PAID

“…Where else would you find a drift like this?”

“……”

“D-Don’t look at me like that.”

“What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“They—they’re the eyes of someone looking at a criminal.”

“You’re very perceptive.”@@novelbin@@

“!!?!”

The deeper he immersed himself in the story, the more shocking it became.

Was this what it felt like for a child reading a fairytale, only for an adult to hand them the original grim version and say, “Here, read the real thing.”?

In other words…

This is absolutely insane.

Child abuse was practically a staple trope in romance fantasy novels, but hearing about it firsthand made it nothing short of exhausting.

Ihan felt himself teetering on the edge of genuine disgust.

“W-Wait! I can see you’ve misunderstood something, but please, stop! It’s all a misunderstanding!”

“That sounds like something a criminal would say.”

“I swear it isn’t! I won’t deny that I was a terrible parent, but there were valid reasons! Just hear me out a little longer!”

“……”

“…I appreciate that you’re willing to listen, but could you at least soften that stare? It’s… really starting to hurt my feelings.”

Felicia looked genuinely aggrieved, her expression bordering on a pout as she continued her story.

“I had already exhausted my heavenly mandate. It would have been stranger if I didn’t retire.”

***

Felicia was dying.

Her coughing fits grew worse, her hands trembled so violently that she could no longer wield a sword, and her vision had become so blurry that even seeing clearly was a struggle.

She was sixty-five years old.