“How far did you find out?”

Clavis’ voice was as heavy as an interrogating king.

“Where did you go from the Tomb?”

As if his usual grinning face were all fake, his face, which had fallen into silence, was so cold.

Rena looked at his face, which had changed from spring to winter, and said in a low voice.

“Are you curious?”

“The one who calls must have something to ask, right?”

“Then you should ask more politely.”

Clavis laughed silently at Rena’s calm rebuke. It wouldn’t be strange to get angry like fire or push her away like frost, but he didn’t.

Instead, he mumbled as if he was curious.

“How did you become such a big man? From a young lady who couldn’t even breathe out loud because she was so afraid.”

“You must be very proud of winning against a young child.”

“Rather than being proud, it feels amazing. Normally, human’s essence doesn’t change that easily.”

Rena smiled quietly at Clavis’ words. The expression on her face was that she didn’t really want to talk to such a shameless person who demeaned human beings.

It was a disdain more than outright contempt, but Clavis continued to speak, touching Rena’s hand without paying any attention to her expression.

“She was so cute back then. She came to visit her father with an expression of begging him to love her like a puppy, and when she told her that he was selling her, she cried as if the sky had fallen. That year when she was 12 years old.”

Unlike the Marquis, Clavis knew exactly how old Rena was in that year. It was no surprise, because it was what Rena had said herself.

“She was not a 1 or 2 year-old kid, isn’t it normal to be angry?”

12 years old is the age at which one stands in charge. It is the age where one can judge even if they are still immature, and it is the age where one can resist and get angry at the touch that is trying to harm them.

But Rena at the time was not like that. She didn’t ask her father what nonsense he was talking about or why he was like that. She didn’t even scream or call for anyone.

She just trembled and begged. As if abandoned by God.

“She was such a kid.? Miss Rena Ruber was such a cute, pitiful child who was weak and dependent.”

Clavis clasped Rena’s hand and whispered happily. Then he spoke more subtly, as if trying to evoke her memory of that day.

“Do you remember? You did it in front of me too. In the carriage, weeping, trying not to be hated, and trembling because you want to be sympathized somehow.”

It took ten days by carriage to get from the Ruber Mansion to the castle of the Western Duke, so Rena and Clavis from 6 years ago also had a pretty close time.

They spent day by day facing each other in a cramped carriage, eating together and resting together whether they liked it or not for ten days.

It would be terrifyingly distasteful from the standpoint of being sold, but surprisingly, Rena did not dislike Clavis, who had bought her. There was no hatred, no confrontation, no rebellion. She didn’t even try to run away.

Even if was shocked by her situation and cried, she tried hard not to offend Clavis. In addition, she tried to get his attention as if trying to get a good impression somehow.

That was also the reason Rena told Clavis her real age.

—I’m actually 12 years old, not 10.

Rena trembled as she confessed. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be sold. It’s just that she was worried that the Lord Duke would be in trouble because of the fact that he was mistaken.

When Clavis looked at her in a bewilderment, young Rena’s cheeks flushed red. Even the way she murmured was cute. Her glance and eye contact seemed to ask for a look at her.

It was a funny act of love. It didn’t fit the situation at all, yet it melted the other person’s heart. If one did it without knowing, they were a heavenly fox, and if one did it knowingly, they were very worried about the future.

“Honestly, it was cute. I wanted to raise her. If it were someone else, I would’ve forgotten.”

Clavis said so and looked up at Rena.

“But now the kid is pretending to be strong just because she is a few years older. You see, how can I make her cry like before?”

Clavis’ eyes were filled with a strange smile and contained Rena. He looked arrogant, as if asking whether she would continue to be so stiff to a person who knew everything about her.

Rena looked at him without expression, then she quietly took Clavis’s hand, which was still holding her own.

Clavis’ head tilted slightly at the unexpected touch. He was about to ask what this meant, but immediately afterward, Clavis’ vision suddenly flipped.

“Hiyk..!?”

Clavis made a strange noise and stretched out his legs without realizing it.

However, his two feet, which had already fallen off the ground, stirred in the air, and instead, his upper body, which fell over behind him, was closer to the ground than his lower body, completely losing his balance.

Just as he thought he was falling, his body stopped leaning with the sound of his jaw.

[T/N: I honestly cannot imagine the movement]

Clavis blinked in surprise. What he saw in front was Rena’s face looking down at him, and the ceiling of the Greenhouse.

Rena, who was tired of the bullshit, grabbed Clavis’ hand and threw it over the chair, and before he went over completely, she grabbed the back of the chair with her other hand.

Thanks to this, the chair was barely supporting Clavis’ body with two legs instead of four.

Rena, who threw Clavis over in an instant, lowered her upper body over Clavis, who was sitting on a reclined chair. She then asked him, bringing her face closer to him.

“So?”

“What..?

“So what do you want to talk about now?”

Rena’s whisper, which came with her breath, was calm. If one cuts off the previous context, it would even sound sweet.

“Are you going to talk about your true feelings about the past?”

Rena laughed softly and muttered.

“If you want to provoke someone, you have to do it right, or you will only get scolded.”

Clavis looked at Rena with really startled eyes.

She was looking down at him, speaking, with a look of regret, but without displeasure. It was like admonishing a foolish child.

Clavis looked at her face and licked his lips, but Rena spoke first.

“Since I’m dressed pretty, I’ll put the chair back in.”

Immediately after, there was a bang and the reclined chair was put back up. Rena pushed as if throwing the chair back, and Clavis, who lied down and sat back, once again looked puzzled.

“Your face is a spectacle.”

“Ha..”

“You seem to need stability, so I’ll leave for now.”

Rena turned Clavis upside down, raised him back up, and pretended as if nothing happened.

Clavis blinked a couple of times as he looked at her, then burst into laughter.

“Ah, wait. Don’t go. I’m sorry. I apologize for what I said earlier.”

He smiled more excitedly than when he heard her calling him a pervert. He even apologized and grabbed Rena.

“It’s because it’s really strange, but this is even more surprising.”

“What’s so strange?”

“Hmm?”

“Is it any surprise that I’m no longer fragile, dependent, and in a hurry to be noticed?”

“Does it make any sense?”

At Rena’s question, Clavis laughed more happily. Whatever Rena’s attitude toward him, he was arguing that Rena was lovely and didn’t know what to do with her.

In fact, he liked Rena’s reaction from one to ten.

Rena Ruber appeared 6 years after being thrown into the Tomb.

To Clavis, Rena was like a treasure buried deep in the ground and then dug up again. Because every time he pushed someone into the Tomb, he just wanted those poor scapegoats to come back.

After a long wait, a child has finally returned.

Clavis was madly overjoyed by that alone, but he wasn’t blindly hopeful.

After countless previous disappointments, he was prudent and pushed Rena into the Tomb once more on the most unfavorable terms. He was going to see how much she could do with her bare body.

As a result, Rena captured the castle of the dead alone and returned with the heart of the king.

This was enough to prove it, but Clavis wanted to confirm it a little more.

He wondered if she had become a madman like the Emperor, or if she was quietly insane with her teeth hidden.

So he scratched her. He looked into the most painful corner to peel off Rena’s aloofness, which can never be seen as ordinary.

However, Rena’s reaction was unpredictable.

She did not lose her composure to the words that were meant to humiliate her until the very end, and treated his mean remarks the same as Rubid’s rude joke.

So Clavis, who was constantly testing Rena, had no choice but to admit Rena’s strength. Both inner and outer strength.

“Sit down, we haven’t even started talking about important things yet.”

Clavis suggested the seat to Rena with a more straightforward attitude, but Rena just stood still and looked at him.

At the silent protest, Clavis looked at her for a moment and then burst into laughter. Then he gladly corrected it.

“Would you please sit down, Sir Rena?”

“If you wish.”

Rena finally sat down again, and Clavis burst into laughter again at her natural appearance.

“Because there’s been a lot of talk, I’ll be honest. I have a request for you.”

He said with a bright smile.

At the word ‘request’, Rena’s lips drew a line. It was a smile that told the other person that the next thing would continue somewhere that could never be said to be favorable.

Clavis continued to speak, enjoying the bluntness.

“Do you know what happened on July 30, year 87?”

“..Isn’t that the day the Emperor tried to poison herself?”

Rena’s eyebrows raised slightly at the unexpected topic.

July 30, year 87. It is a day that all citizens of the Empire will remember.

“That’s right. Someone poisoned the Emperor that day. The reason is obvious. It’s weird that there’s no rebellion, right?”

Clavis’ expression was both acrimonious and accurate.

Tyrants who reign solly by force and loyalists who were executed for keeping their conscience. Instead, the officials who occupied key positions were hypocrites who pursued only their own self-interest. Underneath it, the people of the Empire who were exploited for various reasons, and the nobles who were still busy fooling around.

As everyone knew the reality of the Empire, there was no need to explain why the Emperor had to be assassinated.

“That day the Emperor swallowed poison, but she did not die. She vomited blood and was in pain, but she survived.”

“Why are you saying this now?”

“Mm.. Because I did that.”

Rena’s eyes widened at Clavis’ words. Clavis laughed without missing it.

“Surprised. You didn’t know this, huh?”

“Do you know what you are talking about right now..”

“Of course I know. I saw what Nihil did with my own eyes.”

Nihil said with a bloody cough on the day of the poisoning attempt.

I will share my pain with the Empire, and make all the people of the Empire resent the traitors.

To keep her declaration, Nihil executed 87 nobles, 7 bureaucrats, and 30 Imperial citizens outside the Imperial Palace. That day was July 30, year 87.

“I didn’t know if that would work either. It was poison that killed even the big bears in the South at once.”

Talking about the Empire’s most astonishing incident, Clavis, the culprit, seemed to have no remorse.

“Actually, it’s not that only poison doesn’t work. Even if you use all sorts of things, it’s no use.”

He was only slightly regretting his own failure.

“And that’s why.”

“That’s why?”

“The Emperor never died, so I bought you and put you in the Tomb. To make a monster exactly like the Emperor.”

Rena’s gaze became even colder at the word “monster”, but Clavis continued speaking without hesitation.

“Did the Marquis poison you in the Tomb?”

“Why do you ask when you know everything?”

“Mm-hmm, not out of curiosity, just to let you know, that’s the same poison Nihil drank.”

Rena’s eyes narrowed. Instead, Clavis’ lips drew a graceful arc.

“The only person who overcame the poison was the Emperor. Until a few days ago.”

Clavis whispered while looking at Rena as if he was going crazy from happiness.

“Aren’t you supposed to be immortal too? Like the Emperor.”

Rena Ruber has returned from the absolute boundary between life and death.

The appearance of suddenly appearing and making fun of the powerful men of the Empire was not much different from the image of a great savior that Clavis had imagined for a long time.

So Clavis waited for Rena’s answer without hiding his expectations and aspirations. Rena, who was silent, replied with a soft smile.

“I don’t know why you’re asking that again.”

Clavis asked a silly question, even dared saying it like a complaint.

“You’ve seen it a few times already.” [Rena]