Everyone probably knew three years ago I’m a bad person—bad to the bone. It’s exactly why they sent me to give the School of Civil Engineering’s opening address, to scatter a little fake hope.

Holywell Academy’s vast hall fell into pin-drop silence, the silver-bell voice lingering like mist and then thinning into air. The hush felt like frost settling on glass.

What freshman who chose civil could’ve guessed that, marching in blazing with hot blood, hearing a famous name would speak, nerves tight and hopeful, the first sentence to greet them would be that? The moment trembled like a bowstring.

No, something had to be off. You fought your way into the Republic’s top-ranked school, a bright new future unfurling like dawn, and now “fake hope”? How could a dignitary say that on day one? You must’ve misheard—ha—comfort rose like cotton in everyone’s chest. But the white-haired woman in the wheelchair on stage left them no room to run.

Yes, today’s address is a hot potato. Our civil faculty are soft-hearted, thin-skinned, good people; they couldn’t bear to paint a pie that will never be served. So I, the bad one, came—standing or, let’s be honest, sitting comfortably here—to smother my non-existent conscience and sketch you a radiant future in this trade—

Her words refused to be tame, each sentence a flint strike. Eyes of a hundred hues tightened below the stage like sails in a sudden gust.

Get ready. I’ll tell you this: you’ll be the bedrock beneath our civilization’s glory, even if your social rank won’t match the honor. You’ll be the greatest reason every citizen has a home, even if money won’t match your toil. And I’ll tell you this: unlike those who chase the froth of fashionable majors, your legacy won’t be shallow; it will pass through generations, pyramids glowing like amber under sunset, even if you rarely taste their wine and fat and never stop slinging dust, even if some engineers push you outside the big engineering family…

???

What the hell! I ground eight years to get here just to hear this!?

As she stripped the gloss from each line in the civil handbook, the hall finally grew restless. Someone stood. Someone shouted. Hot blood boiled over into impulse like a pot kicked into flame. The woman on stage didn’t seem to think any of it wrong; she kept laying the bricks of reality until a student who’d taken civil as a life’s vow cracked and yelled. Only then did she pause.

Then she shrugged, a gull feather drifting off a wave’s crest.

But none of that matters.

—???

—It doesn’t?

—What?

—If that’s not important, what is?

—Are you kidding us?

Doubts rose like sparrows taking off all at once. She kept going, steady as the tide.

You want to know why, right? I already said it. Because you truly are different from those chasing the windy, flashy majors. The bricks and mortar you leave in this world aren’t bubbles; they’re solid, they don’t appear and vanish like numbers on a trading board. Because you truly will be the reason every citizen has a home—only with you do our people, worn down by a day’s labor, get to stretch by a fireplace in a small cottage and heal like seeds in warm soil.

Most of all, no matter the contempt, no matter the weight of reality pressing down, you will be the bedrock beneath our civilization’s shine. Be it a dam shouldering ten thousand tons, or a research center smelling faintly of formalin; be it a palace gilded like noon light, or the humble square houses dotting farm fields—every mark most visible in our civilization’s journey will rise from your hands.

True, your employment numbers may look ugly. Your pay will likely fall below the ones with mouths full of “the invisible hand,” flipping figures from left to right like cards. Truth is, you’ll often be forgotten. When people gaze up at a grand palace, most will only think of the duke whose name crowns it. They’ll forget that every brick, every tile, every dome and every wall took shape from your drawings and pencils, your gloves and saws, your labor without dusk or dawn.

Yet even if a paunchy duke steals your rightful glory, even if months of sweat earn less than someone else’s half-day of schmoozing, even if fools look down on you, I still know some of you will choose to stay. You’ll stay on this road and keep doing a job that may be unfair but is necessary, a job like a bridge spanning a flood.

And that is what I truly came to tell you today.

I won’t brag about pay. I won’t fabricate futures. I only hope you’ll learn two things from me, a senior walking ahead of you.

The world is sharp-tongued; it’ll call you cement-slingers, paupers, civil mutts. But—those of you who choose to stay—carve this into your hearts forever: without you, the Sumerland Continent will still have wind and rain, but without you, there’ll be no roofs to meet the wind, no walls to shelter from rain, and this continent wouldn’t look the way it does now.

It’s you, together with countless comrades, who made it livable, a hearth in a storm. So you deserve respect like any comrade who bends nature toward human need.

You’ll sling dust. You may not be rich. You may joke you’re civil mutts.

But whatever comes, be proud.

Because you’re engineers, builders of a home for civilization.

When she finished, the hall was pin-drop silent again. The freshmen froze once more. Earlier, shock had caught them like ice; now the same silence was born of her words but its core had flipped, like night turned to dawn.

No one broke the hush, until the white-haired woman spoke again, the voice like a clean bell.

Of course, I’m not telling you to be saints and go hunt for slave work. I mean division of labor. As civil engineers, your duty is to build—higher towers, stronger dams, saner roads, lines like veins on a living map. Raising pay and fixing discrimination—that’s for the politicians you elect.

In other words, in the coming years, master your craft. As for industry pay—I promise you here I’ll push reform with everything I have. By the time you graduate from Holywell Academy, civil pay will not be this bleak.

With that nailed down like a beam across pillars, the emotion banked in the silence blew open. Applause and cheers flared like sparks in dry grass.

“Adelaide! Adelaide! Adelaide!”

Her name rang and rolled around the hall. No doubts now, no anxious fog—only admiration rising like lanterns into night.

Questions flooded her—what major the Republic needs most right now, why Miss Adelaide chose civil, what held her up when the road turned steep. They rushed toward her like streams, and she answered one by one, steady as a mill wheel.

While freshmen in other departments wilted under dull speeches, only the civil hall boiled like a pot. The ceremony, usually a long trudge, felt almost too short, trimmed by questions and lively talk.

In a blink, Holywell Academy’s central bronze bell tolled, the note like a copper sun setting—opening ceremony over.

Civil freshmen weren’t done. One bold soul clambered onto a friend’s shoulders and shouted toward Adelaide, voice shooting like an arrow.

“Director Adelaide!”

“Mm?”

“You said you hoped we’d learn two things, but you only told us one! What’s the other?”

His gaze slid to the red bucket hooked to Adelaide’s wheelchair. “And this red bucket—I wanted to ask the moment I saw it. Why do you carry it? Does it mean something?”

“Oh my, you’re clever.”

Adelaide brought her palms together and smiled, bright as lacquer.

“You’ve answered yourself. The second lesson is this: as civil folk, always carry a red bucket. Especially when you leave a site—take it with you. Otherwise…”

“Uh, otherwise…?”

“Otherwise your soul will, together with this red bucket, be trapped on the site forever~”

“…Huh?”

**

“Your soul trapped on the site forever… pffff—hahaha! I can’t believe you kept a straight face!”

“What’s wrong with that? It’s not superstition. I’ve tested it myself.”

The hall still pulsed with “Civil folk, unite!” like drums across a field. Backstage, behind the hall, Varie had listened end to end and was now doubled over, laughing so hard she thumped the wall.

Adelaide disliked the attitude, but since the Nacha Tribe are gifted at engineering and building, she explained carefully why the habit mattered and how it made sense in social terms. Her earnestness bought her… louder laughter from Varie.

“You actually believe it! Oh no—my stomach—give me a second—pff—hahaha!”

Watching her hammer the wall with glee, the white-haired woman in the wheelchair visibly soured. “Laugh all you want, lioness… you sure you’re not assuming I can’t beat you?”

Her eyes narrowed to a slit, a blade’s gleam flashing inside.

Anyone else, mouthing off to the Lionheart Hero, would’ve earned a single disdainful snort. But Varie’s smile folded away; interest lit her face like a torch.

“How about it? We going? Want to throw down?”

It sounded like something a drunk paragon would growl in a tavern, yet from the strongest Hero of the Nacha Tribe it meant something else entirely. If she’s interested, you’ve been offered a warrior’s highest respect. Adelaide more than deserved it.

Three years ago she lost her Sacred Heart in battle. She’s faced two god-tier foes, glimpsed full Truth more than once, even stared into the legend of the god themself. Her body may not match her prime, but her spirit and control over mana have never been sharper. Give her a handful of offerings, and a fight with Varie could go either way, storm against storm.

One wanted a real bout. The other trusted her strength like iron. For a breath they forgot they were in a school; their eyes about sparked in the air.

Thankfully, the last sensible person slipped between them like a hand calming wild horses.

“Hey now, first day of term can’t explode like a powder keg. It’s been ages—why not sit, catch up, talk?”

Menglan said it with a soft sigh, then shot Varie a mildly annoyed look. “You too—your head’s always crammed with nonsense. Our old friend just gave a brilliant speech—stirring grand narrative to fire up youth while bumping her own approval in minutes. Varie, isn’t that exactly the kind of rhetoric you need to study?”

"Why focus on that harmless little joke at the end instead of humbly analyzing the rest?"

"Allow me to correct you: that red bucket isn’t a harmless joke. It’s our civil folks’ way to survive, Your Highness Menglan."

"Ha?! That’s what you’re correcting, not the grand-narrative spiel?"

Varie’s eye twitched. Menglan acted like she wasn’t there, fingers brushing her cheek, a bashful smile blooming.

"Aiya, look at me—an amateur pretending to know. I opened my mouth and made a fool of myself."

"Oh no, please don’t say that. I can fully understand your intent, Your Highness."

"You two really are on the same wavelength, huh!"

Like Varie grumbled, once these two old foxes chat, the topic grows slick like a waxed ball. It circles the same spot, no traction.

All of it is airy pleasantries.

"So how does it feel being Dean?"

"Has Mira settled into being Principal? Can she handle public speaking?"

"Heard your maid got promoted to head of student life. Won’t you miss her care?"

Watching them loop in harmless circles, Varie held her temper for a moment. Then it thinned like fog; she huffed and rolled a grand eye.

"Alright! You queens of small talk can keep playing house with words. I’m out."

"Where are you going?" Adelaide asked.

"To check how the little ones you dragged here are doing. What, is that a problem?"

By "little ones," Varie meant the Nacha Tribe orphans transferred here as exchange students.

With the fall of old nobles, Holywell Academy was reshaped. The husk shed; the spirit rinsed.

It’s no longer the elitist institute serving their circle. It’s now an open public academy, doors wide to all kin and caste.

But names cast long shadows. In people’s minds, Holywell still reeks of noble ties.

Most folks hear "public intake" yet don’t dare apply. They fear Balad rich-kid cliques will bully them inside.

The ones who broke that shadow were those "little ones."

After the reform, the first new students weren’t randoms. They were the orphans Mira used to teach.

By chance, their senior sister Anta was returning to meet Mira and Adelaide.

Copato stoked their curiosity like wind beating a drumline. They tagged along to glimpse human society.

They hadn’t planned to stay long. Adelaide saw an ember in their eyes and cupped it.

She wooed them for weeks—warm meals, big-sister care. Not lured, no; she captured their hearts.

Together with Pengpeng’s persuasion, they became the first Nacha Tribe exchange students in human lands.

That single move set the city chatter ablaze.

If even the "fur-bottomed" beastfolk could enroll, then my rustic accent should be fine, right?

Applications surged like a geyser. Names poured in from across the continent.

This year, some Elves even hid their identity to sneak into the entrance exam.

Once, Holywell called itself the top academy on the Sumerland Continent.

Back then, beside Elven academies, it didn’t live up to its boast.

After Adelaide’s campaign and years of backing from human administration, it shed its old skin.

Now its claim finally rings true.

Faculty and students both match Elven standards.

That’s why Adelaide now lifts her chin at Varie, guilt-free.

"Dragged? They live well here—better than in your orphanage. Ask them yourself. See if they’d study here or go back."

"Yo, that confident? If they whisper complaints to me later, I’ll come knocking."

Varie joked, flicked her hand, and caught what Adelaide tossed.

"What’s this?"

"The roof garden key," Adelaide said. "Pengpeng teaches horticulture. When class is off, she’s there. You’ll likely find her."

Varie eyed the key, then turned to go meet an old familiar. At the door, she glanced back and flicked her fingers.

Her index and middle finger snapped—pia. A letter whooshed over and slid neatly into the crack of Adelaide’s wheelchair armrest.

"What’s this?" Adelaide asked this time.

"A 'thank-you' gift for you!"

With that, the Lionheart Hero tapped her toe. "No need to thank me or see me off." She vanished like a gust.

"Fast runner. Such a rude one…"

"My wife is like that. Please forgive her~"

"Won’t you go with her, Your Highness Menglan?"

"Even lovers in a honeymoon haze need some space."

They’re always together anyway. Let her chat with her old friend alone.

Menglan sipped tea, steam curling like a fern. She and Adelaide traded updates, talking until time felt ripe.

Before she left, Menglan set a date. Once the start-of-term rush settles, they’ll sit somewhere quiet and talk deeper.

With that, small talk ran dry. Keeping a guest longer just breeds awkwardness.

As Menglan reached the door, Adelaide watched her back, breath gathering like warm mist.

She couldn’t help but call her name.

"Menglan."

"Hm?"

Her tone wasn’t the smooth varnish she wore earlier. It carried raw edges.

"…Sorry."

"Eh? Why so sudden?"

Adelaide didn’t explain. She just looked at her. Pale lips moved like a petal in wind.

"And… thank you."

Menglan’s eyes widened a fraction. A smile budded at her lips.

"Apology and thanks—are those from an old friend, or a new partner?"

Adelaide hesitated, then let a soft breath go.

"…Both."

Yes—both.

Those were no polished pleasantries. They were a true apology and a true thanks.

They both knew which mapped to old love-and-grudge, and which to new awakenings.

No need to spell it out.

What truly surprised Menglan wasn’t the riddled phrasing. It was that Adelaide spoke first.

Menglan’s step paused at the threshold like a petal caught on the sill.

Behind her flower mask, her eyes warmed with quiet light.

Since words had opened, she couldn’t resist adding a flourish. Her eyes said as much, while her mouth played forgetful.

"Oh dear, look at my scatterbrained head. I forgot something important."

She glanced at Adelaide, smile narrowing her eyes.

"I should’ve confirmed this first. How do you wish to be addressed now?"

How to be addressed?

Adelaide didn’t answer right away. Silence folded around her like dusk cloth.

After a moment, she lifted her face and smiled.

"My parents—the Duke and Duchess Douglas—are in prison. The Douglas Family was erased for abetting Rockridge."

"So…"

"So?"

"As their eldest daughter, I’m in an awkward spot."

"In the official files, my surname is blank."

She seemed to explain, yet the answer skated past the question’s heart. It fits, and yet it doesn’t.

Menglan just blinked, aim achieved. She smiled, said goodbye, and left.

Adelaide stayed alone in the room, staring at the red tea she’d barely touched.

She watched her own reflection tremble on the surface, a small ripple sinking.

"How… should I be addressed?"

After delivering speeches at the opening ceremonies of the affiliated schools, Adelaide returned to her room.

She sat at her desk, murmuring Menglan’s last question.

As with their last parting, the question wasn’t literal.

This time, Adelaide knew exactly what Menglan meant.

She sat dazed not from confusion, but from a shaky answer.

In the empty room, her thoughts spun like leaves in a fall breeze.

Dusk spilled across the floor; her mind diffused with it.

"This won’t do. Term just started; there’s plenty to handle."

She patted her cheeks and set the thought aside.

Do something else, then… As she wavered, something nudged her chest.

Adelaide blinked and pulled out a letter.

"Ah. That Lionheart’s ‘thank-you.’"

The envelope was neat, edged with rose-pink embroidery.

Intertwined flowers twined on the paper. A prickle ran through her heart.

Seriously? Is the Lionheart the type to pick such girly things?

She broke the seal, and the doubt scattered like dandelion fluff.

"Ah."

The opening line carried a hand she hadn’t seen in years.

—Dearest Adelaide, I miss you so much it breaks my heart…

She exhaled with a laugh, long and weary, like wind leaving a cave.

She didn’t need the signature or a memory of the strokes.

She already knew the sender.

—Lady Lian Ke.

One of the Elven high-born, a grand lady heavy with influence.

Back then, after Mira left, Adelaide needed heat for her publicity.

She kept a flirtatious tie with Lian Ke on purpose.

Admittedly, the Elven lady helped a lot.

But when the curtain fell, Lian Ke’s persistence soured Adelaide’s choice.

The reason sits plain in this letter.

Yes—clingy beyond reason.

Even after Adelaide and Mira kissed midair before all Elves and the Nacha Tribe, she wouldn’t give up.

She even dropped legendary cringe lines: "I’m here to join you."

"Three’s fine—better, even."

"Living well together matters more than anything."

Honestly, after years of busy days, Adelaide had almost forgotten.

But the envelope in her hand hauled her back to that season.

Her temples throbbed like a drum.

No wonder the Lionheart wore that wicked smile when she tossed it.

This really is a "big gift."

Before, she had no way to reach Lian Ke, so she could leave her in the past.

A handwritten letter is different.

Odds were, this was payback—like a thorn left under the skin—for goading that lioness into punching a city wall.

He wouldn’t lie for me and claim the letter got lost, like smoke blown into a locked jar.

And if Miss Lian Ke learned I’d received her letter and hadn’t replied, the color of the whole matter would shift, like dusk tilting into storm.

No help for it. Adelaide slid a sheet from the drawer, like a leaf pulled from autumn, picked up her pen, and her fingertips began to dance across the yellowed page like swallows.

Ten minutes later, she exhaled a heavy breath, like steam off a winter cup, and lifted the page to watch her handwriting shine like wet ink on river stone.

“Dear Miss Lian Ke…”

“It’s been a long time. I’ve missed you as one misses moonlight on a long road; each day away felt like a square cut from my heart, a pale patch of snow.”

“These years, I still recall that full-moon night at Lian Ke Manor, like a lantern sealed in glass. We sat in the little pavilion; you, deliciously tipsy, leaned on my shoulder and murmured of the Divine’s act of creation, marveling at every bright petal He set into the world.”

“But whenever I picture that scene, regret ripples through me like wind through reeds, because I never opened my heart to you.”

“It’s shy to say, like a finch hiding in ivy, yet three years of longing have finally steadied my voice; please let me speak plain to you here.”

“In truth, more than the moonlight you praised, or the flowers you adored, I believed the most beautiful thing that night was you, warm in my arms, like spring cupped against my chest.”

The marks on the page turned into notes in her ear, like raindrops striking a zither.

Adelaide nodded, pleased, as if smoothing silk over a frame; it seemed years as director hadn’t dulled her syrupy craft, though reading this aloud still made cheeks spark like kindling—

Wait. Aloud?

Her red lips parted, like a rose after dew, but no sound came.

Wait, wait—

That… wasn’t her voice, like a flute heard behind a screen?

Cold sweat slid down her temple like a bead of dew slipping off bamboo.

She turned, trembling, like a leaf in a draft, and saw the black-haired woman behind her, face frosted like a pond in midwinter.

“Sis…”

“Eh? G–good evening… you’re, you’re off work too, Mira?” Her words fluttered like moths against a lamp.

Mira didn’t answer the stammer, only asked with her eyes, cool as green glass—do you have something to tell me?

“Mm, mm… listen to me, Mira…” Her voice drifted like a thin thread.

“Hm? Explain what?” The question fell like a pebble into a still pool.

“This letter is… right, this letter’s just being polite, like pouring tea before a talk. I need connections now. Even if she isn’t human, keeping good terms might help when I run for president, like planting willows along a road I’ll walk.”

Mira’s sea-green pupils trembled at “president,” like reeds shivering at a breeze, and the ice on her face melted slow as snow under sun.

After a long beat, she huffed and looked away, like a cat turning its head, and Adelaide clutched her chest in quiet relief, as if surviving a wave that lapped at her chin.

Of course, that didn’t mean Mira was easy to placate, like a child soothed by candy.

She let her sister go because Adelaide wasn’t fumbling for excuses like smoke; she truly was preparing to run, like a runner lacing boots at dawn.

Yes, a presidential run.

Say it aloud and many would startle like birds flushed from reeds, because everyone knew what happened three years ago, a tale stamped like a seal.

Willing or not, most had assumed this once-storm-sweeping woman had dropped her ambition, like a sword set back in its rack.

But truth is… Adelaide had never said she’d abandoned the peak, like a climber who still dreams of the summit at night.

Granted, after her confession in the battle with Richard VI, she could never be king again—like a crown set afloat downriver.

That wasn’t because the people hated her, like crows crying at noon.

It was because the office of king itself no longer existed, like a star that burned out at dawn.

When the plot of Richard VI and Rockridge collapsed, the regent’s remnants scattered like birds and beasts into scrub.

The Red Orchid Society and the Supreme Tribunal, the reformers, took the country without drawing blood, like opening a knot with calm fingers.

Their first act was to reshape Sarman with bold strokes, like redrawing a map with a new pen.

The two former crown princes and the new chief justice held nothing back, like carp leaping a gate.

They struck at the root, abolishing a thousand-year bureaucracy like chopping a dead tree at the stump.

Samir and Neprah, heirs of the royal blood, went further still; they cast off their inherited rank like cloaks dropped on the steps, and proclaimed there would be no “eternal royal house” above law and people, like clouds moving off a mountain.

Thus, “Sarman Empire” entered history three years ago, like a banner folded into a chest, and the “king” went with it, like dust swept from a corridor.

In its place rose a new republic, bright as a sunrise, with a president chosen by vote like grain counted clean.

After that, Samir was elected the first president and worked with both hands, like an ox in spring fields, until his three-year term ended.

Now he and Neprah contest the next seat, the race white-hot like iron in a forge.

In policy, one brother is bold and one more tempered, like fire and banked coals; they bicker often, and have clashed in public debates like thunderheads knocking.

Even so, both hold the people in their hearts, like lamps held against night, and they’ve led the republic into a new age.

Their popularity swells like a tide; it’s almost certain that when one finishes his limit, the other will take the helm, like ships changing pilots mid-channel.

But if you talk pure popularity, another name rings like a bell alongside theirs.

Adelaide.

Yes, Adelaide.

Even she finds it counterintuitive, like sweet wine with a bitter aftertaste, but that’s how it is.

After the “Greatest Sacrifice,” Adelaide and Mira went through judgment, like iron weighed on scales.

No doubt they’d erred, like ink spilled on a robe, yet they weren’t the masterminds; the true hands on the array were Rockridge and Richard VI, like spiders at the web’s heart.

Then Adelaide offered the Sacred Heart and freed the trapped souls, like opening floodgates so a million lights could flow home.

Her motive wasn’t purely selfless, like a blade with two edges, but no one could deny it.

That monstrous scheme caused no casualties in the end; the credit pooled at her feet like rain caught in a cistern.

Her merits balanced her faults, like weights settling level.

So there was no prison for either of them; the republic even assigned them as they wished, like seeds planted in chosen soil—Mira as principal of Holywell Academy, Adelaide as administrative director.

The only real punishment came from that open confession: the Supreme Tribunal barred Adelaide from running for president for five terms, like a lock set on a door.

For nearly triggering genocide, the penalty felt light enough to sting with irony, like a feather where a rod was expected.

Even so, voices inside the republic rose in fierce opposition, like a storm building over wheat.

Why? As said—her popularity was through the roof, like fireworks caught in the rafters.

Back then, that confession made everyone deny her worthiness to be king, like a chorus singing one note.

But most of them were under a curse, minds pressed flat like paper; they received information through Mira, and they accepted “I’m unfit to be king” like rain soaking sand.

Once they broke the chains and thinking returned, the image of Adelaide offering the Sacred Heart blazed in every heart like a comet.

Call it “black-and-red fame” or a bridge-fall crush; they saw her charge without hesitation like a stag through snow, and that single step shot her popularity past the sky, like an arrow leaving the string.

Many swore, after returning to their bodies, that they’d been won by Adelaide’s beauty and steel, her ease and wit, like a river drawn to the sea.

They marched more than once, like drums on a road, demanding the ban be lifted.

If she hadn’t stepped out herself to accept the punishment, like rain calming dust, the matter might have boiled over.

That humility read as virtue, like a sprig of green on a stone, and her popularity climbed again like ivy.

So yes, it’s absurd, but by the raw numbers she might outshine Samir and Neprah like a torch beside twin candles.

Against other contenders she’s so far ahead, it’s like a hawk above field mice.

If she keeps her network and image steady, like a weaver keeping the loom taut, then once the ban ends, and the brothers finish their limits, the presidency will be a nailed-down thing, like a plank fixed with iron.

In its way, that’s becoming king, like water choosing the low place, and it’s easier than that old throne of knives and whispers—each time they talk of it, Adelaide laughs and tells Mira so, like bells on a breeze.

Yet the brighter she smiles, the more Mira shows guilt, like shade creeping at noon.

Now, from behind, Mira embraced Adelaide again, soft as a shawl, and spoke lightly.

“I’m sorry…”

“We’ve said this so many times, Mira. You don’t have to apologize for that,” Adelaide answered, voice warm as a brazier.

“But if you hadn’t saved me then, you wouldn’t have to flatter anyone now—mm!”

Adelaide pinched Mira’s ear, like flicking a playful leaf, and sighed. “We’ve gone over this. Your method was too extreme, like frost in spring. Their lives were lives too.”

“Mmm… I know, but…” She hugged tighter, like a knot pulled close, and bit her lip like a petal held between teeth.

Silence sat with them a long time, like snow that won’t melt.

Then she finally spoke, low as a drum under blankets.

“Sis, back then… I didn’t believe you were unfit to be king.” Her words fell like clear beads.

Adelaide’s eyes widened a little, like shutters opening.

The line must have been caged for ages; afraid of being misunderstood, Mira rushed on like a brook finding a gap. “I mean, even if the Sacred Heart unfused, I truly never—”

“I know. You never betrayed me,” Adelaide answered, catching the thread like a hand catching a kite.

She looked to the distance, wistful as a gull over gray water.

After a while she drew back her gaze, tilted her head, and leaned into Mira, smile shading her face like sunlight under leaves.

“So it’s lucky you’re not an imperial citizen in the strict sense. Otherwise, my plan would’ve failed,” she said, teasing her hair like ruffling a midnight cat.

Warmth in her palm answered the warmth in her chest, like two coals touching, and she felt drowsily content.

To express loyalty like this—my little sister is too cute, like a fox stealing a grape. It isn’t fair!

With that thought, her fingers grew bolder in the black silk of Mira’s hair, like wind deepening in bamboo.

Mira gave a small, strange breath, like a reed flute, which earned her an even more daring touch, like a wave climbing the shore.

“Mm… I… I have lied before, but… mm… I never betrayed you, Sis…” Her voice quivered like a dragonfly’s wing.

“I told you, I know,” Adelaide said, gentle as rain.

“So… you’re not allowed to be fickle either,” Mira murmured, eyes bright as wet jade.

“?”

Adelaide’s hand froze like a robin in sudden snow.

Mira seized the moment, lifted her head, and pressed on, each word a stepping stone.

“Promise me, Sis. Absolutely… absolutely no other men or women,” she said, gaze locking like a clasp.

“O–of course!” Another bead of sweat traced her temple like a drop on glass. Adelaide’s eyes skittered like minnows. “I—I only said that to spice things up that day, like pepper in soup…”

“Really?” Her doubt hung like fog.

“Swear it. Don’t you trust me most—”

“—Then you won’t write things this… ambiguous to anyone else, right?” Mira’s cut slid in like a thin blade.

What! So that loyalty speech circled back to this, like a kite tugging the same string!

Adelaide coughed twice, forehead dewy with cold sweat like leaves after night. “Uh, th–that… depends. Hah. Relationships can matter, like bridges over rivers—”

“—Adelaïde.” Mira broke her name into three cold notes, like ice cracking.

Called by her full name, Adelaide knew Mira was truly angry, like thunder rolling close.

Before she could move, the room spun lightly like a tilted boat, and the next heartbeat she sank into soft bedding, like a feather caught in down.

“M–Mira?”

Hands closed around her wrists like cuffs of silk, and Adelaide couldn’t budge, like a butterfly pinned.

Mira straddled her, winter-dark hair falling like night, right hand at Adelaide’s chest, undoing buttons one by one like stars going out.

“W–wait…”

Helpless, Adelaide felt her skin meet the air, cool as river mist, inch by inch, like dawn pulling back the veil.

The daily tightness across her front snapped with a soft click, like a string released, and the weight was suddenly free, like fruit dropping from a branch.

“M–Mira!” she cried, and her body wriggled in a token struggle, like a fish flicking its tail.

Truth was, her cheeks burned and her heart thudded like drums; blood rushed to her head like wine, and she had no strength to resist at all.

Three years ago, when she offered the Sacred Heart her sacrifice, the strange sigil on her lower abdomen was washed away by its holy fire. In theory, the Nacha Tribe’s blood shouldn’t stir her lust anymore.

Yet reality kept its own drumbeat. After years side by side, her body seemed even more sensitive than when that thing still lingered.

Have some pride, you traitorous body. The scolding boiled first; action lagged behind. But flesh had already dropped its last veil of restraint. Her slender frame softened. The final button came free. Resistance collapsed, and she leaned in, ready to bear what came next—

Bang!

“Teacher! Judge this for me!”

A bright voice crashed in with the door. A blue-haired, cat-eared Nacha girl, Copato, filled the doorway, test paper held high, eyes already peeking inside.

“Teacher, take a look—huh? Where’s Teacher Mira?”

“Eh? Copato?”

Adelaide yanked the quilt up, one bare, smooth shoulder still exposed, cheeks scarlet as she stared at the door. “W-why are you here?”

Copato puffed her cheeks. “Adelaide, Teacher! I was doing Teacher Mira’s mock exam on basic mana theory. I finally finished, and Anta says I got all of question three wrong! She called me a little dummy! I can’t stand it! I’m finding Teacher Mira to bring justice! I solved it exactly like Teacher taught me—”

“Uh—hold up, Copato. I know what you mean, but Teacher Mira isn’t here.”

“Eh? But I just saw Teacher Mira come in here.”

“She did, but she just—eep!”

Adelaide flinched back hard mid-sentence. Her free hand down below was urgently pushing something away.

“Mm—Mira, don’t—”

“Huh? What’s up with Teacher Mira?”

“Mm—what I mean is—ugh—” She grit her teeth, words stuttering like loose beads. “I—I don’t know where she… mm… went… Could—could you try somewhere else?”

“But I didn’t see Teacher Mira come out…”

“H-ha-ha, s-so strange, isn’t it—mmph!”

“So weird! Maybe Teacher Mira knows invisibility… Eh? Adelaide, Teacher, your face is so red. Are you feverish? I’ll check—I’ll check—”

“No, no, no, absolutely not necessary!”

“But your face is super red, and you were wriggling on the bed just now—”

“Copato. With me.”

Copato had one foot inside when a hand caught her wrist from behind. A purple-haired, sharp-eyed girl stood there—Anta—grabbing without another word to drag her out.

Copato dug in her heels. “What do you mean, I just go because you say so? That’d be so lame! And I’m still mad you called me a dummy. Don’t talk to me!”

“It was my mistake, Copato. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you a little dummy.”

Copato’s eyes widened. Her hand, mid-swing, stopped resisting. “Wow. Anta actually apologized… First time this year! I’m telling everyone!”

“Tell whoever you want. For now, just come with me.”

Anta’s tone tightened. Her cheeks flushed. She kept her gaze off the bed, and her grip turned real. She hauled the cat-eared girl away and slammed the door shut on the run.

Bang!

The same sound as before marked the end of the interlude—or maybe its true beginning.

“Mi—ra—!”

Blood-red mana, fine as spider silk, sealed the door in an instant. Adelaide threw the quilt back. Mira stood there, black-haired and wide-eyed, lips wet with a shine that matched the dark patch on the sheet.

Heat leapt to Adelaide’s face. “You—you—you’re crazy! Doing this in front of the kids—”

“Me?”

“Yes! You! Did your sense of shame get tossed out with your guilt?”

“But…”

Mira kept that helpless expression. She glanced down at the shadowed sheet, then flicked her tongue to the corner of her mouth, tasting the same lingering, glistening sin.

“Miiiiii—raaaaaaaa!”

Adelaide’s skin was pale enough to be almost translucent, yet now she flushed so hard she trembled. She gave Mira’s shoulder a light punch. Mira laughed, hands up, admitting fault.

After the apology, after coaxing Adelaide’s color back to calm, Mira sobered, leaning against her and watching the direction Anta and Copato had gone. A sigh rose like mist. “Those two little ones… their future won’t be easy.”

“…”

“Anta laid it out so clearly, and Copato still didn’t get it. She even thinks ‘little dummy’ is an insult… I don’t know whether to call it innocence or cruelty.”

“…”

“Hey… Sis, don’t ignore me. I really was wrong.”

“…”

“Say something, please? Yell at me if you want, just don’t freeze me out—”

“Big dummy.”

**

The next day, Adelaide woke to the sixth mana alarm she’d set for herself.

When she opened her eyes, daylight already flooded the room like spilled milk. Rare for her. She was truly busy, the kind to rise before the first seam of light over the horizon.

But today she was spent. The first alarm had failed to pull her up.

They’d argued last night, yes. And then they’d done it anyway.

More intense than usual.

The thought alone made her bite her lower lip. Heat brushed up her cheeks.

She turned her head and saw Mira’s sleeping face, serene as a lake under dawn.

Damned rogue. Still sleeping sweetly after the sixth alarm—she poked those soft cheeks, irritation bubbling. Then she remembered: Mira had been the one moving most. No wonder she slept deeper.

Which only annoyed her more. She almost pinched her nose.

(I told you I’m not a cow. Not a cow. Not a cow! Don’t play me like that, you big dummy!)

She kept poking while grumbling, half of the anger aimed at herself. She’d sworn to teach that shameless flirt a lesson, and still she’d caved the moment heat rose. Where was her elder-sister dignity? Where was her stance?

At that thought, poking turned into tugging, pulling at Mira’s cheeks to vent.

Then—she froze.

Ah…

Wait, we were fighting, weren’t we?

No, more than that—haven’t we been fighting a bit too often lately?

Before the incident three years ago, real clashes were rare. Maybe once in half a year. And almost always over things neither could compromise on.

Not that “doing shameless things in front of the kids” isn’t principle.

But spats of this scale? The old them wouldn’t even have raised voices.

These three years, every few weeks, a small flare-up. Petty sparks, everyday dust.

Is this the weariness phase? Feelings fading?

No. Not that.

Adelaide knew. Mira hadn’t avoided fighting because they were perfectly aligned. She’d held her tongue out of guilt, out of feeling unworthy.

But how could that be?

She was Mira. If anyone has the right to rile Adelaide, it’s her.

“Mm… Sis?”

Feeling the touch, Mira’s lashes fluttered open.

Half-asleep, her blue eyes were soft, stripped of their usual edge, hazy with a child’s clarity.

She looked at Adelaide with that drowsy gaze—and smiled, slow and silly.

“Hehe… Good morning, Sis.”

“You look… kind of happy?”

“Mm. I am happy…?”

“Why?”

Mira nuzzled into Adelaide’s hand. Her black hair slipped between fingers like silk, tickling with gentle whispers.

“Because… it feels like we’re back to when we were little.”

Adelaide stared, stunned.

A child’s expression. Black hair. Shared warmth.

Yes. It felt like the start again, when Mira first came to the Douglas Family.

She was still Adelaide. Mira was still Mira.

No more fighting—because the old Mira wouldn’t.

No more crossing lines—because the old Adelaide wouldn’t.

If they did that, everything could hold. Nothing would change.

So… was that the answer she’d been chasing?

The question echoed inside. Before she could dissect it, her mouth moved, delivering her answer.

“Mira, I’ve decided.”

“Mm? Decided what?”

“My name.”

“Ah…” Mira blinked, puzzled.

“So, what will you change it to…?”

“Yes. From now on, my middle name will be Jia. As for my surname… I’ll take Belior.”

“Eh?”

From “Adelaide von Douglas” to “Adelaide Jia Belior”—it sounded almost like stitching old names together, not the smoothest choice.

Maybe reconsider—Mira’s troubled look said that. But—

The next second, she blinked. Sleep vanished.

“Surname… Belior…?”

Belior wasn’t only the name of a founder who fought back chaos. It was also… Mira’s surname now.

Which meant—

“Will you marry me, Mira?”

The black-haired girl’s lips trembled. She seemed unable to believe what she’d heard.

After a long breath, she nodded hard, pulling the white-haired girl into her arms, as if afraid the promise would flee.

“Yes! I will!”

“Pfft… Don’t shout so loud. You’ll bring Copato and Anta back.”

Adelaide laughed and leaned in.

Their lips met. In warm morning light, she tasted the sweetest flavor in the world.

A kiss, not as sisters, but as lovers.

That was her choice.

Maybe they could never go back. It didn’t matter.

The script had ended, but the story ahead was long.

Challenges waited. New chapters wanted ink.

For the sake of staying together, they might argue. They might clash.

No matter how hard the road, they would walk it side by side.

This was nowhere near the place to stop.