“Uhmmm…”
Opening my eyes, my consciousness began to return.
When I come to my senses, I realized that I wasn’t lying on the ground, but in a room.
Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!
I heard the chirping of birds through the windows.
A gust of wind came through the window and brushed my forehead; it was warm, the warmth of spring breeze.
“…..”
As I tried to sit up, I felt the touch of the soft blanket running down my body. Looking at it, I realizes that I was currently lying on a soft bed.
“A…bed?”
For some reason, my head was pounding and I couldn’t think clearly. I involuntarily grabbed my head and examined the room in which I was in.
“…ah.”
The composition of the room was simple. But at the same time, it was also quite luxurious. I could tell by touch that the bed I was lying on or the duvet cover were of high quality, and the rugs on the floor and the curtains
hanging on the windows were lavishly embroidered with two-headed dragons flying in the sky.
The two-headed dragon flying in the sky was the symbol of the Ducal House of Estel.
“…..”
Overall, it was a very familiar room. No, it wasn’t just a familiar room, it was a room I knew well.
Yes, this was the room I used until I became the head of the Estel family.
“Is this my room?”
Thinking of the absurd nature of such a reality, I burst out laughing.
It really was absurd!
I knew for a fact that the very possibility that I was lying in my room was really absurd. Because my room, or rather, the entire estate of the Duchy of Estel, was lost to history after colliding with Bianca’s magic.
“…damn it, really.”
Thinking back, it wasn’t a laughing matter at all. Because of that damn woman, Bianca, the castle that had been in existence for a thousand years collapsed in an instant.
Yes, the witch has been subdued. After inserting the sword into the witch’s heart and confirming that she was dying, I was certain the winter that swept across the continent would now disappear.
And, as the Emperor and his goons had stated, the honor of the Duke of Estel, which had fallen to the ground, would be restored to its original state, and the deprived title would be restored.
‘But then what?’
The Duchy of Estel itself, which I was supposed to rule over, had been destroyed. No matter how many times I tried to think, I couldn’t come up with any sharp measures to reestablish the duchy of Estel.
Going to Bianca and holding her accountable for the current situation would also be absurd. Aside from the fact that Bianca’s part in the destruction of the estate was an accidental act inevitably caused by the battle, the difference in power between the two of us could only be described as immense.
While I was sitting on the bed, thinking deeply about how to revive the Duchy of Estel, I heard a loud voice coming from outside the door.
“La…Lady…no. The Young Lord hasn’t woken up from his bed yet…”
“Okay, Sister. My brother is still….you can’t just visit without any notice in advance…”
“…wasn’t… his fiancée? Visiting the…while engaged…”
The one’s talking were still quite far away, so I couldn’t hear the words properly, but I could still make out what they were talking about. And if my predictions were correct, I had a hunch that I was in for an unpleasant situation.
‘What should I do?’
And, as I was contemplating on what to say…my eyes landed on a face I was seeing for the first time in a long time.
“…Cain.”
The next moment, my whole body couldn’t help but stiffen as I looked at the face of the woman who had entered the room without any warning. And I received a shock so intense that all the thoughts that had been in my head until now were blown away.
“…Sarah?”
****
Sarah Cernard.
She was a woman who decorated a significant part of my youth and at the same time my first love.
Also, she was the woman who used to be my fiancee in the past.
Yes, I loved Sarah.
It was the first time in my life I ever experienced love.
Even though it was a political engagement, the fact that I loved Sarah was an unshakable fact. Well, at least that was until she unilaterally destroyed the engagement.
In fact, considering her status, Sarah Cernard, who came from a Count’s family was quite laking as a possible marriage partner of the young lord of the Estel family.
Count Cernard’s family had a short history of being newly incorporated into the nobility through commerce, while the Duke’s Estel was a venerable family that had preserved their lineage for more than a thousand years since the founding of the empire.
Then, why did the betrothal happen?
House Cernard was one of the most wealthy families in the Empire, and House Estel was one of the most impoverished families in the Empire. Thus, a strategic betrothal relationship was established. The Count of Cernard desired ‘status’, and the Duke of Estel desired ‘wealth’.
Despite all that, I couldn’t hide my joy when I heard the news that the engagement had been made with Sarah Cernard, the daughter of Count Cernard. It was because I wasn’t experienced enough to keep a calm expression even after hearing the news that I was getting engaged to Lady Cernard, who was one of the most beautiful women in the empire.
However, all those expectations were shattered after meeting her in person on the day of the engagement.
Because Sarah didn’t show the slightest sign of liking me.
It wasn’t that I was good at reading women’s minds, so I was able to grasp her feelings. It was just that Sarah was looking at me with an expressionless face throughout the engagement ceremony. As if she wasn’t even interested in the current event at all, let alone in me.
She always kept a straight face. No, to be precise, she didn’t show a single change in her face in front of me.
As things progressed to that point, there was one thing I was able to realize even if I was dense as a stone wall—Sarah Cernard didn’t like Cain von Estel.
Yes, she had no interest in Cain von Estel. For her, being engaged to me was a kind of duty. She had no interest in the person called Cain von Estel, who she would be betrothed to.
Eventually, the relationship between the two of us broke down. To be a little more precise, the engagement broke up first before it broke down.
About five years ago from now (?), Count Cernard canceled my engagement to Sarah and changed her engagement to the Duke of Tournigen.
And so, she became a woman who left an indelible mark on my life, but at the same time she became a woman who would never appear again in my life.
Yes, she wasn’t supposed to…except for this moment where I was in a situation where I felt like I was back in the past.
“…Cain.”
I had never imagined that I would be reunited with her again in this way.
To be honest, seeing her face to face just made me feel uncomfortable. That’s what the world was like in the first place. If you happen to encounter the man or woman from your past again, all your thought would become a mess.
“Cain!”
I was able to come to my senses only when I heard Sarah call my name.
Her lapis lazuli-like blue eyes were staring straight at me, and her face was clearly younger than the last I remembered of her.
Only then did I become certain. I didn’t know if this was a dream or a fantasy, but it seemed clear to me that I was currently in the past. And, the time was about 10 years, when Sarah often visited the House of Estel.
“…were you sleeping? The sun is high up in the sky, but what are you doing? Even if it’s just a formal engagement, you know that I would be visiting today, so you should have come to greet me, and…”
“Sarah, you, what…”
“And what about that woman? Did you, by any chance, sleep with a woman? Even though you had a fiancée, you put another woman on you bed? Really?”
“…what?”
Confused, I instinctively looked around at Sarah’s incomprehensible words, and there she was…right next to me, I saw a woman with white hair who was soundly asleep!
“…..”
“…ugh.”
The white-haired woman sluggishly turned on the bed, perhaps because she found the bed quite uncomfortable. As I looked at the unfamiliar face of the woman, I felt a chill run down my back.
‘Not good!’
What the hell is this woman? And why is she lying on my bed?
I had many of such questions spinning inside my head.
However, I first had to deal with the fact that a mysterious white-haired woman was lying on my bed with Sarah standing right in front of me. Although I knew very well that I wasn’t guilty of anything, if someone who wasn’t aware of the truth saw it, there was a good chance that they would misunderstand.
Yes, something like what was happening right now.
“…Cain. I believed in you. Even though we were strangers that ended up getting engaged without even having any sort of communication, I thought that there was still a level of trust that we had to keep between each other. But looking at this, I realized that it must have been a simple misunderstanding on my part. To you, it must have seemed like I was an insignificant woman you could meet while there was another women lying on your bed.”
Seeing Sarah’s outburst, I cautiously open my mouth.
“Hey, Sarah…”
“What!?”
“Can I just say one thing?”
“What? Want to give an excuse?”
After saying that, Sarah snorted, then looked at me with a cold sneer on her face.
“Okay. Just say it. Surely it’ll not be a boring excuse that you don’t know this woman?”
“…..”
I felt there was no point in telling the truth that this white-haired woman really was someone I didn’t know. It was the first time I had ever felt that the world was so full of absurdities.
“Cain, I came here because I had something to say to you, but I guess today wasn’t the right time. I’ll be going back today. Oh, before doing that, there’s something else I want to tell you right now.”
Sarah looked at me with an extremely cold gaze and turned her head away from me.
“A man like you is really the worst!”
Thudd!
Saying that, Sarah slammed the door shut with a loud noise and left the place.
“…da*mn it.”
I thought it would be better if this was all a dream. That way, all the unreasonable things I was experiencing right now would just vanish in an instant.
And so, began a sh1tty day that could very easily be called the worst day of the entire week.
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