I pulled even more energy from my body, faster. Hesitating now would cause the life force to explode, putting not only the people inside the greenhouse at risk, but also the spirit just being born.

“I suppose I’ll have to step in.”

“Darling, wait, just wait a moment. I can feel a small pulse of life energy over there.”

“I see. Which means……”

I closed my eyes. In the pitch-black darkness, the faint outline of a shape began to emerge. Curled into a ball, it wriggled as though saying ‘I’m alive right now.’

“……Done.”

The words barely made it out of me, and the green aura that had filled the greenhouse slowly faded. What stood before me was a massive tree, splitting the large, thick pot clean in two and reaching all the way to the greenhouse ceiling.

A tree so tall and vast it looked as though it had lived for at least a hundred years.

“Darling, this…… what on earth could this be?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it in all my life. My daughter must be the only one to awaken with this much commotion.”

My parents’ voices reached my ears, and only then did relief come washing in.

Phew……

I let out a long, gasping breath all at once. I had never spent this much life force before. My legs and hands shook, and my mind went hazy. It was probably because I had poured everything into growing this one tree.

I was barely holding back the nausea when a shout from an attendant, who had been watching the whole scene with wide, stunned eyes, broke through.

“L, look over there! Princess!”

Following the direction the attendant was pointing, I looked up, and nestled among the full, lush leaves was a single small, vivid red fruit peeking out shyly. It was too high to see clearly, but up close it would probably be about the size of a face.

I stared blankly at the spirit fruit I had produced. A fruit made by condensing every last bit of my soul and power. No matter how long I looked at it, I couldn’t quite believe it. The power that should have awakened at twenty had taken two more years, and only now had it bloomed and borne fruit.

“I actually did it.”

Gasps and applause erupted from all around.

“Princess! Congratulations!”

“Congratulations, Riel!”

But a small pang of regret settled in my chest. Aiden hadn’t been there to see it. In the first place, no interruptions were permitted when a spirit was being born, so I hadn’t said anything to him separately.

It was perhaps similar to a mother in labor not wanting her husband to witness the process of birth. A spirit was a summoner’s own alter ego, no different from a child she had given birth to.

‘Even if I had wanted to tell him, Aiden would have been away again anyway…… and honestly, if Aiden had been watching, I probably wouldn’t have been able to concentrate.’

That had been true right up until it started. I had let my thoughts drift to Aiden and lost focus. But then, out of nowhere, the greenhouse door swung wide open. I turned at the sound.

Standing there was Aiden, his hair thoroughly disheveled, as though he had run all the way here.

“Riel!”

Aiden?

I was in the middle of blinking my lashes when he was already right in front of me. He gripped both my shoulders and asked,

“Are you hurt anywhere? I heard a loud noise and came running.”

I was a little taken aback. Aiden was worried about me this much? After avoiding me so thoroughly…… Perhaps because it had been so long, his face looked more gaunt than before.

“I’m fine. As you can see……”

I smiled awkwardly and placed my hand over his, still resting on my shoulder. But.

Smack!

He recoiled sharply and shook my hand off.

‘Wh, what?’

Startled, I looked up at him with wide eyes, and in his violet irises, my own face reflected back, wearing a wounded expression. Like I might cry at any moment.

Wait, why am I reacting like this? What was I expecting from Aiden, honestly. He could never fall in love with me…… that was something fixed within this world.

Others might misread it as Aiden falling for me, but I knew perfectly well that Aiden only thought of me as a master he was obligated to obey.

We hadn’t married for love. It had been a forced marriage, pushed through entirely by my one-sided announcement.

The me in my past life had been one of Aiden’s most devoted readers, cheering him on with everything she had. So falling for him the moment I laid eyes on him in this world was perhaps inevitable.

To put it plainly, the reason Aiden looked after me now was simply the fulfillment of ‘a husband’s duty.’ Nothing more.

“My dear…… this, that’s not what it was,”

Aiden was about to make some excuse when my father’s deep voice cut through from behind.

“No matter how worried you are about your wife, Dusik. Did you not see us standing right here?”

My father apparently hadn’t seen the moment Aiden shook off my hand. I swallowed a hollow laugh. Funny that I could find anything to be grateful for right now.

“……Please forgive my rudeness, Your Highness.”

“Haha. Not at all. It was good to see. Keep taking good care of Riel from now on.”

Even at my father’s words, Aiden’s expression still looked as conflicted as mine. But I had no room left to try to understand what he was feeling.

Because I had only just now become certain that Aiden had changed.

It was a truth I had been turning away from for days.

‘Maybe it was always going to be this way. I’m not the female lead of this world.’

Aiden might be losing even the loyalty he had once felt toward me. Drawn toward the true female lead waiting somewhere out there, following the pull of the original story.

“Riel, this is the fruit of your first harvest.”

Blinking hard against the tears threatening to fall, I snapped back to myself at my mother’s voice. This was not the time. Today was a day to celebrate.

Turning around, I found the vivid red fruit already resting on a cushion woven with gold thread.

I walked the five steps toward it, and my mother held the fruit out to me. I took it with a forced smile.

Looking down, the peach-shaped fruit was fresh and beautiful. For this one moment, I wanted to focus entirely on the spirit I had brought into the world. I smiled and spoke.

“When will the spirit come out?”

“I can feel the pulse of life. It should be soon.”

Before my mother’s words had even finished, the fruit began to swell and deflate in a bubbling rhythm, over and over. Exactly like a heartbeat.

“It seems to be trying to come out. A spirit that resembles you would be utterly precious.”

My chest fluttered with nervous anticipation. A spirit that resembles me……

That was when it happened. The pulsing movements grew more and more pronounced, and the fruit began to inflate like a balloon, swelling to a size large enough to cover my entire face.

And then……

Pop!

A sound like a balloon bursting rang out, and I reflexively squeezed my eyes shut and opened them.

The fruit’s shell had vanished entirely, and a tiny, adorable little creature was sitting on the cushion, staring straight at me with wide, unblinking eyes.

My spirit was a baby deer with pure white fur and large eyes holding the fresh, vivid green of new leaves.

When the sunlight reflected off the crystals and fell upon the spirit, it looked almost mythical, like something out of a legend.

The spirit tilted its head at me, studying me.

The little creature’s precious aura sent goosebumps rippling across my entire body. The events of moments ago had already faded completely from my mind, and my cheeks flushed warm.

“It’s, it’s so cute……! I’ve never seen anything this adorable in my life!”

“……Riel?”

I nodded enthusiastically.

“Yes, yes! I’m Riel! Your master!”

It was one of the top five most moving moments of my entire current life.

“Ha ha ha. The little one resembles you, utterly precious.”

As my father’s laughter faded, my mother stepped up behind me and rested a gentle hand on my shoulder.

“Now, it’s time to form the contract with your spirit. If the contract isn’t completed, this spirit you’ve brought into the world will disappear, so be quick.”

Disappear? My mother’s words made me tense all over again. The spirit looked straight at me. I asked it carefully.

“Will you become the companion of my soul and stay by my side for the rest of my life?”

At my question, the spirit stared at my face for a long moment as though trying to see right through it, then finally seemed to make up its mind and gave a slow, deliberate nod.

“Yes.”

Then the spirit gazed up at the air and conjured a white, translucent contract and a pen with a green feather attached, handing them to me in an instant. Written neatly on the contract were the spirit’s name, ‘Tia,’ and my own name.