A few days earlier, on the outskirts of the capital.

“What is this supposed to mean? Father suddenly took Ruby and went to Zelox?”

Rosetta frowned.

It was around the time Rubian had just opened her eyes at the ducal estate in the capital.

She was in the middle of imprisoning a mage inside a secret cabin on the outskirts of the capital and interrogating him.

One of the mercenary maids who had brought the news spoke.

“According to the maids at the estate, Miss said she had to check the Zelox barrier immediately and left in a hurry.”

“And Father believed that?”

“Well, Lord Balrok is weak when it comes to Miss.......”

Still, he was not the sort of man who would thoughtlessly let Rubian do anything dangerous. So it should be fine, but......

Did something happen to Ruby?

Her body still can’t be in good condition.

After the lake incident, Rubian had spent several days unable to wake, tormented by fever.

Leviathan, Rosetta, and Khalid had stayed by her side all night with terribly anxious faces.

At least her condition had clearly improved starting last night.

Honestly, I thought she would say she was going south after Leviathan because of the magical beasts. But why the north? And if she left without even waiting for me, that means something was unbelievably urgent.

Rosetta recalled what had happened by the lakeshore.

When she saw the limp Rubian Leviathan had rescued, she had felt as if her heart would stop.

The culprit, the boatman, was caught quickly. Since she had deliberately shot the arrow to avoid his vital points, his testimony soon revealed the mastermind as well.

The boatman and the related parties were beheaded, and the First Prince was imprisoned.

“I, I wasn’t trying to do anything to the princess! That stupid boatman bastard!”

It seemed he had said it in an attempt to reduce his guilt, but it only provoked the enraged Emperor further.

Since his corruption had also been exposed at just the right time, it seemed he would be unable to avoid severe punishment.

He’ll probably be deposed as prince and exiled to a territory for the rest of his life.

Rosetta thought coldly.

Of course, neither she nor Leviathan had any intention of letting the First Prince arrive safely at his place of exile.

......Or maybe Khalid will get there first.

People who grew angry quietly were always the most frightening. Perhaps the prince might suddenly die in prison, she thought. Only thought.

“I’ll have to deal with this matter first.”

Rosetta turned toward the man tied to the chair.

The mage, who had been eating and living comfortably at the estate, had been dragged here by the mercenary maids by the hair.

She slammed her foot down between the man’s legs.

“Eek!”

“So when exactly will we be able to have a conversation? Hurry up and tell me what you were after. After approaching Ruby while pretending to be her birth father, what were you planning to do? Were you thinking of kidnapping her or something?”

Rubian’s coming-of-age ceremony was over, and the King of Casalia had been caught, so it was time to interrogate him.

In truth, she had intended to check whether he was related by blood using the potion at the estate first, but Hazel had stopped her.

“Ah, that potion has a problem. I think maybe nothing mixes with it. I was going to ask Miss when she came back, but....... She’s so ill.......”

Absurdly enough, she learned that he was not Rubian’s birth father through the mage’s own confession.

He had already lost a great deal of spirit after whatever had happened at the estate, and once he realized they had known from the start that he was the Mage King’s spy, he spilled everything very smoothly.

“And what are those magical beasts that appeared in the south? Hurry up and talk. I don’t have time.”

“T-that is.......”

“I said you don’t have time to stammer. I’ll give you ten seconds, so organize what you’re going to say. Ten.”

Slap. Rosetta struck the mage across the cheek.

“You’re not talking?”

“You said you’d give me ten seconds!”

“I decided that was a waste of time.”

Blood trickled from his mouth.

“Those mutated magical beasts in the south. Were they really made with dark magic?”

“I, I don’t know. The order I received was to approach while pretending to be her birth father and divert attention.......”

Rosetta clicked her tongue.

“Because that was the only way the Zebbert knights inspecting the south could return to the capital as quickly as possible.......”

“So you infiltrated the mages again while the south’s guard was loose? And they brought in the mutated magical beasts?”

“T-then Duke Zebbert would move away from the princess’s side, so I was going to lure the princess at that time....... The ‘seventh’ is helpless when it comes to family.......”

Rosetta seized the mage by the throat. Her fingertips, the joints standing out white, pressed precisely against vital points.

“Are all the folds in your brain smoothed out? Why work so hard at something that was obviously going to be exposed? So what, if you lure my daughter away, am I going to sit back and have fun watching?”

“Ghh.......”

“To begin with, thinking you could hold my husband in the south for long with magical beasts that only had a little dark-magic residue clinging to them. As expected, the Mage King’s brain is the smoothest of all.”

“Ghk, that is.......”

The man continued, gasping.

“D-Duke Zebbert...... in the south...... was certain to be defeated.......”

“Defeated?”

Rosetta smiled with true sincerity.

“You still haven’t finished analyzing his character. Nothing in this world can overpower Leviathan by force.”

“That is......!”

The man was just about to blurt something out despite himself.

Then, with a choked groan, black blood burst from the mage’s mouth.

“......!”

Rosetta hurriedly withdrew her hand, but the man clutched his heart and writhed silently before soon going limp.

“Tch.”

Rosetta looked down blankly at the dead man, whose eyes were wide open.

They silenced him.

At the same time, it was also the disposal of a tool that had outlived its usefulness.

I was going to wring him dry and make him spit out everything he knew.

With a cold face, she wiped the blood that had splashed onto her hand.

Well, fine. With this, I’ve roughly learned how they planned to shake our Ruby.

“Clean it up.”

The masked maids nodded heavily and poured oil throughout the cabin.

Rosetta stepped outside the cabin and pulled her black hood over her head. One maid approached and asked,

“Where will you go? North? South?”

Would she follow Rubian?

Or Leviathan?

For an instant, the mage’s voice going on about defeat came back to her, but Rosetta shook her head.

Because my hero would never fall to the likes of mere magical beasts.

No one knew Leviathan’s strength better than she did. Still, thinking she should send him a message telling him to be careful for now, she turned away coldly.

“The Imperial Palace.”

“Yes?”

“Send a messenger to Princess Sebelena and tell her I must meet her at once. She should be back by now. If she says no, threaten her and bring her if you have to.”

She had heard that Rubian had hurried north as soon as she opened her eyes.

More than anything, what Leviathan had said before leaving for battle kept bothering her.

“I think Ruby was holding a potion in her hand at the lake.”

“A potion?”

“I only glimpsed an empty bottle sinking, so I’m not certain either.”

Just in case, he had summoned Princess Sebelena before heading south, but he had been unable to meet her. Because the princess had gone out to meet the Casalian nobles immediately after leaving the banquet hall.

“I don’t have a good feeling about this. She was a little strange throughout the banquet after meeting the princess. So.......”

“You’re saying Ruby has something she couldn’t tell us?”

Leviathan nodded heavily.

“I need to hear exactly what she talked about with the princess.”

Pressing down on her strangely anxious heart, Rosetta headed for the Imperial Palace.

And now, here she was.

*****

“I only told the princess....... that the potion at the ducal estate shows the opposite result.”

Sebelena’s voice lingered in her ears.

If it was the potion at the ducal estate, then it must have been the blood-relationship potion Rubian said she had used playfully with Leviathan.

When Rosetta first heard the princess’s words, she honestly did not quite understand what they meant.

“Rose!”

Rosetta climbed over the fence of the memorial garden without hesitation.

At the banquet hall, Leviathan had clearly said the potion did not mix.

But that was...... a potion that showed the opposite result?

If she is a child who shares Leviathan’s blood.

Then she shares blood with me too.

What does that mean?

......Please, no.

Please let it not be.

Denying that absolutely impossible possibility, Rosetta had repeated only those words all the way north.

But every wish collapsed when she saw Balrok walking toward her from afar like a beast.

Rosetta ran frantically and clawed at the frozen ground with her bare hands.

“Mother!”

Boyd, who had appeared after hearing the commotion, blocked her with a horrified face, but she did not stop.

When the maids, unable to keep watching, tried to step in, she snarled,

“Don’t touch me!”

Her eyes gleamed with madness.

Balrok trembled violently and clenched his teeth, while Boyd bit his lip until it looked ready to burst, then ran to the castle, saying he would at least bring a shovel.

“No one touch me.”

Rosetta began digging up the grave again.

Her nails broke against the hard gravel, and blood flowed. Sweat and tears mixed together and fell, drop by drop, onto the dry, frozen earth.

Leviathan.......

Rosetta cried soundlessly as she scooped out dirt, then more dirt.

The memory of giving birth to the baby overlapped with it.

It had been a difficult labor, so severe that she had lost consciousness several times. And what had come out was....... No, could it even be called being born in the first place?

She delivered a dead baby.

When she regained consciousness again, the baby was already gone, and only a cold, black stone stele remained alone before her eyes.

“She was a girl.......”

That harsh man had, in the end, buried his baby himself.

What had Leviathan felt, digging the grave of the daughter he had waited for so long, one handful at a time?

Rosetta could not even fathom it.

Of course there was no way it was true, but she had sometimes feared that Leviathan, in truth, might blame her a little for losing their child.

That was why I resolved to live guarding this grave, at least.

Drip. Drip.

Bloody tears flowed from her bloodshot eyes. They left dark traces as they seeped into the earth, and as soon as they soaked in, they were dug out by Rosetta’s hands.

And finally.

Clunk.

“Ah.......”

Her fingertips touched a cold, thick stone coffin. A large hand wrapped around her trembling hand.

“......I’ll help. You can’t lift this alone.”

The old Duke was holding something back until his face had turned entirely red. The two adults pushed the coffin lid together. And then.

Thud.

Balrok collapsed to the ground.

“My God. The coffin really is.......”

“How could this be.......”

Shock spread across the faces of Butler Morris and the maids who had been watching, as well as Boyd, who arrived late carrying a shovel.

Leviathan.

Rosetta let her hands fall at her sides and closed her eyes as she looked up at the sky. Hot tears flowed down her frozen cheeks.

What have we.

What have I.......

Been guarding all this time?