After asking uncooperative people for directions and finally finding the Edis mansion, Arsen wasn’t there either.

He had taken his knights into the forest to hunt demonic beasts, something they hadn’t done for a while.

“Are demonic beasts still coming out even though the weather has warmed up?”

“It’s because the weather has warmed up that demonic beasts aren’t coming to the village. They’re always crawling all over the forest.”

The messenger was stuck at the Edis mansion. In this situation, even as messengers came one after another, they couldn’t return.

Meanwhile, in the forest, Arsen was doing something like hunting demonic beasts.

“Commander, how long are we going to just catch rabbits here? I heard there are already three imperial messengers waiting below.”

Randel asked Arsen, who was putting his all into capturing winter rabbits.

“I’m here to avoid them.”

“Is that really okay?”

There was no reason it wouldn’t be. Arsen had decided to withdraw his loyalty to Richard and offer it to the Goddess instead.

He had decided to become a holy knight.

Cutting open Lydia’s chest to remove the holy relic? Absolutely not.

Arsen had no intention of standing by and watching that. Why put a blade to a healthy body? If his chest needed to be cut open, he would gladly offer it.

Not just cut—he could have it splayed open and turned inside out. But just imagining a blade touching Lydia’s white skin made Arsen’s vision blur.

‘Master will surely stop her.’

Lydia had asked for Byron the priest to be sent to the capital. Though he was called a priest, he had effectively been stripped of his position.

But with the Bayern family reinstated, there was no reason Byron couldn’t be reinstated as well.

Arsen granted Lydia’s request and also asked Byron to prevent Lydia from doing that dangerous act.

Byron, who turned pale and started calling on the divine as soon as he heard Lydia’s plan, seemed reliable.

‘Master is a rational person. And Lydia listens to Master very well.’

Strangely, Lydia listened well to what Byron said. So if Byron went and stopped her, Arsen could rest easy. While Byron bought time, Arsen planned to stabilize his territory, hand it over to Kedrick, and then enter the temple.

If he made a generous donation and asked to be assigned as the saintess’s guard, High Priest Manus would gladly agree.

‘I’ve done everything I needed to do.’

He had restored his family’s honor, and the Bayern family members could now live safely. The people of the borderlands could move to the safe Count Wonde’s territory, and he had given all members of the Black Wolf Knight Order, who had risked their lives following him, positions and wealth above commoners.

Having done his part, he planned to live the rest of his life as he wished. By Lydia’s side, protecting her.

‘Not bad.’

It wasn’t a bad life. Though they couldn’t become husband and wife, if he could remain the closest person to her for a lifetime, wouldn’t that be enjoyable too?

“At this rate, won’t the Fourth Prince take the throne?”

“What does that have to do with us?”

The one with fire at his feet was Richard, not Arsen. He even had decent memories with the Fourth Prince. After all, Arsen was the one who had saved his life when it hung in the balance.

“That’s true, but……”

Randel wondered if it was really okay to ignore the emperor’s messengers like this. Though they had come out for unnecessary demonic beast hunting specifically to avoid them, he still felt uneasy.

But Arsen returned to rabbit hunting with a face showing no lingering attachment. Actually, it should be called rabbit capturing rather than hunting.

“Why are these rabbits so fast?”

“Because they’re rabbits. And if they weren’t fast, could they survive in this forest crawling with demonic beasts?”

Randel tossed a towel to Kedrick, who had grass all over his hair and was sweating.

“Vice Commander, are we really okay just doing this?”

He’d feel less uneasy if they were at least hunting demonic beasts, but chasing rabbits made him feel like they were committing a crime.

“We need to be doing this.”

Kedrick answered while wiping his face with the towel.

“If we had gone as soon as the messenger arrived, we would have been at the front lines again.”

Even when they were advancing from Evansi marquisate to the capital, the Black Wolf Knight Order had been at the forefront of the most dangerous battles. It wasn’t just because they fought well.

Because they had the least power, because no one would protest if they died.

Back then, they stepped up because they had a job to do, but not now.

“If we join the battle when it’s dragging on and turn the tide, we become heroes. And if the war ends before we get there, even better.”

Somehow, that didn’t seem likely.

Just as Kedrick was scolding him to stop thinking unnecessarily and join the rabbit catching, an anguished scream rang out from the other side.

“Commander, how could you let it go!”

“……I made a mistake.”

Arsen sheepishly withdrew his empty hands that had stopped in mid-air. Since they were already in the forest, he wanted to catch a winter rabbit for Lydia.

A winter rabbit that resembled Lydia.

Though it looked more like a demonic beast now, in winter it would become fluffy with pink fur resembling Lydia’s hair.

Since he wouldn’t have many chances to visit the borderlands after becoming a holy knight, he planned to capture one while he had time, but this rabbit was quite formidable.

The Black Wolf Knight Order, seasoned in hunting demonic beasts, was thoroughly outwitted by mere rabbits. They knew capturing them without injury would be difficult, but they hadn’t expected rabbits to evade all their capture devices, traps, and nets.

The creatures deliberately circled around the knights, eating only the bait they had brought, and slipped easily through their hands.

Just like Lydia circumventing Arsen’s expectations.

“Miss, are you really sure about this? Please reconsider.”

At the very moment Byron was passing through the capital gates heading toward the Central Temple, Lydia was lying on the operating table. Wellington asked her over and over.

As a physician, he had stitched torn flesh before, but never cut into healthy flesh.

“Don’t worry, the Goddess will take care of me.”

Lydia said this while sniffling in fear.

“But we’re going against the Goddess’s will?”

“Are you going to keep discouraging me?”

She was already scared, and Wellington’s trembling made it worse. But she wouldn’t withdraw her decision.

Once was enough for living according to others’ wishes.

“Haah, then drink this down first. You’ll fall into a deep sleep. You’ll wake up in an hour……”

Wellington glanced at Lydia and murmured desolately.

“I pray you will wake up.”

“Are you really going to be like this?”

Glaring at Wellington, Lydia took the thick medicine he offered. After staring at it for a moment, she tightly closed her eyes. Though she tried to drink it all at once, she kept hesitating as if someone were pulling at the medicine bowl.

She had felt this way when drinking poison at the imperial palace too.

Why was such an unpleasant memory coming to her now? After hesitating for over ten minutes, Lydia finally drank the medicine with a resolute expression.

As Lydia wiped her lips and lay on the cold bed, Arsen’s face floated before her eyes.

After Arsen, Maria, and Violet came the moment she drank the poison, the times they laughed and joked while doing hard labor at the labor camp, and even the moment of Giselle and Richard’s secret meeting.

‘Wait, isn’t this my life flashing before my eyes? Why is my life……”

Momentarily confused by these flashing images, Lydia fell into a deep sleep.

“Goddess, please, please save her.”

Wellington, reciting prayers he never usually said, picked up the scalpel with trembling hands. He really didn’t want to do this.

If Lydia hadn’t threatened to hand him over to debt collectors, he would never have done it. Wellington looked around with a face about to cry. He had prepared sterilized thread and needles, hemostatic agents, antidotes, and even holy water just in case.

“Oh, Anastasia, why do you give me such a trial?”

At the moment Wellington began the surgery while sobbing, outside, High Priest Manus was greeting an unexpected visitor.

“Ah, you must be the person Priestess Lydia mentioned.”

“I am Byron.”

Byron had rushed to the temple. He was worried about Lydia’s plan that he had heard from Arsen.

Why had she planned such a reckless act. If the Goddess had a will, wouldn’t she return Lydia to Arsen’s side?

Byron intended to persuade Lydia to try praying earnestly.

“I’ve brought a letter from young mas—I mean Count Bayern. I want to deliver it quickly, where can I find Priestess Lydia?”

Manus had a hunch. Byron would surely interfere with Lydia’s plan.

“Haha, Priestess Lydia will be so pleased.”

He tried to stall for time. To be honest, the holy relic was more important to him than Lydia’s life. There was no reason to refuse when Lydia had offered to remove the holy relic herself.

“Priestess Lydia is currently in conversation with another visitor. Why don’t you have tea with me instead? I’ll show you the way.”