Evelyn Joelle Chantalis.

[List of Crimes Committed in the Original Story, Chronological Order]

Frequently tormented the servants.

Demanded that people buy her clothes, only to burn them in the courtyard.

Borrowed money using her family’s name.

Squandered her allowance in gambling dens.

Threatened, blackmailed, and harassed Adonea on numerous occasions.

Evelyn bit the end of her pen.

This was already quite a list, and she had only written down what she could vaguely remember.

“What else was there?”

There had definitely been one decisive incident that caused the original Evelyn, after her descent into darkness, to be deemed completely beyond redemption.

And it had occurred around this age…

While searching through her hazy memories, Evelyn suddenly clapped her hands.

“That’s right! The myna bird!”

The imperial princess’s beloved myna bird died during her birthday celebration, and Evelyn was accused of killing it.

Evelyn vividly remembered the scene in which the girl held the cold, lifeless bird in both hands and wept.

“…Please save this poor thing.”

But to everyone watching, it had looked like nothing more than a spoiled duke’s daughter putting on an act after killing the princess’s bird.

‘The original story never explored the incident in detail, but everyone firmly believed Evelyn was responsible. And that was when a high-ranking noble happened to collapse.’

The spawn of evil who had killed the princess’s bird, contrasted with the servant of God who saved a human life.

The difference between them could not have been more striking.

From that point onward, both Evelyn’s family and society at large reached a firm conclusion.

‘Evelyn is dangerous.’

It must have been a devastating experience for a seventeen-year-old girl.

Evelyn decided that she needed to prepare thoroughly for the incident involving the myna bird.

‘Even if the original Evelyn really did kill it, that doesn’t matter. I’m not going to kill it. The problem is what happens if someone frames me.’

No one would bother listening to her side of the story or properly investigating what had happened.

Evelyn released a long breath.

She had been alone since birth, so the prospect of continuing to live alone did not frighten her.

What truly frightened her were her incomplete memories and the countless misunderstandings surrounding Evelyn.

The original novel had fizzled out shortly after Evelyn’s death and ended at an awkward point, leaving her with only a limited amount of information.

Feeling her stomach gradually empty again, Evelyn rose from her seat.

‘For now, I need someone handsome. Let’s go see someone handsome.’

Nothing lifted one’s spirits quite like a beautiful boy.

She knew little about Sachi, but he was Duke Chantalis’s son. How unattractive could he possibly be?

After slowly winning over the members of this family, she would make herself a fortune and leave Lagria, a country where both love and marriage were clearly hopeless. Then she would live an ordinary life in another kingdom.

Evelyn set out to find her third brother, Sachi, who was probably holed up in his laboratory at the top of the annex.

Naturally, she did not forget her veil.

***

Inside the dark laboratory, soft golden-brown hair swayed in the shadows. A cautious light gleamed in a pair of vivid blue eyes.

Each time bubbling liquid was drawn through a long glass tube and dripped into a flask, the boy’s humming grew louder.

At that moment, a white rabbit that had been sleeping soundly on the desk raised its head.

“What is it, Chito?”

“Squeak, squeak!”

“…Someone’s coming?”

Visitors to the laboratory in the annex were rare.

Aside from the servants briefly stopping by the first floor twice a day to deliver his meals, no one ever came or went.

Who could possibly be visiting?

Creak!

Just as Sachi began rising from his desk, the laboratory door cautiously opened.

He hesitated, then retreated deeper into the shadows.

He received so few visitors that he had long since stopped bothering to lock the door.

A black chiffon dress covering the tops of a pair of pale feet entered his field of vision.

‘It can’t be…’

Sachi could not tear his eyes away from the platinum-blonde hair spilling from beneath the veil.

Only one of the duke’s children had inherited their father’s beautiful platinum hair.

It could belong to no one but his younger sister, Evelyn.

“…Evelyn?”

He would have been less surprised if the emperor himself had suddenly appeared in the doorway.

Sachi removed his hand from the place where he kept a dagger for self-defense.

Evelyn, whom he had not seen in some time, approached without making a sound.

Her quiet voice crossed the dark laboratory.

“It has been a long time, Brother Sachi.”

Sachi raised an eyebrow at the unfamiliar form of address.

‘Brother Sachi?’

It was the first time in her life that Evelyn had ever addressed him so respectfully.

He had thought she did nothing but complain. Had someone finally taught her some manners?

“What brings you to my laboratory?”

“…”

Blink. Blink.

A meaningless exchange of looks continued through the thin veil.

Sachi detested wasting time.

What bothered him even more was the fact that Chito, who was notoriously selective about people, appeared interested in Evelyn.

Sachi blocked the rabbit as it leaned forward and sniffed at her.

“If you have no particular reason for being here, then you should….”

At that moment, Evelyn walked toward the tower’s only window.

“Th-The weather is lovely today.”

Swish!

When she drew back the curtains, a cloud of pale dust rose into the air.

Outside the window, the dreary winter sunlight shone weakly.

Still unable to understand what was happening, Sachi stared at Evelyn.

“…The weather is lovely?”

“Yes.”

“You came all the way here just to tell me that?”

“…”

Silence fell once more.

Chito raised both paws and made a gesture as though begging them to stop.

Sachi picked up the rabbit and placed it on his shoulder.

“If you’ve said everything you came to say, then leave. There is nothing I hate more than wasting time unnecessarily.”

But Evelyn did not leave. Instead, she continued staring at Sachi’s face.

Then, without warning, she clenched her fist and began striking her own thigh.

“No. Hold it in. You have to resist.”

Startled, Sachi froze.

“Evelyn?”

At the sound of his voice, Evelyn began hitting her thigh even harder.

Sachi quickly caught her hand.

“What are you doing, ?”

He flinched.

‘Were her hands always this small?’

Although he had sensed that his own body had not been growing properly over the past several years, Evelyn’s wrist was still so slender that it looked as though it might snap.

Feeling strangely unsettled, Sachi released her and stepped back.

“Evelyn, you should return to your room. I’m busy.”

He had no intention of blaming Evelyn for their mother’s death after all these years.

In a way, it was good. After his mother died, he had been able to distance himself even further from the world.

It was better if no one cared about him, and if he cared about no one in return.

Chito slowly turned its head and gave him a look that seemed to say he had gone too far.

But since when had Sachi ever cared what others thought?

He turned away with an awkward expression.

Evelyn lowered her head.

“…I’m sorry for disturbing you, Brother.”

Sachi glanced at Evelyn’s small back as she left, looking utterly dejected.

Whatever else might be true, the Evelyn he had seen for the first time in so long seemed far too fragile to endure all the whispers branding her a servant of the Evil God.

When he had first met Adonea, the girl their mother had adopted, he had thought she carried a sorrow far beyond that was unlike other children her age.

But Evelyn’s loneliness felt even deeper.

And that careful little way she closed the door as she left, as though worried about bothering him…

‘Is that really the same Evelyn who supposedly squanders money in gambling dens?’

Sachi stood before the window and watched Evelyn’s retreating figure as she hurried away with tiny steps.

“…I don’t know what it is, but something about this bothers me.”

If there was something he could not understand, he would study it until he did.

That was Sachi’s creed as a scholar.

He returned to his desk and resumed writing the research paper he had left unfinished.

Pale sunlight streamed through the curtains he had failed to close.

Oddly enough, it did not feel unpleasant.

***

“Aaaaargh! D*mn it!”

The servants walking down the corridor gasped in fright and hurried past Evelyn’s room.

Evelyn paid them no attention. She was too busy pounding her fists against the bed.

‘What was with those cheeks? They looked like soft little rice cakes!’

Evelyn recalled the beautiful golden-brown-haired boy sitting inside the dark laboratory.

His fair cheeks still retained their childish plumpness, and his large green eyes had gleamed brightly.

Above all, there had been that prim, aloof expression resting upon his delicate features.

There was not a single thing about him, from the top of his head to the tips of his toes, that failed to strike directly at Evelyn’s heart.

If she could return to the laboratory immediately, pinch those chubby cheeks, and kiss them just once, she would have no other wish in the world.

‘Think. Think right now! What did that little cutie like?!’

Evelyn retrieved the diary she had hidden beneath the bed and frantically wrote down everything she knew about Sachi.

Scholar. Eccentric. Destined to stop growing. Likes sweets…

That was all she knew.

Evelyn’s eyes lit up.

“That’s it. I’ll give him food!”

She summoned the maid from earlier and ordered her to compile a list of famous confectioneries.

Even resentment could become affection over time. If she kept showing him her face, she was bound to find a way into his heart.

‘Besides, he didn’t seem to hate me as much as I expected.’

Remembering Sachi’s round cheeks, Evelyn smiled wickedly.

Once a member of House Chantalis chose a target, they sank their teeth in and refused to let go until they had claimed it.

Was that not the philosophy of this family?

Watching the sun slowly begin to set, Evelyn lay down on the bed.

Perhaps she had been too active since morning, because her eyes were already drifting shut.

Before long, she fell into a peaceful sleep.

It was a happy evening, and she could have asked for nothing more than to dream of eating delicious desserts.

After Evelyn had fallen deeply asleep, someone silently entered her dark bedroom.

The visitor was Duke Chantalis, his short platinum-blonde hair neatly swept back.

After a brief moment of surprise at the apparently empty room, he noticed the blankets rising and falling with Evelyn’s steady breathing. His eyes curved gently.

A smile touched his lips as he watched his daughter sleeping earlier than usual.

‘This reminds me of when you were newly born.’

He sat on the edge of Evelyn’s bed and gently stroked her smooth forehead.

His daughter had inherited both his platinum-blonde hair and his wife’s green eyes. She was so beautiful that she seemed to glow even in the darkness.

‘Because I was too weak, I have allowed you to suffer time and time again.’

Of his four children, she was the one who caused him the most pain, the precious youngest child whom he had never even been able to hold properly in his arms.

That only made her all the more beloved and heartbreaking to him.

He quietly kissed Evelyn’s forehead.

Then, as though proving the scornful nickname “the Toothless Duke” to be a lie, the softness vanished from his eyes and was replaced by a razor-sharp glint.

‘A great wind of change will soon sweep through Lagria, my child.’

He silently unsheathed the claws he had spent the past three years sharpening.

It was time to consign them all to history: the incompetent emperor who could not even govern properly, the nobles who had looked down on House Chantalis ever since Evelyn’s birth, and above all, those servants of Chara who had destroyed his daughter.

He gazed through the window toward the district where the commoners lived.

The person destined to overturn Lagria’s fate was hiding there.

***

At that same moment, inside Lagria’s Central Temple, commoner boys and girls who had come to hear the New Year’s address chatted excitedly, delighted by the rare outing.

Only one bespectacled boy stood apart from the others, silently studying the statue of Chara erected inside the temple.

His gaze was far too mature for anyone to believe he had only just turned seventeen.

“…They must have hired every famous sculptor they could find.”

The boy, Aint, clicked his tongue.

What a waste of precious tax money.

If the citizens of the empire, who worked themselves to exhaustion day and night, saw this extravagance, they would have burned down the temple long ago.

A golden light shimmered across Aint’s brown eyes.

Just as he reached toward the neck of the divine statue, footsteps echoed through the temple, followed by Locke Chantalis’s voice.

“Ain! You came too!”