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Viola found the question utterly absurd. “Wasn’t I supposed to go out?”

These days, her head was a mess. Shelan, who used to be a coward, had lost his fear, and Tundra had completely changed as a person.

The Mercenary King Kaiser had settled in Winter Castle, and Bichen had given up on being an heir.

Part of this was intentional on Viola’s part, but the characters seemed to be running amok.

“Surely I issued the summoning; why were you trying to leave?”

The question itself lacked logic. It deviated far from Heron’s character.

“I’m completely lost.”

In the end, the only reasonable response Viola could provide was based on common sense. “Father was injured, after all.”

“Injured?”

He had sustained injuries from the duel with Hixson, but he was perfectly healed now. After all, he had used a large quantity of top-tier magical ointment.

In other words, Heron was not injured at all.

“Yes, your breathing is still troubled.”

Only then did Heron realize that his breathing was indeed ragged. As soon as he acknowledged that, his breath began to settle. “I thought you might have been seriously injured. Yet, the fact that you came not to your room but to the study indicates that there’s something truly urgent at hand.”

Heron wanted to say something. No. “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Heron’s straightforward reason for coming here was nothing but that Viola was present.

However, he couldn’t bring himself to say that. “So I thought it would be courteous to step aside.”

At Viola’s logically structured statement, Heron suddenly found himself at a loss for words. Upon reflection, there was nothing incorrect about Viola’s judgment.

“That’s a reasonable conclusion.”

He should have been happy to have made such good judgments. However, he was not. Over the past six years, he had come to realize something.

Viola’s ‘Bellatu-ness’ was not always wonderful.

And he was starting to be a bit more honest with his own feelings. “Stay here.”

“I will obey if it is an order.”

“It is not an order.”

Heron’s voice was slightly raised. He merely wanted to spend time together; why did the word ‘order’ have to come up?

The glass window of the study rattled slightly.

Heron managed his emotions and sat down in the chair.

“I want to hear in detail about what happened at the Black Temple.”

“Zeno must have submitted a report about the oath; was it lacking? I was worried it might be a duplicate report.”

In truth, the oath concerning the Black Temple wasn’t particularly important to Heron. What mattered was what Viola had experienced there, what she had seen.

What she had eaten, whom she had met, and what thoughts she had.

“I’m curious about you.”

The reports he received from Zeno and the stories he heard from his daughter were different.

Heron simply wanted to hear Viola’s tale.

Oblivious to his feelings, Viola respectfully reported, “I returned after going through… I shall conclude my report.”

“Is that so?”

Heron nodded and took a moment to gaze at Viola. She was still small, but she had certainly grown much larger than when she was seven.

“You’ve grown a lot.”

… Huh? Viola, who was waiting for feedback on her report, was puzzled.

Suddenly, grown?

Was he praising her for doing well at the Black Temple?

“By ‘height,’ I mean.”

“Are you referring to my height?”

“Yes, when I first saw you, you were much smaller than other kids your age.”

“………”

“So. Are you planning to leave Winter Castle and me behind?”

Excuse me. The flow of conversation felt very odd.

It was quite difficult to keep up.

Viola struggled to adapt to Heron’s way of speaking.

It was far too different from how Heron conversed in the novel.

“Why do you think I’m planning to leave Winter Castle?”

“Did you not receive the Emperor’s personal letter?”

Moreover, the marriage proposal too. Clearly just signs that she meant to leave.

Of course, Viola had declined it, but wasn’t that also a signal that she intended to depart? Heron’s feelings began to boil again, but he firmly suppressed them.

“…… Ah.”

Viola finally understood what he meant. “You must think I would accept Lady Selina’s scouting offer.”

Anyone could see that it was a good proposal. She could learn under Lady Selina and have a great opportunity to build her reputation in the Empire’s center.

That could also be a significant achievement as White Bellatu.

“If I disallow it, what will you do?”

Viola tensed up. There was no real reason for the Duke to disallow it.

But why was he asking what would happen if he did? “Is this another test?”

“That’s not very Bellatu-like.”

“Right, it isn’t Bellatu-like. You ought to respond positively to the scouting and head toward the Empire. That is the rational and correct choice.”

Heron’s sharp gaze was palpable. It was so piercing it felt like a chill ran through him.

Viola unwittingly swallowed hard.

Was it indeed a test?

As she thought that, Heron, finally breaking down the last wall of his heart, summoned his courage. “Do not leave.”

The dam that had been filled with water began to break. “You are only thirteen, are you not?”

“……”

“Stay by your father’s side.”

Viola was confused. At this age, thirteen was by no means merely a young age in this world. The official coming-of-age was seventeen, but from fourteen, they were treated almost like adults.

Marriage was even possible.

“I’m not a child.”

Heron must have known that as well. But…

Viola didn’t dislike his words of asking her to stay, nor his request to stay beside him. It was far better than her father’s ridiculous promise to return after just a hundred nights.

“I mustn’t waver…”

This must be a test. They were probably trying to shake her up in a new way.

She couldn’t lose her balance at such a sight.

She bit her lip.

She slowly walked up to Heron and stood before him.

Upon closer inspection, she noticed Heron’s fingers were noticeably trembling.

He had only shown such a shaken form before Rael.

Heron was revealing his emotions without filters in front of Viola. “He was really gathering up great courage.”

She realized that fact. Viola gently took Heron’s right hand in hers.

“You mentioned that you needed family.”

Looking back, it wasn’t a test. The writer’s settings had already changed.

It wasn’t that the characters’ personalities and settings shifting were a mere confusion.

These were individuals living with their own identity.

It wasn’t wrong just because they didn’t move as predicted.

“So I won’t leave.”

In truth, those words were what Viola had wished to say for a lifetime. I won’t leave.

I’ll return.

Upon reflection, no one needed a family more than Viola did.

When she first met Heron, saying “I always wished I had a family” was sincere.

“Not just a father in name, but to truly become my father.”

That sentiment was also sincere. “I will stay where my real father is.”

Heron summoned his courage once more. “Nevertheless, if you truly wish to leave, it is fine. I will always be right here.”

“I don’t want to.”

Viola’s eyes brimmed with tears. Perhaps Heron had been sincere long before.

He may have either missed that sincerity or ignored it, even if he recognized it. Viola herself couldn’t pinpoint her own feelings precisely.

Under the guise of the characters’ settings, and beneath the fearsome moniker of ‘Duke of Thousand Kills,’ she might have been trying to ignore the Duke’s heart.

Heron looked at Viola, whose eyes were filled with tears.

In that moment, Zeno’s report came to mind.

“Gifted with the ability to move people’s hearts through countless masks.”

Heron wiped that report from his mind. That report was incorrect. Even if “Jinan” didn’t function, he felt he understood Viola’s heart. Even if it was a mask, it wouldn’t matter. Even if Viola treated him wearing a mask, that was fine.

If Viola’s current appearance was staged and fake, it would hurt, but that wasn’t a significant issue.

“My intentions are sincere; that’s what matters.”

Yet, still, “I wish your appearance were genuine.”

Heron stood up and gently hugged Viola, patting her. “This is a good opportunity for you. Don’t you truly want it?”

“I don’t want it.”

It was true that she had no desire to be scouted by the Empire, and equally true that she did not want to leave the warm embrace of her favorite character. Viola boldly wiped away her tears.

“Right, it’s because I’m happy being held by my favorite character that I’m crying.”

But she knew. This was not simply an issue about that.

“I’ve also gotten… a father.” Not just a father in name, not just a legal father, but a real father had appeared.

Tears fell continuously.

A gentle breeze began to blow in Winter Castle.

*

Heron didn’t test Viola.

He sincerely treated her, and Viola truthfully responded to that sincerity.

Heron became Viola’s real father, and Viola became Heron’s real daughter.

Viola said, “Still, I think I should go.”

Receiving the Emperor’s personal letter and merely rejecting it with a thin piece of paper wouldn’t look right. She decided to express her refusal by directly visiting the royal family.

“Be careful out there. If you need anything, just let me know.”

“Anything at all?”

“Anything.”

A mischievous twinkle appeared in Viola’s eyes. “What would you do if I asked for something you can’t handle?”

“Everything you conjure up in your mind is something I can handle.”

“Should I interpret that to mean you cannot measure my weak imagination against your abilities?”

Heron lightly nodded. A conversation transpired that no one in Winter Castle could possibly have imagined.

Heron personally accompanied Viola to the southern gate of Winter Castle.

This led to countless suspicions and conjectures. “The Duke personally saw her off?”

“They even hugged?”

“Did that really happen?”

“I can definitively say it has never happened before.”

“What does that mean?”

“Who knows. Perhaps it’s a political gesture to bolster the heir apparent? Princess Viola is still young.”

Maybe it was to lend her strength in some manner?

“But he’s not someone who directly intervenes in the heir competition.”

“Exactly; that’s what makes it strange.”