out the cookie pouch he had brought along.

“She collapsed after eating these.”

“Those are!”

The physician and several maids recognized the pouch. They were cookies from Leah’s favorite bakery.

The physician felt a chill run down his spine.

‘She collapsed after eating her favorite cookies?’

If someone had poisoned the cookies that made Leah collapse, the culprit must be someone who knew Leah well and could deliver the cookies without arousing suspicion.

‘Then… doesn’t that mean there’s a culprit or accomplice within the ducal family?’

A shiver.

The physician swallowed hard. It was already challenging enough just trying to keep the frail lady alive, and now there was poison involved, with an insider helping?

This was a crisis. A mega-crisis that could blow away the medical building he had carefully constructed brick by brick in his imagination over twelve years.

The physician carefully asked Helix.

“If what you say is true, how… is our lady safe?”

“I treated her.”

His tone was plain and confident.

The physician was shocked by Helix’s casual attitude. He was talking about treating a poisoned lady as nonchalantly as an experienced doctor would discuss draining a boil on an arm.

“Were you… able to treat her?”

“Yes. She would have been in mortal danger if it weren’t for me. Her pulse was quite weak to begin with.”

The physician’s jaw dropped even further.

“You could tell her pulse was weak? And you still managed to resolve the poison?”

“How could I not tell? It’s remarkable she’s even alive, considering how weak it is.”

Helix added that the suspicious substance Leah had ingested could make her weak pulse go haywire, so she needed to recover carefully.

It was confident advice that only a first-class healer or doctor could provide.

“Are you a doctor?”

“No.”

“Then a healer?”

“It’s not my main profession, but I’m quite skilled in that area. Mana exists in everything.”

Mana.

The formless energy that was said to have existed widely in the world during the age of magic before dragons went extinct.

Dragons, mages, and sword masters were special beings who could transform and handle the mana that filled the world as their own power. Now that dragons were extinct and both magic and sword masters had disappeared, it was treated as merely an old legend.

Because of this, the gathered employees of the Piert duchy hesitated. They whispered among themselves.

“What’s he talking about?”

“Did he say something about mana? Isn’t he a bit crazy?”

Only the physician properly understood and gulped.

‘Mana? Did he just say mana?’

He was, in fact, a closeted magic enthusiast.

Originally, many doctors and healers believed in mana and magic.

The physician’s eyes became passionate as he looked at Helix. He seemed to be both a fellow magic enthusiast and a skilled healer.

‘He might be a destined savior who appeared to protect My Lady!’

At this rate, their lady’s life was like a candle in the wind anyway. The physician urgently called out, as if grabbing onto a lifeline.

“What are you all doing? Quickly escort our benefactor inside!”

“Huh?”

“You all know, don’t you? How definitive My Lady is about rewards and punishments. She’ll be angry when she wakes up if we let our benefactor leave just like this.”

“Th-that’s true.”

Those who agreed with the physician’s words grabbed onto Helix.

“You are the benefactor who saved our Lady. Please give us a chance to repay this debt.”

“That’s right. When our lady wakes up, she will surely want to reward you.”

Helix pondered for a moment.

The alien force he had suddenly felt from Leah’s lips, breath, and blood vessels after she collapsed.

That was definitely dragon’s mana.

And the symptoms she showed after collapsing were exactly the same as those of patients who had received dragon’s mana, which he had seen long ago.

‘It seems someone gave her dragon’s mana to consume…’

But she had said dragons were extinct, and treated magic and magic towers like old tales.

‘I need to figure out exactly what’s going on here.’

Helix decided to stay nearby and observe the situation.

“Very well. I’ll stay.”

The physician’s face lit up.

“You’ve made a wise decision!”

***

Leah was standing alone in a hazy darkness.

Where is this?

A dream?

An ominous gray darkness wrapped around her completely. Leah looked around while rubbing her arms. Her heart was pounding with tension.

‘I feel like there’s something beyond this darkness.’

This seems to be a dream, should I just run?

She thought for a moment but shook her head.

If it was a dream, that unresolved feeling would pursue her more persistently.

‘And then I always end up getting sick.’

So she couldn’t just stay here being scared.

‘Sigh. This cursed weak constitution.’

Leah sighed and then clenched her fists combatively.

‘I’ll try hitting it once, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll run.’

As soon as she thought that, a weapon appeared in her hand with a swoosh.

It was a giant fork.

‘This is…!’

Leah gripped the large fork like a trident.

When she was young and kept dropping strawberries from her cake due to lack of strength, she cried in frustration, and the ducal family had specially ordered her a light and pretty fork. It had exactly the same design as that fork.

Holding such a fork gave her courage. She thrust the large fork forward bravely and said.

“Come at me, really. Let’s just exchange one hit.”

As if in response to those words, the darkness cleared and a force rushed in.

Whoosh.

Rising high like a wave rushing in…

“…Mont Blanc?”

A giant mountain of chestnut cream!

Leah’s mouth fell open.

Every time she ate Mont Blanc cake, she thought she wanted to be buried in this cream… but she didn’t mean it literally!

Grrrr.

The chestnut cream mountain emanating a sweet smell collapsed towards her.

A Mont Blanc avalanche.

No, a chestnut cream avalanche.

Leah’s mouth gaped as she realized.

She remembered.

That poisoned cookie had also contained chestnut cream.

‘Who bought that cookie?’

The cookie the man ate was fine, but she collapsed after taking one bite.

‘Who was it?’

She couldn’t remember who brought it at all.

She could only recall the pain of that poison clawing at her insides.

‘Come to think of it, that force feels similar to that poison.’

Now she could guess what this dark and violent force causing the Mont Blanc avalanche was.

It must be the poison she had consumed.

Leah became angry.

“So you’re the one who insulted my Mont Blanc.”

Because of the poison, she probably wouldn’t be able to eat her favorite dessert for a while.

Because the memory of collapsing would come back every time she encountered its shape and smell.

“And you’re not satisfied with just that, now you’re targeting me?”

Her anger surged.

Echoes of ‘Peirlily!’ ‘Peiren’s Lily!’ could be heard reverberating from all directions.

Every time she was tormented by those calls, how much had the chestnut puree mixed with meringue cream of Mont Blanc comforted her.

The intense initial sweetness that made her forget all worldly troubles.

The softness that filled both her mouth and heart before gently disappearing.

“You poison…”

It was hiding in that lovely dessert, threatening Leah’s body and health.

As her anger grew, the giant fork also glowed red.

“I can’t let this slide.”

Leah gripped the heated fork with both hands.

“I’ll defeat the likes of you and live a long life!”

As sparks flew from the fork’s tip and the mountain of chestnut cream…

[My child…!]

Was being baked…

[My Lady…!]

As meringue crumbs scattered like snowflakes…

“My Lady!”

Huh?

Leah was momentarily dazed, unable to grasp reality.

“Tsk tsk…”

The silver-haired man looked down at her with a pitying expression.

“Even in your sleep-talking, you say you’ll live a long life.”

“…”

Blink blink.

Leah, who had just woken up, looked at Helix, then at her right hand that he was holding.

“…Was I sleep-talking?”

“Yes. You were swinging your fist at me saying ‘I’ll defeat the likes of you and live a long life!'”

“Cough.”

Leah pretended to be in pain and avoided his gaze.

“It was because of the dream, because of the dream.”

“There was real emotion in that fist.”

“I told you it wasn’t aimed at you but at something strange that appeared in my dream. It was trying to bury me.”

In cream.

Leah quietly swallowed the last part.

However, Helix became serious at Leah’s words.

“I wondered how you were even alive given how severely weak you are… Is your mind weak as well?”

“Somehow, listening to this, it sounds like you’re saying my mind has gotten weak because my body is sickly… but that must be my imagination, right?”

He ignored Leah’s words and checked her pulse.

“Hmm?”

“What?”

“…A familiar energy is becoming increasingly stronger.”

At those words, Leah also placed her hands on her chest and stomach.

Come to think of it, her body did feel a bit strange.

“It feels like there’s a hot energy rippling in my chest and stomach.”

“It’s very similar to the symptoms mages show when their mana channels open and they form their core.”

“Mages? Mana channels? Core?”

Despite living as Lady Piert for twelve years, this was the first time she had heard of such things.

Helix explained briefly.

He said mages could sense mana, create pathways for mana to flow through their bodies, and then create a mana heart that pumps and circulates mana near their heart or lower abdomen.

Apparently, that was called a mana core.

The physician, who was coming in with medicine, interjected.

“I’ve heard of it too, but it’s just a legend. Magic has almost died out since the dragons disappeared.”

“What?”

Helix asked in a shocked voice.