Duke Franz Eldier looked young for his age. With bright blond hair, eyes like the clear blue sky, and perfectly symmetrical features, his picture-perfect beauty never seemed to fade despite being closer to his forties than his thirties.

“Welcome, Archmage,” the duke greeted with an enchanting smile that would brighten anyone’s day.

Seeing his smile, Archmage Solan Garcia thought, What I wouldn’t give to wipe that smile off his face. The old man didn’t bother hiding his feelings. With a frown, he warned, “Don’t smile.”

“Sorry?”

“Seeing you smile might just push me to do something unthinkable. You see, I’m getting old, and my patience isn’t what it used to be.”

“Oh... I see.” The duke cleared his throat awkwardly and said, “As I said before, my wife’s death was a shock to me as well. But you know she was always delicate.”

“What nerve from the scoundrel who got that delicate girl pregnant out of wedlock and then stole her away,” the archmage growled.

“We were in love, and it wasn’t the pregnancy that killed her!” the duke cried out angrily.

The archmage crossed his arms over his chest and listened to what his goddamned son-in-law had left to say.

Taking a deep, settling breath, the duke continued, “My daughter is already seven years old. It doesn’t seem likely that Gloria’s pregnancy seven years ago would have affected her now.”

“Then what did you do that killed my daughter before she even turned thirty?”

“As I said, it was not because of me but because of the contamination.”

“Gloria was an elementalist. An elementalist, dying from contamination? Nonsense!” the archmage dismissed.

“But she was delicate, and she’d never faced the contamination before. Do you know how shocked I was to hear that an elementalist was left in such a state just by entering a contaminated region?” the duke shot back, beating at his chest in frustration.

The archmage jerked his chin toward the duke and demanded, “Then explain why you suddenly sent your wife to a contaminated area. You of all people knew that she’d never been exposed to contamination before, so why?”

“She insisted on going.”

“You should have stopped her.”

“I’ve thought about that so many times. That I should’ve stopped her. Why couldn’t I stop her...” The duke trailed off. His blue eyes were now brimming with tears. He then continued, “But Gloria... She said that she was an elementalist. Told me that I should trust her. That as her husband I should support my wife. She begged me to let her go, saying that she could do it.”

The archmage remained silent.

“I-I did it for her. I never would have imagined something like this would...” The duke lowered his head and started to cry, the perfect model of a husband drowning in despair after losing his wife in an unexpected accident.

Staring at him intently, the archmage commented, “You were smiling just a moment ago, and now you’re crying.”

“I thought it would get better with time... But just thinking of her leaves me in this state. My apologies,” the duke replied, wiping away his tears. His expression and tone were both appropriately devastated, made even more touching by his Prince Charming features.

However, this only irritated the archmage even more. What an eyesore, he thought. No matter how high a position the duke held, when he got the archmage’s daughter pregnant at just eighteen and married her, the old man had wanted to kill him right there and then. He had even threatened to cut ties with her if she got married to that man—a threat she disregarded.

After his daughter entered the Duchy of Eldier, the archmage never heard from her again. Her strong-willed personality was just like her father’s. Even if she didn’t want to contact me, at least you should have, as a son-in-law! the archmage thought. It had been eight years since he’d last heard from her, a fact that haunted him. The least she could have done after leaving like that was to have a long and happy life. Why did she have to go at such a young age? She hadn’t even lived to see thirty.

And to have heard the news after the funeral... I couldn’t even see her during her last moments. I’m a failure of a father. He felt as if his heart had become a shard of stone tearing at his insides. His pain turned into anger once again, and he shouted, “Why didn’t you inform me earlier? I couldn’t even attend my own daughter’s funeral!”

“I did right away! I just didn’t expect that the messengers would be wiped out by the evil spirits,” the duke countered.

“Then you should’ve re-sent them. How could you just stand by?”

“I did as soon as I found out what happened, but by then...”

“Isn’t it common sense to wait for a reply before you do anything? Or you could’ve at least delayed the funeral until you heard back from me!” shouted the archmage.

“Since I’d never heard from you before, I assumed that you’d just ignored me, and it took a while to grasp the situation.”

At a loss for words, the archmage closed his mouth.

An eighteen-year-old Gloria had asked him sadly, “Are you really not coming to my wedding?”

The archmage had replied without so much as a glance, “I’m not going to watch you marry a man like that. It’s not too late to get out. You can just get rid of the child.”

“Get rid of the child? This is my child, your grandchild! How could you say such a thing?” Gloria had shouted before storming out. That was his last memory of his daughter. He’d never expected that the next he heard of her would be in a letter saying that her funeral had been held.

If only I hadn’t been so stubborn and checked up on her... The archmage thought with regret. Then perhaps he could have found a way to save her. Eldier may have been the most powerful duchy in the kingdom, but an archmage like him might have been able to do more.

He gritted his teeth to hold back his tears. His next words came out as a sigh. “If only, if I had been there… Things might’ve been different.”

Hesitantly, the duke replied, “I did everything I could as well. Even if you had been there, nothing would have changed. Please don’t blame yourself.”

Despite the archmage’s personal distaste for him, everyone else held the duke in high esteem. Young, handsome, and gentle, he was known as the most eligible bachelor in the kingdom before his marriage. He was also said to be a romantic, as his marriage to Gloria Weaver was not an arranged one. Many people attended the wedding and congratulated the couple.

It was only the archmage that had problems with the marriage. And after the duchess’s death, many gathered to comfort the duke, as Gloria’s death was just an unfortunate accident no matter how one looked at it. That was a fact the archmage knew very well from his investigations before coming to meet the duke. No matter how much he searched, he couldn’t find anything suspicious about his daughter’s death, though he’d been ready even to uproot the duchy had he found one dubious detail.

Perhaps my opinion of him has clouded my judgment. Gloria’s mother—his wife—had also been naturally delicate, but because she loved children so much, she’d had three. She wouldn’t ever listen to any of the archmage’s concerns. He couldn’t help thinking that that might’ve been the reason she’d passed away so young.

Even the archmage himself hadn’t been able to stop his wife once she made up her mind. Considering this, it was understandable that Duke Eldier couldn’t have stopped Gloria, either. He let out a deep sigh.

Realizing that the archmage would no longer question him, the duke offered, “Since you’re here, why don’t you meet your granddaughter? You’ve never seen her before.”

The archmage gave no reply. The idea of meeting his granddaughter right after his own daughter had died left him feeling conflicted.

Looking carefully at the archmage’s uncomfortable expression, the duke called for his daughter regardless. Soon, a cute little girl in an elegant dress entered.

“You don’t know her name, do you? Her name is Ariadne Eldier. She’s seven as of this year,” the duke introduced her.

“I know how old she is,” replied the archmage.

“Ah, right,” the duke said. He beckoned the child toward the old man. “Aria, say hello. This is your mother’s father.”

The girl held on to the corners of her dress and curtsied deeply. It was an adorable sight, but the archmage unconsciously furrowed his brows. While the child was very pretty, she was the spitting image of her father, with wavy platinum blonde hair and blue eyes that turned up at the outer corners. Her features were distinct and eye-catching, unlike Gloria’s light brown hair, purple eyes, and gentle features.

Not a single resemblance. Duke Eldier might as well have birthed her alone. The archmage frowned in disapproval instead of responding to her greeting, and the little girl turned pale. He felt a flash of regret, but it was already too late. It was absurd for him to play the role of a loving grandfather now. In any case, that child was the only daughter of Eldier, and since she resembled her father so much, the duke was sure to take good care of her.

“All right, I’ve seen her,” the archmage said, waving a hand to dismiss the child.

But just as the duke was about to send his daughter out right away, the little girl broke away from him and ran toward the archmage, kneeling in front of him and desperately shouting, “Please take me with you, Grandfather!”

The archmage widened his eyes in shock, and the duke was taken aback as well. Ariadne Eldier looked up at her grandfather as if he was her last hope. If I miss this chance, I’ll never meet him again. So please...

This was the moment she had been waiting for ever since she learned who she was in this universe. In the “original” story, “Ariadne” had run into her father’s arms, overcome by fear. Children had a good eye for whether adults liked them or not. In the eyes of the original “Ariadne,” the archmage she was told was her grandfather clearly detested the sight of her.

That was true, but that didn’t mean that avoiding him was the right answer. She, who knew the original plot, recognized that the archmage who despised her was far better than her so-called dad. No matter how poorly the archmage might treat her, it would still be leagues better than living with her father in Eldier Castle.