As Isabel walked back with Iver and Yulia, her heart rose unconsciously into her throat.
W-Wait, why does she have to meet his parents too?!
Isabel's original composure and calm vanished in an instant under Iver's sudden assault.
For a moment, Isabel felt as though she was no longer the Queen of Avalon, but a young girl who was still in school and had only recently come of age.
"Iver, Iver..."
Lowering her voice, Isabel asked anxiously yet curiously, "Your mother... isn't she...?"
Few people knew more clearly than Isabel what misfortunes had befallen Iver's parents.
When she had first met Iver, after all, they had played the roles of Iver's parents separately during the Promotion Ritual.
From the plot briefing and mission requirements she had received at the time, she had already guessed what had happened to the original Anne Alexander—she had been ambushed and assassinated by the Iron Hook Demon.
The Necessary Task Isabel had received back then was to protect Little Iver's survival. It had not included any requirement to "stay alive." She had also received a strange mission: to go to Gallows Square.
At the time, she had still been an inexperienced newcomer, unlike the Isabel of today, who was so familiar with Promotion Rituals. If it had been the current Isabel, she would only have needed to glance at those missions to roughly realize what sort of plot she might face, what approach she should take to solve it, and what fate the character she played had originally suffered in history.
This actually meant that, in the original Timeline, Iver's parents had taken Little Iver to Gallows Square and left him there—the area was crowded, so the people would partially disperse the weak curse that blurred positioning, preventing the Iron Hook Demon from locating him