My head and wrists ached from using my ability so intensively. Just as I was massaging my wrists to ease the pain, Marquis Offensa suddenly opened his eyes wide.

His red eyes flashed as they fixed on me. I nearly jumped out of my skin, instinctively clenching the fist I had almost swung at him in surprise.

“M-Marquis?” I stammered, trying to regain my composure. “Marquis, are you conscious?”

“You…” he murmured, his gaze unfocused like a patient under anesthesia.

“Do you recognize me?”

“Porsche…?”

“Pardon?”

“It’s Porsche…”

He clearly wasn’t in his right mind. Should I slap him?

Machines sometimes work after a good smack, so perhaps people might too? 

While I debated whether this would be considered disrespectful to an elder, Marquis Offensa’s eyes slowly closed again.

“I cannot cross the wall…” he whispered.

“What nonsense are you talking about? Why can’t you?”

“Because… just because…”

“‘Just because’ isn’t an answer! Hey, Marquis? Marquis!”

I used the “Villainess’s Parenting Method” again to boost his mana, but his eyelids remained firmly shut. This marked the second day of using my ability on the Marquis, working brutal full-time hours while taking care of all my basic needs at his bedside.

My desperate attempts to wake him stemmed from one simple reason: the date for the final tournament had been announced.

It would take place in winter, one month from now—the day when the match against Young Marquis Caiman would be decided. The Marquis needed to wake up before then to expose Caiman’s misdeeds and drive him away.

If he could remove the biggest obstacle standing in Noah’s and my path, I wouldn’t even need him to name me as his successor.

I had been diligently using my ability on him, so why had he closed his eyes again? I thought that since he suffered from mana deficiency like Lynen, continuously applying my ability would be enough to revive him.

But something about the Marquis’s condition seemed strange—it wasn’t that he was unconscious against his will, but rather that he seemed to be actively refusing to wake up.

“He said he couldn’t cross the wall… But Allen mentioned that the reason the Marquis has been able to survive until now is because he reached the realm of 8 stars.”

I agreed with Allen’s assessment—the Marquis must have either reached the 8-star realm or at least stood at its threshold. But how could the Marquis himself not know this? He wasn’t a novice mage but the Archmage himself.

“It’s almost like he’s giving himself negative suggestions about not being able to cross the wall… Wait a minute.”

A possibility suddenly occurred to me. “This seems similar to the King Slime’s case!”

When we encountered it in the dungeon, it said it had to attack everyone except people wearing black clothes. It didn’t know why—it just had to. Those people in black were obviously from the Special Magic Department.

“And the one who put Marquis Offensa in a coma was Young Marquis Caiman, the head of the Special Magic Department.”

Could there be a connection? It had to be brainwashing—the same kind that Ortie, who had been the King Slime, had experienced.

Someone must have brainwashed the Marquis into believing he couldn’t cross the 8-star barrier, then cast dark magic to induce mana deficiency. A meticulous double trap.

“This is troublesome. I can’t wake the Marquis in this state. I need to somehow break the brainwashing.”

If only I knew how the brainwashing had been performed. Unfortunately, I didn’t possess the ability to see the past. At this rate, I might only discover the solution after the Marquis died.

Wait—seeing the future?

“There is a way!” 

I exclaimed, thinking of the Mirror of Truth that I had secretly kept instead of returning to the imperial palace.

“I’m glad I didn’t honestly return it!”

I immediately returned to the annex and explained everything to Lynen, including the Marquis’s condition and my idea. He tilted his head skeptically.

“You think checking the future might give us a clue? That’s a gamble. Last time, the Mirror of Truth showed Noah’s future instead of the answer you wanted. This time too, it might show something completely irrelevant rather than any useful clues.”

“But we have to try, don’t we?”

“Very well.”

Perfect. I immediately tried to take the Mirror of Truth from his hands, but he caught my wrist.

“I’ll do it this time,” he said firmly.

“Huh?”

“I can’t let you turn into a child again. I’m better at controlling mana than you are right now.”

He had a point. As someone with mana incompatibility, I struggled to control mana as I wished. Lynen wouldn’t let the mirror drain too much of his mana—if anything, he might try to take it for himself, like that time in the greenhouse…

“Calliphe?”

“Ah! It’s nothing!”

I couldn’t believe I had been staring blankly at Lynen’s lips! Since the incident in the greenhouse, I had deliberately avoided mentioning what happened. 

My hidden ending and Noah’s wish couldn’t coexist—knowing that Noah wanted the three of us to become a family, I couldn’t pursue happiness with just Lynen and myself. I needed time to sort out my thoughts. Was Lynen waiting for me?

“I-I don’t know,” I muttered, quickly changing the subject. “Hurry and see if there are any clues about the Marquis’s brainwashing.”

“Understood.”

* * *

As Lynen channeled mana into the mirror, he thought to himself, “I’ll give her enough time to think.”

For whatever reason, Calliphe seemed to need time, and that was fine—he could wait as long as necessary. From his observations, she didn’t appear to have any deep relationships with other men; he was the only one, as her contracted fiancé.

This gave him peace of mind.

Just then, the mirror rippled and displayed an image that only Lynen could see and hear. A man he had never seen before appeared—a handsome man with tanned skin and a black tattoo on his cheek. Though the tattoo was partially hidden in shadow, he exuded a dangerous aura.

“So it’s showing me the future of some random person after all,” Lynen thought. But at that moment:

“You don’t know how long I’ve been searching for you,” the mysterious handsome man suddenly embraced a woman, tenderly stroking her golden hair with unmistakable affection.

“…!”

Lynen froze. That woman was… Calliphe?!

The man’s damnable vow pierced Lynen’s eardrums: “I will never let you go again. I’ll give you all the love I couldn’t give before.”

Rage surged through Lynen as he heard these words, but he tried to remain calm. After all, Calliphe and he had shared a kiss in the greenhouse. If he wasn’t mistaken, that meant something more than mere impulse. Surely Calliphe would push this unknown man away.

Or so Lynen thought until:

“Won’t you come away with me?”

“A-alright,” Calliphe responded awkwardly, yet still returning the man’s embrace by gently grasping his clothing.

“You know you’ll be in trouble if you make me carry something heavier than a fan.”

“Of course, my one and only princess.”

Lynen hastily cut off his mana supply to the mirror. His heart pounded wildly after witnessing such a shocking scene.

“Another lunatic calling Calliphe his princess?!”

Just then, his own princess urged him for an answer.

“Lynen, what did you see? Tell me quickly.”

“…Hah.” 

Lynen sighed deeply, regarding Calliphe with a complicated expression.

“Do you have a former lover?”

“Huh?”

“Do you still have lingering feelings for him?”

“What nonsense are you talking about? Get a grip.”

Calliphe smacked Lynen’s thick forearm. “Get to the point. Did you find any clues about the Marquis’s brainwashing?”

“No,” Lynen shook his head. “It had nothing to do with the Marquis. The person in the mirror was your former…”

“Former…?”

“Former… mortal enemy.”

Lynen’s eyes blazed with intensity. “A sworn enemy trying to kidnap you.”

“What?”

“Say it with me: mor-tal en-e-my.”