“……….What?”

I distorted my expression as if  I couldn’t hear what he said.

He wants me to thank him for kidnapping someone who’s been doing well?

Why would I? This time, he was the kidnapper, and I was the victim.

“If I hadn’t come, wouldn’t you have already become the food for that beast and completely gone?”

“Oh……. “

“It might have been better to leave it half eaten.”

“What are you talking about?”

As he raised his eyes, Devan shrugged.

“Didn’t you like the smell of blood? If you want, I can lend you my sword again.”

He moved as if he were pulling a sword from his waist dance at any moment.

I hurriedly waved my hands.

I still remember cutting my hand with the sword.

“……..okay. Anyway, thank you.”

When the disgusting green scales and yellow essence came to my mind again, I thanked him.

“But that’s that, and this is another matter.”

“This one?”

“…….I mean that’s nonsense.”

As if he had already noticed and thought hard, he rubbed his chin. 

“… Oh! Are you talking about marriage?”

Now that I look at it, he was a person with a sly side.

I squinted at him.

“If you don’t like it, there’s nothing I can do.”

“What?”

Unexpectedly, when he opened his eyes wide to  gentle words, he smiled somewhat anxiously.

“But I’m a little curious if you can go back and say that’s that and this is this even if I tie your limbs in the forest.”

Squeak, I swallowed nervously.

It was never a joke. He meant it.

If I refuse here, he will really abandon me in that forest again.

“What’s the reason?”

Finally, I asked what I was curious about the whole time from the beginning.

“No, it doesn’t make sense no matter how much I think about it. You lost consciousness and came all the way here to find me……  Wait, how did you know I was here?” 

How did I settle in this village where it snowed exceptionally much and I couldn’t move without a sled.

How hard I  tried to play Leah, a poor commoner who lost all his parents in an unexpected accident.

In a series of fast-paced situations, the forgotten resentment blossomed.

Devan kicked his tongue.

“You’re asking quickly.”

“How did you know?”

“So to speak, it’s a similar way.”

Devan still shook the yellow pendant in his hand.

My expression was colored with astonishment.

“Did you track the location?”

“I didn’t expect much, but you didn’t sell the brooch I gave you.”

“… Is that why you gave me a brooch?”

Devan, who frowned, crossed his arms.

“All the jewels made in the imperial palace have location tracking magic at stake for emergencies.”

“You said it didn’t belong to the imperial palace. It was your mother’s personal item!”

“How can the Royal family and the empress be separate?”

He was utterly shameless. I was speechless and laughed in vain.

It looked just like my eyes, and I was so upset that I kept the brooch tightly because it was an item left by his mother there.

“……so what’s so good about it, I’ve had it so far.”

Devan muttered, turning to the window.

The attitude that seemed to avoid my eyes was ridiculous and my heart was stuffy.

“Hey.”
Knock knock – knocked hard on the window with my finger. Devan just looked at me because he made fun of me.

“So, why are you asking me to marry?”

He looked at me with a dull look. When I saw that expression, I felt like I was angry at nothing.

“The priests brought from the temple, the wizards who are the most competent in the pagoda, and the best doctors of the empire do not know this curse.”

He tapped his right eye with his index finger.

They were strange eyes even when I looked at them again.

The ink looked ominous as if it had spread, and the bottom looked deep like an unknown lake.

“It’s the same for me that I don’t know.”

“I think you’re the most likely one.”

“Possibility?”

“The possibility of treating this. Anyway, you’ve solved my curse that no one has ever solved.”

I glanced at the black mark invading his right eye.

It couldn’t have been, but it seemed to be moving.

So the day I did my last treatment, it felt like a black figure that fought against my physical strength.

“Related…….”

“Don’t you really know anything about this?”

I lowered my gaze.
A year after running away from the Grand Duke, there have been words that have not left my mind.

< Aha. You were a child that didn’t disappear. So I couldn’t even start >

The words that the black figure talked over.

Strangely, my memory was clear only at the last minute.

I remembered everything that it said to me and how it invaded me.

It’s not over yet.

I thought over and over again about the words for a year. What did it mean?

No matter how much I agonized, I couldn’t tell, but one thought didn’t leave my mind.

Isn’t it something to do with remembering my past life?

I couldn’t know the exact meaning, but that was all I could think of.

Perhaps it means that I didn’t finish my previous life, so I couldn’t die properly and start my present life.

That’s why we haven’t even started yet.

I stared at Devan.

He waited without rushing my long silence.

I couldn’t tell him all this.

Because he couldn’t believe the vain sound that I have memories of my previous life.

“……I don’t know, but I’ve talked to it.”

“Talk?”

His eyebrows went up high.

“To be exact, that talked to me.”

“What was it about?”

“That’s… I don’t remember. But at the end, it said ‘when we see each other next time… say hello.’ “

“See you next time?”

Devan tapped the wagon handle.

“Then that something is interested in you.”

He continued with a satisfied look.

“Do you have any other characteristics or clues?”

“What’s with the characteristics?”

“It’s not just a substance, it’s a conscious being….. human or human-made.”

Hmm, Devan sighed as if he was agonizing.

“For example, someone who has a grudge against me sent it to me.”

“I don’t think that’s right.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure what, but it didn’t feel like someone made it or was manipulated by someone at all. If I were to talk about it…..”

“If you were ?”

He seemed to have lost his composure now. I said with eye contact with Devan with anxious eyes.

If I were to talk about that…

“It’s superior to humans…”

“God?”

I couldn’t say for sure, so I closed my mouth and lowered my gaze.

Somehow, the story seemed to be getting too vast to handle.

“But if it’s a god, can a human of great power like you not notice?”

“That’s true. For example, the stature and mana are so different, but the fundamentals are the same. I don’t have any magic power and I can’t try magic, but I can feel it.”

“But my eyes are……”

“I have no idea. What it is.”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“Then is it that he is not God, but a transcendent being comparable to the divine? …… The more I hear, the weirder it gets.” 

“I know.”

What is it? The playful voice and mocking tone.

But I thought it wouldn’t hurt me. It said It was trying to help me.

“Laughing in a creepy manner…”

“What?”

Devan suddenly raised his head as I mumbled to myself.

“What did you just say?”

His forehead, urging him to answer, was full of wrinkles.

“What? …. It laughs in a creepy manner…”

Devan opened his eyes wide. He rarely looked surprised.

“Why?”

When asked out of anxiety, he blinked a few times.

His eyes shook, not focused.

“Do you know anything?”

It was on my side to urge me to answer this time.

Devan seemed a little out of his mind.

“Maybe… Perhaps I also know about it. That divine being.”

                        ***

Grand Dukedom was still the same. 

It was still unnecessarily large, and there was no decoration, giving off a gloomy atmosphere.

It was the same as before, there were fewer users.

The old butler greeted us with restrained movements, and Hilda stood next to us in tears.

“Lady!”

Hilda ran down the stairs quickly. She clung to me as she cried.

“Where have you been? Do you know how worried I was? I missed you!”

Was our relationship this strong?

It was a little burdensome, but I stroked her curly hair without showing it.

Anyway, it was also true that I felt strange to think that I met him after a year.

“Welcome back to Dukedom, Lady Evelyn.”

As soon as I turned my head, there was Karen, fully armed in armor.

With a nice smile, he greeted me with restrained movements.

“You really had an incredible ability. I didn’t know you were like that.”

It was a sarcastic tone that did not suit etiquette.

Breaking out of this estate meant making fun of the commander.

“Somehow, that’s what happened.”

Devan stepped next to me.

“Let’s have a not-so-funny welcome party later, and let’s go in for now.”

Following him without hesitation, I also entered the castle.

As I sat in the familiar Great Hall, the old butler gave me black tea. 

As expected, it was a familiar scent.

“Huu…..”

I had a sip of black tea. In an instant, warm energy spread to my body.

It’s less than Ellywoon, but it was quite chilly here, perhaps because it was in the middle of winter.

“Now that I think about it, I sat at the table without washing up again.”

The corners of Devan’s mouth went up slightly.

“As I said, whether you wash or not, that’s not important.”

Now that I thought he could see his eyes properly, I was ashamed of my shabby appearance. It suited Ellywoon’s “Leah”, but it didn’t match this castle.

Before he opened up more of me, I hurriedly brought it up. “More than that, that marriage.”

“Okay.”

As soon as my words fell, he put down the teacup as if he had waited, and beckoned to the old butler.