“...I’ll just call you Rosie. People don’t usually say ‘older sister’ when it’s only a one-year age gap.”

“You’re not letting it slide, huh.”

I grumbled and brushed the muddy water off my maid uniform. But no matter how much I dusted it off, it wasn’t going to get clean.

Linna was in the same state—honestly, we both looked like a mess.

“I do feel bad about tricking you.”

I scratched my cheek with an awkward smile.

“But... um, well, it ended up that way because of your family’s circumstances.”

“Yeah.”

Linna blinked with a slightly downcast face.

“While you were buried in that mud, I heard a rough version of what happened from the Water Lord. You’re not even pregnant, huh?”

“Wow, thank god. It was such a long story I didn’t want to explain it all—this works out great!”

Pleased, I exclaimed, and Ray cleared his throat and added,

“I gave her a sobering potion too. Linna’s in her right mind now.”

“Ray, you really do your job smartly.”

I widened my eyes in admiration.

“You really deserve to be second place on the Academy entrance exam. Not quite as good as me, the top scorer, but still—impressive skills.”

“Rosie, when are you going to let go of your Academy glory days?”

“I’ll never forget the things I did well... In this rough and desolate world, someone’s got to cherish me, right...?”

At my reply, Ray let out a small laugh and shook his head.

Linna gave a bitter smile and cut in.

“The Water Lord told me... that we were originally supposed to be roommates, and you blew up a bunch of balloons to welcome me?”

“Yeah.”

I nodded confidently.

“I knew you were someone under the Temple’s influence, but even so, I wanted to set aside all those preconceptions and at least try to get along.”

Linna’s shoulders sagged.

I took her hand and held it tightly.

“Linna.”

Then I looked into her eyes and said quietly,

“Even if you die, Cashie won’t. You know that. He’ll just go to some other branch family. And then the Temple could end up using him again.”

Cashie, cradled in Linna’s arms, let out a disgruntled meow.

“So don’t die. If you want to atone, that’s not the right way to do it. That’s just running away, if you ask me.”

After a brief hesitation, I made a suggestion as kindly as I could.

“If it weighs on your heart that you did bad things against your will, then how about using your own will to do good things from now on?”

Linna flinched, her lips twitching.

“I did lie to you a lot... but not everything I said was false. Like what I told you at Bellotsa Harbor...”

As soon as she mentioned Bellotsa Harbor, tears started streaming down her cheeks.

“Back then... being with you was really fun. I liked it.”

“......”

“The truth is, Ray’s the only friend I’ve got... Sadly, the Magic Tower’s not exactly the best place to make friends...”

I gently wiped her tears and comforted her.

“I like being comfortable, so I’ll never be your maid again—but still, want to try being friends?”

“Ugh...”

“I’ve done a lot of wrong to you too. I hid my identity, lied to you even though you were being nice to me...”

I smiled sheepishly and said slowly,

“Let’s both do better from now on.”

At my words, Linna began sobbing, hiccuping between her tears.

“Yeah...”

She slowly nodded, sniffling as she replied.

“Actually... I was scared of dying... sniff... so I drank a lot... Honestly, snrrrk, I know it’s shameless, but even then I still wanted to live... snrrrk... but when you said that to me... snrrrk... I really do want to live, not die... waaahhh...”

I patted Linna’s back and eventually hugged her tight. She was so tall that it probably looked like I was the one being held.

I spoke gently.

“Earth’s power is actually something really good.”

As I embraced her tightly, I whispered with all sincerity.

“When I was a wretch at the Temple, if the potatoes in the garden grew well, that made me so happy. It’s a precious and beautiful kind of power.”

At that, Linna let out a loud sniff, then stepped back with a wet, teary sound.

“Rosie.”

“Yeah?”

Linna was a total wreck.

Her carefully styled hair was now a tangled mess, her dress was caked in mud, and one of her shoes had a broken heel. One of her earrings was missing, too.

“I have something I want to say.”

In that utterly disheveled state, Linna slowly lowered her body.

‘Ah, this is...’

I was just as much of a wreck myself. Dressed like a maid, having just crawled out of the mud.

Covered in the same grime, I quietly watched Linna.

She took a deep breath and spoke.

“I, Linna Idra, vow to protect and serve Lady Rosie Noart.”

She gently brought her lips to the back of my hand and continued solemnly.

“I pledge myself to your cause.”

It was already the third time, and yet my heart still thumped wildly.

As I caught my breath, Linna raised her head and smiled faintly.

“So this is what it’s like.”

Moonlight shone down on her mud-stained face.

“The High Priest said so, you know. That pledging loyalty isn’t something you force—it’s just something you come to understand, naturally...”

Linna gave a smile that was both hollow and relieved.

“The moment you told me that it was a beautiful kind of power... suddenly, I just knew this is what I had to do.”

And then, once again, she began to cry.

Apparently, my saying that the Earth’s power was beautiful had really hit home.

Between us, Cashie let out another drawn-out meow.

Sniffling, Linna asked in a low voice,

“Cashie, what is it? Why are you crying so much?”

So even in this emotional moment, I gave her a dutiful answer.

“Well, actually, I can kind of understand what Divine Beasts are saying.”

“What? Really?”

“Yup.”

“Then what’s Cashie saying right now?”

“Well...”

I grinned and took a step back before answering.

“He says it’s filthy as hell and we need to get cleaned up first.”

“......”

“For a Divine Beast of Earth, you sure are a neat freak.”

Cashie tilted his head primly.

Ray, who’d been watching us, gave a quiet smile.

* * *

Inside the imperial archive of the capital’s palace.

“Looks like we’ve checked almost everything, right, Your Majesty?”

Julian and Calliona were digging through various records together.

They had searched not just the Imperial Library, but even the storage room near the archive.

That’s how big a clue Zahid’s infiltration of the Temple had uncovered—the Sacred Relic of Power.

“So, around a hundred years ago, it’s possible they stole the Divine Beasts’ powers like this.”

Julian flipped through the documents and said.

“They unofficially borrowed the Divine Beasts of the Four Duchies for a month, and drained their power through direct contact over that time.”

“Right...”

“Arhad is imbued with divine energy in the soil, so I guess they kept direct contact with the land for a whole month?”

Julian brushed the dust off the record and came to a conclusion.

“But I guess I didn’t know this part nine years ago. You said I asked Your Majesty to let me into this archive back then too, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right...”

“If I’d known, the dust on these records wouldn’t be this bad. I mean, sure there’s preservation magic, but these look untouched for at least fifty years.”

Calliona gave a slightly bitter smile.

The truth was, nine years ago, Calliona hadn’t been able to come to the archive with Julian.

Back then, Julian had looked carefully at the map Zahid had brought and insisted on going to the archive in secret.

All Calliona had done was show him the hidden passageway so the Empress Dowager wouldn’t catch him.

‘And then he suddenly said he was going to Arhad... I still don’t know exactly why he {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} went there.’

Still, the current situation was different. The Empress Dowager and the Temple were no longer fully aligned, and Calliona’s position within the Imperial family had strengthened, allowing them to come here together like this.

Of course, they still had to keep things secure—so it was just the two of them in this huge archive.

Calliona was a capable swordswoman herself, so she didn’t really need much of a guard. They’d only posted one knight at the entrance.

Julian, too, had worked relentlessly for nine years to regain the level of strength he once had.

The fact that he’d come this far even after such massive injuries was something everyone called a miracle.

‘He must’ve... wanted to become strong again that badly. Just like before.’

Calliona gazed at Julian with soft, nostalgic eyes.