A middle-aged woman in a red robe stood next to Mrs. Moson, deliberately making herself noticeable.

Madam Callian’s eyes flickered. Blood vessels stood out on her jaw as she suppressed emotions that seemed ready to surge forth.

“Lily……”

A faint voice.

Madam Callian’s daughter Lily.

I had spoken with Lily before the wedding, having heard that they hadn’t seen each other’s faces for twenty years.

“She said she watched from tall buildings whenever Madam visited or when supplies departed.”

A mother too busy participating in demonic beast hunts to avenge her husband.

Though other family members cared for her, the daughter who needed her mother grew to miss her desperately until that longing transformed into hatred.

She loved and missed her mother, but resentment coexisted with these feelings because she felt abandoned.

Ivy understood those feelings.

Callian’s daughter Lily had exploded with that resentment twenty years ago.

She denounced Callian in front of everyone and cut ties with her.

“As time passed, she must have realized. That what Madam Callian was protecting wasn’t the grand duchy’s people or the capital, but her daughter.”

She couldn’t easily step down from her important position where she received people’s trust and respect just for her family’s sake.

Because as significant as Callian was, if a void appeared, many people would be endangered.

Lily knew this too.

No matter how much she hated and resented her mother, she knew all too well who protected the grand duchy.

Madam Callian stared at her daughter with wide eyes. She didn’t even blink.

“But knowing doesn’t mean all those accumulated feelings and time disappear in an instant. There are times when I don’t know how to start talking. I understand you, and I love my daughter, but our ways have already become so different that I don’t know where and how to begin.”

This was Lily’s confession:

“After denouncing and blaming my mother in front of everyone like that, would she want to see me?”

“How can I meet my mother? I’m sorry, but……”

Family relationships can be so close that when rifts deepen, they become harder to mend.

“Lily’s daughter is getting married next year.”

“……I know.”

“Start by attending the wedding.”

They both needed time. Both Lily and Callian.

Callian turned to look at me. Her eyes were red.

“Someday you’ll have meals together, and when Callian returns to the capital, she’ll come out to greet you and embrace you. When great-grandchildren are born, she’ll offer congratulations too. That’s how you can slowly become family again.”

A winter wind blew past.

Callian’s tightly bound white silver hair fluttered, briefly covering her face.

“So that’s what it was.”

“Pardon?”

With an inscrutable expression, Callian looked at me and spoke words I couldn’t understand.

“I received this as a gift when I saved a priest long ago. I thought it just made one have sweet dreams……”

She reached inside her collar, broke off her necklace, and handed it to me.

“Take it. It’s a gift.”

It wasn’t an atmosphere where I could refuse.

When I accepted it and opened my hand, I saw a necklace with a black gemstone pendant.

If she wore it, wouldn’t it be something she considered important?

Before I could ask if she really meant to give it to me, Madam Callian shouted toward the knights.

“We depart!”

The gathered knights and crowd cheered.

“Strength controls people, but gentleness and warmth make people follow voluntarily. That’s true strength, but I had forgotten.”

Madam Callian departed.

***

As soon as Madam Callian left with the first supplies, the Marker brothers appeared from somewhere.

They looked well-fed and healthy, with a glossy sheen to their faces and a bit more weight on their frames.

The dark circles that had always shadowed their eyes from constant research had disappeared.

“What did that witch give you?”

“My lady, is that a necklace?”

When I handed them the necklace, Ibril and Wallit examined it from all angles and shared their observations.

“I sense some kind of alien power?”

“Yes, it’s different from magic. I’ve never felt anything like it before. It’s not holy power either—what is it?”

“It’s in this gemstone. It doesn’t feel dangerous, but there’s something engraved inside.”

“Let me see.”

Wallit wasn’t coughing despite the cold wind.

His health issues hadn’t been simply due to physical weakness.

“Take breaks like that! You’re making plenty of money, so research at a more relaxed pace!”

I couldn’t hold back and burst out at them.

“What? What are you suddenly saying?”

“That’s so random. What do you mean ‘research at a relaxed pace’? That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all year.”

“Now that you’re resting, your body is—”

“Ivy.”

Kaien took the necklace from Wallit’s hand and placed it back in mine.

“You’ll catch a cold. Let’s go inside.”

“No, wait, I have something to—”

Kaien, who prioritized my physical condition above all else, wouldn’t listen to anything.

***

Kaien laid me on the bed and went out, saying he would organize some things and return shortly.

Lying in bed, I held the necklace’s gemstone up to the light.

As Ibril had said, I could see tiny engravings inside, but it was a pattern I’d never seen before.

As I rolled around on the bed examining the pendant for other markings…… the bed felt too comfortable.

As Kaien had said, it must have been cold outside because my body was melting into a pleasant drowsiness and my head gradually sank into the pillow.

“I’ll just sleep a little.”

No one would scold a pregnant woman for taking a nap.

As I slipped under the covers, my mind grew hazy and my consciousness soon faded.

Thud.

I woke up with a start at the massive vibration that shook my entire body.

When I sat up, I was in the same bedroom where I had fallen asleep.

“Was it a dream?”

There was no way such a loud noise could occur in the grand ducal residence.

As I was thinking I must have heard the sound in my dream and was about to lie back down, another massive thud and vibration sounded. I hurriedly left the bedroom, alarmed by the ominous noise.

Walking down the corridor, I noticed something strange through the window.

It had definitely been winter, but the mountains visible outside were lush and green.

“The first supplies had just departed……”

No matter how I tried to recall, I only remembered watching the supplies depart before falling asleep.

What had happened to me?

I’d read in the newspaper about people losing their memories in accidents. Had I been in some accident, lost my memory, and just now regained consciousness?

My heart pounded anxiously as I walked quickly down the corridor.

Bright light was streaming in through the entrance of the grand ducal residence.

As I rushed toward it, a massive shadow suddenly passed in front, turning the world black for a moment before brightening again.

I could hear murmuring voices and shouts. Bustling sounds.

Then someone called out.

“Your Grace!”

I ran out at the urgent voice.

My eyes fell upon a massive orc walking slowly.

Large birds that looked like demonic beasts flew in the sky, and wolf-shaped litups sat on one side of the grand ducal residence’s spacious front yard. A cart pulled by boar-like rumbles was entering.

People waved wooden staffs with black gemstones embedded in them as they directed the beasts, feeding them fruits and dried grass.

“What’s going on?”

“Ivy, why aren’t you sleeping longer?”

Just then, a man dismounted from a litups and ran toward me. With a joyful smile, he wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my cheek.

Though I didn’t resist since it was the black-haired Kaien, he seemed somehow different from the one I remembered.

He seemed more mature and relaxed.

“Kaien?”

“Mother!”

“Mom! My sister says I shouldn’t ride yet!”

Small footsteps pattered over, and a small figure hugged the hem of my dress.

It was an adorable little boy of about four or five years with honey-colored hair and round eyes.

He looked like an angel.

A girl with black hair tied in two braids approached, put her hands on her hips, and spoke to me.

“Please scold Rakan! This child has no fear! Something terrible could happen if he falls!”

“But I want to ride the litups too!”

“Be stubborn about something else! You’re still too young!”

“But you rode one when you were five!”

“I was with Mother. The litups especially like Mother.”

The girl pointed at me, calling me “Mother,” and the boy called me “Mom.”

“So I’ll ride with Mom too! Mooom.”

What is this? A dream?

It seemed too vivid to be just a dream.

I could feel the tug of my dress where the child held it, and Kaien’s cologne smelled exactly the same. I could even smell the damp, fishy animal scent from the demonic beasts.

A dream? When it felt this real?

“Ivy?”

Kaien sensed something was wrong and peered at me.

“What’s wrong? Still sleepy?”

“No, it’s just…… the children……”

“What about our children?”

“……Ours?”

I looked down at the children again.

As he said, they resembled both Kaien and me.

Even the children looked at me with concern, as if they’d never quarreled.

“Mother, are you tired?”

“Mom, are you okay?”

“You should rest for a while after focusing so intently on making demonic beast stones with the Marker brothers. You need to think of your health first.”

“Demonic beast stones……”

“I know your power is truly remarkable, but you need to be healthy to consistently produce these stones. Don’t forget that you are the priority.”

Kaien showed me the pendant hanging around his neck.

It was a black gemstone.

The black gemstones at the tips of the wooden staffs people were wielding were called demonic beast stones.

So with these, if I could figure out what these stones were, others could also control demonic beasts?

Though I didn’t understand how this situation had come about, I sensed that time was limited.

I needed to quickly ask about the gemstone…….

As I was about to ask Kaien, I suddenly found the massive litups leader standing before me.

It was the same alpha I had seen in the Forest of Demonic Beasts.

“Ah……”

When our eyes met, the alpha gazed at me with unfathomably deep eyes, then lowered its head.

Its warm black nose gently pressed against my chest, and I felt its pleasantly textured fur under my hand.

Though I couldn’t understand exactly, I wasn’t afraid—rather, I felt a great sense of welcome.

I closed my eyes as I embraced the alpha litups, then opened them again.

“Ivy, are you awake?”

Kaien was standing beside the bed.

He had changed into comfortable clothes, suggesting the day’s formal duties were over.

Frost covered the window, and I could see snow falling outside.

As I sat up, I felt something metallic rustling in my hand. The black gemstone pendant Madam Callian had given me glowed faintly, then disappeared.

I recalled what Callian had said when she gave me the necklace.

“I received this as a gift when I saved a priest long ago. I thought it just made one have sweet dreams……”

“This necklace?”

Had Madam Callian also dreamed?

No, was what I dreamed truly just a simple dream?

Perhaps it was a future that would someday come to pass.

“Ivy? Why are you crying? Are you in pain somewhere?”

Kaien sat on the bed and cupped my cheeks.

He frowned as he placed his hand on my forehead, checking for fever.

“I’ll call a doctor. You were out in the cold too long. I should have been more attentive.”

As he tried to stand, I embraced him.

I had so much to say, but my throat closed with overwhelming emotion.

“Ivy?”

The grand duchy had long winters and limited farmland due to the nearby Forest of Demonic Beasts.

But the grand duchy I saw in my dream, visible from the grand ducal residence atop the capital, was prosperous.

Well-organized, neat farmlands, roads bustling with people—people who didn’t fear the flying demonic beasts but rather controlled them.

And our children.

The happy future that would come to pass was so moving that I hugged him tightly.

“I’m happy. So very happy.”

He hugged me back and chuckled softly.

End of Side Story 2