Thinking is highly burdensome when one isn't in a good condition.

  Roel looked at the sunny scenery outside the window as he tried to make sense of his current situation regarding the Mother Goddess and the Six Calamities. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long before his head started to hurt.

  He still wasn’t allowed to consume any food out of concern for his safety, and that limited his energy. Still, he was able to figure out some things during this short period of contemplation.

  First and foremost, regardless of whether the Mother Goddess was capable of relaying orders to the Six Calamities or not, he definitely had to keep his guard up against them.

  While there were no records of the Six Calamities cooperating with one another, there was a possibility that they could sense and communicate with each other. To be safe, he ought to assume the worst-case scenario and make preparations for that.

  Fortunately, there were only six of them.

  Flooding Death was dead.

  Glacier Creator had been sealed away by Isabella Sofya’s Jewel Magic and was currently hibernating under Twohorn Port.

  Sire Darkness, based on the trails, appeared to have been thoroughly destroyed by Winstor Ascart seven hundred years ago. It was unlikely to make a resurgence any time soon.

  Those were the three that he didn’t have to worry about.

  Of the remaining three, he had little to no information regarding Tempest Caller and Light Devourer.

  While he did know that Tempest Caller’s egg had appeared in Leinster four hundred years ago, in the true history that Roel didn’t intervene in, the Saints Convocation was forced to flee from the city in a fluster. It was unknown what eventually happened to the egg.

  As for Light Devourer, it was a calamity that Roel knew next to nothing about. He had first learned about its existence from Isabella Sofya, and there were rare mentions of it in ancient texts. Unfortunately, he was unable to find anything concrete for him to work with. There had also been no sightings of it in the past few centuries.

  This meant that Light Devourer was an enigmatic existence to humankind.

  Last but not least, there was Shrouding Fog, the culprit who had devoured Tark Stronghold and the hundred thousand troops stationed there. This was the enemy Roel believed to be the most dangerous of all.

  Unlike Tempest Caller and Light Devourer, whom he had little knowledge of, he knew with certainty that Shrouding Fog was an entity that the present him couldn’t deal with. On top of that, it was known to currently be in its active phase. If any of the calamities were going to attack him, it was the likeliest candidate.

  But after careful thought, he didn’t think that he would be attacked by Shrouding Fog, at least not in the short term. There was a simple reason behind his conclusion: distance.

  The Six Calamities had the ability to travel around elusively, but that didn’t mean that they could simply appear out of nowhere. There was a limit to how fast they could travel from one place to another, and Tark Stronghold was a long way from Rosa.

  Humankind had expended a huge amount of resources to find Shrouding Fog following the disappearance of Tark Stronghold, but it was unable to find even the slightest trace of it. From that, it was safe to say that Shrouding Fog had gone into hiding at a remote location. This translated to additional recuperation time for Roel.

  After having come to the conclusion that he wouldn’t encounter any danger for the time being, Roel suddenly felt another wave of fatigue washing over him. His eyelids slowly drooped as his mind began to blank.

  Moments later, he drifted into a deep sleep.

  …


  By the time Roel opened his eyes once more, the scenery outside the window had already turned into that of a setting sun, casting a red overglow inside the bedroom.

  Unlike the first time he woke up, there weren’t any doctors and maids rushing in and out of his room, which made the place look more spacious than ever.

  The same couldn’t be said about his bed though.

  There was an auburn-haired woman lying asleep next to him. She had long eyelashes that fluttered along with the breeze, cherry-colored lips that moved rhythmically with her breathing, long hair that scattered over the pillow, and fair skin that accentuated her features.

  She was beautiful.

  Charlotte Sorofya’s abrupt appearance on the bed didn’t surprise Roel at all. What did surprise him, however, was her bandaged body and the ongoing spells invoked upon her.

  Roel grimly lowered his head.

  It wasn’t too hard for him to guess that she had received those injuries back when she barged into the vortex of curses to save him. Those ongoing spells were probably some sort of ritual to replenish her life force.

  Roel’s life force had remained at a critically low level despite having recovered from his external injuries, so the Rings of Symbiosis had been constantly siphoning life force away from Charlotte to sustain him.

  He knew that Charlotte had no qualms transfusing her blood and life force to him, but it broke his heart to see her in pain because of him.

  Heaving a deep sigh, he did a quick introspection of his own condition and confirmed that he wouldn’t be in any danger even if he stopped taking any more life force from Charlotte. While doing so might weaken him and slow his recovery, there wouldn’t be any huge issues.

  Charlotte has already suffered enough over the past few months. She shouldn’t have to experience any more pain after recovering from her curse.

  With such thoughts in mind, he reached for the ring he had been wearing on his finger and tried to take it off.

  He could touch the ring just fine, but the moment he tried to pull it off, there was an immediate outburst of light. A hand suddenly shot forth and firmly grabbed his wrist.

  “Darling, what are you doing?”


  “!”


  Roel’s body froze up at that familiar voice. He stiffly turned his neck over and found himself faced with a stern-looking Charlotte. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who the culprit behind the earlier outburst of light was.

  Charlotte had secretly embedded a spell into the ring in advance, figuring that he would attempt to take off the ring to reduce her burden.

  To be frank, Roel hadn’t expected such a move from her, and being caught in the middle of an attempt to remove the ring left him feeling oddly guilt-ridden. Nevertheless, he persisted in his stance after some thought.

  “Charlotte, you’re awake. I’m fine now. I think we should pause the effects of the ring for the time being.”


  “Liar. You can’t even stand up yet. That’s not how I’d define ‘fine’.”


  “My life isn’t in danger anymore. I can slowly recover my life force. You shouldn’t put your body under strain when you have only just recovered yourself,” Roel persuaded her.

  “…”


  Charlotte found herself unable to refute Roel’s words.

  There was indeed no need for them to continue sharing life force with each other, but she didn’t want to do what was ‘rational’ here. She wanted to help him as much as she could, and she knew of a way to convince Roel not to take off the ring.

  “You were the one who proposed to me with these rings, saying that they are proof of our mutual love. How could you even consider taking it off? Have your feelings for me already started to fade?”


  “N-no, of course not! How could that possibly be true…”


  “You should prove it with your actions,” Charlotte said with a resolute look on her face.

  “This…”


  Roel was flabbergasted. He had never thought that Charlotte would actually use his own words to corner him on this issue. He would have to be out of his mind to dare take off the ring after Charlotte had gone as far as to blackmail him with their relationship.

  He could only exhale softly and release his fingers from the ring.