A Night Watched Over
Where exactly am I?
Is this place inside Morihan? Or some transcendent dimension beyond the real world, in a realm of gods and myth?
I walked slowly. I hadn’t planned where I was going, yet my feet carried me naturally toward a single direction.
Surely I had entered this world from somewhere nearby. The forest was behind me, and the open plain stretched ahead.
It felt familiar one moment, yet when I turned toward another side, it seemed different again. The woods all looked the same, offering no sense of direction.
I knew I could find it… crouching down and blindly groping the air.
Then, suddenly, fear struck me.
If I turned back now, I would be thirty-five. The twenty-six-year-old me was gone. My friends must have assumed I was dead.
After twelve long years, who would greet the person returning home? Friends? Or… our mother?
Would anyone still be alive to welcome me back?
The memory of my mother, who had shown no mourning at my grandmother’s funeral, rose unbidden.
What would she have done at my own funeral? Would she have finally shed her lifelong grudge and felt relief in her heart?
The interior of the forest grew darker. It felt like my own uncertain future, so I abandoned my plan to explore the sub-space and turned back the way I had come.
“How do I get out of here?”
I asked aloud in my terror, and an answer appeared before my eyes.
{Strongly imagine the place you wish to go in your mind, then chant aloud: “My land, open the door.” The earth will obey your command and reveal the door.}
“Open, sesame!”
Why say “My land” like that?!
A door glowing with distant light appeared. I reached out and swung it open, then rushed through.
Knock, knock.
The moment I stepped out, the sound of knocking startled me.
When I looked back, the door had vanished. I stood in the middle of the room, breathing heavily.
“Huh?”
Only two people were supposed to knock on my door, yet I answered without knowing which one it was.
“You okay?”
It was Damien’s voice.
Okay? Why? Why would anyone assume I wasn’t?
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
No, I wasn’t fine at all.
I looked down at my clothes and found them in a complete mess.
Of course. I had been walking on all fours like an ostrich, dragging the floor.
I must have fallen because it was hard, and I had steadied myself with my hands, leaving my clothes covered in dirt.
Oh no, regret was already creeping in. How was I supposed to wash this?
“Hmm?”
Worry surged even harder behind the regret.
“Eh? What?”
Had a lot of time passed? I opened the curtains and checked outside. The wind roared threateningly, and the biting cold jolted my senses.
When I looked up at the sky, the moon was hanging there. Judging by its position, it was still deep in the night.
That can’t be right.
I had entered the sub-space in the middle of the night. I had wandered for a long time at the edge of the forest.
Even if it was the forest entrance, the land before me was an endless plain stretching a hundred meters, perhaps more, all the same.
To the right lay the plain, to the left the forest. Finding the grandmother’s vegetable patch gate in the middle of that was impossible.
Yet at the time it had seemed possible. I had searched for hours. I had even thought the sun might have risen.
‘Like time had stopped.’
Wait a minute. Had time really stopped?
When I explained the sub-space to Demia, I described it as a space where four conditions were met. It did not exist in the real world, I alone could move between any points, I could enter from anywhere I wished, and everything inside remained exactly as it was when I first entered.
For everything to stay exactly as it was when I first entered, time had to stop, right?
“Arian.”
Damien called me from outside the door. Oh, why? Thinking had been interrupted, and I was about to snap, but I held it in.
He’s Hamilcar. He even had a status that sounded like Assassin S and Gambler S, but… he wasn’t bad at all.
Perhaps both assassination and gambling fell into the realm of talent. Having talent didn’t mean you had to do that job.
Since he was the Hamilcar heir, he might dabble in gambling, but that would still be in the realm of social connections. Assassination? Ridiculous. He’d just hire an assassin instead.
How likely was it that William Hamilcar was a better person than him?
Maybe I should just marry him anyway. Then the relationship would have to be handled carefully.
“It’s night. Why aren’t you sleeping?”
He meant to hurry up and go sleep, but Damien didn’t move.
After a short pause, he spoke carefully.
“If you’re scared, call me.”
“What if I call?”
You wouldn’t dare come into my room, would you?
Having a man inside before my adulthood rite of passage would brand me a lewd woman for life. Medieval people didn’t ask what happened in the room.
Why would I even have to ask? We weren’t in the same room, so nothing could have happened anyway.
“I’ll be waiting right outside the door.”
I looked at the door. The cottage had a door, and that was fortunate. The rough wooden door didn’t look in good shape. I pictured Damien beyond it.
Damien was twelve years old.
Normally, he should have been attending the council of gods since age twelve. Bertrand had attended at twelve, and David had attended at twelve as well.
David hated those meetings. He had to stand there the entire time, doing nothing but suffer.
Bertrand, as the heir to the Danier family, received noble treatment, but not quite as much as Damien. The Danier family still had a spare, a second son.
But Hamilcar only had Damien. They had to raise him into a talented person who could take responsibility for the duchy, and at the same time, never let him die until he produced a successor.
And this place was the eastern border region, where monsters and enemies attacked in pairs?
How pampered Damien must have felt to have Hamilcar standing guard outside my door. I wanted to thank him, but the words wouldn’t come out.
Thinking about it, he had always been kind to me. I had given him healing potions without knowing if they had any side effects…
“Why are you being so nice to me?”
I wanted to thank him, but the words that came out felt pointless.
Oh, he wasn’t even really twelve, just a child’s appearance. Why was he acting like this?
I had to say thank you quickly, but my tongue wouldn’t move.
Damien looked stunned. After a moment, he took a small breath and answered.
“You’ve been nice to me too.”
“I haven’t.”
“Saving me and feeding me is more than enough. Consider it repaying a debt.”
If you’re thinking of the gold coins I gave you, that’s nonsense.
“Then, do even better.”
The words that came out sounded completely out of character.
Why do I keep saying such rude things, like a brat?
I tried to fix the strange words I had uttered while chewing my lip. But somehow, no words came out.
By the time I realized there was no time to fix it, Damien answered from outside the door, “All right.”
For some reason, his voice carried a trace of laughter.
I had expected a sleepless night, but the moment I changed into my nightclothes and climbed into bed, I fell asleep instantly.
Was Damien really out there? I should have told him to go to his room, but I never got the chance. I opened my eyes to bright sunlight outside the window.
I hadn’t stayed out too long yesterday, had I?
Worried, I opened the door and froze. One corner of a light gray sleeve peeked out from beside the door.
In this world, that color was called undyed linen. It was the natural color of undyed linen.
Pythia’s dresses were old but properly dyed expensive ones.
So the person standing beside my door had to be Damien.
Damien, who had been leaning against the wall, straightened up when he saw me.
Without a word, he turned his back and said, “If you need to go out, call me.” Then he walked into his own room.
I stared blankly at his retreating back, then let my gaze drop to the floor.
Heat rose from inside my chest. Breathing felt a little difficult, and my heart ached. My ears burned.
It was the first time anyone had stayed up all night to watch over me. Grandma had loved me, but she had always been busy with her research. Mother, of course…
It was the same after I was born in this world.
Mother loved me, but she was the Danier countess’s wife first.
She had been so busy. The nanny had gone back to her own room at night.
If I had a fever and suffered all night, maybe the nanny or mother or a maid had stayed up to watch over me.
But I never got sick. So I had never enjoyed that luxury.
Staying up all night to watch over my night.
I didn’t know why Damien had offered me such kindness.
No matter what our future relationship became, today’s memory would remain as a sparkling gem inside me.
I felt that certainty.