The maids were still worried about ,
“If you even have a slight headache, you must call the doctor.”
—after repeating this about a hundred tis, they finally let go.
As soon as I arrived at the Factory, I headed to the study to greet my grandfather after a long ti.
When I opened the door, my grandfather and Marquis Debussy were sitting there.
“Miss, we were very worried.”
“Erilot, you’re healthy now. Sorry.”
I bowed my head and replied.
Marquis Debussy shook his head and said,
“What is there to be sorry about for being sick?”
Grandfather quietly just stared at .
Marquis Debussy spoke softly to my grandfather.
“Duke, don’t you have anything to say?”
“What’s there to say? As long as she’s better.”
“Erilot, then I’ll be going.”
I was about to leave after greeting my grandfather as soon as I arrived at the Factory, but grandfather said,
“Co here and sit.”
His low murmuring made nervous, so I hesitated but went and sat again.
What was this? Had I done sothing wrong?
Was I being abandoned because I’m a sick three-year-old?
I rolled my eyes, thinking all kinds of things, when just then the steward knocked and entered.
Behind the steward, the maids followed, carrying food.
The first maid offered a dish.
A dish made from the tail of a fantasy fish.
It’s a famous dish said to be the ultimate health food.
“Eat.”
“...Yes.”
The second maid also offered a plate.
Exotic dicinal pills.
Famous as health supplents, nobles secretly smuggle these from foreign lands.
“Eat.”
“...Yes.”
The third maid also offered a plate.
Three-color herbs.
A renowned health tonic; its na alone carries value.
“Eat.”
“...Yes.”
I diligently chewed the health herbs.
At this rate, I’m going to burst.
Duke Astra frowned as he watched Erilot burp with a scoundrel’s expression.
“Why can you only eat this? Are you still sick?”
Marquis Debussy looked at grandfather with a baffled expression.
‘I wondered what they wanted to do with all that when they told to bring it.’
For two weeks, the intelligence departnt had been obsessed only with that.
‘I even wondered if the emperor was terminally ill...’
Erilot looked at Marquis Debussy with sad eyes.
Seeing the pleading look, Marquis Debussy stepped forward.
“Stop it.”
“You’ve only eaten this much!”
“dicine is poison if taken too much.”
“...”
Duke Astra furrowed his brows and said,
“Pack it all up and send it to Erilot’s room.”
All of it?
Erilot wore an expression full of world-weariness.
Leaving grandfather’s room, I walked toward the annex.
Since the shrine was unusable due to the explosion, the children were currently receiving education in the annex.
At the end of the hallway, I saw kids lingering.
“Erilot...”
“Hey!”
Dione and Liantin ran up side by side.
Both had grown their hair quite long since then.
They seed a little taller too.
‘Well, it’s been half a year.’
Liantin, who ran right up to , gave a sharp glare and said,
“Idiot! I heard you got caught in the magic explosion!”
“Don’t shout. You just recovered.”
Dione sniffled, and Liantin bit her lip tightly, muttering, “Fool.”
“I’m going. You take so dicine or sothing.”
Liantin walked off alone.
But after a short distance, she suddenly turned back.
“I went to the interdiate training room while you were gone! I’m better than you, got it?!”
She said this while sniffing.
She really had a strong personality.
Dione asked several tis,
“Are you really okay?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Really, really?”
I don’t know how many tis I said “yes” before leaving.
The maids behind sniffled again in a second round.
‘One reunion scene is enough.’
I said, “Later!” and dashed out of the room.
Running fast, I quickly arrived at the second gate.
In front of the second gate, the needle dog I saw last year drooled and growled.
“We used to be... no, we’ll be friends in the future.”
Now I wasn’t scared at all.
Grr!
...Okay, maybe a little scared.
The more I thought about it, the more absurd it was.
‘I didn’t lure Dalia by breaking her curse.’
Dalia drunkenly staggered toward , and the needle dog attacked to protect .
I was just playing with the needle dog that night.
I suddenly took out sothing I had hidden in my clothes.
A wooden flute.
When I blew into it, a clear sound ca out and the growling needle dog cald down.
‘It’s made of white cypress wood.’
The scent of white cypress wood, undetectable to humans, is perceived by monsters as the pheromone of a newborn.
But it doesn’t work on all monsters.
“Then the flying monster that attacked us when the white cypress tree fell on Hadix Mountain...”
“Maybe it ca thinking we were attacking its baby? Humans are sorry...”
While Han Jihyeok and I were getting emotional, Michelan frowned.
“You an the flying monster called Karuathon [N O V E L I G H T] on Hadix Mountain?”
“Karuathon?”
“It eats weak creatures. It ca because it slled a baby.”
So you have to choose carefully.
‘This one can be tad.’
Needle dogs are often kept as guards. They’re not hard to raise.
I petted the needle dog lying down, saying, “Good, good.”
From afar, I heard footsteps coming.
I could guess who it was just from the steps, so I didn’t even turn around and kept petting the dog.
“Ah!”
It was Han Jihyeok.
Grrr!
The needle dog that was lying down suddenly stood up, glaring and growling at Han Jihyeok.
“Don’t scare like that.”
“Why are you so big...”
“Why did you co?”
“What about the Empress Dowager’s portrait?”
Han Jihyeok said he t the one holding the Empress Dowager’s portrait while I was unconscious.
They sent two fakes, hiding the original under the excuse of replication.
“Well, you did well.”
“...I did it because I was afraid you’d nag when you woke up.”
He said that, but he seed anxious when I wasn’t working.
He was worried about what would really happen to .
Han Jihyeok was staring at the ground with a sulky face.
I smirked.
“Did you bring the painting?”
“I put it in the room.”
Han Jihyeok and I returned to the room.
The painting he brought was wrapped nicely in paper and stood up.
“Why is the painting so big...?”
“The painting itself is small, but the fra is big.”
Han Jihyeok tore off the wrapping paper and showed it to .
The fra really looked very unusual.
‘This is...’
“It’s a smuggler’s fra.”
“Smuggler?”
Since this is a cri city, cri runs rampant here.
I learned once in class that smugglers used fras like that to smuggle drugs long ago.
I imdiately called Conrad to the room.
“You’ve been summoned.”
Conrad ca in looking puzzled and stared at .
I flipped over the painting and said to Han Jihyeok and Conrad,
“Press the corners at the coins! Not a bit off!”
One, two, three!
Snap!
Bang!
The painting fell down and a box ca out.
“Ah! The painting!”
While Han Jihyeok scrambled to catch the falling painting, I quietly opened the box.
And then...
“Wow—.”
There was another painting inside.
It was also well preserved.
Why?
Because there was a blessing stone built into the box.
“This painting...”
A girl’s back hanging by a window overlooking the sea.
She had brown hair and a small scar on her neck.
There was a signature on the back.
[Ordiacell K relis]
As soon as I saw it, I shouted,
“This is it!”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“The painting the Empress Dowager is looking for!”
Ordiacell was the Empress Dowager’s late mother.
That’s why the art gallery the Empress Dowager built was nad Ordiacell Gallery!
It wasn’t just a painting passed down from her mother.
“She must have been so important to be the Empress Dowager’s mother... Why was it hidden?”
Conrad answered.
“At that ti, paintings by female artists were believed to bring misfortune and were burned.”
So they couldn’t bring paintings by won into the royal palace.
“What will you do? Give it to the Empress Dowager imdiately?”
“Plan change.”
“What?”
If it’s such a precious painting, it’ll be my joker.
I chuckled like a demon.
“Keep it well.”
“Okay.”
Han Jihyeok carefully packed the painting again and looked at .
“A lot of letters have co.”
“I’ve received them all.”
I wrote replies too.
To Liantin, Dione, Hilda and Greta... and even to the Black Fla Dragon sister who sent a poem.
“There are letters that you haven’t received.”
“Where?”
“Letters without sender addresses.”
“Alexis?”
“Yeah.”
Han Jihyeok said wait a mont and brought a bundle of letters.
After Conrad and Han Jihyeok left, I lay stomach-down on the bed reading the letters.
I heard from Pink Hair about how I was sick.
She wasn’t really serious about telling to go.
‘I already forgot everything.’
She must have been really worried.
Spring has co outside.
The guard picked wild greens and made sothing strange.
Others didn’t want to eat it, but Luca kept teasing while eating.
It was tasty, but since you said you wouldn’t eat it, don’t eat it.
I saw Luca secretly throwing up in the bathroom.
Luca is like an older brother.
The guard—or rather, the camp chief—probably forced him to eat it because no one else would.
The kids knew I’d been unconscious for months.
Pink Hair has a big mouth.
Tomorrow a cot is falling, and the kids said they’ll pray for your awakening.
They made a wish.
I don’t like Luca.
I guessed we wouldn’t get along well, so we fought.
If Luca was like an older brother, he could have been a good friend.
What a pity.
While the guards were talking, they ntioned the training camp.
They were very embarrassed when they saw .
I was getting ready to sleep when the camp chief ca in and explained everything.
That this prison is actually a training camp, that recruits are not supposed to know, and that you paid a lot of money to entrust .
They thought I’d be shocked, but I was calm, so they were surprised.
But what surprised more was what I didn’t know until now.
“Huh?!”
I suddenly sat up and grabbed the letters.
Did you know?
When?
They had sensed from the mont they openly admitted you here. That this place was not ordinary.
When they found out the chessboard and pieces you and Luca used were handmade, they were certain.
No one would give prisoners sharp objects, even in a juvenile prison.
... I see.
So that’s why he told not to spend money on him back then.
The guard—or rather, the camp chief—Karlie left it up to to decide. Whether to train or to leave.
This guy.
Taking money and just letting kids out!
I frowned and finished reading the letters.
I said I’d think about it. Karlie said I could go out, and I got to leave the prison for the first ti in months.
It must have felt good to co out after so long.
Maybe that’s why I said I wouldn’t train.
I groaned and turned the page.
I went to Daymond’s jurisdiction to deliver letters to you. Even the guard at the first gate stopped .
While I was blocked, I saw guys dressed in fancy clothes and with clean hands riding horses.
They asked them nothing but asked everything: my na, my parents, my age, where I live, my siblings...
But in the end, those guys went up, and I couldn’t even deliver letters to you.
Training has started.
Next ti, I’ll deliver the letters to you myself, not Pink Hair.
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