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Vent let out a sigh of relief and chattered away, clearly glad for the respite.

Damian and Vent headed straight to the office. After confirming the door was securely locked, Vent handed over a document he had been carrying.

“Once again… we couldn’t find any significant information.”

Damian accepted this news with calm indifference. After all, it had already been a year of searching for traces of someone long deceased.

Edmund had raised Damian without neglect. Though there had never been any overflowing bond between them, Damian had never thought affection was necessary and thus, didn’t mind. For this reason, he didn’t miss or long for his biological mother. However, that didn\'t mean he wasn’t curious.

“You’ve worked hard. You can go now.”

“Uh, Young Master,” Vent hesitated, with a hint of uncertainty, “Why don’t you just ask His Excellency?”

Damian had entered the Winter family when he was four years old.

Typically, even illegitimate children were brought in as infants, so Damian’s appearance four years later, despite his striking resemblance to Edmund, sparked much speculation about his true parentage.

The rumors persisted for quite some time, and perhaps as a result, Damian developed an unusually sharp sense of awareness from a young age. He easily picked up on the fact that his father was reluctant to speak about his birth mother. Thus, Damian began secretly seeking information about her on his own.

“There’s a limit to the information we can find, and His Excellency should know about it better than anyone.”

What Vent said was right, but Damian had no intention of bringing up his dead biological mother in front of Edmund.

“... What good would it do for you to know? Are you tired of searching now? Didn’t you say you’d do anything, even clinging on my leg?”

“Young Master!” Vent yelled with a flushed face. “Why are you bringing up old stories now!”

Vent had been born into the Nuvelle Barony, one of the Winter family’s vassal houses.

As a precious late-born son, the Baron and his wife had doted on him excessively. Being quite intelligent, Vent grew up rather arrogant. So much so, in fact, that when Damian – five years his junior – was praised as a genius, Vent challenged him to a trivia quiz. Upon losing, Vent was forced to clean the stables as punishment.

Having been pampered all his life, Vent couldn’t bear the thought of cleaning stables. He rushed out, grabbed Damian’s leg, and begged, promising he’d do anything to avoid the task.

That was how their connection started, and now here they were.

“I’ll be going now.” Vent grumbled, pouting his lips.

“Wait.”

Damian called out to Vent and handed him a piece of paper.

“What is this?”

There was a small flower drawn on the paper.

“Find out who uses this symbol. It seems they make various items, from swords to pens.”

“There’s not much information here, so it might take a while.”

“That’s fine.”

“Understood. You’ve worked hard again today.”

Since today’s lessons were the last item on the agenda, Vent was able to leave early.

Damian picked up one of the many documents piled on his desk. With his schedule now free, it was time to begin working. The papers he received varied widely, ranging from social gossip to tax reviews for the vassal families.

‘An intelligence report?’

It appeared that a document meant for Edmund had somehow ended up with him. The moment Damian opened it, something unusual caught his attention, and he decided to read on.

As he read, Damian’s expression gradually changed.

‘Saintess?’

Long ago, one of the children of the First Saintess established a temple. After the second generation, the ‘mark’ of the Saintess – appearing only once per generation without fail – would always manifest on one person’s forehead.

Though many years had passed, this tradition had not changed. Ten years ago, the last Saintess died, and no new Saintess has emerged since. Fortunately, the current High Priest possessed immense divine power, keeping the temple intact, but rumors regarding the Saintess never ceased.

Amidst this, a new report had surfaced: a Saintess had appeared for the first time in ten years. Though the report concluded by stating that security around the temple had tightened, preventing further information, Damian understood that this was no ordinary situation.

Lost in thought, Damian unconsciously reached for his necklace. His hand brushed against something, and he pulled out the locket.

When he opened it, a portrait of Daphne came into view. With a faint, elusive smile, her head tilted slightly to the side, eyes cast downward. The image brought back memories of the grand ball held in the capital.

“My wish? It’s for you to disappear.”

‘If I hadn’t said those words, would Mother still be here?’ Damian imagined again and again countless scenarios in his head, wondering how things might have ended differently had he changed his wordings differently.*

‘If only I had said something different back then.’

Click—

The locket snapped shut, concealing Daphne’s portrait once more. With a quick, anxious motion, Damian stuffed the locket back into his inner pocket. Grabbing the document regarding the Saintess, he left the study to deliver it to Edmund. As he briskly walked down the hall, something caught his attention – a half-open door.

“It looks like the restoration would take quite some time. You mentioned that the artist who painted this died, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then it may take even longer.”

“I see. I’ll inform His Excellency.”

Benjamin, who had been speaking with someone, noticed Damian standing at the door.

The last time he had seen Damian was at the ball in the capital five years ago. He had grown remarkably in that time, and now, his resemblance to Edmund was even more striking. Meeting again after a month, it felt like he grew much taller than at the banquet.

“Young Lord? What brings you here?”

“... That painting.”

Damian’s gaze was fixed on the painting in the center of the room. It had been lost and then recovered, but was severely damaged. Daphne’s face was so torn that it was barely recognizable.

“Yes, this is the one.”

“And where is the maid responsible for that?”

“She’s in the basement.”

“I see. Father has entrusted the rest to me, so there’s no need to report further.”

“Understood.”

Damian disappeared even before Benjamin could finish his sentence.

Forgetting about the documents he was supposed to bring to Edmund, Damian headed to the basement. His footsteps filled the otherwise silent basement. He met a guard on his way and was led to the cell where the maid, accused of stealing and damaging the painting, was being held.

“… Ah.”

Damian saw the maid lying motionless on the floor and immediately realized he was too late.

He called for the guard to unlock the cell door and entered. Judging by the state of the body, it had been several days since she’d died. As the guards moved the corpse, a pool of sticky blood was left behind.

Damian was about to leave, having gained nothing from the scene, but then something caught his eye.

“This is… .”

What was lying there was a map drawn in blood on torn clothes.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Tap, tap.

After hearing Johann’s report, Edmund remained silent for a long time.

“It was dangerous this time.”

‘Vent had almost handed over the information, but they had narrowly managed to stop him. Was it inevitable?’

Edmund pondered.

For the past year, Damian had been obsessively gathering information about his birth mother. Fortunately, they had erased most traces beforehand, anticipating such a time.

“We can’t hide it forever.”

“... I know.”

Damian would eventually find out the truth about his biological mother. But Edmund wanted to delay it as much as possible.

“Edmund, I will show Father.”

The image of a woman, staring at a newborn baby while dreaming of revenge, lingered as a faint shadow in Edmund’s mind.

Damian was still too naive to learn the truth – not only that Edmund wasn’t his real father but also about the existence of his birth mother, which everyone had carefully concealed.

Night soon fell.

Everyone hid their presence, blending into the shadows. Edmund stood still, his eyes fixed straight ahead.

As the moon finally showed its face, casting its light over the quiet dawn, the uninvited guest arrived.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

In the stillness of dawn, Damian abruptly opened his eyes and bolted up.

Though he had dozed off after tossing and turning for hours, an unfamiliar presence had roused him. He focused intently, trying to identify the source of the disturbance.

‘Was it just my imagination?’

But no, the presence had vanished without a trace. It was the unmistakable aura of a trained assassin, not that of a commoner or knight.

Puzzled, Damian laid back down but soon opened his eyes again. He knew sleep wouldn\'t be able to elude him for the rest of the night.

Giving up on sleep, he got out of bed and went to his desk. Opening the top drawer, he retrieved what he had found earlier that day. As he pieced together the tattered clothing, it formed a map.

The map he found on the bloodied floor of the cell had been difficult to discern at first. When Damian put it under the light, it became clearer. Yet, despite his efforts to study it, the map offered few clues about its location, other than a few rough paths.

He had long since memorized the map, but his frustration stemmed from not knowing where it led.

‘What good is it to memorize the map when he doesn\'t know where it leads?’

Damian ruffled his hair out of frustration. After carefully putting the map away to avoid any further damage, he curled up.

He couldn’t fall asleep, but he forced his eyes shut.

……