Without a moment’s hesitation, I raised my hand to sign. But my mother stopped my hand.

“Riel, just a moment. Once you sign, it cannot be undone, so you must read the terms carefully before putting your name down.”

“Oh, right. Haha.”

Looking down, three terms were written in the lower section.

Term 1. The master shall not speak down to the spirit.

Term 2. The master shall always serve the spirit delicious food.

Term 3. The spirit shall respond immediately to the master’s summons. (However, if the spirit does not wish to come out, it does not have to.)

Everything was fine, but what on earth was ‘if the spirit does not wish to come out, it does not have to’?

On top of that, the text inside the parentheses was written in crooked, childlike handwriting, which made it even more unsettling.

‘Don’t tell me Tia wrote that herself?’

I narrowed my eyes and looked at the spirit, and Tia beamed back at me with a bright smile.

‘Something feels off about this……’

Regardless, the moment I finished reading all the terms and completed my signature, the contract swirled and vanished into thin air in an instant.

“Now, the contract is complete. Congratulations. Riel, and Tia.”

I pulled Tia into a tight embrace and said,

“I’ll take good care of you!”

“Yes, Riel……? Um, um……!”

But mid-answer, Tia seemed to spot something and began trembling suddenly.

“What’s wrong, Tia?”

Tia murmured in a small voice.

“Wolf…… wolf……”

A wolf?

Following Tia’s gaze, I turned my head, and there was Aiden, whom I had briefly forgotten about.

I froze on the spot.

‘Su, surely not, Tia…… did you sense that Aiden is from the wolf bloodline?’

Looking at Aiden, he caught my eye and gave a faint smile, beginning to walk toward me. And in the middle of all this, Tia burrowed into my arms and trembled.

“Scared of the wolf……”

‘What do I do? I’m going to lose my mind!’

But Aiden could not hear what Tia was saying.

“My dear.”

“S, sorry, don’t come over, Dusik!”

Turning my back on Aiden while still holding Tia, a sudden silence fell over the greenhouse.

“Riel. What kind of behavior is this toward your husband?”

My father spoke with a slightly sharp tone, and my mother looked back and forth between me and Aiden, clearly trying to piece together what was happening.

‘My parents will worry. What do I do.’

That was the moment. From behind me, Aiden’s voice came through, deliberately bright.

“It seems my wife is upset with me. She appears not to wish to see me right now, so I will take my leave first.”

Having said that politely to my father, Aiden then turned to me.

“And, my dear. Congratulations on your awakening.”

A short while later, the greenhouse door clicked shut. My father looked at me and asked in a heavy voice,

“Riel, you’ll need to explain this. What happened between you and Dusik?”

“……Nothing much.”

“Riel.”

“Darling, matters between a husband and wife are for the two of them to resolve. Let’s not get involved.”

It was my mother who quieted my father’s stern voice. Even without showing it, she must have been deeply worried inside.

I had been keeping silent, but I opened my lips with an awkward smile.

“It’s nothing serious. So please don’t worry.”

“Just what is it that made you angry? Dusik! I’ll have that boy right now!”

“Darling.”

My mother stepped in front of my father and came toward me.

“Riel, the sooner a problem between husband and wife is resolved, the better. Otherwise, misunderstandings only pile up between you. That is never good. Not for you, and not for Dusik.”

“Yes, I understand…… Mother.”

I answered with some difficulty, and my mother gave a small, resigned smile and clapped her hands lightly.

“Well then, let’s have a quiet family dinner together tomorrow. It’s also the day your uncle returns to Martina after a long time away.”

“Oh, that’s right! Uncle Oswald said he was coming tomorrow, didn’t he?”

“Yes. I’m rather curious what strange things he’ll bring back from the Empire this time.”

Uncle Oswald was an eccentric who lived in the Kastua Empire.

The reason he was an eccentric was that killing monsters and collecting their cores was part of his daily routine, and he swept up every curious invention across the continent he could get his hands on.

After wandering around like that, he had one day met his current aunt at a general goods shop in the Kastua capital and settled down in the Empire. A memory from the past drifted through my mind.

‘When I was little, the doll Uncle Oswald gave me as a gift moved every night and put me through something truly horrifying.’

It turned out the doll had been cursed. And yet Uncle Oswald had just laughed heartily and asked if it had been fun. He had been so infuriating that if he hadn’t been my uncle, I might have smacked him.

The reason Uncle Oswald was returning now was that the grand festival celebrating Martina’s founding day was approaching.

‘Knowing Uncle Oswald’s personality, he won’t leave Aiden alone……’

One thing that worried me was that Uncle Oswald had been badly injured around this time last year and hadn’t been able to come to Martina, so he had never once met Aiden.

***

Crunch, crunch.

‘Eating well, aren’t you.’

Back in the bedroom, I watched Tia sitting on the tea table and happily munching on an apple, a satisfied smile on my face. Her cheeks puffed out so adorably I nearly reached over to poke them.

Then, out of nowhere, the scene of Tia looking at Aiden and saying ‘wolf’ drifted through my mind.

‘I was going to ask about that anyway.’

I shifted to sit up properly and called out.

“Hey, Tia.”

“Yes, Riel.”

“I have something to ask.”

Tia immediately held out her empty bowl, as though demanding a reward.

“Apple.”

I picked up a slice of apple from the trolley and placed it in the bowl, and Tia smiled brightly. I asked again.

“What is Dusik?”

“Wolf.”

‘Still calling him a wolf. So I hadn’t heard wrong.’

But while Aiden was certainly of the wolf bloodline, he was not a wolf. The reason I was so certain was that in the original story, Aiden reached the ending without ever awakening.

I shook my head slowly, took a breath, and spoke.

“Is it maybe because Dusik looks scary?”

Tia paused mid-bite and looked at me, blinking her large eyes.

“Wolf, steal power.”

My heart nearly dropped out of my chest.

“What? Steal power?”

Crunch, crunch.

But Tia gave no further answer and simply focused on eating her apple.

Tia was still immature, and explaining things in long sentences was beyond her, so I gave up asking more.

‘But what on earth does that mean?’

I had assumed Tia was afraid of Aiden because he was a descendant of the wolf bloodline, and Tia’s instincts as a deer had sensed the danger.

But if that wasn’t the reason, if there was a different reason entirely, and if that reason was connected to the male lead’s ability……

An inexplicable unease crept over me, and without thinking I began gnawing at my fingernails.

At the same time, I started sorting through the situation piece by piece, spinning it around in my head. Starting from the moment I realized this world was inside a novel.

On the night I spent with Aiden, I had learned he was the male lead of this world at the same moment I discovered I had been reborn from a novel. And then, my power, which had shown not even the faintest sign of awakening, had manifested out of nowhere, and Dusik had become fragile.

Then, not long ago, after my second night with Aiden, I had awakened today.

“Which means…… don’t tell me! Could it be that I awakened by absorbing the male lead’s ability?”

I slapped both hands over my mouth. Thinking about it that way, everything fit perfectly.

Aiden collapsing after our wedding night.

Aiden avoiding me continuously after that.

And on top of it all, Aiden growing more haggard with each passing day!

None of it had happened in the original story.

‘If that was why Aiden had been keeping his distance from me……’

Aiden must have realized that spending the night with me left his body in a weakened state.

He had probably thought it was his own fault.

That was why he had told me his body wasn’t well and asked me to wait. Of course, Aiden remembered nothing about his own birth or identity.

“So that was it, that was what it was……”

The situation was so absurd that only a helpless laugh slipped out.

‘Good heavens. Not only did I steal the male lead for myself, I had been draining his powers dry on top of it.’

I clawed at my hair and wailed.

“What am I going to do!”

Stealing the male lead’s ability meant I was getting closer and closer to a bad ending!

After the realization of the day before, I had lain awake through the entire night.

With no clear solution in sight, the day passed, and before long the sky had dimmed to the soft haze of dusk. And today, in honor of Uncle Oswald’s return to Martina, a formal dinner was held in the dining room.