‘Tomorrow marks exactly six months.’

Sel was examining a small hollow beneath a marble block on the library floor.

In the hole, carved into the solid floor, were six gold coins and dried Clotherus leaves.

Since the mercenary group provided all her basic needs, there were no extra expenses.

Thanks to the books Lavi had given her, Sel had fully learned the high language, and she spent her spare time reading the library’s collection, amassing a lot of knowledge.

She had also received shooting instruction from professional mercenaries.

They praised her, saying she was a natural sniper.

It was a proud feeling. The person she used to be, living like an animal, was gradually becoming human.

Moreover, after following the training schedule for some time, her formerly skeletal body had filled out with a fair amount of muscle.

A good diet, rest, and exercise had restored her sickly body to health.

Now, she could open the building’s main gate by herself.

‘He said he’d take responsibility for feeding, housing, and training me, and he really kept his word.’

As Sel thought of Lavi’s words, she felt genuine gratitude toward him.

If there were a heaven for her, this would be it.

The warmth she felt here stung at her tear ducts.

*Swwssh, slap.* She heard the sound of footsteps in slippers approaching.

Lost in thought, Sel hurriedly put the marble block back in place.

Someone approached as she quickly sat on a nearby sofa, picking up a random book.

She slowly looked up and met the emotionless brown eyes of Eric.

“Rookie. You doing well here?”

“Pardon?”

“Guess so, seeing as you even have time to read books upside down.”

Sel looked down at the book in her hands—it was indeed upside down.

“Then help me out, since I’m about to die here.”

Eric motioned for her to follow.

Sel, standing up hesitantly, hurried after Eric, who was already a good distance ahead.

Since she was now bathing weekly, she no longer had the foul smell from before, and Eric didn’t need to cover his nose.

The place Eric led her to was Lavi’s room on the fifth floor.

It was past 10 p.m., so she hesitated, unsure if they should enter, but Eric pushed open the heavy door without hesitation.

Inside, Lavi, wearing only pants, was practicing his sword form.

Sweat glistened on his toned upper body under the indoor lights.

Sweat trickled down the defined lines of his chest, streaming over his sculpted abs and soaking into his pants.

His blue silk pants had already lost their color from the dampness.

The damp fabric clung to his well-defined thighs.

Sel watched with indifference.

The room was so large that he could move freely, but she couldn’t help wondering why he chose to do it here.

Like Sel, Eric had no interest in Lavi’s sword dance. He sat down in front of Lavi’s desk.

When Sel came over, Eric pulled out a spare stool from under the desk and gestured for her to sit beside him.

She plopped down next to him, sitting close.

“Take a look at this, rookie.”

The document Eric showed her was a schematic for a new type of magical device she had never seen before.

It was a magical bomb shaped like an egg that would explode after a set amount of time, though the blueprint was incomplete.

“If you can repair magical devices, you should have some understanding of magic formulas. Think you can calculate this?”

Sel’s eyes scanned the blueprint Eric handed her.

She looked at it intensely, then began tapping her fingers in the air, as though playing an invisible piano. Her previously cloudy eyes now sparkled like a sunlit lake.

Her focus was immense.

Muttering to herself, she picked up a nearby pen and began filling in the missing formulas.

Eric, who had pulled a calculator from under a pile of documents, raised his eyebrows as he handed it to Sel.

“Lavi, can you hear this?”

“Yeah. It’s not… the new moon, right? Whew. My mind is still… mine.”

*Whoosh*—the sound of a blade slicing through the air echoed.

Though Lavi moved frantically, his sword precisely struck every target.

By tomorrow, he needed to finish the magical device schematic and begin production.

Only then could they smoothly complete the expedition to the Black Forest scheduled this quarter.

But the spirit within him had exhausted his body again tonight.

This spirit didn’t take over every day, and the number of possessions had decreased this year.

But it still always seemed to possess him whenever he had something serious to do at night.

That was why he’d been forced to practice his sword dance for the past 30 minutes, instead of working on the schematic.

“Lavi, Sel is calculating this for you.”

“Huff… well, that’s a relief.”

“Without a calculator.”

“!”

‘Cough’—Lavi sputtered, choking on his surprise. He rolled his eyes to the side.

Sel was filling in the formulas with a slight twitch of her fingers, without using any tools.

“Hah. I thought I’d found a pearl… whew… turns out, it’s a diamond.”

“Shall we renegotiate her salary?”

“Just… whew… by looking… she’s accounting, right?”

“Please, take a breath and speak properly. Listening to you wheeze is unpleasant.”

Eric frowned deeply, scolding Lavi.

Lavi protested, saying, “Would you be able to catch your breath in this situation?”

Sel and Eric finally finished the blueprint around 2 a.m.

As she turned to see Lavi still practicing his sword moves, Sel clicked her tongue.

“That’s… that, right?”

“Yes, rookie. That thing.”

“Won’t he wear himself out and die like that?”

Perhaps it was a spirit trying to exhaust its host to death.

“An ordinary person might, but Lavi is a sword master, so he won’t die.”

“…A sword master?”

‘Him? That weasel?’

“After nearly daily training like that, it’d be stranger if he hadn’t reached the pinnacle of swordsmanship.”

Sel looked at Lavi with a pitiful expression.

Even with only partial participation in the mercenary training, it was nearly killing her. Having to do that level of training against her will… she began to feel a bit sorry for Lavi.

“Ah, is this your first time seeing it, rookie? I guess you wouldn’t have, staying on the second floor. Sometimes he even challenges the mercenaries on the third floor to spar all night. They’re absolutely exhausted by the end.”

“So… that spirit must be quite… considerate.”

“Not afraid? It’s a spirit wielding a sword at will. Who’s to say its blade won’t aim at your throat?”

“Not at all. It doesn’t seem like that kind of spirit.”

The spirit Commander, Demon Commander, Commander of the Blue Blood—there were all kinds of rumors about him, and she’d been curious to see how terrifying he really was. But in person, he wasn’t scary at all.

What kind of spirit is this, guiding him to train so diligently?

If anything, the voices she sometimes heard calling her name were more frightening than this so-called spirit.

The voice, masking itself as her most cherished person, chipped away at her soul bit by bit.

Lavi, who’d been quietly listening to their conversation, gave a slight smile.

His once-serious, dark green eyes softened as they turned toward Sel.

Their eyes met in the air.

At that moment, Lavi’s eyes seemed like the crescent moon hanging in the night sky.

“Thank you… Sel.”

“Huh?”

“…for not being… afraid of me.”

His short words, though simple, carried a heavy weight.

Sel blinked slowly, not responding.

Though she wasn’t in the same situation, she understood what Lavi was feeling.

Hurtful words and prejudiced glances have a tangible energy.

That energy becomes a storm, devastating everything the other person has built.

This man, who once had so much more than her, must have lost just as much.

And now, like she once had, he was desperately fighting not to lose anything more.

So having someone who could see him for who he truly was—just the knowledge of that was precious beyond measure.

The words “Thank you” were, in fact, the words she should have been saying to Lavi.

Sel’s blue eyes, the color of an autumn lake, wavered with depth.

Seeing that, Lavi gave a bittersweet smile, breathing heavily.

“It’s true, Sel, you’re not afraid of spirits. Unlike everyone else, except Philip, most people run at first.”

Eric, standing nearby, nodded in agreement and crossed his arms.

‘Running away.’ She remembered the children who threw stones and fled when they saw her in rags.

It was almost funny that this man, so distinguished, shared the same sadness as she did.

“What’s so scary? Enough to make them run?”

“Hmm. Maybe because he’s possessed?”

“That doesn’t scare me at all. What’s scarier are people who’d add a thousand-Ruble penalty clause to a contract if you break it.”

One thousand Rubles. Sel muttered it once more under her breath, glaring at Eric before getting up.

She wanted to leave this place.

To empathize with the wounds Lavi bore, she had to revisit her own scars, and she disliked that.

Underneath her expressionless face, Sel’s expression had darkened.

“Sel.”

Eric called out to her. He’d always called her “rookie,” but this time he used her name.

Eric pulled something out of his pocket and tossed it to her.

She opened her hand to find a strawberry-flavored candy with little red spots.

“You did well staying up until dawn. You used your head, so replenish your sugar, rookie.”

Eric’s eyes, usually devoid of any warmth, held a faint sparkle as he spoke. Just a faint one.

Eric, who rarely showed any generosity, had acknowledged her hard work in finishing the blueprint with that single piece of strawberry candy.

Sel unwrapped it and popped the round candy into her mouth. Its sweet taste spread across her tongue, and unexpectedly, her eyes grew misty.

Mumbling a quick goodnight, Sel made her way toward the library.

The kindness shown by those she’d have to part from one day was achingly sweet and hard to let go of.