Chapter 71 · Memory (2)

The magic felt very strange. It truly felt as if someone were walking step by step into my mind. Startled by the unfamiliar sensation, I couldn’t think about the swans.

‘Eeek, no. But this feels so strange. My head is tingling!’

Any memory but that one… But the moment I thought I mustn’t, that memory surfaced, so I decided it would be better to just stop thinking altogether.

But it seemed it was already too late. Something that had entered my mind grabbed hold of one thread among the countless threads of my memories, and that thread unraveled with a whirl, like a spool coming undone. At the same time, the memory played in my head. As vividly as if I were seeing it directly before my eyes.

That day too, I was hurriedly slipping out of the Great Temple’s auditorium while listening to the nobles murmuring.

“Is that Princess Anastasia?”

“She’s a princess, but… I hear she hasn’t been officially recognized as one yet.”

“What’s that? Then she shouldn’t be living in the royal palace, should she?”

“I hear she’s under protection because of the oracle.”

“That oracle about bringing light or whatever? Who believes that?”

“Shh, we’re still inside the temple, so keep your voice down.”

“Honestly, I don’t understand what the Great Temple is doing,”

I had shut myself in my room all day and never went out, but I never missed a grand prayer meeting because I had to pretend to be devout.

But was this living? Wasn’t it no different from being dead? A life of meeting no one, picturing no future, just breathing while trembling with anxiety every minute of every second.

And yet I had no courage to start anew. I wanted to live, even like this. I didn’t want to become a baby who could do nothing again and return to that horrible cabin.

At that time, I had not a single escort knight guarding me. I had to walk alone to Icarus Palace, the most remote place in the royal palace. Walking a long distance under the blazing sun didn’t particularly bother me, but the gazes that kept glancing at me along the way were hard to endure.

A bastard.
A child of a false oracle.
A misfit.
A dullard who inherited not a shred of magical talent.

Passing nobles, knights, maids, and even the palace servants all looked at me that way.

‘I want to get to my room quickly.’

The more I desperately wished it, the faster my steps became. How far had I walked when I heard a commotion?

“Kyaaa!”

“Catch him! A prisoner has escaped!”

“Dodge!”

It was Leo. Leo. The boy with a face even more despairing than mine. A black-haired, slender boy was running toward me.

‘I mustn’t look!’

The me outside the memory cried out.

‘Don’t look, stop looking…’

But the thread of memory would not stop unraveling. Leo fled from countless knights, casting magic, blast spells flying everywhere, and, and the building collapsing…

“Huk!”

I collapsed helplessly onto the cold floor of the tower. I could no longer see the memory. My head throbbed so much I couldn’t pull myself together. It felt exactly as if someone had trampled through my mind.

“Ugh…”

Leo was sitting blankly before me. He was pale as if he had seen a ghost.

“Weo, awe you all wight?”

I asked in a trembling voice. My heart pounded madly with anxiety. I couldn’t predict at all how he would react.

“Did… did you see?”

“…”

Perhaps Leo hadn’t seen it. Maybe it had looked blurry, or jumbled… In any case, maybe he hadn’t seen it clearly.

“…That was me.”

He murmured low. He was trembling.

“It was me. But… it was my future self.”

Damn it! What do I do now? All right, for now let’s pretend not to know. Let’s try to smooth it over.

“Th-that… thewe must have been some kind of ewwow. It seems Weo saw something wike my imagination.”

“It wasn’t imagination! Those were your real memories!”

He shouted sharply. I broke into a cold sweat and babbled.

“Th-that can’t be. How could something that never happened in weality show up as a memowy? Something went wong.”

“I definitely caught a memory. The magic succeeded! It just wasn’t what you wanted to show me.”

“…”

“Memories seen through magic can be distinguished by color. Fake memories are a jumble of tangled colors, but real memories have normal colors. Your memory was… far too clean.”

“…”

Unable to find anything to say, I just rolled my eyes this way and that. My head felt like it would burst, not knowing how to respond.

“Tell me, Anastasia.”

Leo came toward me. He thrust his face right before mine and spoke with blazing eyes.

“Tell me the truth.”

The truth? Just where and how much was I supposed to tell him?

I had only ever told Freesia about my regressions. And even that was because I had no choice, in a life-or-death crisis. But now was different. I had the choice not to tell him.

“If you don’t explain why my future self is in your memories…”

Leo said in a stiff voice.

“I will never speak to you again.”

I could see the sincerity in his resolute face. And Leo was exactly the kind of person who would follow through. He was not the type to gloss over something like this. But I was terribly afraid of Leo learning the truth.

What if he looked at me like I was some disgusting monster? Leo had only just barely opened his heart to me. I had thought we had become friends, at least a little! What if everything was ruined?

“Anastasia.”

Leo called me as if coaxing me. Perhaps he pitied me, trembling all over with tension, because his attitude had softened a little. It was strange. I was so afraid, yet meeting those deep violet eyes made me feel intensely that I should tell him. In this still-too-small boy Leo, there was that kind of charisma. A charisma that persuaded people.

Any lie would fail to smooth this situation over anyway. Then I had to face the truth rather than run from it. I swallowed hard. I forced out a voice that wouldn’t come easily.

“…What you saw was a memowy fwom my past wife.”

A moment of silence passed.

“What…?”

He looked as if he couldn’t believe what he had heard even after hearing it.

“I wegressed.”

“…”

“I wegressed nine times, and what Weo saw was the wast wegwession… I must have been cursed to never die peacefuwwy. I suppose because I’m a bastard.”

So a ninth death was no big deal to me—I tried to say that as casually as I could.

But Leo’s condition was strange.

“Then… you died because of me?”

“Weo, that’s—”

“I killed you.”

“No, that was an accident!”

“Because of me!”

Tears welled up in Leo’s eyes.

“I killed you… you…”

“W-Weo…”

I approached him in a fluster, but he shrank back hesitantly.

“Don’t come closer.”

I couldn’t approach any further and faltered in place. He bowed his head as if he didn’t want to show his tears and only breathed raggedly. Honestly, I hadn’t expected Leo to shed tears. I had expected him to be afraid, or to look repulsed…

I was uncomfortable with him feeling guilty.

“I didn’t die because of Weo.”

Leo flinched at those words.

“It was thanks to Weo that I could stawt again.”

“…”

“So now I’m wiving a bettew wife. So don’t feew guilty, Weo.”

I meant it. Even if it hadn’t been Leo, I would have met another wretched death. Rather, it was Leo who had moved that time up and given me the chance to start over. In this life, I had miraculously learned that Paeon was my biological father. That alone had changed so much.

But the words that came from Leo’s mouth were completely unexpected.

“But… it must have hurt!”

“…”

Strangely, those words made my heart ache with a pang. Even after hearing such an absurd story, he was thinking first about whether I had been in pain. I felt newly sorry for having once thought he resembled Paeon because of his first impression. He was not in the least like that heartless Paeon. He was somewhat cynical, but fundamentally a boy with a warm heart.

“Um, wight aftew wegwessing my head hurts a wot, but that death weally was no big deal! I died in the bink of an eye. Wathaw, the wife befowe that and the one befowe that…”

I explained earnestly to soothe him, but seeing his face grow paler and paler, it seemed I had only made it worse.

“…Leave me alone.”

He really didn’t look well, but I didn’t think my presence would make it better.

“A-all wight. West, Weo.”

Hoping he wouldn’t suffer too much, I fled from that place.

◇ ◆ ◇

The moment she left, Basileo burst into the tears he had been holding back. They were tears he had suppressed so as not to show an ugly side before Anastasia.

‘How can such a thing be possible?’

That she had died and come back to life nine times? Normally he would never have believed it. He would have scolded her for talking nonsense. But the scenes in her memory had been too vivid. He also knew that Anastasia was not a child who would tell such an absurd lie.

There were many strange magics and mysterious phenomena in the world, so what she had experienced might be one of them. But if her regression was true, then what he had done was also true.

‘To think I killed someone…’

He wasn’t sure whether it was right to consider his past-life self the same person as his current self, but in any case, he couldn’t deny that the one in her memory had been him.

He recalled the first time he met Anastasia. In this life too, he had tried to kill her. He had tried to drop her from the window! And yet she had faced him with composure. She had even told him he could push her. He simply couldn’t understand. How could she say such a thing to the person who had killed her in a past life?

‘She treated me without prejudice from the very beginning…’

And how coldly and harshly had he acted toward her simply because she was the princess of an enemy nation? As if he were the unhappiest person in the world, as if it were her responsibility even though it wasn’t her fault. When in truth she was enduring suffering too great for one person to bear.

When he thought of the faces of the people who had mocked and despised her in Anastasia’s memory, his guilt swelled. He was so ashamed of himself, and filled with a regret that felt like death.

‘I must take responsibility for her death.’

Just then, a white creature softly appeared in the air.

“You are…”

It was her divine beast, Nine. Nine did not come bounding at him as usual, but stood at a distance, hesitating and watching his reaction.

“…Come here.”

Only after he held out his hand did Nine prick up its ears and approach. As if to comfort him, Nine carefully licked his hand. He watched quietly, then lifted Nine and pulled it into a tight embrace. And burying his face in that fluffy white fur, he murmured low.

“I’ll take responsibility.”

Nine let out a single whine, as if it didn’t understand what he was saying.

“I will definitely… take responsibility.”

Meanwhile, Anastasia was watching that scene with her eyes closed. Her condition seemed better than he had worried, but seeing his blazing eyes, she was terribly curious what he was saying.

‘What on earth is he muttering about?’

Until then, Anastasia had no idea at all. Just how great a fire she had set in the boy’s heart.