Chapter – 42
The hand that wasn’t interlaced with hers— the one that had been gently curling the ends of her hair— paused for a moment, but Asilly didn’t notice.
“Yeah. He did say it had something to do with a way back. But it all came out so jumbled that I couldn’t make sense of it. So I figured I should just go see for myself.”
Asilly let out a heavy sigh.
“We’re not Hansel and Gretel picking up breadcrumbs on the dirt floor. It’d be nice if someone would just bang a gavel and say, ‘This is it!’”
Puffing her cheeks like a child despite not being one, she soon shook her head.
There was no way anyone could tell her exactly where to go or whose help to seek.
Moving from another world into this one—
There was no special trigger, no special reason.
So how could she possibly know where to even begin?
Still, just like Ludwig asserted, Heidel had spilled out all sorts of stories and scattered little crumbs that seemed related to “dimensional travel.”
“He said there was someone who’d been obsessively digging into other worlds— not necessarily other dimensions. I’m going to try finding him.”
Even a thousand-li road begins with a single step.
“And they say starting is half the battle… Ah, though I might not even get that far.”
No matter how hard she tried to think positively, she couldn’t find hope in it.
Ludwig pulled the crestfallen Asilly a little closer. He opened his mouth, then quietly closed it again.
He couldn’t say it would turn out well. No— rather than that…
He couldn’t say anything.
She was leaving.
She was going back to where she belonged.
She was someone who couldn’t sleep properly in this world, someone who missed her original world.
Of course she had to go back.
If she left with a smile, he would smile with her.
He could do that— for now.
But if they were to share more time together… perhaps…
A faint, gnawing pain— like a small blade scraping slowly at its edge— crept toward his heart. He felt it clearly.
But there was nothing he could do.
Nothing at all.
* * *
While Asilly was asking Ludwig her hazy questions, Heidel had just returned to the Bolsheik residence— only to face a thoroughly unwelcome guest.
No— an intruder.
The crown prince stared at Heidel in astonishment for a long moment, scanning him up and down as though appraising fish at the market.
Rude to an absurd degree— but Heidel didn’t care.
“Move those eyes before I gouge them out.”
So he responded even more rudely to the crown prince.
“That friendly, smiling face of yours doesn’t match that atrocious mouth. Definitely the Bolsheik head, I see.”
“Your Highness seems, as always, to ignore the things you should be doing and instead poke around where you shouldn’t, stirring up trouble.”
With a pleasant smile, Heidel pointed out the crown prince’s idiocy with surgical precision, then waved a hand with a thoroughly annoyed expression.
“You’ve confirmed what you came for. Please leave. And stop being a nuisance.”
“It’s been years, you know. You could at least offer me tea.”
Heidel rejected the prince’s shameless request in an instant.
“There’s no tea for Your Highness. Even if my stomach burst from drinking it all myself, I’d still drink it rather than give you a cup.”
Even the crown prince was momentarily speechless at the merciless reply.
But of course, he wasn’t someone who gave up so easily.
“Almost died and came back, and yet nothing’s changed.”
“I was sleeping, not dying. Don’t kill off a perfectly healthy man. Oh, right— Your Highness does have a habit of turning perfectly good people into the dead.”
The words had teeth.
The crown prince could not deny it.
Before Heidel fell asleep, the prince’s rash judgment and thoughtless actions had once brought great harm to the Bolsheik house.
And almost as if waiting for that reminder—
Knock, knock.
“Excuse me, my lord.”
At the voice accompanying the knock, the crown prince’s expression visibly stiffened.
A cold smirk spread across Heidel’s lips.
“Come in.”
At his permission, the door opened and a figure entered with precise, orderly steps.
“Sebastian. Have you greeted His Highness, who once tried to kill you?”
Sebastian calmly shook his head, then bowed deeply toward the crown prince.
“Glory to the Empire. It is an honor to meet Your Highness again after so long…”
He adhered rigidly to every line of formal etiquette, and the crown prince did not interrupt him.
For good reason.
The crown prince— then and now— rarely bothered remembering faces unless they were worthy of his attention.
In other words, it wasn’t that he couldn’t. He simply didn’t, unless he chose to.
So if he wanted, he could easily remember at least one man.
Which is why he belatedly realized that the ‘Sebastian’ of the Caliente ducal house and the ‘Sebastian’ of the Bolsheik house looked similar enough to be twins.
And after that…
The prince shook his head violently to dispel the shameful memories rising unbidden, then spoke.
“Yes. It has been a while. You haven’t changed either— especially that face…”
“If you’re going to pick another ridiculous fight, keep it to yourself, please. And don’t go shouting it all over the place like last time.”
Cutting the prince off as sharply as Asilly often did, Heidel jerked his chin.
“Stop bothering people and state your business.”
At that, something in the prince’s eyes trembled faintly.
Truly— even after dying and coming back, the man hadn’t changed at all.
Years had passed; he had changed in that time.
So he thought— naïvely— that Heidel, his older brother’s only close friend, might soften toward him at least a little.
Heidel Ryuke Bolsheik himself wasn’t important.
Well, he was important, being the head of the Bolsheik family— but not personally important to the prince.
What mattered was that he was the only friend who could stand beside the Caliente Duke as an equal.
The Duke accepted him— but never the prince.
Was this the second time?
And both times, it was Bolsheik?
A faint twist curled inside the prince’s chest— but he dismissed it with irritation.
Then he erased the faint smile from his lips and delivered the order.
“A message from His Majesty. You are to enter the palace immediately.”
He said what he came to say and left without another word.
Heidel snorted loudly at his departing back.
“Unchanged, indeed.”
* * *
After the crown prince left the Bolsheik estate— and Heidel, unwilling to remain another second in that atmosphere, issued a few instructions to Sebastian before heading back to the Caliente duchy—
the people of the capital were busy with their daily tasks.
Though the sky was dry, puddles still remained from yesterday’s rain.
Across the warehouse district on the city’s outskirts, dark water splashed underfoot, leaving footprints everywhere.
Warehouses stuffed full of flour, beans, and all sorts of grains lined the road, and people bustled about, attending to their work.
“Hey! Carrying it like that will wreck your back!”
An older man clicked his tongue at a young worker lifting several sacks of flour at once.
“I’m young, so it’s fine.”
The youth confidently slapped the flour sacks on his shoulder.
The older man gave a dry chuckle.
“You think you’ll stay young forever?”
“That’s not what I meant. Anyway, where do I put this?”
“It’s written on the sack.”
“Where?”
Spinning foolishly in place with the sack still on his shoulder, the youth only made the older man sigh harder.
“Good grief. It’s not like you’re bragging about being new. Let’s see— warehouse ten.”
He grumbled but still stood up to help.
Just as he opened his mouth again—
BOOM!
A deafening explosion rang out as flames shot up from one side of the warehouse district.
The youth dropped the sack with a dull thud, jaw hanging open.
“Ah, not again.”
The older manager marched toward the burning warehouse with the calmness of someone far too used to such fires.
Only after he got some distance did the panicking youth scramble after him.
“Sand! Over there!”
“Not enough. Bring more!”
“One more bucket!”
“You idiot, you don’t put sand there! That one needs water!”
Workers were already swarming the burning warehouse, extinguishing the flames with practiced precision.
With the youth joining in, the raging fire soon dwindled, leaving only smoke curling upward.
As they tidied up, one worker scraped soot off his cheek and let out a sigh.
“You do it enough times and you really get used to it. Still— how come fires always break out in this section?”
Another worker immediately grabbed his shoulder.
“Are you crazy?!”
He lowered his voice and glanced around anxiously.
“Watch your mouth unless you want trouble.”
“Oh… right…”
The man who spoke carelessly shrank back.
The youth, who had also ducked down, rubbed the soot on his nose and asked,
“Trouble? Why? It ended well, didn’t it?”
The explosion had been handled quickly and efficiently.
Wouldn’t they get a reward, not punishment?
But no one answered him.
They only exchanged uneasy glances.
“You don’t need to know. Get back to work.”
The older man from earlier suddenly appeared and shoved the youth away.
As the youth stumbled forward—
Some distance from the burned warehouse, hair redder than the flames swayed gently in the wind.
