Running away once feels great; running away all the time feels even better.
Looking at the wind and snow outside the window and the warm hearth inside, Moya felt utterly content as the heat from the fire enveloped her.
Although running away overnight had been exhausting, and she still hadn’t fully recovered even after a long sleep, the results were undeniable.
She no longer had to endure Cold Light’s nagging and supervision, and she had also escaped her debt to Aide.
To be fair, Moya felt somewhat guilty about abandoning the few remaining commissions from Aide, and her opinion of him had improved considerably since their first meeting.
However, if she only escaped Cold Light’s supervision and her debt of favors, that would hardly be fair.
For the sake of fairness, and since sharing joy was better than enjoying it alone, Moya had to suppress her guilty conscience and embrace selfishness under the guise of fairness.
Looking at the snow-covered scenery outside, Moya took small sips of hot cocoa, allowing herself to enjoy this peaceful time that absolutely no one would disturb.
“……”
Actually, she still wasn’t quite used to it.
Without Aide, who might drop by as a guest at any time, the enormous mansion really did seem a little too big.
Unconsciously biting her lip, Moya silently put on another coat.
The weather in the North was simply colder than in the Royal Capital.
Even inside a mansion heated by a fireplace, she still felt chilly.
Picking up some firewood from the side and adding it to the fireplace, Moya shook her head vigorously and focused on the flames, refusing to dwell on the true reason she felt cold.
Listening to the crackling firewood, Moya couldn’t help spacing out again.
Normally, someone should have been sitting beside her.
She would be sprawled across the sofa reading a storybook while that person handled documents on the other side.
They would occasionally exchange a few casual remarks before returning to their peaceful daily routine.
“……”
Compared to the Royal Capital, the North seemed considerably quieter.
“…At least no one here will gossip about me.”
Finally, half muttering and half talking to herself, Moya threw herself back onto the bed, opened a vulgar storybook, and tried her best to immerse herself in the story.
“Knock, knock, knock!”
Just as Moya got up to take another sip of hot cocoa, a sudden knock came from the front door, making her feathered ears perk up instantly.
?
She had no acquaintances in the North and had only moved here a day ago.
Who could possibly be knocking?
A neighbor?
Unlikely.
To avoid attracting attention, she had deliberately moved the mansion to a hill outside the small town.
There were no other residents for miles around, only the small town at the foot of the hill.
Although delivery services were much more expensive in such a remote location, Moya had always been a spendthrift who believed money was meant to be spent.
Could it be…
In an instant, Moya thought of one person, then another, leaving her both excited and terrified.
‘That makes no sense, right? There’s no way they could have chased me here so quickly, right? They weren’t following me, so how could they possibly know where I went?’
Completely baffled, Moya secretly opened the door a crack and saw Aide smiling at her, with Cold Light standing behind him.
“Bang!”
Startled by the sight of someone smiling at her the moment she cracked open the door, Moya slammed it shut.
Only then did her brain finally begin to calm down, allowing her to realize that the man smiling at her was Aide.
But she also realized something else.
The sky had fallen.
Her heart, which had only just calmed down, immediately resumed its extreme sports routine, pounding wildly as her feathered ears trembled uncontrollably.
‘Impossible! This is absolutely impossible!’
She had moved overnight and deliberately chosen the freezing Northern Empire, settling in a remote border town where even birds wouldn’t bother to poop.
How could they have found her in the time it took her to move and sleep?
‘Damn it! Wicked fate! This is truly unfair!’
“Moya, open the door.”
Aide’s voice came from outside, as gentle as ever, yet carrying complicated emotions that Moya had never heard from him before.
There was exhaustion, dissatisfaction, confusion, and, above all, disappointment.
“We just saw you open the door yourself. You can’t pretend you’re not home.”
Moya, still trying to process the emotions in Aide’s words, didn’t respond.
Not knowing how to react, her instinctive response was to play dead.
“Moya, running away won’t solve anything. You and I both know that.”
There was a brief silence outside the door before Cold Light’s cold, clear voice rang out.
Her style was still as familiar as ever.
Cold Light was a genuinely good person, but she particularly loved reasoning with others, elevating even the smallest matters to such a lofty level that one’s ears practically grew calluses from listening.
“Fine, fine, fine! I’ll open it.”
After thinking for a long while, Moya reluctantly opened the front door, having finally accepted that if something was a blessing, it wasn’t a curse, and if it was a curse, there was no escaping it.
As soon as the door opened, Moya’s first instinct was to look at Aide’s expression.
She wanted to examine his face to confirm whether her own feelings were justified.
Standing outside the door, Aide wore a dark coat, with unmelted snow clinging to his collar and shoulders.
It was obvious that he had rushed all the way here.
His eyes remained gentle, but they were clouded with exhaustion and deep hurt.
Her running away had genuinely hurt him, and not just a little.
Moya blinked, clearly unable to believe what she was seeing.
Why was he so worried about her?
Were those two remaining commissions really that important?
“You run pretty fast.”
As the two silently looked at each other, Cold Light was the first to speak in her usual calm voice.
“What else?” Moya puffed out her chest, trying to look justified. “I’m the chief guardian angel. If I want to run away, who could possibly catch me?”
“Don’t joke around here. That won’t cover up your serious mistake.”
Cold Light expressionlessly pushed open the half-closed door.
Her three pairs of silver-white wings folded slightly against the wind and snow, shaking off a layer of fine snowflakes.
“And anyway, how on earth did you find this place? I haven’t even stepped outside once since moving here, yet you showed up right at my door!”
Having her intentions seen through by Cold Light, Moya still refused to give up and continued pestering them.
“You’re cheating! Did one of you activate a hack?”
“Is that something you need to worry about?”
For a moment, Cold Light wanted to turn toward Aide, since she was rather curious about the answer herself.
However, Aide didn’t volunteer any explanation, and Cold Light couldn’t very well reveal that this was actually one of his secrets.
“Of course! What if one of you secretly planted a tracker on me? Don’t I get any privacy?”
“Moya, running away won’t solve any of your problems. It was the same two years ago, and it’s still the same now.”
“I’m not running away! I just wanted to visit the North and experience its local customs! I also wanted to investigate the spread of the Holy Light faith in the Northern Empire! This is a guardian angel’s dedication to her work. How can you slander such a devoted guardian angel with baseless accusations?”
“If you told me that in your sleep, I’d believe you one hundred percent. But if you’re awake and telling me this, I wouldn’t believe you even one thousand or ten thousand percent.”
Cold Light scoffed at Moya’s tantrum.
“Miss Cold Light, if you keep arguing with her like this, we’ll never get anywhere.”
Aide sighed, his gaze fixed firmly on Moya.
“Based on my past experience, Moya only remembers the beatings, not the meals. In situations like this, a good beating will make her behave.”
What should you do when a child is always disobedient?
Most likely, they’re lacking love.
“Good idea.”
Cold Light nodded without the slightest hesitation.
“Hey… hey, hey, hey! You two… you’re not actually serious, are you?”
Seeing the two people who had been practically strangers just a few days ago quickly reach an agreement, Moya couldn’t help breaking out in a cold sweat.
She retreated step by step as they approached.
“I’m warning you! If you keep this up, don’t blame me for blowing up at you!”