Chapter – 45
“Yes. What I’m going to say is sensitive, so I need to be sure you’re the person Heidel told me about.”
It was an extremely softened way of asking “Are you fake?”, so Asilly watched the boy carefully—but he simply nodded as if it were nothing.
“I don’t mind.”
“Then…”
Swallowing dryly, Asilly ran through the tests Heidel had taught her. Soon after, she nodded.
“It’s certain. Thank you.”
“No need to thank me. You look like a lost kid—if doing this lets you feel even a little safer, I can do at least that much.”
At that, Asilly rubbed at her eyes.
She hadn’t realized it showed that clearly…
“There’s no need for that face. It’s not that you’re obvious—I’m just able to read it. You pick up strange little skills when you live long enough.”
So she hadn’t imagined the hallucination earlier after all.
The boy, contrary to appearance, must’ve lived quite a long while.
But what did that matter?
Asilly took a deep breath and, along with the breath, spilled her story in one go.
This was the second time she had told this ridiculous, unbelievable story to someone other than Ludwig, but there was nothing familiar or easy about it.
She tried to speak coherently, yet there was no way to explain neatly something that made no sense in the first place.
Just as Heidel had, the boy asked again:
“So you’re saying you came from another world?”
“Yes.”
“Hm.”
The young scholar tilted his head, but did not react dramatically beyond that.
Contrary to Heidel’s claim that he was a weirdo who was obsessed with other worlds and dug into them like a madman, he neither examined her excitedly nor made a fuss even with a person from another world right in front of him.
“Um…”
Seeing this, Asilly’s trust in him rose sharply, and she spoke with hopeful eyes—but the boy waved her off.
“I don’t know.”
“…What?”
It was an answer she hadn’t expected at all. Her disbelief was written plainly across her face, but he simply repeated himself.
“I said I don’t know.”
Asilly opened her lips, but in the end couldn’t say anything.
The boy looked at her quietly for a moment before continuing.
“You want to find a way back, right?”
Yes. She did.
“But I don’t know. Even if it’s another world, the place I study is different from the one you’re talking about. And even if I did know the world you came from—”
“You… don’t know the way back.”
“That’s right.”
With that simple answer, Asilly stumbled out of the house.
The boy watched her wavering red hair for a moment, then picked up a wrinkled letter.
“Travel between worlds… Don’t tell me this is related?”
The letter listed scattered reports of strange anomalies occurring in the North.
Outside the crumbling door, Asilly blinked slowly.
“My lady? My lady, are you all right?”
Even as the servant hovered anxiously, Asilly only shook her head weakly.
She had no strength left.
What could she say to someone who had flatly said he didn’t know?
Should she have insisted he find a way somehow?
Should she have grabbed his trouser leg and begged?
“He… said he doesn’t know.”
If whining at someone who didn’t know could magically produce a solution, the whole world wouldn’t be so difficult.
She had told herself over and over that she’d be satisfied if she could just take the first step. That she might not even get that far.
But the helplessness still crashed in.
She didn’t know anything. She couldn’t do anything.
It was like when she first fell into this world—falling endlessly into a hole with no bottom…
“Asilly.”
Just as she sank toward that bottomless place—
Like a dream.
Ludwig appeared and pulled her into his arms.
Those strong arms, that warmth pressed against her—the clarity of it proved he was not a dream.
Because he was here, it was warm enough to make her cry.
Because he was here, it hurt enough to break her heart.
Tears filled Asilly’s eyes.
And the tears soaking into Ludwig’s chest seeped into the area around his heart as well.
He held the silently, trembling Asilly tightly, running a gentle hand over her back.
For a long while.
When her sobs finally quieted, Asilly raised her head.
A single teardrop, clinging precariously to the end of her lashes, touched his fingertip and vanished.
“How… did you…”
Her voice was choked and slurred, but he answered instantly, without giving her time to breathe.
“Because you’re here.”
Because Asilly was here, Ludwig came here.
That was all.
Her tear-glossed eyes brimmed again.
You appeared before me.
If it’s coincidence, then it must be fate.
If it’s inevitability, that too must be fate.
At some point, whenever she looked up, he was at the end of her line of sight.
And at the end of his sight was her.
Meeting those blue eyes—lighter in shade than her own—
Asilly pressed a hand against her chest, where her heart had dropped like a stone from sky to earth.
Consciously, she opened her mouth and spoke.
“I like you.”
“I know.”
“As a person. As a friend. I like you so much there aren’t words for it.”
“I know that too.”
As he brushed the swollen, tender skin around her eyes—so inflamed that touching it might make it split—Asilly repeated inwardly, as though forcing herself:
I love him.
But it’s friendship. Only human affection.
He is someone from another world.
Someone who would vanish like a dream.
And as she reached that thought, a small thorn sprouted painfully in her chest.
Vanish…?
He’ll vanish?
He’ll disappear from me forever?
The thought clung like a hangnail at her fingertip—impossible to ignore no matter how much she tried.
Asilly instinctively grabbed at his chest, then startled herself and let go, stepping back.
“Asilly? Why—”
When he reached toward her, she pulled his hand toward her this time.
Watching her push him away, then cling to him, then duck her head in confusion, Ludwig’s calm eyes wavered.
Ah… right.
He had said he would fall in love with her.
In this moment, and likely in countless moments yet to come.
He wouldn’t be able to stop his heart from turning toward her.
Watching her struggle to leave, despairing because she couldn’t…
Knowing she would eventually leave him.
Ludwig lifted Asilly’s chin with a delicate touch, as though handling a fragile glass doll.
Her blue eyes—lower in saturation than his—were veiled in a mist.
Because of that, he couldn’t read her thoughts as clearly as usual.
The only thing he could tell was that she was lost.
He had no way of knowing she was lost because of him.
He brushed the pale, purpling corner of her mouth.
“Let’s go home.”
At that, Asilly closed her eyes.
She had found not even the first clue for how to return to her original world.
And yet, when he said “let’s go home,” the place that came to mind was the Caliente Ducal Estate.
When Asilly returned to the estate, utterly drained and carried in Ludwig’s arms—
“Your Highness, an urgent report from the North.”
At the attendant’s rushed words, Ludwig headed straight to his office.
Asilly, whose legs felt weighted with iron, dragged herself toward her bedroom.
But she couldn’t rest immediately either.
An unannounced visitor was waiting for her at the estate.
“The Lemaire County?”
“Yes. The young lady said she could wait until you arrived, and asked me to deliver this to you.”
Receiving the stack of documents, Asilly blinked in confusion.
“To me? Documents?”
“Yes.”
“To me, not Ludwig? No—Sebastian wouldn’t mix that up.”
The deep trust underlying her voice as she tapped the stack made a faint smile appear on Sebastian’s composed lips.
Worried for her, he draped a soft, sun-warm blanket over her shoulders and prepared a warm drink.
“I thought you would fall asleep soon, so I brought chamomile instead of coffee.”
“Mm.”
Wrapped in the soft, sun-dried-smelling blanket, Asilly nodded sleepily, and Sebastian bowed deeply before leaving the room.
Left alone,
She leafed through the thick documents with half-lidded eyes and let out a long yawn.
She was so exhausted she could collapse immediately, and yet sleep wouldn’t come.
As she read, her expression slowly hardened.
Frequent unexplained explosions and fires.
“Don’t tell me…”
She recalled the moment earlier today, when she had taken a short break on the way to that fruitless trip.
“Dust explosions?”
Asilly remembered the issue that had once plagued her entire team before she came to this world.
Was it the bentonite warehouse…? Or dust from some other mineral?
After the cause had been found, the prevention measures had been thorough, so the accident had become almost nonexistent worldwide.
Ironically, because of that, it had taken quite some time to determine the cause—and she had ended up writing the incident report.
Even though it hadn’t been her responsibility in the first place…
While recalling those exhausting, miserable memories, a wave of nostalgia shimmered faintly in her blurred blue eyes.
She blinked slowly.
She had no idea.
None at all.
