Ch#120
"......Odellie!"
In a desperation boiling like blood, Rudville drew in a breath.
His eyes snapped open.
It was the dead of night.
The first thing he saw was the life-sustaining magical device connected to him.
Beneath his feverish skin, he felt the cool touch of the bedsheets.
But no one was by his side.
The spot where he reached out was empty.
He had clearly heard Odellie's voice in his unconsciousness—was it just a hallucination?
'......No, her body heat is still lingering.'
And her scent too.
Rudville ran his hand over the depression beside him on the bed.
She had been right there until just moments ago, it seemed, and had stepped away briefly.
'In the dining room? The bathroom? Or handling work......'
At that moment, Rudville's gaze drifted beyond the pillow.
And stopped.
The terrace door was slightly ajar, the curtains swaying faintly.
The dry, herbal scent sun-baked to perfection.
That calm, fragrant aroma wafted in on the breeze from outside.
'......Odellie.'
He tried to bolt up immediately.
But his body, unconscious for nearly half a month, refused to obey.
He forced his staggering form upright, grinding his teeth.
What the hell was this state?
His body drenched in cold sweat, his mind still screaming amid thousands of memory fragments.
But even if he vomited blood and collapsed, he had to go to her.
Now. Right now.
He flung open the terrace door.
Something shattered with a crack, but he didn't care.
Rudville's violet eyes gleamed fiercely in the darkness, like a beast hunting prey.
'There she is.'
At the edge of the garden below, he spotted the crown of her white head.
The place she always quietly sought when she wanted to hide, when her heart crumbled.
'Crying alone again.'
I told her over and over to cry in my arms.
'Damn it, first I'll hold her and soothe her, then figure out exactly what happened......'
It was the moment he gripped the terrace railing to leap down.
A sudden sense of dissonance flashed through his mind.
'......The Life Transfer Reversal Spell succeeded.'
The memory of his final life was still vivid before his eyes.
Then......
What was this life?
Why had he lost every shred of his regression memories?
Why was a life that should have ended in death repeating like a nightmare once more?
Why......
At that instant, finally.
The chaotic memory fragments scrambling his mind began falling into place, one by one.
"I've come to propose a deal, Your Highness."
The memory of that day he thought was their first meeting.
"I figured as much. The mysterious hooded figure, the secretive story, the special condition of being alone...... Self-proclaimed saintesses and deposed princesses all started that way."
"I......"
"Want to say you're the woman I've been searching for too?"
Odellie, who had fled the Cardel Family and appeared before him three months after going missing.
"I wish to form a marital bond with Your Highness."
"Hiding your identity to come this far, you must have even faked the scar."
"......"
"The position of Grand Duchess must have been that tempting."
"The term is five years. If you deem me useless within that time, you can void the contract anytime."
"So you'll sit beside a madman who seeks out a different woman every day, as long as you gain power. Impressive ambition."
Odellie, who had set a strict 'five-year' limit and proposed marriage.
"......Seeing hundreds of blue eyes made me realize how common that color is. So even if you're from the Cardel Family, or luckily matched my tastes, it means nothing special about you."
Odellie, who had personally relayed recipes to the head chef for him.
"Miss, do I look like the type to leave a suicide note and vanish tomorrow?"
"Of course not. My mistake."
"You must think my eyes are mere decoration."
"Anyway, this clause benefits me too, so please keep it. It's not hard to follow, is it?"
The suicide prevention clauses listed one after another in the marriage contract.
"So Your Highness must stay alive. No matter what."
Up to the moment she said she had returned to protect him, to save him.
All the memory pieces aligned with horrifying perfection, revealing one truth.
'......Odellie turned back time.'
Reflexive denial surged first.
No. It can't be.
Please, say it isn't.
Unsettled thoughts rampaged in frenzy.
The Regression Jewel had clearly been judged unable to activate again.
How had Odellie even met the activation conditions in the first place?
No, that wasn't important now.
'When Odellie escaped the Cardel Family—that was the regression point.'
Unlike him, she hadn't started at fifteen.
High likelihood it was at twenty-four, the Cardel underground lab as the starting point.
She came straight to him upon escaping, formed the marriage contract, and......
'......The annex.'
Life Transfer Reversal Spell.
The ritual circle he had prepared before losing his memories, transferring his life to her.
Odellie had stayed in the annex right away.
'No.'
Reaching that thought, he staggered out in a daze.
"Y-Your Highness the Grand Duke?"
"When did you awaken...... No, you mustn't move yet!"
"Where are you going?!"
He ignored the calls.
Half-mad, he raced down the misty night path.
Running and running until his breath reached his chin.
'No, it can't be.'
How would Odellie know of the ritual's existence?
The memories were his alone, and only he knew the structure.
Even if the regressed her vaguely suspected, even if she stumbled upon the secret location by chance, she couldn't have undone it.
It required 'Rudville's memories' to do so.
But his instincts, his beast-like senses, were warning him.
Perhaps, just perhaps......
And......
He arrived at the annex.
Flinging open the door, the hinges tore loose and dangled.
He threw the door panel to the floor and stumbled inside, gasping for breath.
Straight to the storeroom.
He set the clock hands to '6' and '12,' entering the passage through the tilted clock face.
The place where the ritual that had once claimed his life had unfolded.
The space of his most desperate choice, more wretched than any death.
But......
"......"
Nothing remained.
No trace of the ritual, no remnant of the life force he had given half of—nothing.
In disbelief, he reached out.
Any faint wavelength, vibration, trace lingering beyond the air......
Nothing was left.
'Please......'
For the first time in thousands of years, Rudville sought God again.
Pleading desperately, he reached the end of the passage.
Rudville froze in place.
The floor was empty.
The ritual circle had vanished without a trace.
The ancient incantation, so meticulously engraved, was gone without even a remnant.
His legs gave way.
Rudville collapsed limply to the floor.
Hands pressed to the ground, trembling fingertips groped the cold stone.
This was the place. Definitely here.
The site completed through countless sacrifices and costs to save Odellie.
But why.
"Why...... is there nothing......"
The single chance given had vanished eternally without even a beginning.
A ritual that could never be recreated in any form again.
Scraping the floor, his nails grated harshly.
"Odellie...... Damn it, why......"
Lips trembling, he couldn't even finish a sentence.
He scraped the floor until his nails tore and peeled.
Why.
Why, out of everyone, did it have to be you who turned back time.
Why did my memories have to pass to you too.
Why must I live bearing only the memories of you broken.
Why must I repeat this hell.
He tore at his hair, screaming.
"Why...... why the hell!!!!"
A wretched scream and wail.
He pounded the floor with his fist. Again, and again.
Until the stone cracked, until flesh tore, slamming down relentlessly.
Blood dripped onto the stone floor.
Blood flowing futilely now, unable to transfer anywhere.
His overflowing life force existed pointlessly, unable to reach her.
"Give it back....... Please, please, again...... please......!"
Like pleading before a dead god's grave, embracing the floor, Rudville finally burst into tears.
It wasn't human weeping.
It was a beastly howl, expelling eons of sorrow, as if tearing his soul.
She had erased the ritual herself.
To save Rudville.
And to quietly accept her own death.
