“!”


  In the wine cellar, the sudden voice snapped Lilian out of her daze. Before she knew it, Roel was already standing right beside her.

  Roel wasn’t as clean and pristine as he usually was—his clothes were stained with blood and dirt from the battle he had just been through. However, there was a steadfast expression on his face. His golden eyes flickered with the torches in the dark wine cellar, giving it a touch of gentleness and tranquility.

  Somehow, the blood-red hell she was in seemed to disappear when she looked into his eyes. She found herself forgetting her anger and sorrow. A feeling of intimacy warmed her heart like a ray of sunlight, snapping her out of her daze.

  But it was also precisely due to this change in her state of mind that Lilian suddenly found herself consumed by intolerable shame. As a senior who had been taking care of Roel all along, she didn’t want to show such an unsightly side of her to him.

  “Don’t look at me! Get out!” she ordered with a hoarse voice.

  It was the first time Lilian had used such a forceful tone to speak to Roel. Yet, it sounded so vulnerable at the same time, almost as if she was pleading with him. Unfortunately, Roel had no intention of doing as she wished.

  “My apologies, but we’re equals. You don’t have the right to order me around.”


  “You!! Let go of me!”


  Lilian pulled her arm out of Roel’s grasp.

  Roel had never seen such a weak side to Lilian before, and it sent pangs of guilt through his heart. He didn’t regret approaching her for this raid since her help was necessary in vanquishing the evil cultists, but it was never his intent to leave her with such a deep trauma.

  I didn’t think that it would be so serious. She even tried to touch the corpse earlier…… She must have been thinking about the past.

  Knowing that he had to do something here, Roel took a deep breath to calm himself down before talking about what happened on his side, hoping that it would distract and calm her down.

  “Senior, Miss Melty is safe now. I’ve killed the bishop of the Bloodtribute Cult.”


  “.……”


  It was partially successful. His calm voice seemed to have alleviated her trembling a little, so he decided to try a bit harder.

  “The clean up is nearly done. We’ll be reporting this incident to the academy tomorrow morning, and it’ll all be over. Senior, can we leave this place now? Everyone is worried about you.”


  “.……”


  Roel’s gentle persuasion slowly pulled her out from her agony, but the corpse of her innocent senior hanging beside her seemed to be reproaching her for her ignorance and powerlessness. The guilt in her heart made her instinctively turn over to look at her senior’s corpse once more, but Roel immediately stepped over to block her view.

  Having to watch the tortured corpse of an acquaintance was nothing short of a nightmare, and what made things worse was the fact that Lilian was the chief of the Enforcement Division. The combination of these two factors created a high hurdle that she simply couldn’t overcome.

  However, Roel had a plan.

  “Roel?”


  “Stop looking. Are you blaming yourself for everything that has happened?”


  “I am the chief of the Enforcement Division. If only I had noticed these earlier……”


  “Stop joking with me! What does this have to do with you?”


  Roel questioned her sternly with a tight frown.

  “The Bloodtribute Cult has operated for at least a decade now! How many chiefs of the Enforcement Division have there been over this period of time? Do you think that they are all guilty too?

  “The leader of this evil cult, Marceus, is a staff member of the Saint Freya Academy. He has the movements of the Enforcement Division in the palm of his hand! There was no way you could have known about it under normal circumstances! Are you going to start blaming yourself for not being adept in divination and predicting all of this in advance?

  “Furthermore, the responsibility of the Enforcement Division lies in protecting the current students of the Saint Freya Academy, not its graduates. Our efforts have successfully protected Miss Melty, who would have been killed by the evil cultists otherwise. Are you going to start denying everything that the Enforcement Division has done for the academy and its students?”


  “That’s not what I mean, but……”


  Lilian denied Roel’s accusations, but how could such pain be comforted so easily? She lowered her head in distress and fell silent.

  Roel felt pained to see Lilian in such a state.

  They had spent a month together. Lilian was able to read Roel, but who was to say that this connection didn’t go both ways?

  Lilian was a person whose heart was surrounded by ice, but that didn’t mean that she was without feelings. On the contrary, she cared about her friends and kinship more than anything in the world. In fact, that was the only reason why the Austine Empire had been peaceful thus far.

  If Lilian chose to disregard familial ties, with her talent and her powerful backing, she could have easily destroyed her two incompetent older brothers. Yet, she chose not to do so despite knowing that they wouldn’t hesitate to get rid of her if they had the chance.

  She was avoiding a fight not because she had to but because she didn’t want to fight.

  Lilian’s gentleness was not something apparent to others at first sight. Roel was more than aware of that after all of the remedial classes they had together.

  He reached out to grab her shoulders and looked right into her dull amethyst eyes.

  “Senior, I’m also pained by the deaths of the victims, but we can’t let the past tie us down. What you need to do now is to protect those who are still alive. According to what I heard from Marceus, there are far greater threats lurking in the shadows of the academy. What I can do alone is limited.

  “Senior, I need you.”


  “!”


  The last few words from Roel were like a hammer smashing onto Lilian’s heart, causing her entire body to quiver. Her reaction made him think that his words were finally getting through, and he heaved a sigh of relief.

  But what he was oblivious to was the searing emotions that had started breeding in Lilian’s heart. They were swiftly growing to a point where it was no longer possible to repress them.

  “W-what did you just say?”


  “I said that I need you, senior.”


  Roel repeated those words with a determined gaze, but somehow, it sounded a bit off now that he was saying them by themselves. So, he quickly added.

  “Actually, I’ve used some powerful spells that come with significant side effects, so I’m not really in a good state right now. We also have to discuss what Marceus said and come up with a countermeasure, so……”


  Lilian was staring at him so intently that it was starting to get awkward. His words gradually grew softer and softer before finally trailing off.

  W-what’s going on? Did I go too far?

  Lilian’s stare was so intense that it caught him off guard, and his face started turning beet-red.

  On the other hand, Lilian felt unprecedented emotions filling up her heart. She found herself unable to maintain her usual poker face. Her blood began gushing faster as if the ice caps in her had finally collapsed. She could even hear her heartbeat thumping loudly.

  My head is heating up, but…… how warm.

  Lilian placed her hand on her chest and silently felt her heartbeat. Then, she lifted it and reached for Roel’s cheek. Yet, her trembling hand stopped short of touching him, lingering hesitantly for a very long time. The conflicted frown on her face reflected her internal struggle.

  But in the end, she triumphed over her reservations.

  This was the first time she was touching Roel.

  The next moment, their bloodline began trembling in resonance. They seemed to hear the chorale of thousands of angels singing right beside them. They stared at one another with widened eyes, unable to believe what was happening.