Chapter 49
“Duke, you understand what it means that I’m [Materia], right? It also means I’m a direct descendant of the Rohia family.”
Winter thought for a moment, then slowly nodded.
“So, the illegitimate child is one of those three.”
His answer confirmed one thing for me: even though Winter had lived through thousands of repeated lives, there was still something he hadn’t figured out.
“Can you guess which one of the three it is?”
“Is it Boris Rohia?”
Winter answered confidently, like it wasn’t even a difficult question.
“How did you know?”
“Josef Rohia resembled his mother, who died early, so he unknowingly received more affection from Bern Rohia. Yubel Rohia also has some similarities to Bern. But I remember Boris Rohia being completely different.”
Yeah, Boris really did stand out.
I thought about how Boris’s art style was so different from everyone else’s and nodded in agreement.
“So this must be your first time hearing that Boris is actually Emperor Silis’s son.”
Winter, who had been calm until now, raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“That’s very interesting.”
“Yudis’s first love was the emperor,” I added.
In the original story, that part came from Yudis’s thoughts. So it made sense that I knew it. But how could Winter still not know?
Then, he explained.
“Izana, in most of the lives I’ve lived, Rohia’s first prince never survived to adulthood.”
I quietly gasped.
“By the time Josef Rohia became a threat, he was already the heir. As far as I remember, Boris was always killed early by Josef.”
I swallowed hard.
So Boris had never survived? Not even once?
But then Winter lowered his voice and said:
“Or maybe… there was a timeline where he did survive.”
I waited for him to continue.
Winter stared ahead, thinking deeply, before speaking again.
“Izana, I’ve lived tens of thousands of lives, but I don’t remember all of them.”
Seriously?
I shrugged and gave him back the same answer he once told me.
“I don’t even remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Winter chuckled.
“There’s a box inside my head. In the past, I sealed some of my memories inside it.”
He had to do something to survive the madness of repeating time. Even if it meant forgetting parts of himself.
“I probably only locked away boring memories, but since I don’t remember how to open the box either, I must have sealed that knowledge too.”
His calm voice made my chest ache for some reason.
Through his thin shirt, I could hear his heartbeat—steady and never off rhythm.
He once said his heart no longer beats irregularly. I hadn’t understood what that meant when I read it. But now, compared to my own wildly beating heart, the difference was clear.
I bit the inside of my lip and asked:
“Have you tried opening it?”
“I’m trying now. Things have changed, so maybe there’s something useful inside those sealed memories.”
Winter fell silent, focusing on something in his mind. Then he spoke again.
“But since it won’t open, maybe there’s nothing helpful inside. If it were important, I would’ve left a clue. But there’s no trace.”
A sealed memory box… that’s suspicious.
It’s a classic cliché.
‘Ugh, I have a bad feeling that we really need to open that box.’
But how are we supposed to open a box that even Winter can’t?
Seeing me deep in thought, Winter spoke as if to ease my mind.
“Anyway, I was just saying that maybe, just maybe, there’s a timeline where Boris survived. I doubt it, but you never know.”
Still, I couldn’t stop thinking about the box.
“If that timeline exists, it’s a shame you can’t remember it.”
“Are you thinking of saving Boris from Josef?”
Winter understood my clumsy explanation perfectly.
If there was even one time Boris survived and became the heir of Rohia…
If even once he wasn’t killed—then maybe we could repeat that.
“Yes. I was thinking we could use Boris to hold Josef back.”
If Boris doesn’t even become the heir, Josef can’t use politics to trouble Winter.
No matter how smart Josef is, he can’t threaten a royal of the Northern Empire if he’s not even the heir of Rohia.
‘Even without Raglia, Josef is still dangerous enough to cause us problems.’
So I’ll make Boris someone Josef sees as a threat and force him to focus on Boris instead.
And to do that, I couldn’t reveal that I was [Materia] just yet.
Otherwise, people would realize Boris is the emperor’s son. Since the emperor has no wife or legitimate children, the royal family would definitely take Boris in.
‘And that means Yudis would be protected by the royal family too.’
Then Josef would quickly take over Rohia without any obstacles.
“Winter, do you still believe Josef might be different this time?”
“Still, huh? That’s an interesting choice of words.”
Winter glanced at me. His gaze was dry, but I knew his mind was always thinking.
“Izana, who are you?”
“…?”
“You say you’re ten years old, but you haven’t explained why you’re not really ten.”
I froze, my tongue tied, opening and closing my mouth like a fish.
Had I said something like that before? Why would I say something so weird?
After a long awkward pause, I finally replied.
“I’m [Materia].”
“And what is [Materia]?”
“….”
“[Igrio] is a dragon, a time-traveling regressor. [Ampelos] is a rude dream-walker who invades others’ dreams.”
Suddenly, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, so I unbuttoned the top button of my collar.
“What about [Materia]?”
Dresses are so uncomfortable. They look nice, but I missed my comfy stretchy pants and loose T-shirts.
Fiddling with the collar, I finally said:
“I’m someone who wants to give you peace.”
…What face will you make when you find out this world is just a story in a book?
“And someone who will give you peace.”
Your countless loops of time, all the pain you went through…
“And someone who’s willing to cross death and go back in time with you, over and over.”
This world, you, everything you know—if I told you it was all just ink on paper, would you be able to accept that?
“Is that not enough?”
Winter’s right lip curled into a small smile.
‘He looks happy.’
“It’s more than enough.”
He didn’t ask anything more. He didn’t seem curious beyond that.
To him, it really did seem enough.
“Izana, we’ve arrived.”
Winter stopped walking.
As we left the forest, sunlight poured down through the gaps in the trees like rain.
Then I gasped at the sight in front of me.
“Why is the fire so big…?”
Thick smoke stung my nose. Knights were shouting in confusion all around us.
‘Something’s gone wrong.’
We only meant to start a small fire in the stables to distract people—just a little diversion.
That was the plan…
“Water! We need more water!”
“Captain, we’re short on people! We need a mage!”
“Damn it! What the hell happened here?!”
Why is the entire Rohia castle burning…?
