“Sister?”

Erin snapped back to reality at Karon’s touch on her shoulder. They had arrived at the front gates of the Marquis’s mansion through Lilia’s spatial transfer magic. Beside them, Lilia was catching her breath, clearly exhausted from the spell.

“What were you thinking about so deeply?” Karon asked.

“The Princess seemed a bit strange.”

“Strange how?”

“Just… she looked unwell…”

As Erin answered, she sensed something amiss and looked around, her expression hardening as she murmured with confusion, “Why aren’t there any guards?”

The soldiers who should have been guarding the mansion gates were nowhere to be seen. Suppressing her presence, Erin opened the gates and entered. Karon followed with a bewildered expression.

“There’s not a single person around. Where has everyone gone?” he asked.

“…”

“Could the First Knight Order have rescued Father? But if there had been a battle, it wouldn’t be this quiet…”

Erin’s face tensed with foreboding. She expanded her senses, reaching out with her perception. After a moment, she released a soft sigh—her father seemed to be safe. 

However, her expression quickly twisted when she detected a familiar mana signature from inside the mansion.

“Why would Lord Ferdin be here…?”

Finishing her scan, she began running rapidly. Channeling mana into her legs, she leaped high into the air, soaring like she was flying, and crashed through a window to enter the mansion.

“Sister?” Karon murmured, dumbfounded. 

Her speed had been too fast for his eyes to follow. 

“Is this the level of a Sword Master?” he wondered, amazed that she would ignore the front entrance and choose to enter through a window instead.

Lilia tugged at the stunned Karon. She too felt an ominous unease in the mansion’s eerie silence. 

“Karon, this isn’t the time to stand around. Let’s check the Marquis’s room first. Erin must have had a reason for moving so urgently.”

Karon regained his composure at Lilia’s words and stared grimly in the direction his sister had disappeared.

* * *

Isis was pouring every ounce of his holy power into Ferdin’s body.

“Please… please…” 

Sweat dripped from his forehead—the wound was that severe. It was a devastating injury that no one less skilled than Isis, the future Pope, would dare attempt to heal.

Like someone who had lost his mind, Isis kept muttering the same words: “Don’t die, Your Highness Ferdin… you can’t leave us behind…”

His hands trembled ceaselessly from overexerting his holy power. “This can’t be happening… this simply can’t be. Your Highness isn’t meant to die in a place like this.”

Yet despite all the holy power Isis channeled, Ferdin’s wounds showed no signs of healing. The Princess’s prophecy echoed in his mind: “Ferdin will die.”

Was the future unfolding exactly as the prophecy had foretold? Would Prince Ferdin truly die? Isis regretted not stopping him despite knowing the prophecy, cursing himself for his inaction.

“You cannot enter right now!”

Suddenly, the sound of someone pushing past the knights reached his ears. Isis slowly turned his head toward the door.

Erin stood there, her face expressionless, emanating a tremendous aura. Isis held his breath, feeling an inexplicable pressure from her presence. She approached Ferdin slowly.

“Why… is Lord Ferdin here…”

Isis bit his lower lip hard. No more holy power flowed from his fingertips. The atmosphere grew solemn around them.

Looking at his blood-stained hands, Isis finally spoke: “There was a prophecy… that if Prince Ferdin didn’t come to the Marquis’s mansion… the Marquis would die…”

Erin moved closer to Ferdin and checked his heartbeat, just as she had done in the infirmary. 

‘This is different from before,’ she thought. His heartbeat was irregular, weakened to the point where it seemed ready to stop at any moment.

Her eyelashes trembled slightly as she gently caressed Ferdin’s cheek.

Isis addressed Erin: “I… I don’t know what to do. This wound is beyond what my holy power can heal.”

“Stay calm, Erin Liserth,” she told herself, trying to maintain her composure as she listened to Isis. “If the Princess had truly seen a future where Lord Ferdin died, she wouldn’t have helped me come here.”

There must be a way. Erin trusted the Princess.

With trembling hands, she clutched her necklace. Ever since Ferdin had given it to her, Erin had grasped it whenever she felt anxious.

“Should I have killed them all, even if innocent people got hurt…?”

At that moment, the necklace began to emit a powerful light.

* * *

Erin gazed at Ferdin lying before her. He was dying.

Her face contorted in anguish, but she wasn’t seeing the present Ferdin. The place where he had collapsed was… the Western Region.

She could hear people screaming. She saw the monsters she had killed. These were memories of the past.

On the day Ferdin went west, the Emperor had tried to massacre all the humans there using monsters. Ferdin’s death during the western expedition under the Emperor’s orders had been a predetermined future.

Erin looked at Ferdin’s necklace. A voice from it echoed in her ears:

[The Goddess wishes for the future to be changed.]

The Goddess was furious with the Emperor. She had no intention of tolerating someone who dared challenge the divine and killed others at will.

When Ferdin faced death, the Goddess decided to give him a choice.

[Ferdin Lexia, avenge the Emperor according to the Goddess’s will.]

The sacred object whispered to Ferdin, promising to grant him the power to punish the Emperor if he desired it.

But Ferdin, with his ability, had seen the vanished past that the Goddess had reversed. If he chose to kill the Emperor and returned alive from the west, Corelia would kill Erin.

Could there be an ending where everyone was happy? Where no one died and no one suffered?

Ferdin made a wish.

Erin held her breath and listened to his words:

“I don’t want revenge.”

[…]

“I’ve had plenty of opportunities to make choices. But she never had such chances.”

Ferdin felt his eyelids growing heavy. As always, he wasn’t afraid of death.

“Give Lady Erin a chance. A chance for her to be happy…”

After catching his breath briefly, Ferdin continued:

“I hope she doesn’t have to live a painful life like this one…”

Erin finally understood why she had repeated several cycles of reincarnation.

[Foolish one… her happiness depends on you…]

At that moment, the voice faded away and Erin’s vision inverted.

She opened her eyes in a familiar place—the forest she had seen in her dream on the day she nearly died in the west.

Erin quickly looked around. The woman she had seen before was watching her.

“That child will not die.”

The moment she heard those words, Erin felt her anxious heart grow calm. There was a compelling power in the woman’s voice that made Erin believe her.

“What was that just now…?”

“The Goddess revealed the truth you were curious about as a reward for changing the terrible future.”

“…”

“If you hadn’t gone to the Imperial Palace, the Emperor would have released the monsters. He despises situations beyond his control.”

The woman smiled at Erin, but her expression quickly hardened as she slowly continued:

“A terrible massacre would have occurred.”

“…”

“Even a Sword Master couldn’t save everyone. Those beyond your sight would have died.”

The woman snapped her fingers, and a dark space appeared before Erin’s eyes. It was filled with monsters locked in iron cages.

When Erin’s eyes met one of the monsters, she felt herself being pulled backward.

“This place…”

Drawn by an unknown force through multiple doors and stairs, Erin arrived at a corridor in the Imperial Palace. The place filled with monsters was none other than beneath the Imperial Palace.

Erin covered her mouth, overwhelmed by revulsion. She couldn’t believe what the Emperor had done beneath the land where people lived.

The number of monsters in the palace basement far exceeded the horde at the orphanage.

All the images before her eyes disappeared, and when the woman reappeared, she wore a pained expression.

“The Emperor is prepared to release the monsters at any time. There isn’t much time left.”

“…”

“But this isn’t something you can handle alone. It’s different from what happened in the west.”

If the monsters inside the Imperial Palace were released, a horrific massacre would occur. Unlike the monsters in the west that had pursued only Erin in a confined space, containing and confronting these monsters would be impossible for one person. It would require at least all the Empire’s Sword Masters working together.

“Who… are you?”

The woman’s eyes flickered at Erin’s question. Instead of answering, she said something else:

“Lady Erin, go back and do what you want to do.”

* * *

Erin knew she had returned to reality. Isis stood beside her with a bewildered expression. He asked her with a trembling voice:

“Lady Erin, that necklace…”

Her necklace was glowing. Isis recognized its nature immediately.

“The sacred object that Prince Ferdin possessed…”

Isis slowly reached for the necklace in Erin’s hand. Immediately, he felt his depleted holy power rapidly replenishing.

In that moment, Isis understood why the Princess had sent him here. As soon as his holy power was restored, he began healing Ferdin again.