***

The next morning.

KNOCK!

"Edmund!"

"Wake up, Edmund."

The rough knocking on the door woke Edmund early in the morning with an unpleasant feeling.

He tried covering his ears with a pillow, but the voice outside the door only grew louder.

The voice kept calling Edmund and telling him to wake up. Edmund’s patience finally snapped.

He threw the pillow aside and quickly walked over with an irritated expression.

The door opened, and Edmund was ready to vent his anger.

"How dare you..."

Edmund’s words instantly stopped as he froze in shock. It was not a servant, not a soldier, and not Sebastian either.

"Leonor?!" Edmund exclaimed in surprise.

Edmund narrowed his eyes sharply, staring at Leonor’s face as she smiled widely like she felt no guilt at all.

A faint crimson color glowed in Leonor’s eyes, and the smile she showed resembled Lilith’s sinister grin.

Looks like I just awakened the most troublesome woman for myself.

The first option had been chosen. Edmund had to make that decision based on the lowest possible risk.

With the two personalities merged into one, Edmund could monitor and control her at the same time.

It would have been far more troublesome if he had to deal with two separate personalities.

Lilith only appeared at night, but that did not rule out the possibility of her appearing during the day as well.

That was what Edmund feared from the second option, uncontrollable control.

The man tried calming his irritated heart as he noticed several maids around Leonor.

"It’s fine. You can all go back and prepare breakfast," Edmund told the maids.

"Yes, Lord Edmund."

One by one, they left the area. Edmund asked Leonor to enter his room so they could talk safely inside.

Leonor ran excitedly, looking around at the luxurious architecture of Edmund’s room, completely different from the simple room she had at the earlier house.

She jumped straight onto the bed and bounced around on it with her dirty shoes still on. Edmund was shocked.

"Stop jumping around. The bed could break," Edmund said as he pulled Leonor off the mattress.

The girl nodded, stopped jumping, and climbed down from the bed.

Her attention did not stop there. She looked ahead and saw the armor and swords displayed on the walls of Edmund’s room.

Before Edmund could even recover from the bed incident, Leonor shocked him again with her next action.

She put on a set of armor weighing around 10 kilograms and held an iron sword in her hand.

"Look, Edmund!"

"I’m a human knight who’s going to wipe out all demons," she declared while imitating the marching movements of human soldiers.

"Take that off. It’s heavy," Edmund said.

"Do you want to see magic, Edmund?"

Leonor boldly ran her hand across the blade of the sword, causing crimson flames to ignite and coat the weapon. Edmund became even more panicked.

"No! Put that out, Leonor!" Edmund shouted firmly.

"Alright. I was just having fun."

With a gloomy expression, Leonor put away the iron armor and extinguished the flames on the sword blade.

Once the fire vanished, she casually threw the sword forward, startling Edmund.

Edmund quickly caught it carefully and managed to hold it properly.

He returned the sword to its place and invited Leonor to sit on the sofa in his room.

Leonor did not argue, but her attention quickly shifted toward the jar of cookies on the table.

Leonor grabbed the jar and began eating the cookies inside.

The taste was unfamiliar to Lilith, but because her personality had merged with Leonor’s, she was able to adapt and started liking them.

"There’s no way Leonor would normally dare to do something like earlier. I can safely say the fusion of your two personalities succeeded, right?" Edmund asked while standing beside the seated Leonor.

"That’s right," Leonor replied with her mouth full of food and crumbs smeared around it.

Edmund let out a sigh and walked over to the wooden table to grab a handkerchief.

He sat beside Leonor and wiped away the crumbs around her lips as if he were cleaning a baby’s mouth.

"Eat slowly. I have plenty more," Edmund said.

"Thank you, Edmund."

"I like cookies, but I still prefer human souls."

Her demon instincts could not disappear. No matter what, the fusion still left traces of Lilith’s personality behind.

"Will you listen to me?" Edmund asked.

"What?"

"I’ll give you a medium-grade monster core. But you have to obey what I say. How about it?" Edmund asked.

"Like what?"

"I don’t know. Things like no killing, no stealing, and no acting aggressively."

Without thinking for long, Leonor nodded while continuing to eat cookies from the glass jar.

"I can do that much," Leonor said.

"And there’s one more thing I want," the girl added.

"What?"

"I want to live somewhere luxurious like this. I’m sick of sleeping at that small house," Leonor complained.

Edmund fell silent for a moment as he leaned back against the single sofa.

His eyes remained fixed on Leonor. He honestly did not mind if she wanted to stay in the Aschwin Family mansion.

"I have a ten-year-old younger sister. Do you want to stay with her?" Edmund asked.

"No."

"I want a whole room to myself."

"If you want that, then you’ll have to change your name," Edmund replied.

"Huh?"

"Leonor Aschwin."

"You’ll have the same family name as me," Edmund added.

"Asswin?"

"NO!" Edmund shouted in shock.

Leonor laughed after seeing Edmund’s stunned expression, still smiling while looking at him.

"HAHA."

"Aschwin," Edmund corrected.

"Aschwin. Yeah, yeah, I know," Leonor replied.

Edmund felt relieved. From now on, Leonor would no longer be known as Leonor Reimard, but Leonor Aschwin.

Making her part of the Aschwin Family would clearly bring many advantages, as long as Edmund knew how to control her.

"I’ll tell Nisya that you’ll be moving here."

"Big Sister Nisya!" Leonor exclaimed.

"So you like her, huh."

"She’s kind and gentle. Leonor and I both like her," Leonor replied.

Edmund smiled. He continued watching Leonor as curiosity slowly rose in his heart.

He wanted to know when Leonor would reach the age of seventeen.

"When’s your birthday, Leonor?"

"Hmm... next month, on the 19th."

If that was true, then she could soon enter Livden Academy and learn how to control her power there.

That would be effective, but I need to find the best way to keep watching over her even while she’s at the academy.

"Edmund!"

"What?" Edmund asked.

Leonor pointed at Edmund while holding a piece of cookie in her hand, "I want a present for my birthday."

"Cookies? I can give you a hundred horse carriages full of them."

"No," Leonor complained as she raised one finger toward Edmund, "One high-grade monster core."

"If you can give me that gift, I’ll obey you forever."

Edmund did not know whether the Adventurer Guild office sold high-grade monster cores.

However, if they did not have any, then his best option would be creating a major quest with a huge reward.

Adventurers would definitely not miss that opportunity. It would be easy for Edmund to obtain such an item with the authority he now possessed.

"HWAHHH!"

"I’m sleepy."

Edmund smiled, stood up, and invited Leonor outside, specifically to the empty room prepared for her.

Leonor ignored him. She turned her head and looked at the soft bed beside her.

Carrying the glass jar with her, she climbed onto the bed and lay down while snacking.

Edmund realized Leonor was not following him. He turned around and saw Leonor already fast asleep on his bed, hugging the glass jar while the cookies were scattered everywhere around her.

Edmund let out a sigh. The main problem he discovered was not Leonor’s mental condition, but the girl’s manners and etiquette.

"Gosh!"

"Looks like I’ll have to teach her the basics of etiquette."