Alice? Alice!

Hill looked at Alice with a touch of sorrow, saddened by her sudden awakening.

So-called growth, so-called maturity, meant being forced to stumble along alone, getting hurt and growing through falls. In the end, one learned to swallow it down and restrain oneself.

Alice and Merkel had met when they were nobody, come to know each other through Alice saving his life, and fallen in love through years of relying on each other. Yet they had still lost to the influence of Merkel's ancestors when he advanced to Legendary.

At first, Merkel had not possessed the ambition to become the king of Magical Beasts. Otherwise, Alice would never have given him her heart.

But once her heart had been given away, Alice could no longer let go willingly.

One of her and Merkel had always needed to yield. Unfortunately, the softhearted one was always the one who got hurt.

"I should have understood long ago." Alice lay sprawled across the sofa, the adamantine ball rolling off to one side as she raised both front paws to cover her face. "Although Hill liked me very much back then, he never intended to take me as his daughter.

"I was a Nature Spirit. Hill looked at me as though I were his best friend's child.

"But only after I insisted on leaving with Merkel did Hill announce to the outside world that I was your eldest daughter, even above Aglaia."

With faint sorrow in her voice, she could not help choking out, "It was all to protect me. Otherwise, Hill would never have wanted such deep ties with Magical Beasts. Nature Spirits sound wonderful, but in truth, nobody cared.

"Only death gave us any influence. What an absurd life!"

Hill looked at Alice helplessly. "I chose that because I liked Alice. No