Chapter 91
I had wondered about this from time to time.
After regressing and living a second life, would I remember what had happened in the first?
And the answer was…
“No.”
Of course not.
If I had retained the harrowing memories of my previous life, there was no way I could have acted so brazenly in front of Ardel.
It was absurd. Was that really the same person I had been in my first life?
Just why had I changed so much?
While I was mulling over these questions, the dream began to move faster, flipping past events as if someone were rapidly turning the pages of a book.
The early part was mostly about me innocently trailing after Ardel.
At first, Ardel had been clearly annoyed, but as time went on, perhaps growing accustomed to it, he began to enjoy exchanging trivial jokes with me.
“Looks like you’ve come to admire my abs again today?”
He would say things like that when he caught me sneaking into his training grounds.
“Wasn’t my body what you liked most? I don’t know why your eyes keep wandering elsewhere.”
…Or he would toss out cringeworthy jokes like those.
Still, thanks to that, it felt as though in my second life I grew close to him very quickly.
‘But then… why did the second life fail?’
I could be this shameless. If I’d just kept pushing with that same attitude, couldn’t I have brazenly gone through with killing him?
The reason appeared not long after.
The problem erupted when envoys from the Kingdom of Blanchet came to visit.
It may have been natural, but the head of the delegation was someone other than my father.
There was no way to know whether Kaiden had come along on that visit as well.
Thanks to the foolish head envoy, our rebellion was exposed in the process of him delivering my father’s message to me.
The second life—into which I had poured so much effort to win Ardel over to my side—collapsed in an instant, utterly hollow.
We were exposed on the spot, leaving no room for excuses and no escape for me. I ended up being thrown into prison along with the entire delegation.
‘…So this is how I was executed, and then regressed.’
I was thinking that as I slumped down onto the cold stone floor.
That was when Ardel came to see me in my solitary cell.
He looked utterly exhausted. Dark circles shadowed his eyes, his hair and clothes were in complete disarray as if he hadn’t rested at all, his gaze sharper and more feral than usual, and his expression weighed down with anguish.
The me of the second life might not have known, but watching all of this unfold through the dream, I felt apologetic toward him before anything else.
Just imagining how much distress he must have gone through because of me…
‘I really am… like the only stain on Ardel’s otherwise perfect life.’
Well, that was true, so I had nothing to say in my defense.
Perhaps having given up after everything was exposed, “I” didn’t rise from my seat even when Ardel arrived, simply watching him in silence.
Ardel stared down at me with an unreadable expression, then slowly opened his mouth.
“…Do you have no intention of explaining yourself?”
“……”
“Say something, at least.”
“……”
“Tell me I’m mistaken. Say you didn’t mean it. At the very least, make some excuse—say it wasn’t your will, that you had no choice.”
Ardel was practically begging me.
Gripping the iron bars, he slid down to the floor. In an instant, our eyes were level.
We never once looked away from each other.
And because of that, I could tell.
They say love blinds a person—and in that life, Ardel was still in love with me.
He was in denial. Even though he knew everything, even though he knew I would never answer him, he couldn’t bring himself to give up on me.
“Are you… perhaps angry?”
…What was he even talking about now?
“Right, that must be it. Your husband dragged you straight to prison without even asking for an explanation. That’s why you’re angry, isn’t it?”
“……”
Even at his nonsense, “my” lips stayed tightly sealed.
“I had no choice. You know that too. No matter if you’re the Empress, treason means execution.”
Of course I knew. If anything, I was the one who should have been apologizing, not him.
An emperor of the empire pleading like this with a traitor—what an absurd sight.
“In your case, the evidence was far too clear. And during the investigation, we found not just one or two proofs of Blanchet’s betrayal. By the law, you should be executed.”
“……”
“But… I’ll spare you.”
“…!”
For the first time, “I” wavered at those words.
Ardel’s expression was agonized. As the emperor of the empire, he was making a choice he never should have made.
More than anyone, he understood what happened when you left loose ends behind. That was why, upon ascending the throne, he had killed everyone around him—his own relatives included—enduring the stigma of being called a tyrant.
And yet, he was saying he would spare me?
“…Does that even make sense?”
“I” blurted out.
It seemed the me of that time was thinking the same thing I was now.
“I know. I know I’m not in my right mind right now. But—”
“You never should have trusted me in the first place. You should’ve stayed wary, suspicious—just like you always did.”
“…The fact that I don’t mind you speaking so informally tells me I really am out of my mind.”
“Ha.”
Letting out a sigh, “I” coldly declared,
“You know what choice I’ll make.”
“……”
“Go back.”
If I lived thanks to Ardel’s mercy, someday I might get another chance to stab him in the back.
If I died, I’d have to repeat this wretched life all over again, so maybe that would be the better option.
But…
I felt like I understood how the me of the second life felt. She must have decided that it would be better to wash away the sins of her second life through execution and move on to a third.
Whether such a thing could truly atone for her sins was another matter.
And then, time passed once more.
In the end, I was not executed.
Because war broke out.
Since things had come to this, Blanchet chose war.
As a result, the anti-empire alliance had to join the conflict sooner than planned, and amid the chaos, there was no one left to carry out my execution.
I was simply left behind in prison.
Then, one dawn, Ardel came to see me again.
Judging by his fully armed appearance, he seemed to have come to see me before heading to the battlefield.
He walked straight toward me and opened the prison door.
“War has broken out. There’s no one left to execute you now, so go wherever you wish.”
“…Pardon?”
“I mean it. Go anywhere. Somewhere that won’t catch my eye.”
It was absurd. Where exactly did he think I could go from here?
But “I” seemed to think differently. Smiling faintly at the merciful Ardel, she said,
“Thank you.”
Then she strode a few steps away, and—
Screech—
With the sound of metal slicing through the air, a sword had appeared in my hand, aimed straight at Ardel.
There was no way Ardel hadn’t noticed the movement. Yet he offered no resistance, merely gazing at me calmly.
“…If we must go to war anyway, this kind of ending isn’t so bad.”
“What are you—!”
Strength surged into “my” hand. I raised the sword high, as if to strike—
“Ugh…!”
Once again, in this life too, the tip of the blade turned toward me.
“Justia—!!”
Ardel cried out in horror as he caught my collapsing body.
Writhing in pain, I closed my eyes.
It wasn’t surprising. I had expected this. I had chosen suicide even in my first life, and there was no way I could ever kill Ardel.
In this life as well, I probably…
As my vision darkened into pitch black, a familiar notification window appeared.
[<System> Quest Failed!
You have failed the quest you were required to complete as the protagonist.
As a failure penalty, you will regress to the beginning.]
‘Ha…’
With a sigh, the wedding scene unfolded before my eyes once more.
The cold exchange during the ceremony, and even the conversation before our first night together.
All of it flowed by again at high speed.
Just when it felt as though none of it stirred any emotion in me anymore,
Another realization struck.
Even in the dream of my third life, my first night with Ardel had taken place without the system’s intervention.
Which meant I had failed in the third life as well…
And that the me of now was, at the very least, living my fourth life.
