After finishing the prescription, the doctor quickly left to prepare medicine for Edmund, who still lay unconscious.
Rowan, unable to hold back his frustration, lashed out at Alaric—who had been nonstop reciting prayers for their father's recovery.
"You're going to pray yourself out of breath when you're the reason this happened in the first place!" Rowan snapped, rubbing the bandage wrapped around his injured arm.
"If Father dies because of you, even praying until blood spills from your mouth won't mean a thing."
With that, he stormed out of the room.
Alaric didn't respond. He acted as if none of it reached him, continuing his prayers with unwavering focus beside their unconscious father.
Seo-jun could only sigh.
He was about to gently pat Margaret's shoulder to comfort her when Edmund's personal secretary suddenly approached and asked to speak with him outside.
Reluctantly, Seo-jun followed.
"Young Master Adrian, please come with me to Lord Edmund's study. There is a message I must deliver to you," the man said in a steady tone.
As they walked down the corridor, Seo-jun's chest tightened with unease. A strange mixture of readiness and fear churned inside him. If he failed now, this family could crumble—perhaps even worse than what he had read in that book.
When they entered Edmund's study, the secretary did not speak immediately. Instead, he presented a small, solid black wooden box.
Seo-jun froze.
He knew exactly what was inside.
"By Lord Edmund's instruction," the secretary began, his voice wavering slightly, "the Sebastian Hanwick family head ring is to be entrusted to you temporarily, should anything severe happen to him—as it has now."
He swallowed, wiping at the corner of his eye.
"His trust in you is not trivial, Young Master Adrian. He even smiled when he told me this."
Instead of pride, sadness flooded Seo-jun's chest.
This was the second time he had been entrusted with leading a family business. The first had been in his previous life.
Memories resurfaced—his real parents, his relatives, his friends, the employees who must have struggled to adapt to a new leader after his sudden disappearance.
He stared silently at the box.
The secretary gently patted his shoulder, startling him enough that he nearly dropped it.
"Are you all right, sir? Are you feeling unwell? Would you like to rest first?" the man asked with genuine concern.
Seo-jun shook his head and forced a faint smile.
"No, I'm fine. Please—what was it you wanted to explain… Uncle Secretary?"
The elderly man suddenly chuckled.
"What is it? What's funny?" Seo-jun asked, confused.
The man tried to suppress his laughter and nodded slightly.
"You are quite amusing, sir. Have you truly never known my name all this time?"
Seo-jun hesitated. No matter how hard he searched, there were no memories of Adrian Hanwick's past he could rely on.
"Yes," he admitted simply.
The man inhaled and straightened his posture.
"My name is Reginald Hawthorne, Young Master Adrian. And with great honor, I would not mind if you called me Reggie—so long as it does not diminish your dignity as my master."
From that moment on, Seo-jun found it easier to speak with Reginald Hawthorne—Reggie—the loyal personal secretary of Edmund Hanwick, now temporarily serving under Adrian's leadership.
Edmund's illness had still unfolded exactly as written in the book.
Fate, it seemed, moved forward regardless—only the cause had changed.
In the original story, Edmund fell ill because Adrian Hanwick had strangled the Sebastian Hanwick family's finances with towering debt—especially his personal debt to the royal family.
Edmund's mild heart attack sent shockwaves through the entire extended family. No one had been prepared to take over his role as head of the household. Soon after, the family's diamond mining business began drawing suspicion in the field and suffered considerable losses.
As a result, Edmund had forced himself back to work just to keep up with the mounting taxes and daily expenses—most of which had piled up because of Adrian Hanwick's recklessness, compounded by the news that Rowan, his youngest son, had been lost at sea.
Edmund's physical and mental health deteriorated rapidly until he eventually collapsed into serious illness. The family's economy was paralyzed for years, until Reggie finally brought Alaric in to replace his father as head of the family.
But that decision had been a mistake.
Alaric, overly devoted to church doctrine, imposed extreme household austerity. He restricted spending to the point that even winter clothing purchases were denied. Many servants resigned. Instead of repairing the damage, Alaric donated nearly half of the Sebastian Hanwick family's fortune.
The extended family was furious, yet none of them stepped in to take control of the business. Most were too busy managing their own ventures to shoulder Edmund's collapsing household.
Lucien was eventually entrusted with responsibility, deemed reliable enough.
That, too, proved to be the wrong choice.
His timid nature and constant desire to please others made him easy prey. The financial losses under his leadership were no less severe than during Alaric's tenure.
In the end, Edmund Hanwick's immediate family fell into a bankruptcy so deep it seemed irreversible. The other branches of the family refused to help, unwilling to be dragged into the mountain of debt suffocating them.
Adrian—depressed after being forced to quit gambling—lashed out relentlessly. He went so far as to sell valuable household belongings just to fund his return to gambling and indulgence.
Margaret, worn down by social humiliation and exhaustion, could no longer endure it.
She ended her life in front of her husband's bed—at the very moment he awoke from his coma and witnessed the horrifying scene.
His beloved wife hung there, her breath rattling for the last time.
That was the chain of disasters written in the book—the worst possible outcome.
And it terrified Seo-jun.
He was deeply afraid that every single event described there would come true for this second family of his. A string of misfortune without end.
Yet everything felt inevitable, as though fate had already written it neatly into place. No matter how he tried to avoid it, the events always seemed to find their way back.
Because he knew what was coming, he should be prepared—always vigilant. If fate insisted on arriving, then at least he could soften the damage. It didn't have to end as disastrously as the book had described.
While Seo-jun was reviewing the financial reports of Edmund's diamond mining operations—as well as his own private ventures—a knock sounded at his study door.
He exhaled slowly and allowed the visitor in.
Reggie entered, holding a letter sealed with the crest of the Kingdom of Aurelion Albion.
Seo-jun's expression dimmed.
"I feel strangely nervous receiving a letter from the royal palace. Do I have to go there?" he asked quietly.
Reggie nodded.
"Yes, Young Master. It is now your duty as head of the family."
"Acting head," Seo-jun corrected firmly. "That doesn't mean I have to follow every summons, does it?"
Reggie let out a small sigh and gave a thin smile, as though he himself had little choice in the matter.
"I would hope so, Young Master. However… as you are aware, the ministers—and His Majesty King Reginald IV Aurelion—will certainly be curious about the man replacing Lord Edmund in such a profitable enterprise."
His voice lowered slightly.
"They are ambitious men, sir. They have long sought to monopolize the taxes from this business."