Chapter 30
Chapter 30
Ch. 30 .｡.:✧ Fragments of Memory (1) ✧:.｡.
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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Until now, I had never felt lonely. After all, I had been alone since long ago. I had to stand on my own and do everything by myself after losing my parents.
Perhaps I was the type who didn’t easily feel loneliness. That’s what I thought.
It didn’t take long for me to realize my thinking was wrong.
“Your Holiness. Are you alright?”
“Ah… Yes.”
Startled by my bodyguard’s words from a distance, I withdrew my hand that had been reaching out to the side.
My hand had been cutting through empty air where no one was.
Unconsciously, I had been grasping at someone’s absence. If asked who that was, my mouth would clam shut.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know who it was, but someone had definitely been by my side.
“What’s wrong with me…”
Even after returning home, this stifling feeling didn’t subside. When I came to my senses, I would be fumbling at the empty spot beside me.
I would find myself about to call out to someone, making a nasal sound. I would try to lean my head against a non-existent presence.
“It’s all because of that note…”
I hadn’t been like this until a few days ago. The problem was a certain letter. A note saying I would die at the hands of assassins during the grand cathedral’s completion ceremony.
After seeing that note, a cascade of strange emotions poured down.
Longing, affection, need for recognition, admiration, a sense of security, obsession. …And even something akin to love, though that couldn’t be.
They were emotions I couldn’t possibly experience. Things that had nothing to do with me.
It felt like I had directly taken on someone else’s emotions. Tears flowed uncontrollably at that vivid sensation.
“What do you mean you can’t track the sender? You should at least know the location it was sent from!”
“I apologize, Your Holiness. They say it was mailed directly to the central logistics center.”
Both the sender and the origin were meticulously hidden, and even a typewriter was used to conceal the handwriting.
At first, I suspected it was terrorism by hostile forces. A curse involving magic or sorcery. An attempt to incapacitate me by breaking down my mind in this way.
‘No way. If it were magic or a curse, I would have spotted it long ago.’
That wasn’t it. As the saintess, there was no way I wouldn’t know of magic that could hypnotize people.
And although I was trained to sensitively react to traces of sorcery, I detected nothing. It wasn’t caused by external factors. This was purely an internal problem.
‘Mental illness…?’
In the end, I had to suspect even mental illness. Had I finally gone crazy?
Although they say the mentally ill don’t know they’re crazy, objectively, I was sound. Except for occasionally feeling inexplicable pain in my chest.
Except for yearning for someone whose face and name I didn’t know…
“Just who are you…”
It was suffocating. I felt like I would go insane. The presence that always hugged me. Patted my head. Held my hand. It felt like I had forgotten them.
The desperate, stifling feeling of waking up from a sad dream continued day after day.
The warmth I had never felt before disappeared, leaving only a terrible loneliness.
Every day, I rummaged through the empty spot that had never been filled from the beginning, my heart aching.
Then one morning.
“Yoo, Yoo-jin… Yoo-jin?”
It came to me. Remarkably clearly. The memories vividly resurfaced, making yesterday’s me seem foolish. Yoo-jin. That man’s name was Yoo-jin.
The person who didn’t fear me, the saintess.
The person who approached and embraced me even when I showed my ugly side and pushed him away.
The person who accepted me as I was.
Only then did everything make sense. The spot beside me that always felt immensely large.
The position my hand unconsciously reached out to. The ambiguous height I tried to lean my head against. If Yoo-jin had been there, it all fit perfectly.
“Why? Why did I forget?”
It was confusing. Why had I forgotten such an important thing?
No one was more precious to me than Yoo-jin. I couldn’t even imagine a life without Yoo-jin.
There was no way I could have forgotten Yoo-jin.
“…Ah.”
Organizing my thoughts, I realized. Yoo-jin and I had not met yet. The first time I saw him was at a construction site in Hameln. The second time was at the bodyguard knight interview.
And our real connection began when he saved me from the grand cathedral.
So at this point in time, it was correct that I didn’t know Yoo-jin yet. I shouldn’t know him yet. Then what were the memories of Yoo-jin swirling in my head?
“I… have returned to the past.”
The future events were as vivid as if they happened yesterday.
It was hard to believe, but only one possibility remained. I, who had experienced the future, had regressed.
Or, the memories of the future had been transferred to my past self. That was the only way to think about it.
“Why?”
Then why did my future self choose regression? Why did she decide to send the future memories to the past?
The answer came before long. Among the vast amount of memories, the moments with particularly intense emotions surfaced.
“Yoo-jin… is leaving my side…?”
Unbelievable information flashed through my mind. Yoo-jin, who had lovingly hugged me, walked hand in hand with me, and joked around, was leaving me?
That couldn’t be.
I carefully retraced the memories. In the torrent of memories and emotions I had never experienced before, I tried to figure out what had happened.
“Ah… Aah…”
Soon, I collapsed in agony. I remembered. It was all because of me.
Because I interfered with Yoo-jin too much.
Because I was too annoying.
Because I used Yoo-jin as a trash can to pour out my emotions.
That’s why he got tired of me and left.
Of course, Yoo-jin wasn’t entirely without fault either.
He had gotten drunk and spent the night with another woman after putting me to sleep.
But did that give me the right to criticize him?
I might have become unable to live without Yoo-jin, but Yoo-jin wasn’t like that.
He had merely been indulging my whims as my bodyguard knight.
That’s why, fearing rejection, I couldn’t fully reveal my true feelings to Yoo-jin.
I was afraid he would get cocky if I clung to him too much. I was scared I would be swayed by him because I was more desperate, so I couldn’t convey my honest feelings.
Even if I expressed it indirectly, I never said I loved him in the end.
That was the root of the problem. If we weren’t in a relationship of sharing love, then it wouldn’t matter what he did with other women.
I had no right to be angry, yet I criticized him.
I was so busy colliding with my own emotions that I didn’t even want to know how Yoo-jin felt.
When I was exhausted from loudly crying and making a fuss, Yoo-jin must have thought, ‘This woman is so annoying…’
He must have felt greatly burdened by my increasingly severe interference.
Yoo-jin also had sexual desires. I was always clinging to him, demanding only childlike affection without considering his needs.
He needed a place to relieve himself, and he had merely taken care of it at an appropriate place.
I had overanalyzed it alone, thinking the woman he spent one night with held some special meaning to him.
I had been blinded by my emotions for a moment and ruined everything.
“I’ve come back to turn back my mistake.”
I didn’t know how I had regressed. In the first place, not all my memories had returned yet. I was only certain of the purpose of returning to make up for my mistake.
“Sob. First, I need to find Yoo-jin…”
I won’t repeat the same mistake. Now that I’ve realized how precious and significant Yoo-jin was. I won’t do the stupid thing of treating Yoo-jin like my slave anymore.
I’ll treat him as an equal. I’ll ask him what he likes and what hobbies he enjoys.
I’ll get to know Yoo-jin as much as he knows about me.
I’ll become someone Yoo-jin can’t do without too.
I’ll make Yoo-jin love me as much as I love him.
I’ll make it so that just as I can’t be without Yoo-jin, Yoo-jin can’t be without me either.
Definitely.
“What? He’s not here?”
This couldn’t be. Around this time, Yoo-jin should have been wandering from one construction site to another as a day laborer.
But no matter how much I searched, Yoo-jin’s name didn’t come up.
“That can’t be…”
Hameln’s development was being pushed forward under the strict management of the Holy Kingdom’s central government.
Even when using day laborers, they were recording everyone perfectly without missing a single person.
Yet Yoo-jin’s name couldn’t be found anywhere.
Yoo-jin wasn’t in Hameln. I had no choice but to think that now.
‘That note!’
The identity of the person who sent that note. The question I had briefly forgotten was completely unraveled.
It was Yoo-jin. Yoo-jin had sent a warning to help me avoid the assassination out of concern for me.
But why didn’t he come in person?
‘Something went wrong.’
It was the butterfly effect. Due to the subtle changes that occurred as the rounds diverged, things had gotten twisted.
Yoo-jin, who was originally destined to come to Hameln, wander the construction sites, and become my bodyguard knight, had reached the point of not even setting foot in Hameln.
‘I have to find him.’
I had to find Yoo-jin. If he had no intention of showing himself, I would go looking for him.
With that thought, I immediately began the search.
“We couldn’t find a man named Yoo-jin with northern continent lineage anywhere.”
“Are you sure you searched properly?!”
“I apologize. The name Yoo-jin is common. But that’s in the southern continent.
It’s easy to find a Yoo-jin with blonde or silver hair, but a black-haired man with northern continent lineage named Yoo-jin couldn’t be found anywhere.”
Come to think of it, his swordsmanship was somewhat sloppy in the first place.
Only after reading my family’s secret book passed down for generations did he become passable at swinging a sword.
There was no reason for him to be famous enough to be caught in the search net.
“I’ll find him… Somehow…”
Now that I’ve experienced the emptiness I would have lived with unknowingly for the rest of my life, I have no other path. I can only find Yoo-jin.
Even now, I’m barely enduring with the thought of sitting next to Yoo-jin, holding hands, leaning my head on his shoulder, and exchanging silly jokes.
“Y-Your Holiness! What in the world…!”
Rumble.
With a thunderous roar like lightning striking, the ceiling of the grand cathedral collapsed.
Faint screams seemed to be heard between the explosions and rumbles.
“Oh dear. It seems there were people inside. Hurry and call the rescue team.”
“Gasp! Yes! Understood!”
Without Yoo-jin, I had pondered a lot about how to avoid the assassination. Simply not attending the grand cathedral completion ceremony wouldn’t solve it.
If I didn’t show up at the grand cathedral, the assassins would attack me again on another day, at another place.
I needed a surefire method. And I only knew one surefire method. The method Yoo-jin had taught me.
“Yoo-jin. Are you watching?”
It was the exact same sight as back then. The pillars completely pulverized and the ceiling collapsed all the way to the floor.
Perhaps Yoo-jin would be surprised to see this sight. Ah, this was the method I had pondered using- he might think.
“Hehe. It won’t take long.”
I would definitely find him. There were countless ways. Until now, I had only used a quick, almost underhanded method to find him.
If worse came to worst, I could thoroughly investigate every village on the entire continent. It would take a long time, but I would surely find him.
The one thing I feared was Yoo-jin’s reaction when I met him again. Because to him, it would be our first meeting.
Unlike me who had returned to the past, he would be in a state of having forgotten everything.
Considering he knew about the assassins and had come to save me, it was certain he had been interested in the saintess.
But there was a high probability it would end there. A righteous man who respected the saintess and wished for her survival.
To Yoo-jin, I was no different from a complete stranger now.
“I’ll have to be careful not to make him feel too burdened…”
When we reunited, I would burst into tears without realizing it.
I would want to hug him tightly.
I would want to call his name familiarly.
But I had to hold back.
So Yoo-jin wouldn’t be too surprised. And then slowly, carefully, I would rebuild my relationship with Yoo-jin from the beginning.
This time, unshakably.
Firmly.
“Ahh…”
I shivered with anticipation for that day. Just imagining the reunion made my whole body tingle. Pleasure peaked and my body trembled.
Wait just a little longer, Yoo-jin. I’ll come find you soon.
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