Chapter 4
“You still—!”
“Let’s go, Revil.”
Erina didn’t wait for the hesitant Revil and took the child’s hand, leading him away.
“Y-you! Erina, get back here!”
Fearing that monstrous voice would ruin her plan before she could execute it, Erina hurriedly left the spot.
“Erina!”
Ignoring Mireya’s irritating voice, Erina didn’t stop walking. She felt as if the anger within her was about to explode. Knowing she had to endure for the sake of today and the days ahead, she almost ran.
Just as she was about to reach the carriage waiting by the mansion gates, she was startled by the sound of labored breathing coming from below and stopped in her tracks. In her frantic state of mind, she had moved too quickly, not considering the child’s slower pace.
“Sorry, are you okay?”
When guilt overwhelmed her, and she tried to release his hand, the boy gripped hers tightly, trembling. From the trembling she felt at her fingertips, Erina realized that he absolutely didn’t want to go back to that place.
“Do you want to come with me?”
Even without explaining why she had called him over or why they were leaving in such a hurry, Revil seemed to understand it all. His head bobbed up and down quickly.
Erina knew all too well how hard it was to endure staying in a place you loathed so much that merely breathing there made you feel sick. That’s why she couldn’t let go of Revil’s hand.
“Alright, let’s go.”
With those words, his tense expression finally relaxed.
She led him into the carriage and sat him down across from her.
The moment they were both seated, the carriage set off. Erina absentmindedly watched his soft, light brown hair sway gently with the faint motion of the carriage.
“Are… are you okay?”
Startled by the soft, timid voice, Erina instinctively responded with a question.
“Huh?”
“Your face…”
Only then did the stinging pain she hadn’t noticed before, buried under her anger, rush in. When Erina carefully touched her bruised cheek, she realized that a ring had left a cut.
As she stared blankly at the faint blood staining her fingers, she pulled out a handkerchief and wiped it away.
“I’m fine.”
“But you’re bleeding…”
“I’m really fine. Soon, that old woman will be in far more pain than this.”
Erina smiled instead, but her expression only deepened the unease on Revil’s face.
Looking into those ruby-red eyes—so strikingly similar to Faylon’s that one could almost believe he was his son—Erina felt her emotions stir.
She didn’t want to let those eyes affect her, but whenever she saw the boy’s face, so fragile and on the verge of breaking, she couldn’t help but care.
It was such a contradiction.
“I’m leaving. I don’t know when, but I will.”
Revil’s wavering eyes stared at Erina for a long moment before he lowered his head.
Though the deep resignation in his posture saddened her, there was nothing she could do. Revil was the heir to the Eols family, and she had resolved never to be entangled with anything related to Eols again.
Silence quickly filled the carriage.
Revil’s soft hair, which now covered his downturned face, reminded Erina of the day she first saw him, dripping with rainwater.
The carriage traveled for quite a while before finally reaching its destination.
“We’ve arrived, madam.”
As the door opened, Erina looked at Revil before stepping out of the carriage.
“Will you stay here in the carriage?”
At those words, his head snapped up, and he quickly moved to climb out.
“N-no.”
“Alright then.”
Once Revil got out of the carriage, the coachman said he would return later and left the area.
Looking ahead, Erina’s eyes caught sight of a small, quiet village. The small hill next to the village and the towering stone mountain behind it, which was so high it was hard to estimate its size, were impressive.
The place she wanted to go was that massive stone mountain.
She hurriedly moved forward.
As she walked quickly, she slowed down a bit when she sensed a slight movement behind her.
Rather than cutting through the village, which would be farther, she circled around the stone mountain’s edge and arrived at the end of it.
Standing before the stone mountain, Erina noticed an inscription carved into one part of it.
[ The Breath of the Gods Flows Through the Mountain ]
Simply seeing this ancient language meant that scholars had likely visited this place, but the stone mountain appeared untouched by human hands.
The village here was so small, with only a few households, and there were almost no visitors, so most people who saw this couldn’t even tell whether it was an ancient language or just a drawing.
Moreover, the stone mountain, though large, was considered useless by the Empire, so few ever came here.
In the original story, Rose, unable to endure Erina’s tyranny, ran away from the mansion and took a public carriage, asking to go anywhere. By chance, the coachman happened to be passing through this village, bringing her here.
Rose, as if she knew there was something in this stone mountain, got out of the carriage without hesitation and came straight to this place.
Though later she would claim it was a “coincidence,” when Erina revisited the original story, it seemed clear it wasn’t a coincidence at all.
Without any hesitation, Rose found her way here and easily obtained whatever was hidden within the stone mountain, a method that had never been revealed.
It was impossible for it to have been a coincidence.
“Revil.”
“Yes.”
“Wait here for a moment.”
He showed a bit of unease at her words.
“I’ll just look around the area for a while. I won’t go far.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Reassured by her confirmation, Revil stretched out his hands.
“I’ll hold the parasol for you.”
Erina couldn’t hide the smile that escaped her lips.
Perhaps holding onto the parasol was an excuse to avoid wanting to go and yet return.
“Alright.”
She carefully took the parasol, hugging it close to her chest like something precious.
“I’ll be back soon.”
As she nodded and watched the child, Erina stood before the part of the stone mountain with the ancient inscription and began counting her steps inwardly.
“One, two, three… this is the eighth.”
After exactly eight steps, Erina placed her hand on the stone wall.
A cold sensation rushed through her hand, almost as if it were swirling through her whole body.
She inhaled deeply, tightly closing her eyes, and whispered her name inwardly.
‘Erina Medelia. Erina Medelia. I am—’
Her fingertips felt a strange, foreign sensation.
“Erina Medelia.”
At that moment, the stone wall she was touching rippled like a droplet falling into water, and a transparent circle began to expand around her hand.
From a small point, it grew to the size of her palm, then to her height, and soon the circle expanded ten times larger.
The stone wall that had been covered by the transparent circle melted away as if it were dissolving, and in its place appeared a large, oval-shaped entrance.
“Ha.”
Erina hurriedly ran toward where Revil was.
Revil looked startled by her approach, but her eyes were fixed only on the part of the stone wall where the ancient language had been engraved.
The inscriptions that had been written in ancient language had now changed to the Empire’s common tongue, readable by any citizen of the Asilium Empire.
[ Erina Medelia ]
The long-awaited magic stone mine had found its new owner.
Not Rose Eols, but Erina Medelia.
In the original story, Rose had taken possession of the magic stone mine, justifying her affair to everyone. She claimed that her relationship with Faylon was a love destined by the gods.
Scholars and priests, as noted in the ancient language, had argued that the magic stone mine was where the power of the gods resided, because the only way to use lost magic was through artifacts powered by these magic stones.
The continent of Pethenia, where the Asilium Empire is located, had not seen magic since the Age of Magic, as magic had vanished. However, artifacts that were believed to have been created by wizards still existed.
Artifacts are objects imbued with magic, allowing ordinary people, who were not wizards, to use magic. However, the activation period of artifacts was short-lived. This was because mines capable of extracting magic stones, which powered these artifacts, were discovered only once every few hundred years and were extremely scarce.
The size of the mines varied depending on the size of the mountain that contained the magic stones, and historical records of past magic stone mines showed that most were only the size of a hill.
In the original story, Rose Asilla comes to possess one of the rare, historically significant magic stone mines. Many claimed that the magic stone mines had the power of the gods, and the name engraved in these mines was absolute.
Because of this, in the original story, despite divorces being rare in the Asilium Empire, Erina was divorced legally and quickly.
However, knowing the original story, Erina was already aware of a fact that scholars and priests would reveal in the last part of the original: during the process where an ordinary hill or mountain became a magic stone mine, the name that naturally came to mind was engraved there.
In the original story, Rose had desperately imagined the moment when she would become Rose Eols in front of this stone mountain.
Later, Rose would tell the priests and scholars that she believed Faylon was her fated love, but it was clear to Erina that she seemed to know everything.
In the original story, Rose claimed that her visit to the village was a coincidence, but she had actually told the coachman to explain this place, leading her not to the village but to the stone mountain.
Furthermore, she acted without hesitation, moving ten steps from the engraved ancient language and thinking of the name she wanted to be inscribed there.
The name engraved in the mine, which Rose claimed was ordained by the gods, would later be revealed by scholars and priests when Erina was dying in the original story.
But now, when no one knew this fact, Erina was able to use the power of the imperial family to push the Iols family aside, just like Rose in the original story.
It was a blissful feeling, just by imagining it.
She no longer had to live at the mercy of anyone. She didn’t have to endure a husband who proudly flaunted his infidelity and disrespected her. She didn’t have to look to her family to take her in after a divorce.
The realization of this gave Erina a deep sense of relief, and she collapsed to the ground.
“Ha, haha.”
Erina Medelia had taken away what had once allowed Rose to claim her love with Faylon as the destiny the gods had ordained, and made her disappear quietly without a trace.
It was now Erina Medelia’s turn.
