~Chapter 132~
Everything around me… it’s just…
The cold fingers that had been numb suddenly jolted with a sharp feeling, and the tension in my shoulders melted away as if my strength had drained in an instant.
“…This is a novel.”
The voice I muttered to myself was unbelievably calm.
This wasn’t reality, it was a fictional world.
That’s why I was suffocating.
Once the unexplained pain had a reason, the suffering disappeared.
‘…It’s not my fault.’
Only the man’s words remained in my mind.
I clenched my hands for a moment, then quickly began to follow his trail.
I should’ve at least asked his name.
Where should I go to meet him again?
What I knew about him… was…
He was tall, an adult man.
‘And he was kind.’
…How could I possibly find him with just these clues?
Even so, I had a strong feeling that I couldn’t let go of him here.
I had to follow him somehow.
***
[In Carpea, there was only one thing unaffected by the flow of time.
The World Tree.
It didn’t live forever, it just remained stagnant in time.
Neither magic nor anything else could affect it.
Idette believed that the space of Dremokan, where her magic could not reach, was the most sacred.]
***
At that moment, the words from the destiny the man had shown me overwhelmed me.
The place where the World Tree slept.
The Dremokan Forest.
A mysterious space where even magic couldn’t reach. Maybe the man was there.
Before I knew it, my body moved ahead of my thoughts.
“Ah, miss!”
The servants, who had been hiding in the room, couldn’t hide their surprise.
Some rushed off to find the old man, while others hurried to follow me.
“The Marquis will be here soon. Or, is there something wrong…?”
Strangely, their kindness didn’t feel uncomfortable, like before.
Perhaps it was because this world had transformed into a place I knew.
The foreign feeling in the back of my neck had already disappeared.
‘…I didn’t do anything wrong.’
This wasn’t a punishment.
Hope returned that I might someday be able to go home.
That man had told me that…
As my thoughts continued, I suddenly stopped walking.
‘…A man?’
Come to think of it, who was I even looking for?
I blinked, dazed.
‘Why did I even leave the room?’
I couldn’t remember anything.
At that moment, the confused old man approached me.
Bianca’s grandfather.
He was holding a handful of envelopes that looked like gifts.
“Miss?”
His eyes, watching me, began to tremble.
“Did something happen?”
“No, no… it’s nothing like that.”
… I had just forgotten something.
Something I shouldn’t have forgotten.
“Did our Bianca have a nightmare?”
I had to think carefully.
Right now, I had missed something.
“I don’t know what to do about it, my dear.”
I opened my mouth, almost as if I was about to cry.
“This is my gift, right? I really like it.”
What had I forgotten?
Why had I come out here?
At that moment, I saw Leon running down the hallway.
“Bianca!”
As he smiled brightly and ran toward me, I blinked, stunned.
“How did you know I’d be here to greet you?”
Leon, who had come to me in an instant, couldn’t hide his excitement and grabbed my hand, shaking it up and down.
“Right, I was looking for someone…”
So, was the reason I came out here because of Leon?
He had been the one to offer his hand to me when I was struggling in that isolated place?
“Uh…?”
Then, Leon, holding my hand, spoke in a confused voice.
“What’s this?”
At his words, I carefully opened my hand, and there was an unfamiliar yet familiar key.
Thump, thump.
My heart, which had been quiet, started pounding fiercely. At the same time, my mouth opened without thinking.
“T-This is something I’ve had for a long time.”
…Right. That’s it.
It was the key that came with me when I possessed Bianca’s body.
It was the thing that made me realize I wasn’t crazy.
‘Really…?’
A strange feeling spread through me, but I couldn’t find a clear reason for it.
The old man, who had been watching me for a while, pulled a string out of his coat. After a brief hesitation, he extended it toward me.
It seemed like he wanted me to hang the key around my neck.
“…”
I nodded slightly and took the string.
In that instant, someone inside me spoke.
‘You have to go to Dremokan.’
The voice was weak, but firm.
“Leon, young master.”
The servants, noticing something was off between the old man and me, guided Leon to another room.
Left alone with the old man, I barely found the words and grabbed his hand.
“We… we have to go to Dremokan.”
“……!”
The old man’s eyes widened slowly. I had to explain why we needed to go there.
So that he would understand.
But in this situation, all I could do was hold his hand. Still, I stammered and spoke.
“I… I must have forgotten something very important…”
“……Miss.”
“I don’t know what it is. But I feel like I’ll know once I go there…”
I really wanted to cry.
I didn’t even know what I was saying.
“If there’s anything you want, feel free to tell me.”
A warm voice came.
“If it’s something I can do, I’ll gladly do it. You deserve it.”
“……”
“It’s much better that you know exactly what you want.”
He gave me a relieved smile.
“But Dremokan is a forbidden place, so we need to go secretly. Can you promise me that you’ll keep this a secret?”
I cautiously nodded.
“Don’t tell anyone.”
My eyes stung.
“Thank you… Grandpa.”
The first time I spoke that title, the old man’s eyes trembled slightly.
Would I be able to repay his love before going home?
…Strangely, I suddenly thought of that.
***
In the endless list of words, Ricardo wandered endlessly, searching for the woman’s words.
Filling the blank pages of her life with phrases.
Sentences slowly filled the once-white pages of her book.
Her life had been full of hardship.
He had heard her desperate cry when she had fallen alone in an isolated place, and had faced the woman who had decided to take her own life in the end.
‘I…’
He couldn’t even bring himself to say he would stay by her side.
Because by being with her, he had only made her suffer more.
Most of the sentences slowly filling the woman’s pages were tainted by his presence.
Ricardo turned the pages filled with dense writing and silently held his breath.
“…”
Within them were words and actions he couldn’t even remember, all carefully recorded.
The plain sentences cut through his heart like a blade.
The time he spent with her had always been spring, but she had lived in winter.
The moments he had been by her side screamed endlessly.
Ricardo couldn’t turn the page anymore. The sentences that had seeped into his fingertips clung to his mind and wouldn’t let go.
The hand holding the page turned pale.
“…I’m sorry.”
Those words should have been written in the past she needed.
Before she withered like spring.
On the page, Ricardo slowly traced the woman’s name with his fingers.
In the past, he had been selfish. He hadn’t even properly known what she truly wanted, and he had been cautious in everything.
But that caution hadn’t been for her.
She had constantly tried to understand him, but he had turned his back on her.
Ricardo barely repeated the words from the past.
“…I know I’m late.”
His breath grew rough. His fingers trembled, but he stood up.
“But you need to see spring too.”
And at that moment, Ricardo opened his eyes in a body that was both unfamiliar and familiar.
