The footsteps walking slowly on the gravel suddenly stopped.

The man walking with her stopped and turned to look at the woman.

“What’s wrong?”

“…It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”

Melly shook her head with an awkward smile.

‘What am I doing.’

She felt pathetic about herself.

To still harbor the delusion that Edric might be somewhere around her. There’s no way that could be true.

Edric Pelton would never personally come to such a remote village. Especially not now, after three years have already passed.

Yet Melly couldn’t stop her gaze from quietly turning back.

“…”

Her eyes swept across the entire square.

Befitting a town market that opens once a month, people were bustling about, jostling each other’s shoulders as they hurried to and fro. Among the small-statured Kshatriyas, a man like Edric would certainly stand out. But he was nowhere to be seen. It was just her imagination after all.

Melly turned her body forward again. Leon looked at her and asked.

“Are you looking for someone?”

“…No, I’m not.”

Melly answered with a bitter expression. But she quickly put on a cheerful face and said.

“Shall we go now then?”

Leon nodded. The two resumed walking.

Melly felt her steps were somehow heavy. Thinking about why, she noticed the shopping basket in Leon’s hand. It seemed to be because of that.

“Give that to me. It’s mine, so I should carry it.”

“No, I can’t do that. You’re already carrying such a heavy burden…”

Leon shifted the basket to his other hand with a kind smile.

Melly followed behind Leon, her face flushing with embarrassment.

“Again today?”

Oz reacted with a dismayed face to the meal tray that Lisa brought down from Edric’s quarters.

The food was completely untouched. It had been five days already.

Following behind, Rena’s hands held a bottle of liquor and an ashtray.

While he hadn’t touched the food at all, the liquor bottle was completely empty and the ashtray was full.

“Oh my. What if he ruins his health like this.”

Everyone wrung their hands in worry.

But even as they all worried, not one person dared suggest that they should stop providing the alcohol and cigarettes. Because if he didn’t have those to cling to, he might put a gun to his head again.

For the past three years, he had alternated between hope and despair, but compared to when he had resolved to die, he was generally in not too bad a state. That was because he had a clear goal of finding Melly.

But now he looked like a person who had completely lost the will to live.

After drawing the blackout curtains to not let even a sliver of sunlight in, he hadn’t budged from inside for five days.

The room was filled with acrid tobacco smoke and the strong scent of alcohol, and sometimes there were shattered liquor bottles.

Even though it was midday, Edric’s face could hardly be seen in the pitch-black darkness as if it were the middle of the night.

Only the white cigarette smoke flowing from his mouth, as he leaned deep into the armchair as if he had given up on life, was clearly visible even in the darkness. The smoke, densely concentrated with anguish, continuously flowed out in spirals. He seemed to be breathing smoke instead of air.

“What on earth happened? How is the madam living that makes His Excellency like this?”

Oz couldn’t contain his curiosity and asked the butler.

“I don’t know either.”

The butler shook his head as he spoke. None of them properly knew why Edric had become such a wreck starting the day after he met Melly. Even the driver who had personally driven his car didn’t know the reason.

The only thing they all commonly guessed was that Melly must have another man.

Another man… They had guessed somewhat correctly.

But if it was just that, Edric wouldn’t have been so heartbroken.

Hadn’t he been prepared from the start? He had thought that whoever was by her side, he would just kill them and that would be that.

But a child was a different matter.

Melly was carrying that man’s child.

A child that had never been conceived when she was with him, Melly had conceived after leaving him.

She had finally conceived a child that could have been his if not for his mother’s schemes. Edric couldn’t forget the sight of Melly smiling more brightly than the intense sunlight, supporting her swollen belly. She looked so happy. She had pleaded with him so much to obtain that very happiness…

‘No conjugal duties today.’

If he had paid just a little attention, it was happiness he could have given her, but he didn’t. Yet another man did.

That man even carried her shopping basket for her. What Melly had wanted were such small considerations.

Not something like the Renysis villa.

Hoo-.

He poured gin into a glass with a cigarette still between his fingers.

The gin, not diluted with ice, lit a fire down his throat as it flowed, and Edric briefly furrowed his brow at the pain.

“It’s too late.”

He muttered quietly.

Melly’s pregnancy. Her round belly. Her happy face. And.

‘Leon.’

Her smile as bright as sunshine as she called her new lover’s name.

Those afterimages continued to dominate his mind. If he had found her a little sooner, he could have prevented that man’s seed from being planted in her body. If he had hurried just a bit more without dawdling, he could have prevented another man’s child from nesting in that belly.

The cigarette between his fingers was burning closer and closer to his fingers as it smoldered inwards.

As the crimson ring approached precariously, almost but not quite touching his fingertips, he lamented.

That it was too late now. That it really was too late now…

“…!”

But at that moment, a sudden thought that crossed Edric’s mind wiped the anguish from his expression.

His eyes became clear.

‘Too late? For what?’

Edric suddenly couldn’t understand why he was agonizing like this.

What did it matter if that child wasn’t his? Melly was his woman.

If the price of getting Melly back was accepting that child… Yes. He would pay it gladly.

When the child was born, he would only look for the resemblance to Melly in its face. Even if it didn’t resemble Melly at all, it didn’t matter. The being the child resembled would already be gone from this world by then.

The cigarette had already passed his fingers and was burning further inward, and where it had grazed was turning red.

But he didn’t feel any pain at all, and simply put down his glass with a nonchalant attitude and stood up.

He brushed up his hair while looking in the mirror.

His hair flowed through his fingers and fell back to cover his forehead.

His blue eyes glinted brightly in the darkness.

He had returned to being the noble and clever Edric Pelton once again.

The Lotria estate he visited after five days was a bit quiet.

Edric thought it must have been market day.

Although he should have been able to walk faster with nothing hindering him, Edric couldn’t. His steps were slow and careful. Just like the first day he came here.

Even though he had steeled his resolve, he was afraid of facing Melly’s swollen lower belly again.

The shock from that day was deeply embedded in his mind, mercilessly stabbing him at every moment. It was a wound that would never become numb.

Slowly, step by step.

He advanced towards Melly, focusing on each and every step he took.

“Spare a coin.”

“Are you perhaps looking for a place to stay?”

Neither begging nor solicitation could divert his attention.

Only the crunching gravel of the unpaved street and the fine sandy dust blowing in the wind were all he could be conscious of.

With a street corner ahead, another solicitor clung on.

“Hey, try this. It’s really great.”

A young man with a youthful appearance who seemed to have just come of age was offering Edric a sample piece of fruit. Edric naturally didn’t listen.

But the young man was persistent and full of spirit. Even after being ignored several times, he became stubborn and fearlessly grabbed Edric’s arm.

“Come on sir, don’t be like that…”

But he froze in place without finishing his words.

Edric turned to look. Like accumulated pressure causing a sudden tectonic shift, Edric’s attention that had been directed elsewhere was sharply focused on the solicitor in an instant. The young man stepped back with a frightened face.

“I… I’m sorry, sir. I was just…”

But Edric had no ill feelings towards the young man. Rather, he was grateful that the young man had grabbed him, making him pause his steps for a moment. He looked at the basket in the young man’s hand.

They were oranges.

The fruit that Melly used to eat constantly long ago when she was pregnant with his child. Even now… would she?

“How much for all of it?”

Edric asked the young man, gesturing at the fruit basket.

“A-All of this… you mean?”

While the young man, delighted at the unexpected fortune, was slowly calculating in his head, Edric had already finished the calculation. He placed three gold coins in the other’s hand and took the basket.

“Th-Thank you, sir. You’ll be blessed.”

The young man who had received an amount worth more than ten baskets of oranges prostrated himself on the ground with a face full of gratitude. Edric moved on, leaving him behind.

He smiled bitterly as he became conscious of the basket full of bright orange fruit.

‘Why did I buy this? What a pretty gesture I’ve made.’

If it had been his own child, he would have bought her as much as she wanted. Not just a basket of oranges, but an entire orange orchard. But… the child Melly was carrying wasn’t his.

She was carrying the child of that dull brown-haired, nerdy-looking fool who seemed capable of nothing but fidgeting. And now, Edric had bought this to feed another man’s child.

No, that’s not it.

It’s not another man’s child, but Melly who will eat it. The child is merely a part of Melly.

So he will gladly accept the child. Compared to losing Melly again, accepting another man’s child she was carrying was nothing.