[It seems like she will spend a night in the Holy City before she leaves tomorrow.]

[A marriage with the king…]

Her grandfather and father were having a discussion over the marriage between a king and an Anika.

[I guess it’s all in her blood. She surely looked very much like your aunt.]

[Did she really?]

Clearly, Hitasya had been too young to fully understand the conversation exchanged between them. However, she remembered hearing the two of them say that Anika, who had married to a king, resembled much of her great aunt.

As it happens, Hitasya often hears from her father or grandfather that she too looked much like her great aunt. Moreover, her late great aunt had been a stunning beauty when she was alive. Innocent and naïve, the child ended up feeling jealous when she heard that there was someone else who also resembled her great aunt. But it was more of a curiosity to be exact since Hitasya wondered to herself ‘How much could she really have taken after her?’. And upon finding out who the Anika in question was, it had somehow left an impression on Hitasya’s feeble mind.

‘I can’t believe this.’

Alber’s eyes soon trembled with shock.

‘Could it be Resha’s daughter… no, is it her granddaughter?’

Kings and Anikas were indeed those who are the most closely related to God, and the only human beings whom that cunning monster is truly afraid of.

‘God’s is never quite predictable.’

What could be the meaning of the birth of an Anika in whose veins runs the blood of the Muens, those who got their necks bitten by the monster. Alber’s heart had soon begun to pound as she pondered on such thoughts.

‘Ah…’

Suddenly, her whole body shuddered—a strong sensation ran through her spine. From time to time, she was able to foresee the future without having to borrow the power of the spell. Although the prediction was never precise as when the spell was used, it was yet a strong hunch like an arrow hitting the mark.

‘I must see her.’

She knew that her meeting with Anika would be able to change the tide for sure.

Clang! Clang!

Upon hearing the clunking sound coming from the steel-barred window, Alber quickly turned to Hitasya and told her with a tone of urgency in her voice.

“Hitasya. Can you try to remember what I’m about to tell you and send my words to your grandfather? Just to your grandfather.”

“Yes.”

Hitasya gave a determined nod, remembering what her grandfather had told her before she came here.

After Hitasya had gone back, Alber hariolated the fortune for the first time in a long while. She doesn’t usually hariolate the fortunes of the Muen children since her time has always been flowing differently from them.

“…You are no longer here.”

It turns out that Resha no longer existed in this world.

“Why did you have to leave so soon?” Alber fell to the ground and started sobbing with her face buried to the floor. It pained her as much as the time when she had learned of the death of her son.

***

Charlotte greeted her parents delightfully as it’s been long since she had last seen them. On the day of her arrival in the Holy City, she had originally planned to pay a visit to her maternal grandfather but she hadn’t got the chance to meet him as he happened to be traveling on business away from the Holy City. There seemed to have some problems in the firm that he owns.

So, as soon as she heard the news that her grandfather had returned, Charlotte went to the Scan manor to visit her grandfather at once.

“I’m afraid the master is in the middle of a serious conversation with his client at the moment.”

The butler’s remark had failed to disappoint Charlotte in the least. In fact, she had never expected for her grandfather to come out and greet her in the first place. Her grandfather had indeed been very particular about whom he spent his time with as he was a kind of person who was even stingy about the time he spent on his sleep.

For quite a long time, Charlotte had meekly waited for her grandfather, alone in the sitting room when the door to the sitting room opened right after she stuffed a freshly baked biscuit into her mouth. Through the door came striding an old gentleman of a sturdy build, along with a few young men who followed with their heads hung low.

Charlotte continued to chew away on the biscuit while she watched her grandfather, Mitchell, rush in like he was in a great hurry.

Mitchell, who had flopped into a seat right across her, started to browse through the papers which he had brought in with him.

“So have you secured the stocks or not?”

“I’ll need to check on them.”

“Is this the best you can do? I want definite answers!”

Fear clouded the men’s faces when her grandfather bawled out so loud that his voice resonated through the whole sitting room.

Charlotte, who had washed down the remaining biscuits with a sip of her tea, said to Mitchell, smiling. “Grandfather. Don’t you even have the time to greet your own granddaughter?”