Chapter 1:
Return
Laskail was an ancient, wealthy, and prestigious noble house.
The Duke and Duchess of Laskail truly loved each other, and their children were kind and intelligent. They were a perfect, happy family.
Until one day, when their youngest daughter, Lilietta, suddenly disappeared.
In one corner of the rear garden of the Laskail ducal estate stood a circular flower bed. At its center was a small gravestone, almost buried beneath blooming flowers.
It was a newly made grave.
The name engraved on the white marble was still sharp and clear.
Lilietta del Nisa Laskail
1751ā1760
The current year was 1770.
It had already been ten years since the only daughter of House Laskail had vanished.
During those ten years, the ducal family had exhausted every possible means to search for the young lady.
They searched with such determination that it seemed they had scoured the entire continent.
Yet they found nothing.
Nothing except a bloodstained piece of clothing and a few strands of golden hair discovered in the nearby birch forest on the very day she disappeared.
People said Lilietta had been devoured by a wild beast and urged the family to give up.
The Laskails never did.
For ten long years.
Only recently had they finally accepted her death and ended the search.
The gravestone had been erected only three days earlier.
The small coffin buried beneath it was empty.
As the empty coffin was lowered into the ground, the Duke wept openly, while the Duchess collapsed unconscious.
Their second son, Richard, did not attend the funeral at all.
The morning after the funeral, their eldest son, Leonhardt, received a message from a tavern.
His younger brother had drunk himself into unconsciousness.
Leonhardt personally brought Richard home. Throughout the journey, Richard muttered like a man whose mind had completely broken.
“They say Lili is dead, Brother.
They told me it’s time to accept that she’s gone.
They said ten years is long enough to forget… but have you forgotten?
I can’t.
I can’t accept it.
We never even saw her body.
That gentle, quiet little girl went into the forest alone in the middle of the night?
Do you believe that?
I don’t.
Brother… Leon…
Do you know what she told me the night before she disappeared?
She said she’d had a strange dream.
She woke up because it scared her.
She asked if I could stay with her until she fell asleep again.
But I…
Why…
Why did I do that?
It’s my fault, Brother.
It’s all my fault.
If only I’d stayed with her that night…”
Leonhardt had heard the story countless times before.
No matter how often he insisted it wasn’t his fault, Richard never stopped blaming himself.
After putting his drunken brother to bed, Leonhardt handled all the urgent affairs of the estate in place of his father, who was too preoccupied caring for his collapsed wife.
Because of that, three days had passed since the funeral, and Leonhardt still hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep.
He hadn’t even had time to grieve.
He was nowhere near ready to accept his little sister’s death.
That was why, early that morning, he had come to visit her grave.
Someone was already there.
The Duchess of Laskail, who had fainted at the funeral, sat blankly before the gravestone.
She gently stroked a framed portrait over and over.
It was a picture of her young daughter smiling like an angel.
She, too, seemed unable to let her daughter go.
Perhaps she never would.
If only they knew how she had died.
If only they had found her body.
Leonhardt repeated the thought he had gone over hundreds of times.
After silently watching his mother’s back for a while, he turned away.
There had been quite an age gap between the brothers and their youngest sister.
When Lilietta was born, Leonhardt had been eight years old, and Richard six.
The brothers had inherited the trademark physique of House Laskailāexceptionally tall and strong.
Lilietta was nothing like them.
She had been born prematurely after a difficult labor.
From birth, she had been frail.
She spent her childhood constantly falling ill.
Even so, she rarely complained.
Whenever she had to drink bitter medicine, she’d smile and say,
“Medicine means I get candy afterward, so it’s nice. From now on, I’m going to call it candy time instead of medicine time.”
She was like sunshine.
The entire family had treasured her.
Leonhardt walked past the gravestone.
The rear gate of the garden came into view.
The iron gate, covered in climbing roses, was tightly wrapped in rusty chains.
Beyond that gate lay the birch forest.
It had always been left open.
The birch forest, lovingly cultivated by the family for generations, had been a beautiful and peaceful place.
But after Lilietta’s bloodstained clothing was found there, the Duke himself had chained the gate shut.
Leonhardt remembered the forest vividly.
There had never been dangerous beasts.
Deer and rabbits wandered freely, birds sang from the trees, and if you followed the woodland path far enough, you’d reach a small lake.
He often took little Lilietta there for walks, holding her tiny, soft hand.
Even now, he could still remember its warmth.
The forest lay within the Laskail estate itself.
In fact, the ducal residence was known as Birch Castle because of it.
It wasn’t dangerous.
So how could anyone claim Lilietta had been eaten by some nonexistent beast there?
And that she’d slipped out of the mansion alone, unnoticed, in the middle of the night?
She had only been ten years old.
She’d also been physically weak.
Even running a short distance left her breathless.
Impossible.
Absolutely impossible.
Someone took her.
Without realizing it, Leonhardt clenched his fist.
His grip tightened until his knuckles turned white.
An overwhelming killing intent surged through him.
Every time he imagined what might have happened to her that night, he wanted to tear apart the unknown culprit with his bare hands.
He slowly relaxed his hand and took a deep breath.
Only then did he notice his father standing far beyond the chained gate.
The Duke of Laskail stood in the middle of the birch path with his hands behind his back.
As though he were waiting…
Waiting for a girl whose footsteps had once been as light as a fairy’s to come walking back along that path.
Leonhardt grasped the bars of the gate, stepped onto the thick chain, and vaulted over it in a single leap.
He approached his father.
The Duke turned at the sound.
“Leon.”
“Father.”
Leonhardt didn’t ask why he was there.
Nor did the Duke ask why his son had come.
Father and son simply stood side by side, staring toward the end of the woodland path.
No one emerged.
The Duke eventually turned around and patted his eldest son’s shoulder.
“I left everything in your hands for three days, and nothing went wrong. You’ve worked hard.”
“It was nothing.”
“Go inside and get some proper rest. You haven’t slept.”
“Yes. I’ll be in shortly.”
The Duke returned to the mansion.
Leonhardt remained where he was.
After a while, he began walking alone down the forest path.
Between the white birch trunks, the blue lake gradually came into view.
The setting sun stretched long ribbons of golden light across the water.
“Leon, look!
The sun must have dropped its silk shawl while going to sleep.
Isn’t it beautiful?”
Her whisper echoed in his ears.
Leonhardt gazed at the lake, remembering Lilietta.
Rosy cheeks.
Purple eyes sparkling beneath crescent-shaped smiles.
Long golden hair dancing in the breeze.
Thenā
Without warningā
A head of soaking wet golden hair burst up from the lake.
Water scattered everywhere like glittering jewels.
Even drenched, the hair shone brilliantly.
Just like his sister’s.
White, flawless skin.
Long golden hair that looked as though it had never once been cut.
Purple eyes peering through strands plastered to her face.
A girl…
No.
A woman.
She rose from the lake like a fairy.
With a face that looked exactly like Lilietta’s.
As though the little girl had survived…
And grown into a twenty-year-old woman.
Leonhardt couldn’t comprehend what he was seeing.
We’ve searched the bottom of this lake countless times…
There was never anything there.
While he stood frozen, the woman staggered briefly before regaining her balance.
She waded toward the shore.
Then he heard her mutter under her breath.
“Damn it… What the hell happened? I open my eyes and I’m underwater?”
Standing on the shore, she irritably brushed her wet hair back.
Then she noticed Leonhardt.
Their eyes met.
Instantly, she shifted into a combat stance.
She lowered her upper body slightly, slid one foot back, and her hand instinctively moved to her waist.
Looking for a weapon.
Her hand grasped only empty air.
Nothing hung at her belt.
A flash of confusion crossed her face.
Then she looked down at herself.
“What the hell is this?”
She was wearing a white lace nightgown.
The exact same one Lilietta had been wearing when she disappeared.
The only difference was that the nightgown, which had once reached the ankles of a ten-year-old girl, now barely covered the thighs of a grown woman.
One side of the skirt was torn.
It matched perfectly with the bloodstained piece of fabric found ten years ago.
The woman pinched the soaked, tattered hem between her thumb and forefinger.
Her beautiful face twisted into a scowl.
“What is this ridiculous frilly outfit? Which perverted bastard dressed me like this?”
Leonhardt couldn’t breathe.
He barely heard the words she was muttering.
With immense effort, he finally managed to speak.
“…Lili?”
