CHAPTER 18………………………………….
She thought that memories of the past were better than memories of the present. But that didn’t mean the past was filled only with good things.
The happy, peaceful days passed quickly. As Zhenya watched the once-beautiful royal palace crumble into ruins under the assault of the demon race, she muttered,
“We can’t skip this memory, can we?”
Vine silently nodded. He wasn’t oblivious—he understood well enough what kind of situation this was.
Leaving behind the knights who were being helplessly overwhelmed by the demons, Zhenya followed Astria, who was being pulled along by people as they fled.
A naïve child who, even while running in terror with her parents’ hands tightly clasped, never once thought her parents might die.
As the number of knights dwindled and the servants’ screams drew frighteningly close,
Astria was forcibly shoved into a secret passage by her parents’ hands.
Well, what followed was a story as old as time. Parents sacrificing themselves to protect their young daughter, and the child surviving.
[Remember the prophecy. No matter what happens, you must survive!]
With the image of her parents forcing a smile beyond the closing door, Zhenya’s memories began to reconstruct themselves once more.
I really don’t want to show what comes after this.
Just thinking about how it would lay bare her life after losing her parents—becoming a burden no one wanted—irritated her.
Count Vine wasn’t particularly talkative, but it didn’t seem like he’d keep his mouth shut even in front of the Demon King…
“Wait. Something’s strange.”
Despite Vine’s grave tone, Zhenya remained unimpressed.
The scenery rapidly collapsing around them was something that had repeated every time one memory ended and another was pulled up, so it didn’t seem all that unusual.
“What is?”
But then Zhenya spotted a large hole right behind him. And before she could even warn him, something burst out of it and hurled Count Vine out through the hole.
Zhenya stared blankly at the hole where Count Vine had disappeared, eyes wide, then lifted her head at the sound of someone calling her name.
“Zhenya.”
The one who had suddenly appeared and thrown Count Vine out of the hole was someone she had never expected to see here.
Zhenya asked with a stupid look on her face,
“…Why are you here?”
Why is the hero here?
How did he get in here? He should be in his room. No—she had expected him to wander around while she was gone, but still, what is that getup?
Seeing his face wrapped tightly in knit fabric made her feel short of breath.
Don’t tell me he walked around outside like that? Is that supposed to be a disguise?
Sure, it looked like he could see and breathe, but the disguise itself was unbelievably sloppy.
And what happened to Count Vine?
Her thoughts were a mess when the hero called her again.
“Zhenya.”
Zhenya ran a hand roughly through her hair in disbelief. There was no need to get overly excited. The hero must have had some kind of plan. So she shouldn’t badger him or interrogate him unnecessarily.
“Fine, questions can wa—”
“It seemed dangerous.”
Zhenya, who had been forcing herself to accept the situation, fell silent. The hero continued.
“I had a bad feeling. I was worried something might happen…”
So was this the same kind of situation as that day he’d shown up covered in blood?
She didn’t know what he was trying to ask for or what information he was digging up that made him go to such lengths. If his identity were exposed, wouldn’t any plan he had fall apart completely?
Especially since Leraje—who had seen the hero before—was outside this mirror. Suppressing her anxiety, Zhenya tried to speak gently.
“Thank you for worrying. But how did you get in here? I mean… this is probably inside a mirror.”
Did he kill someone? But that didn’t seem likely—his body and clothes were too neat. As Zhenya slightly furrowed her brow, he answered.
“I just came straight in. I was told you were inside.”
Inside—that meant he’d spoken with either Leraje or Beris. And neither of them stopped a hero dressed that suspiciously?
“The other demons didn’t stop you?”
“No.”
“You met them dressed like that?”
She was really asking if no one had detained him after seeing him like that.
“I don’t think they recognized me.”
Really? She couldn’t believe it at all, but there was nothing she could do about it right now.
Zhenya sighed and nodded vaguely, then narrowed her eyes.
“You’re talking again? I thought you weren’t going to open your mouth anymore.”
Did talking with the hero always come with a threat to her life?
“……”
Judging by the lack of response, that didn’t seem like a wrong assumption. It was terribly inefficient—to face that kind of danger just for a few words. Letting out a scoff, Zhenya looked around.
“Well, we can talk about that later. What happened to Count Vine? The demon who was with me.”
She asked without much hope of an answer, but thankfully, the hero spoke.
“He probably went out through the gap I came in through.”
At the joy of having made him talk—and the hunch that there might be an exit—Zhenya’s eyes sparkled.
“Can we get out that way too?”
But her hope quickly died.
“That seems impossible. The magical power inside is stronger than outside.”
The tiny flame of hope was snuffed out in an instant, and Zhenya’s face twisted. If that were the case, she wished they could have all left together instead of only Vine.
“Then what are you planning to do now?”
“……”
The hero silently swept his gaze across the surrounding space. Seeing him look around as if searching for something, it didn’t seem like he would be completely useless.
After all, he had confidently entered the mirror to save her—surely he hadn’t come without a plan.
Having calmed her impatience, Zhenya followed his gaze, looking at the surroundings as they slowly began to take shape. Still, it was better for the hero to see her memories than for Count Vine to do so.
Honestly, she didn’t want to show Vine the life she’d lived after losing her family to the demon race.
It’s pathetic.
She was relieved she didn’t have to show how powerless she’d been, how utterly broken she’d become.
Of course, she wasn’t thrilled about showing these memories to the hero either—but at least he was human, like her…
He must have seen many humans like this before.
There were plenty of people in the human world who shared a similar fate, so it wasn’t something to be deeply ashamed of. And maybe, after seeing her past, the hero would step up more proactively.
“Count Vine said that if we follow the memories the mirror shows, we’ll find a solution.”
As the surroundings became clearer, the hero, who had moved to stand beside her, asked,
“Whose memories are these?”
“Mine. And at this point…”
Zhenya looked at her childhood self, who appeared before the background did.
“…I was constantly watching my step.”
Astria at ten years old, having lost her parents and survived alone.
“My parents died, and my hometown was destroyed, so I stayed with relatives for a while.”
Zhenya spoke as if making excuses. No matter how much she told herself it was fine, that it wasn’t so bad, it was still an embarrassing memory to show someone else.
Back then, she hadn’t fully accepted her situation and refused to understand how suddenly everything around her had changed.
As she steeled herself while waiting for the background to fully appear, Zhenya’s eyes widened at the scene that emerged.
“Well… I guess we’re lucky. It looks like a lot of time has passed.”
It really had. She had expected to see memories from when she was staying at her relatives’ house.
Perhaps because the hero had barged in, or perhaps because the mirror never intended to show that memory in the first place—her memories had jumped to the moment she was leaving for the temple.
Astria sat inside a luxurious carriage.
“Well, this isn’t exactly a fun memory either.”
Relieved that the absolute worst period—the one she most wanted to hide—hadn’t appeared, she finally had the leeway to look around.
Zhenya lifted her head and glanced at the hero. It was hard to see because of that damned knit wrap, but it looked like his eyes had widened slightly.
When their gazes met, the hero’s lips twitched.
“…Is that Zhenya?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re really Zhenya?”
At his disbelief, Zhenya looked back at Astria.
“I think I grew up pretty much the same.”
It wasn’t like her current face had no trace of her younger self left. More like, if you saw it, you’d think, Ah, so that’s what she was like as a kid.
In that case—
“The clothes are a bit flashy, right?”
She had still been a princess back then, so her clothes were adorned with plenty of jewels.
Even now, she earned enough money that she didn’t wear cheap clothes. But unlike the past, when she favored bright colors and jewel-studded outfits, she now preferred high-quality garments in muted tones.
Come to think of it, he doesn’t know I used to be a princess.
The hero had suddenly barged into magic itself. Still, it felt ridiculous to announce with her own mouth that she had once been a princess.
“Well, my relatives weren’t exactly poor either.”
Especially on that day, when she was leaving for the temple, she’d dressed far more extravagantly than usual—more like a ball gown than everyday wear.
Recalling her uncle’s face as he said his final farewell to her that day, Zhenya twisted the corner of her lips.
“He probably didn’t want people talking, so he dressed me up more than usual.”
Even so, her appearance hadn’t changed enough to be truly unbelievable. When she looked at the hero as if to ask whether he agreed, he hesitated, his lips moving slightly.
As he continued to dither, Zhenya tried to change the subject—only for their words to overlap.
“…By any chance, was the temple where Zhenya stayed Tasan—”
“Ah, we’re stopping.”
