There’s a boy I met by chance in the garden, and we decided to become friends……

Oh! Come to think of it, why haven’t I told him about my first encounter with Cassian yet?

Her mind suddenly cleared. She had been sharing the abandoned garden with him for almost a month, and if she mentioned it now……

……Would he dislike it?

But Father Ludwig also has many things he doesn’t tell me about.

When she asked what he had discussed alone with the beautiful saintess, he had changed the subject……

Various thoughts collided inside Florencia’s mind in a short time.

“Father, I actually…… made a friend.”

“A friend?”

“Yes, after seeing Michael off yesterday, I stopped by the Academy first to feed Ruby before coming to the Temple.”

Ludwig, who had been gently stroking her shoulder, lowered his gaze and quietly stared at Florencia. Until now, she had never had anyone who could be called a friend. Yet now, with graduation approaching, she claimed to have made a friend?

“The garden behind the annex used to be empty, but recently this…… friend appeared. He said he was taking a break from the Academy for some reason. Yesterday was the first time we properly talked, but he said he wanted to be friends with me. I think…… he’s probably lonely without friends, just like me.”

“I see. So yesterday, you couldn’t come because you were talking with your new friend?”

“Yes, my friend comforted me about Michael, and while we were taking care of Ruby together…… I should have thought about you waiting. I’m really sorry, are you angry?”

Ludwig wasn’t pleased about Florencia opening her heart to someone else.

But it would all end soon anyway. Ludwig felt himself becoming increasingly generous lately, to an extent that surprised even him. In the past, he had admittedly controlled her with a twisted affection, sometimes intimidating and treating her harshly. But now, planning to take Florencia to the Elysium Temple next year, he had definitely become more relaxed.

After all, it meant that whether family, friend, or lover, she would ultimately have only him forever.

A friend……

Though he was slightly bothered that she hadn’t mentioned it earlier, he decided there was no need to prevent her from experiencing new joys in the little time left. A peer friend was something she had never had before and would never have again.

He looked at Florencia with a light smile. Warm affection permeated his gentle gaze.

“No. I was just worried you might be sad alone after sending your brother off, but it’s actually fortunate you were with a friend.”

“Still, I’ll make sure not to break my promises with you next time, I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry, Father. The soft, warm little body leaned against him with an adorable whisper. Enjoying the sensation of her soft silver hair brushing against his skin, Ludwig’s neat lips curved into a smile.

“It’s alright. If it’s a friend from the same Academy, it must be a girl around your age?”

“Ah….. yes, that’s right.”

For some reason feeling she shouldn’t mention that Cassian was male, she unconsciously lied. Fortunately, she wasn’t looking directly into his eyes. If she had been, Ludwig would certainly have noticed her violet eyes wavering from the clumsy lie.

“That’s good. With your brother gone and me being so busy lately, I was worried you might be lonely.”

“……Thank you for thinking of me that way.”

It’s almost graduation anyway. If I don’t tell him until the end, he won’t know…….

Florencia tried hard to erase her anxious feelings. Pressing down her heart that was pounding with guilt from lying, she nestled into his arms, and Ludwig responded by kissing her softly and embracing her in return.

In truth, he had noticed from her trembling voice that she was lying about something, but pretended not to notice. She claimed to have lost track of time while talking about her brother, but he simply assumed she had gone shopping with her new friend or visited a dessert shop in town that girls their age typically enjoyed.

‘I suppose it’s good to be generous about such small matters.’

They say women naturally love secrets and sometimes try to hide their true feelings even from their own men. Seeing her trying to create small secrets from him now that she had grown up a bit was somewhat amusing and endlessly endearing to him.

However, that generous decision would later prove to be Ludwig’s most critical mistake when he looked back on it.

* * *

If one were to name the most beautiful season in the capital, it would undoubtedly be autumn. The sun, which until recently had stubbornly radiated heat during midday, had grown more generous, following the mindset of the clear, bright sky.

As the calendar page turned and warm autumn sunlight colored the atmosphere, the grounds of the Holy Empire of Lebleia’s Imperial Academy were filled with yellow and red hues as if carpeted.

Autumn wasn’t originally a season Florencia particularly liked. Rather than being captivated by the brightness covering the world, she found the quiet melancholy of fallen leaves beneath her feet heartbreaking, but this year’s autumn felt especially brilliant even to her.

Walking along paths cushioned with fallen leaves like blankets knitted from various colored yarns, pieces of sunlight pouring through dense trees crackled underfoot. At such times, it felt as if molecules of well-dried sunlight were scattered in the air, coming along with each breath and dyeing her heart with beautiful light.

With the graduation exams finally over and only the enjoyable ball and graduation ceremony remaining, most official classes had ended. The spirited noble ladies gathered by the classroom windows, spending time discussing post-graduation plans, boasting about fiancés, and talking about new jewels or dresses.

“Hey, about Lady Hazel, doesn’t she seem different from before?”

“Who? Lady Eriendna?”

“No, why….. You know, the half Hazel lady.”

Lady Schmitt, sitting on a bench in the central garden observing passersby, whispered to her best friend, Lady Allen.

“The other Lady Hazel…… The one who’s always alone? Well, I’m not sure. Why?”

“Really? My eldest brother came to the Academy briefly the other day to bring me a book. Apparently, he asked her for directions and kept asking me if I knew who she was. Said he fell in love at first sight?”

“Fell in love at first sight? Are you sure he didn’t mistake her for someone else?”

“No, there’s only one lady with fair skin, small stature, and silver hair, right? Plus, violet eyes aren’t common either.”

“……Well, she does have a style that evokes protective instincts. But still, with so many great beauties in society….. Lea, your brother has been working day and night at the imperial palace lately, is something wrong with his head?”

Lady Schmitt tapped her friend’s arm and laughed loudly at her lukewarm response.

“I thought so too and teased my brother to see a doctor, but looking at that lady recently, she does seem to have become prettier.”

Eriendna, who happened to overhear this conversation while walking, felt an impulse to grab Florencia’s hair and scratch her entire face. The eldest son of the Schmitt family was a promising imperial secretary and a handsome man who would soon become the next marquis. He was also someone Eriendna had long had feelings for. Though she had enjoyed meeting multiple men simultaneously even before her debutante, she secretly believed only Young Gentleman Schmitt qualified as her husband material.

When Young Gentleman Schmitt approached her first at a recent ball, she was filled with overwhelming happiness. While considering whether to reject his date request once, the moment he asked if he could be introduced to Florencia with a shy expression like a country youth herding sheep, she felt the greatest humiliation of her life.

Though she naturally didn’t pass on the message, he had already sent flower bouquets and letters to the Hazel residence twice.

‘I won’t let that lowborn wench get away with it this time.’

Eriendna’s mother, despite being the legitimate lady of the family, had suffered throughout her youth due to her father’s philandering. So it was natural to hate that girl whose very existence was filthy. You lowborn thing, first coveting the noble Hazel name, and now trying to steal my man?

Unable to contain her anger, she clenched her fist tightly. When the sharp nails she had grown pricked her delicate palm and caused a wound, her irritation surged even more.

“Ah, Miss……!”

“I’m so annoyed!”

When the maid attending her brought a handkerchief, alarmed at the wound on her mistress’s hand, she took out her frustration by pinching and hitting indiscriminately in her anger.

“Aaah……! Miss, please forgive me……!”

“You lowborn thing, how dare you touch me? Get out of here!”

The maid, who had become an innocent target for her anger, retreated while fixing her disheveled hair. Still not appeased, Eriendna fumed for a long time.

‘I’ll never forgive her.’

She had always disliked that wench, but lately, as graduation approached, she was even less compliant than before, which displeased her more. It had worsened since her weakness, the little boy, had left for Lugarn.

‘If it weren’t for my eldest brother, I would have dealt with that wench long ago……!’

The reason she couldn’t drive Florencia out even after her father’s death was because of Joseph. He was a caring brother who granted everything his younger sister with a large age gap wanted, but he had become somewhat strange after becoming count. Her mother wanted to marry off the unsightly Florencia to just anyone immediately, but Joseph firmly opposed it.