Yuria Taylor - 4
Whenever morning came and I opened my eyes, it was always soaked through that I woke. This time was no different. Cold sweat ran down, dampening my forehead, and I frowned at the clammy feel of it.
It was the nightmare. Or rather, the memories of my own deaths. No matter when I saw them, it was a sensation I never quite grew used to. If I could simply become accustomed to dying, perhaps it would hurt a little less—but that was one feeling no amount of effort could ever change. Anyone who didn't fear it could hardly be called human.
I clenched and unclenched my hand a few times, let out a small sigh, and rose from bed. The nightmare never failed to summon the faces of those who had killed me. There had been times I chose death myself, but those never felt like nightmares. Things had simply been that hard back then. It was a period of desperate struggle, when I would have done anything to force this regression to an end.
...People who wish to turn back time can be found anywhere. The same goes for those who insist that if they could return to the moment they regretted—to the moment the person they loved died—they could accomplish anything. I was not so different from them, which is why I chose regression in the first place. That didn't mean I thought well of it.
This is a curse. It is a life like an execution—bound to the guillotine of time, the blade falling endlessly upon a neck that will not sever.
Bonds between people are meant to be built once or twice. But what happens when all you accumulate is the same experience, repeated with the same people, in the same events? The woman who swore she loved me in one cycle regards me as her mortal enemy in the next. The assassin who once tried to kill me becomes the one who saves my life. And even if those tangled threads reset as though we had just met, I could no longer call them the same person. Going mad is the natural conclusion.
There was a time when I begged with every death, every turn of the clock. Please, remember me. The moment time rewound, I would rush straight to them and ask if they knew me—only to be treated as a madman. I was the only one who knew of the regression. Only I knew that this world had wound back time again and again, did I not? I went mad for a while, then... I believe that was the period in which I died the most.
I killed myself. I went berserk, beat people to death in the streets, was captured and executed. That was the first time I ever saw Yuria die, wasn't it? Thoughts like these drift through me, but of one thing I am certain: half of all my deaths likely happened in that stretch. Then I pulled myself together, lived through several more cycles, and arrived at where I stand now. Having abandoned so much, my honest wish is to end everything in this cycle. Which meant rest was out of the question. I found myself wondering what Yuria would say today.
With the Full Moon Festival still underway, Father remained absent. Perhaps only Yuria and I were left in the ducal mansion. We would cross paths at meals, and I would have to see for myself what she spat at me. A short while later, Renald knocked at my door.
When he announced it was time for the meal and I stepped outside, I noticed something strange: the mansion was quiet. It was always quiet, but this was beyond stillness—it was positively frigid. I shot Renald a sidelong glance and spoke.
"Did something happen? The atmosphere feels a little off."
"Ah... well, you see, the Young Matriarch is feeling unwell."
"Unwell?"
"She appeared this morning pale as a ghost, and then ordered that no meals be brought in at all today."
So that was why everyone was wound so tight. When someone who never wavered suddenly turned capricious, the servants inevitably trembled with fear. Say what you would about her otherwise, Yuria had always kept her routines impeccably—so each of them must believe they had committed some grave fault. ...Their reaction wasn't entirely without reason, I supposed. Part of me found it amusing. If words this mild could shake them, what state of mind did they imagine would carry them through what was coming? I laughed, quietly enough that no one noticed, then walked on wearing a perfectly composed expression.
"Tell everyone there's no need to be tense. She's simply unwell, nothing more."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. I've confirmed it myself, so there shouldn't be any further talk."
If they truly were reacting to my word, things would likely stay quiet for some time. A fortunate thing. I had plenty to do on my own in the days ahead, and the last thing I needed was her interference. Which left, perhaps, just one task for today. It seemed I should pay Arwen another visit.
"...She's shut her doors after all."
Arwen's house, which I visited straight after my meal, was sealed tight. The door was there, but it was bound within a barrier of her own making, offering no response to anything. She had said she needed time to think, so perhaps this was only natural. The problem was that the barrier showed no sign of unraveling.
I could break it myself, but even handling it with the utmost care would take a good month. Had I known a situation like this was coming, perhaps I should have studied magic after all. Unfortunately, I had only ever experimented with weapon types, so I knew precious little about it. Which left me nothing in particular to do today. My next obligation would not arrive until immediately after the Full Moon Festival ended, so I had a long stretch of leisure ahead of me. Theresia had yet to make a move, and Yuria was holed up in her room. Thinking it over, I realized how remarkably free this life was.
Under normal circumstances, I would have been trailing after Yuria from place to place across the festival, playing inspector or some such. Roaming about like this... in the old days, I couldn't even have imagined it.
The festival was still at its height, and the streets were brimming with people. I turned into the back alleys to avoid mixing with the crowds, but even there the press of bodies made movement no easier.
What would it be like, I wondered, to have Adele here at a moment like this? She might well have drawn her sword and started swinging. Or perhaps she'd have trudged along diligently all the same, lips stuck out in a pout. Following those stray thoughts, I noticed that my impression of Adele was rather favorable. A strange thing, truly—we had met far more than once or twice, and yet I held not even a trace of ill feeling toward her.
What regression exposed me to was the countless hearts a single person could hold. The one I'd believed good-natured turned out to be a practiced liar; the one I'd believed gentle went about killing children. A person's face, glimpsed in different circumstances, changed over and over.
But Adele Egret—no matter the situation, she hardly differed at all. She had always lived as she pleased, always moved as the wind blew. Free-spirited to a fault, yet rarely to anyone's detriment. There had even been a time when I lived my life swayed by that very freedom. And that life... I remember it as perhaps the most peaceful I ever lived. It had only been possible because my heart was set on something like—let's start over in the North—but in this life, at least, I had no wish to live that way. Surely one ought to see things through to the end. Unless the day came when I wrung the Crown Prince's neck with these very hands, there would be no fleeing to the North.
Walking on like that, I soon found myself near the city's outskirts. Far removed from the deep heart where the festival was held, this was a place where, unlike anywhere else, trees and flowers abounded. I had known such a place existed, but coming upon it in person, I found the scenery rather lovely.
Grass and trees in place of paved roads and buildings—standing amid the wide-open greenery with nothing to obstruct my view, I gazed out beyond. Petals drifted down, swaying on the breeze, and small animals stirred among the rustling grass. So this was a green space laid out under some planned administrative district. I hadn't had much occasion to visit before, but thinking on it, this was the first time I had come here at this point in a cycle. Better this leisurely greenery, surely, than a city so packed there wasn't room to set a foot down.
Following the path, I came upon stone steps. I climbed them, then up a long stretch of steep stairs, and a great tree came into view. A willow, standing alone, its long branches trailing as it gave itself over to the wind. Catching my breath, I moved beneath it and settled there.
Even as the swaying leaves tickled my hair, my gaze was drawn to the panorama spread out below the willow's boughs. The ground here stood high; from this spot, the whole of the city lay open to my eyes. Beneath a sky already bleeding deep red, the city I lived in spread out at a single glance.
...For a while, I lost myself. Mocking my assumption that it would be nothing special, the city in the full swing of the Full Moon Festival floated before me like a painting.
Light was flowing. It was no mere spectacle—flames linked from hand to hand filled the streets like flowing water. Lanterns of every color, spilling red light one moment and blue the next, rippled along from palm to palm. The true beginning of the Full Moon Festival could only be seen once night fell, but the festival of daylight was a different thing: a blessing upon the moon's ascent, giving shape to this very sunset. And so the streets were slowly steeping in red.
Ready for the hours when night would come, the lanterns' colors shifted little by little, following the sinking sun. As I stared blankly at it all, the sky, too, began to sink into darkness. Only then did the name "City of Light" reveal its true nature, and before long the starlight lost its luster to the city's dazzling blaze. Only a pale white glow, akin to moonlight, remained in the city, painting this night sky in place of the stars...
And only after that baptism of light had faded did my mind finally return and touch reality. A breeze, faintly cool now, brushed my cheek. Summer was nearing its end. The heavens climbed higher, and the moon that had hung closest to us now touched the highest sky, drifting away from the empire.
Autumn, then.
My reason, returned to reality, was still faintly hazy. That time had slipped by and autumn was coming—it didn't quite feel real. There had always been so much happening around this time that I'd never had even a sliver of leisure; this was the first cycle in which I could calmly think about what lay ahead.
So much had changed. Theresia was no longer my fiancée; I had crossed paths with Adele once more, and forged a bond of sorts with Saintess Adrian. And had I not told Yuria, to her face, that I hated her? Things the me of previous cycles couldn't even have dreamed of, I was now doing with my own hands.
"The 101st, is it."
A hundred deaths behind me—this must be precisely my 101st life. Repeating the same folly a hundred times was more than enough. And so I had resolved to live this one differently. There was no need to hesitate, no need to fret over anything. Because this time, if I died, that would truly be the end. Surely an eternal death would come for me.
I glanced briefly downward, then slowly lifted my head and shut my eyes. A willow leaf scattered on the wind and lodged itself between my fingers. It seemed poised to be swept away at any moment, yet it clung stubbornly to the gap, refusing to fall—and laughter escaped me despite myself.
It felt like watching the things I myself had once done. One slight parting of my fingers and it would be swept away, gone on the wind—yet there it was, straining with everything it had to hold on. It looked like me. But it had to be let go. Flying off on the wind was the natural order of things. I had to strip away the lingering attachment this leaf harbored.
Whooo—
With one more gust, the leaf flew out into the open air. It danced on the wind for a while, as though drifting through a dream—then simply faded away toward someplace unseen. Where would that leaf go? No one could know. Only this much was certain: it was a world entirely apart from the branch it had always clung to.
Was I any different? The time had come to cast off my lingering attachments and move forward. My future, having abandoned the bonds of the past I once held dear, was now unknowable even to me. It would be filled only with new things I did not know, and whether its end would be tragedy or comedy, no one could say.
Yet the funny thing was how liberating it felt, even so. I closed my hand around one more leaf that had caught me, then sent it soaring skyward with the wind once more. And with it, I sent my own lingering attachments flying too.
The wind rose again, sweeping cool across my forehead. Summer was ending, and the days when that moon would grow thin once more were drawing near. The season that might be called the greatest variable of my life—remembering it, a faint smile curved my lips.
Autumn is coming. Unknown to everyone—and unknown even to me. The autumn of my 101st life was on its way.