HDBMTD 39

Chapter 39

“Your Highness, please wait here for a moment.”

Willow placed his coat over my shoulders and walked outside. I sat down on the floor like someone who had lost their soul, staring only at the documents.

Thinking back, something had felt strange ever since we arrived at this research facility.

I had once asked a doctor about my incomplete memories. He told me that if I encountered related stories or records, my memories might return. So I looked through records and photos of the final battle over and over, but it hadn’t helped.

But the moment I entered this lab, I felt a strange familiarity.

And now…

I stared at the photo of the woman left on the document and covered my eyes with my hand.

Memories of this cursed experiment were slowly coming back.

“Haa…”

Vis… was I a Cambiata researcher?

Cambiata members always had strong antisocial tendencies.

Most high-ranking officers were criminals: psychopaths, pleasure killers, mad scientists.

And I kept having nightmares about killers.

I had always told people they were just ordinary nightmares, but while talking with Willow today, I realized it—

Those dreams were never normal. They were from the perspective of a killer… from my perspective.

Why did I ever think they were normal?

Fear of myself began to take root.

I had managed to accept that I wasn’t Ariadna.

But to think I was part of that cruel group—the ones who had led Ariadna to her death?

“This… I can’t accept this.”

Of course, I couldn’t.

I remembered quoting The Beggar King during a debate with Padva at a banquet once:

“I felt like I had lost everything, but then realized that maybe this was life itself. Life is a process of losing what we have, one thing at a time, until we’re empty. Every human is both a beggar and a king, moving between emptiness and fulfillment.”

Back then, I truly believed I had become a beggar.

I had lost my health, my right to the throne, and the love of those dearest to me.

But looking back, I had still possessed so much.

I believed Ariadna’s achievements were mine. I had pride. I believed I could reclaim the love I’d lost.

When I discovered I was a clone, it felt like I had truly lost everything.

Just before escaping the palace, I had lost my sense of self and floated aimlessly, like a lotus with its roots cut.

And now… I realized what I had possessed back then.

I had hope.

That hope is what brought me this far. I came here because I believed I’d find the answer to how I should live.

Along the way, I often imagined the life I might have.

Even if I lost my status as princess or duchess, I believed there would still be a place in the world that needed me.

I had Ariadna’s knowledge. I could speak many languages. I was an unstable, but still capable, mental-type Eshafae. I was sociable enough. I believed I would never starve, no matter what.

So I thought I could somehow live a peaceful life.

I believed I had the right to be happy.

“Ugh…”

I looked at my reflection in the triangular mirror.

When I first woke up, I couldn’t bear to look in the mirror for a long time. I even removed portraits from the walls and did my grooming with my eyes closed.

But now I saw… Willow had obsessed over this appearance for a reason.

My golden hair, carefully cared for in the palace, gleamed softly. My red eyes looked elegant and intelligent. My features were well-balanced.

Yes, I had burn scars on my limbs and my left ear was damaged, but I wasn’t ugly at all. These were honorable scars, earned fighting for the Empire and its people.

What right did I have to judge Ariadna’s appearance?

“I’m scared.”

Those moments when you think you’ve lost everything, but realize you still have more left to lose…

Will I realize again tomorrow what I still had today?

Thud!

A sound outside interrupted my thoughts.

I hated Cambiata.

I don’t want people like us to live happily. It’s too unfair.

Ariadna had been an incredible person.

She had dedicated her entire life for others, only asking for love in return—even if that love was stained with hatred, she still accepted it.

The only group she truly despised was Cambiata.

They were an evil organization. They were so well-hidden that Ariadna had spent half her life just trying to uncover and eliminate them.

And when she died, they put the soul of that vile group into her body because they “needed her strength.”

Who would have expected it? A crazy experiment to copy the powers of an S-rank Eshafae succeeded only after Cambiata was destroyed.

And the cursed result of that success… was me.

“Haa…”

No matter how many times I thought about it, I reached the same conclusion.

I cannot accept this life.

Step. Step.

I heard approaching footsteps.

Nocturne is probably chasing me because of the information, I thought.

Willow seemed to know my identity, so Nocturne must know as well.

It would be natural for him to be furious.

I thought about handing over the documents I had just found, but as soon as I touched them, they crumbled and scattered.

“Ah…”

The artifact’s effect must have ended, and the documents’ lifespan had run out.

I accidentally destroyed the evidence.

But I remembered the researcher’s name and the contents of the research log clearly.

Yes… I would answer all of Nocturne’s questions. And then…

I pressed my hand against the pouch that held the poison.

Despite learning this shocking truth, I didn’t feel the same despair I’d felt when I first discovered I was a clone.

I only had one question now:

“What defines a person?”

Lucien had told me it was memories.

Willow believed the body itself defined me.

Padva believed that by manipulating documents and people’s perceptions, a clone could be made into Ariadna.

To them, I might really be Ariadna.

But my thoughts… were the same as Nocturne’s.

Step.

I heard the footsteps stop at the entrance.

“I am not Ariadna.”

Because the soul is different, right?

“…Ariadna?”

A low, familiar voice echoed through the laboratory.

I knew that voice. But I thought… it couldn’t be Nocturne.

Even when everyone in the palace called me Ariadna because of Padva, Nocturne had never once called me that.

But when I lifted my head… Nocturne was standing there.

His eyebrows were slightly furrowed, his eyes shimmering faintly, his expression looking a little dazed.

He wore the same expression I must have worn when I first saw him in the Elysia Kingdom—relief and joy.

Realizing the situation, my heart sank.

“How much… must he have missed her? Missed me… even knowing the truth?”

Tears threatened to fall, but I bit my lower lip to stop them.

I could not cry in front of him with Ariadna’s face.

Why did you come so late? I was waiting for you.

The greeting Ariadna might have said crossed my mind instinctively.

But now that I knew everything, I had to act differently.

I spoke in the calmest voice I could manage.

“I am not Ariadna, Duke.”