Chapter 113
“Mm……”
When I opened my eyes, I groaned softly and pushed myself upright.
Judging from the sharp throbbing headache, this was clearly reality, but the place I was in was not the prince’s palace.
Where am I?
In a space that was nothing but white in every direction, only the bed I had been lying on sat alone.
The only other noticeable thing was a single door visible in the distance.
“…Should I try going there?”
Carefully getting off the bed, I walked barefoot across the soft, sandy ground.
This feels strange.
I was wearing nothing but a thin piece of cloth, yet I felt neither cold nor warm.
My feet felt unnaturally light, as if there were no gravity at all, so I decided to think of this as a vivid dream.
What was I doing before I fell asleep?
It felt like I had forgotten something important, but it wouldn’t come to mind.
That strange sensation grew stronger the closer the white door in the distance became.
With every step, I slowly forgot who I was.
And finally, when I stood before the door floating in midair and grasped its handle—
Someone appeared behind me and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t go in there yet, Lady Ishtar.”
“Ishtar?”
“Yes. That is your name in this world.”
It felt as though cold water had been poured over my head.
My goodness… did I even forget my own name?
No matter how much this was a dream, that was strange.
I stared at the man before me in a daze.
“Aziz.”
“That’s right. That is my name. Do you remember everything now?”
Still confused, I held my aching head.
Before falling asleep, I had definitely been in the prince’s palace.
And together with Aziz, I had been treating Suleiman.
When all my memories finally came rushing back, I grabbed his collar.
“Oh my goodness, Aziz. We have to go back quickly. We need to check whether Suleiman has truly recovered—”
“Lord Suleiman is safe. The healing went well, so he will regain consciousness soon.”
“…Really?”
“Of course. Please believe me.”
Phew.
At Aziz’s confident answer, I let out a sigh of relief.
Now calmer, I looked around and asked him,
“But where is this place? I’ve never seen anything like it before… though somehow it feels a little familiar.”
“You could call it a dimension between the mortal world and the heavens. You have been here with me once before, Lady Ishtar. Though you don’t remember.”
“I came here with you?”
“Yes. It is a place one must pass through to go to another world.”
“Another world… You say that as if I’ve been to the world I used to live in.”
I looked at him with curiosity, but Aziz only smiled without elaborating.
With a sigh, I changed the subject.
“Then why did we come here? When can we go back?”
“If you’re worried about reality, there’s no need. While we remain in the rift between dimensions, time over there is stopped.”
“That’s a relief, but… that doesn’t answer my question.”
“……”
After a moment of silence, Aziz quietly looked at me and spoke.
“You will be able to return soon, Ishtar.”
“Then what about you—?”
“As for me…”
Aziz stopped there and reached out his hand toward me.
At that moment, the tips of his fingers turned transparent and began to scatter like grains of sand.
“Aziz…!!”
Startled, I hurried to grab his hand.
No—at least, I tried to.
But my hand passed uselessly through the air.
He looked at me in my panic and smiled faintly.
Then he said something unbelievable.
“It’s about time I reached my limit. I pushed myself a bit because I wanted to say goodbye to you.”
“Goodbye? What do you mean by that?!”
Unable to contain my agitation, I grabbed his arm and shook him.
His arm, slowly becoming transparent, felt strangely soft, nothing like a human’s.
As despair seized me and I staggered back, he chuckled lightly.
“I mean it literally. When you return to reality, I will already be gone. This will be our last meeting.”
“Don’t lie to me, Aziz. This is all just a dream… right?”
“No. It’s the truth.”
He spoke of his own disappearance as if it were nothing.
I didn’t know whether to be angry or sad.
Is it because he gave me all his divine power earlier? Did I… cause his death?
The thought struck me suddenly, and my legs gave out as darkness clouded my vision.
Aziz supported my unsteady body and smiled bitterly.
“I’m sorry, Ishtar. This was decided from the moment we met. It is never your fault.”
“How… how could you do something like this without telling me? You could have at least explained.”
Silent tears streamed down my cheeks.
He wiped them away with his sleeve.
“I won’t ask you to understand me. It was all my selfish choice—bringing you to this world, and disappearing like this.”
My eyes widened in shock.
So my reincarnation here was all because of Aziz?
As I stood speechless, he continued in a calm tone.
“Shall I tell you a short, boring story from long ago?”
He snapped his fingers, and a chair appeared.
After seating me, Aziz slowly began.
“Once, there was a man. For a very long time, he lived without knowing emotion or love. Like a puppet of the gods, he simply carried out the tasks given to him.”
Swallowing hard, I looked at him.
For the first and last time, he was telling me his story.
“Then, during those dull years, the man met a woman. Only after meeting her did he realize his reason for existence.”
“You mean… the woman who was a saintess?”
At the word saintess, Aziz’s shoulders trembled slightly.
Even after so much time, pain was vividly reflected in his eyes.
“That’s right. But the time granted to them was far too short.”
“Aziz…”
When I looked at him with pity, he clenched his fists tightly.
“The man was angry. He had devoted his entire life to God, yet God took her away. In this world, she was the only thing he had…”
He lowered his head, unable to continue, then laughed bitterly.
“As you’ve guessed, that man was me. But I could do nothing. Not even when she was dying.”
“Aziz, it wasn’t your fault.”
“But I couldn’t forgive myself. So I went to another world to find someone who could free me from this cycle of time. That person was you—Sehee.”
“Then you were…?”
“Yes. The cat you were raising. At the moment you died, I guided you to this place.”
My goodness.
Shocked, I held my forehead and muttered,
“So that’s why you and Suleiman never got along.”
“I was jealous of your new attendant. At first, my memories of your world were vague, but almost instinctively, I came to dislike Lord Suleiman.”
He shrugged and laughed lightly.
The dark expression from before was nowhere to be found on Aziz’s smiling face.
“I truly thank you, Ishtar. Now, in the kingdom, there will no longer be saintesses who must die for God, nor mysterious priests who never age. Thanks to you, I have finally become free.”
“I didn’t do anything for you…”
The one who helped me live a new life.
The one who let me meet the person I love.
My cat, who stayed by my side until the very end of my miserable previous life.
Now I truly had to part with him.
What could I give him?
“Being with you was already a great gift to me, Ishtar.”
Leaving a gentle kiss on my forehead, he slowly scattered into the wind.
His body is disappearing completely…
I watched his final moments with a heavy heart.
Fortunately, Aziz would not walk his final path alone.
From afar, a familiar woman was approaching.
“Ashtar.”
Dragging her long dress as she glided forward, the goddess gently embraced the fading Aziz.
An atmosphere surrounded them that made it hard to intrude.
Only then did I instinctively realize the connection between the goddess Ashtar and the woman Aziz had loved—the saintess.
“Rest peacefully, Aziz.”
He seemed to move his lips slightly, then closed his eyes with an expression of peace I had never seen before.
Holding a small, orb-like soul in her arms, the goddess spoke to me.
“In the kingdom that has lost its guardian, a great time of change will come. Ishtar, please lend them your strength.”
“Me? I can’t become someone like Aziz.”
“You don’t need to become anyone else. Just live as yourself. If you endure everything, you will enjoy a complete human life.”
“Does that mean… I can return to being human?”
“Yes. A real human.”
The moment the goddess finished speaking, darkness fell like a curtain around us.
The brilliant white space was instantly dyed pitch-black.
“Sometimes foolish, sometimes doing well… but you will be able to be happy. Live strongly, Ishtar.”
As she disappeared—
My vision went dark.
