13.

“Guild Leader, it’s finished!”

At the docks of Aren, where a piercingly beautiful sunset dyed the entire sea red, an elderly mage called out to Estelle.

He had just finished infusing mana into a massive mechanical device.

“Good work.”

With a satisfied expression, Estelle looked at the machine undergoing its trial run. It was a crane used for loading and unloading containers onto ships

“Wow! With this, loading and unloading containers will be much easier now!”

Peter, who had been watching beside her, exclaimed with a bright smile.

As soon as she established the merchant company here, Estelle had begun preparing the introduction of the container system. It was an application of knowledge she had gained in her previous life in 21st-century South Korea.

Although she had been in another major before transferring in her second year due to unavoidable circumstances, fortunately trade suited her well.

“As Peter Drucker, known as the founder of modern management, once said, the container was a revolutionary invention that changed the history of the world economy.”

“Simply introducing containers can dramatically reduce the risks of theft, loss, and damage to cargo, while also cutting transport time and costs.”

“It even ended up reducing maritime shipping costs by more than half and increasing global freight volume fivefold……”

The professor’s voice she had listened to while fighting sleep during her first-period major class seemed to echo in her ears.

“To be honest, at first I couldn’t understand you, Guild Leader. Why spend so much money making these huge scrap boxes? But wow… I never imagined they’d have such an incredible effect!”

Moreover, Estelle had even developed mana-stone wagons fitted to the container standards, so once a container was unloaded from the ship and placed directly onto a transport wagon, it could be delivered to its destination without any troublesome handling.

There was no reason for her not to introduce a system whose effectiveness had already been proven in another world.

As enormous profits began to appear, other merchant companies belatedly started adopting the container system as well, and the containers Estelle had first created became the standard specification.

It was a good thing. The more that happened, the more convenient exchanges with other merchant companies became.

“Seriously, how did you even think of this? As expected of our Guild Leader’s insight! Just this morning, the head of the Nuren Merchant Company came asking you to teach him the container technology!”

Peter continued showering Estelle with praise.

“You’re really amazing! Sometimes I even wonder if you came from another world!”

‘Sharp intuition.’

Estelle smiled lightly at his words.

After all, even the person who said it thought it was nonsense. Even if she told the truth, no one would believe it.

“That’s enough for today. Everyone, head home. It’s the last day of the Founding Festival—spend it with your families.”

“Yes, Guild Leader!”

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

Leaving the members, who answered energetically with bright faces, behind her, Estelle headed toward the merchant company. She stopped by her office, removed her wig and mask, and changed into plain clothes.

“Guild Leader, Guild Leader! You’re going to the Helix Square masquerade tonight, right?”

As Estelle stepped out of the office again, Peter hurried over and asked.

Originally, masquerade balls had been the exclusive domain of nobles. However, the last day of the Founding Festival—an eight-day celebration beginning on the founding day—was different.

On that day, people from all over the town gathered at the largest plaza in the region to enjoy a masquerade. It was the day commoners looked forward to most each year. Moreover, it was the first time the event had been held in four years since Imperial Consort Estelle’s disappearance. It was only natural that everyone was excited.

“No. I’ll just take Aeir home.”

But Estelle was not among them. It was already a period when memories of Kaian surfaced intermittently and surged unbearably.

“Aw, come on! It only happens once a year! Let’s go together! My family and Aeir said they’d meet there!”

“What?”

Since the kindergarten was closed today, Peter’s family had looked after Aeir during the day.
His mother and siblings cared deeply for Aeir, and the child liked them as well, so it happened often.

“Didn’t you say you’d meet at the guild?”

“Didn’t you say you’d meet at the guild?”

“Aeir said he wants to eat the chicken skewers at the plaza. Are you worried it might be dangerous? Don’t worry! Lots of kids his age go there! Even our Allen was about that age when—”

If the child wanted it, she couldn’t refuse. She couldn’t keep Aeir shut in simply because old memories made her uneasy.

***

Helix Square was far livelier than usual. Compared to Barian Square in the capital Iskar, it was smaller and more modest, yet it had its own charm.

‘It’s been a while… this kind of atmosphere.’

Even Estelle’s heart began to pound again—unexpectedly.

“I even brought a mask for you to wear, Guild Leader! The one you use while working would make people recognize you too easily and bother you! I did well, right?”

Peter handed her a white mask engraved with constellations. She quite liked it.

Wearing their masks, the two of them blended into the crowd.

Just then—

“Ugh!”

A firm hand suddenly pushed through the crowd and turned Estelle by the shoulder. Forced to stop, she glared sharply at the owner of the hand, her eyes filled with displeasure.

‘To dare harass a woman while hiding in a crowd—what insolence.’

She had no intention of tolerating such rudeness.

But the moment she saw his face, her breath stopped.

‘You… why are you here!’

Among the masked crowd, only one man stood barefaced.

It was Kaian.

***

Estelle’s heart pounded wildly, as if it might burst at any moment.

The sudden appearance of her former husband froze all her thoughts. Though Kaian wore a brown wig and even pulled a robe over himself as if to avoid attention, it was not enough to deceive her eyes.

Even after four years since she left, his mere presence still shook her emotions.

The bustle of the crossing crowd neither reached her ears nor entered her sight. It felt as though, in a world emptied of everything else, only the two of them remained.

How much time had passed like that?

“Excuse me! Let me through!”

A group of burly men pushed their way between the two of them and passed through.

Estelle’s wildly trembling eyes finally regained focus, as if she had come to her senses. Keeping her head lowered, she melted into the crowd and, on legs shaking enough to collapse at any moment, hurried away from him with all her strength.

“Mom!”

She quickly scooped up Aeir, who had been waiting at the meeting place, and boarded the first carriage she saw, arriving home in haste.

The child protested at returning earlier than expected, kicking and struggling, but it was useless—he could not be more desperate than Estelle fleeing from Kaian.

‘Why… why did he come all the way here when he should be in the Imperial Palace? And to a plaza frequented by commoners! Did he track me? Did he grab me at the square because he recognized me? No… I changed my eyes and hair color, and I was even wearing a mask—’

Her hands trembled pitifully as she tried to calm the child.

‘Could it be… he even knows about Aeir?’

At the chilling thought, Estelle hurriedly pulled the boy into her arms.

‘Aren is no longer safe either.’

It was time to prepare another escape. Quietly. Secretly.

***

Kaian exited the capital’s portal tower with complicated feelings.

Normally, Aren lay over a week’s ride day and night from the capital, but using the portal made it instantaneous.

Although using the portal required tremendous mana, divine power, or aura, it posed no problem for Kaian, a swordmaster.

Of course, if an ordinary knight had traveled such a distance without the aid of expensive mana stones, they would typically be bedridden for a week afterward.

‘That woman…’

Yet what troubled Kaian now was not the portal at all. The commoner woman he had encountered in Aren lingered strangely in his thoughts.

After finishing all the week-long Founding Festival events, Kaian had headed straight for Aren to continue investigating his mother.

Only Kaian could open the hidden chamber in the forest cabin at Aren. Even if other knights pressed the wall’s patterns in the same way he did, nothing happened.
If Kaian exited while others remained inside, the wall sealed itself completely in less than five minutes. Once closed, even the finest knight could not cut through it with full strength.

In the end, to investigate that mysterious room, Kaian himself had to visit.

But before entering the forest of Aren, he had encountered a woman in the crowd of a plaza—one who carried an atmosphere resembling Estelle.

‘I must truly be losing my mind. Of all things to mistake… overlapping the Empress with a commoner woman.’

Swordmasters possessed senses many times sharper than ordinary people and excelled at detecting others. Thanks to that, they could clearly distinguish friend from foe even in pitch darkness.

Kaian had never once mistaken or lost track of a person.

That was precisely why he was even more confused.