Around Gerard’s laboratory, it was quiet as the grave. She couldn’t sense even the slightest movement from inside, so Estella stood at the door wondering if she should just turn back, then stepped onto the suspect doormat.

Because she’d crossed it a few times already, the doormat’s bright-blue hand rose smoothly up from the floor, waved her on as if to say “go ahead,” then slid back down again.

Knock, knock!

“Gerard!”

Estella called out loudly, but still there was no sound from inside.

“Gerard!”

She called again, with the same result.

“Looks like he went out.”

She was about to give up and head back when something inside toppled over with a clatter, and a moment later the door burst open and Gerard appeared, panting as if he’d sprinted over. His hair was a mess, and his shirt was wrinkled—he must have been asleep.

“Were you sleeping?”

“Come in.”

At Estella’s question, Gerard scrubbed at his already wrecked hair and stepped aside.

Judging by the mess, he had fallen over; buckets and iron rods were rolling across the floor any which way. At least no glass had broken.

Gerard flicked aside the blanket thrown over the sofa, then pushed the stack of notebooks piled like a tower on the table off to one side.

“Want something to drink?”

Gerard asked, but Estella quietly shook her head. Eating or drinking anything here felt like a guaranteed stomachache.

“When did you last clean this place?”

Estella swept her gaze over the lab, which had somehow become a disaster area again, and frowned.

“Never.”

“...I see.”

Despite Gerard’s appalling answer, Luka, who had clearly known already, neatly spread a handkerchief on the sofa and said in a gentle voice,

“Nunim, please sit here. The sofa is dirty.”

Dear Luka. Estella, finding him more lovable by the day, pecked the crown of his head, then lifted the handkerchief and sat down on the sofa. She then carefully laid the handkerchief out where Luka would sit.

“You sit here. I’m fine.”

“Still, Nunim should sit.”

“I said I’m fine.”

Gerard, who had been staring blankly at the siblings’ ridiculous politeness standoff, suddenly snatched the handkerchief off the sofa.

“Gimme! I’m sitting. The both of you are ridiculous. It’s not that dirty. Drama queens.”

With a flourish, Gerard spread the handkerchief where he was going to sit and set his small backside delicately on top of it. Luka’s face twisted as much as it could, but Gerard pretended not to notice. For some reason, Estella felt he had it coming.

“You didn’t know I was coming?”

At Estella’s question, Gerard averted his eyes for a moment, then answered with a long yawn.

“I nodded off. Haaaaaahm. I’ve been up several nights—I’m dead tired. You got here safe, that’s what matters... Did you come to scold me for not coming to greet you? That petty?”

When Gerard asked, eyes blazing, Estella chuckled and shook her head.

“Of course not. I brought you a gift.”

“A gift?”

At the word “gift,” the expression of a Gerard who’d been ready to go all out slowly slid back to normal. Even while he’d been far away, had she been thinking of him? That thought even made him a little happy.

“What about me? Don’t I get a gift?”

When Luka asked, fidgeting, Estella grabbed both of the child’s cheeks and shook them as if he were unbearably cute.

“Why wouldn’t you? You do! Yours is in my room. I’ll give it to you when we get back.”

“Okay!”

At the promise of a gift for him too, Luka’s mouth stretched up to his ears.

“Well? Aren’t you going to open it?”

With a confident voice, Estella jerked her chin at the pouch she’d set on the table. The word “gift” had put Gerard in a very good mood, but some nameless unease kept his hand from moving. He couldn’t shake the feeling that once he took that, an even bigger ordeal would follow.

“Not going to take it? Then I’ll just take it back.”

“Who said I’m not? What a nasty temper.”

“Our Nunim has an excellent disposition. Please watch your words, Magus.”

“Small fry, just like your sister! You’re nasty too, brat.”

“Our Luka’s character puts mine to shame. Do you think everything that comes out of your mouth counts as speech?”

True to Gerard’s claim that her temper was nasty, the siblings both sharpened their eye corners and growled. Gerard let out a deep sigh while looking at the two peas in a pod, then took the pouch and untied the knot. It had been tied so tight it wouldn’t come loose easily.

After a long bout of grunting and wrestling with the string, Gerard finally opened the pouch. Wondering what grand object had warranted such tight binding, he peered inside, tilted his head, then reached in.

What he pulled out was a tarnished silver ring, its shine long faded. On its surface, ancient characters were faintly engraved, nearly worn away.

Gerard examined the ring closely, then looked straight at Estella and asked,

“Where did you get this?”

“It was a gift.”

“From Ciel?”

As a wedding present, it wouldn’t have been appropriate, but beyond Ciel there wasn’t anyone who came to mind who would give Estella a ring.

“Cedric.”

“And who’s that supposed to be?”

Gerard snapped, demanding.

After receiving the prosthetic leg from Cedric and returning to her room, Estella had heard something rattling inside the leg. Thinking a part had come loose inside, she hadn’t made much of it, flipped the leg over, and gave it a good shake.

Something clinked a few times inside, then dropped out with a thunk—this very old silver ring.

“Why would a ring be in there?”

At a glance, it didn’t look expensive or precious. It was a silver ring that had discolored from long disuse—thick and rounded, like the finger rings women wore in the Joseon era.

When Estella held it up to the sunlight for a closer look, she discovered something curious. The moment it touched the light, a delicate pattern of light flickered across the ring’s inner surface. There seemed to be some script inside, but she couldn’t read it; it was an alphabet she’d never seen.

Estella had taken the ring straight to Cedric and heard something unexpected.

“So that’s where the ring was. It belonged to the previous magus here. He was old when he passed away, and he always wore it.”

“If it’s a keepsake, shouldn’t it be returned to his family?”

“He had no family. He had a single disciple, but the boy had no talent for magic. The ring was willed to him, but not knowing how to use it, he left it here and there, and heaven knows how it wound up in there.”

“I see. Then this ring is...”

“I suppose the ring found its own master? I’ve heard there’s a great magus in Wintfall. If you give it to him, won’t it be put to good use?”

“Are you sure it’s all right not to return it?”

Estella asked again, but Cedric said it had never belonged to their house to begin with.

“The old magus had a saying. That ring chooses its master on its own. I always took it as a silly joke... but it must have been true.”

With that, Cedric returned the ring to Estella.

“What was the magus’s name? I should at least know his name.”

“Aurelian Darmore.”

Aurelian Darmore.

Ten years after his passing, when his journals were discovered, countless ancient artifacts he had left behind came to light.

In truth, he had been more collector and alchemist than magus.

From battlefields, from the ruins of mage towers, from fallen temples, he gathered broken shards others dismissed as trash, cracked crystals, snapped ornaments. Yet the moment they fell into his hands, they were no longer mere fragments.

Aurelian combined a profound understanding of ancient tongues with alchemy to interpret the nature of relics and restore their original function. He did not stop at soldering metal and stone back together; he was one who reawakened the essence that yet lingered within.

This ring, too, was one such work of restoration. And in Estella’s memory—voracious reader that she had been—there remained a faint record of Aurelian Darmore.

“So that’s why you brought me this ring? What on earth is supposed to be special about it?”

Gerard rolled the shabby-looking ring between his fingers, studying it. No matter how he looked, on the surface it was nothing but an old, paltry silver ring. The shape was hideous enough he wouldn’t wear it even if it were free.

But the moment sunlight touched the ring, a gentle ripple of light flickered within. Gerard’s eyes went wide.

He immediately pulled a pair of spectacles from the pouch, put them on, and examined the ring’s inner surface closely.

Then he fetched a notebook and began writing furiously, erasing, and writing again; a moment ago he’d been rolling the ring around as if it were a hassle, but now he slid it reverently onto his finger and clenched his fist tight.

“I can really have this?”

“Did you figure out what it is?”

“I’m not certain. I need to study it a bit more.”

But when Estella saw Gerard squeezing his fist so hard his knuckles went white, trying not to let the ring be taken, she couldn’t help a little smile. Clever Gerard had already grasped the ring’s use.

“I know what it is too. That’s why I’m giving it to you. I couldn’t use it anyway—my mana’s about mouse droppings.”

“You know? How? You can read the ancient script?”

“I don’t know the script, but I know what the ring is. That’s why I’m giving it to you. Do you like my present?”

“Absolutely. And don’t bother asking for it back. I’m not returning it.”

If Gerard’s guess was right, what Estella had brought him was the legendary ancient relic, the Ring of Records.

This ring’s utility and depth expanded without end depending on the wearer’s ability. Most prominent among its powers, as its name implied, was the ability to “record.”

With the ring on one’s finger, if one brushed a book, document, magic circle, or map with the fingertip, all of that information would be inscribed into the ring. Not just text—images, patterns, even complex schematics would be preserved perfectly.

And there was one more power: “reproduction.” Only the wearer could draw forth what the ring had recorded. Unfurled in midair like a curtain of light, those records would appear to others only in distorted forms. In short, only the one wearing the ring could read the truth.

With this ring alone, one could forever archive any grimoire after a single skim. For someone like Gerard, consumed by an endless intellectual hunger, it was a treasure literally beyond price.

“Go sleep. You look a sight right now. If you sleep well now, your body will feel light tomorrow.”

“Why? What are you going to make me do this time!”

He was devilishly quick on the uptake. Estella smiled brightly at his heterochromatic eyes, which seemed even more vivid today.

“Don’t worry. Whatever it is, it’ll be so fun you’ll swoon.”

Chapter 177

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