“M-Madam… it’s… over…”
I knew it was only a dream, and that this was merely replaying the moment Rosie died, but how could I possibly not cry out when seeing this moment.
It hurt deeply, but I didn’t want to change this scene into something else.
‘It’s been such a long time since I’ve seen Rosie, even if only in a dream.’
Every attempt I had made to summon her into my dreams had failed.
It seemed that while I could change the environment or circumstances within a dream, I couldn’t freely bring forth someone who didn’t exist in this world.
‘Because Rosie doesn’t exist in this life.’
So being able to see her, even in a scene like this, made my heart feel like it was tearing apart, yet at the same time, I was glad.
Holding the child’s body, which was growing cold, tightly in my arms, I cried and whispered to her.
“Rosie… my Rosie… I’ve missed you… I’m so sorry for everything…”
Unlike that moment in reality, Rosie’s face, her eyes closed as if asleep, looked peaceful.
When I woke from the dream, which was both sorrowful and happy, the corners of my eyes were damp.
Perhaps because my emotions had been so intense, it seemed I had actually cried in my sleep.
As I absentmindedly rubbed my eyes, I suddenly realized that Rastan was sitting up, watching me, and I flinched in surprise.
“Ah, you startled me. Were you not sleeping?”
Pressing a hand to my chest, I sat up following him, but Rastan’s expression as he looked at me in silence was strange.
“What is it? Why are you looking at me like that? …Ah.”
I remembered that I had just wiped away my tears, and deliberately lifted the corners of my lips.
“It is nothing. I just had a sad dream.”
I smiled lightly to show that it was only a dream, but Rastan’s expression didn’t soften easily, as if he were thinking deeply about something.
“Oh come on. Why are you—?”
“Who is Rosie?”
At the direct question, my breath stopped.
“…W-what? What do you mean…?”
“Just now, you were calling that name while crying.”
‘Oh no.’
Realizing it too late, I bit my lip. It seemed I had not only cried, but had spoken in my sleep. And of all times, Rastan had woken up and heard it.
“Well, it was a dream, so I do not really remember…”
I tried to brush it off vaguely, but for some reason, unlike usual, Rastan didn’t let it pass so easily.
“That is a lie. You were crying very sorrowfully while calling that name. That means it was not a meaningless dream you simply passed through.”
Previously, while having tea together, I had casually told Rastan what my dreams were like.
Most people have multiple meaningless and nonsensical dreams in a single night. Most of them didn’t remain in memory after waking, merely fragmented pieces of memory or imagination.
But in my case, since I could move my dreams myself, most of them unfolded as proper, coherent situations.
Rastan was pointing that out now.
Without realizing it, I avoided his gaze, and he gently held my chin, making me look at him.
“…Perhaps.”
For some reason, I had the impression that he was hesitating slightly over whether or not to ask this question. But soon, he met my eyes directly and asked.
“Is it the name of a young girl?”
“…!”
I was so shocked that my breath stopped for a moment. Soon after, my head rang sharply, as if I had been struck hard.
My face must have been filled with shock, but I couldn’t even think to control my expression.
He had asked a question, so I should have answered, yet I couldn’t even recall that I needed to respond, and simply stood there with my mouth slightly open in a daze.
Watching my reaction carefully, Rastan delivered the decisive blow in a calm voice.
“Black hair, blue eyes with a mysterious hue, a thin and pale child. Around seven years old, but smaller and thinner than others her age.”
“…”
I even began to wonder if I was still dreaming.
As my gaze grew blank with shock, Rastan’s expression became even more strange.
“So I was right.”
I gave up trying to make excuses any longer. He was describing Rosie’s appearance exactly, so any further denial would only make me look foolish.
“How… are you describing her as if you have seen her? That should not be possible…”
My voice trembled so badly that even to my own ears, it sounded weak.
His answer was simple.
“Because I saw her.”
“What?”
Did he have the ability to look into my dreams?
‘Or… had I unknowingly used Rosie’s image within Rastan’s dream?’
I hurriedly tried to search through my memories, but the words that came from his mouth were completely unexpected.
“Was it about a year ago? In my trading company’s office.”
“…”
I stopped breathing again. I thought I knew what time he was referring to.
It was several months before I died in my previous life, when I was still interacting with Rastan.
‘I had gone into the city with Rosie, and since I had business with Rastan’s trading company, we stopped by briefly together.’
Rastan was clearly talking about that moment.
“How… how?”
Rastan stared at my violently trembling pupils, then murmured as if he couldn’t believe it.
“Truly… you also remember your past.”
“W-what do you mean, I also…?”
I couldn’t understand at all what he was saying.
“I do not know how it happened either.”
Rastan took my hand, which had begun trembling at some point, and brought it toward himself.
As his large, warm hand wrapped around mine, the trembling eased slightly.
“It was about half a year ago. On a winter day when heavy snow was falling, you came here, in front of the ducal estate, and breathed your last in my arms…”
His eyes, which had become distant as if looking far away, soon twisted in pain.
“I remained there for a long time, holding you, in a shock that felt as if my mind had shattered.”
It became certain that the Rastan from that time and the Rastan before me now shared the same memories.
As I listened in stunned silence, the fact that he had been deeply shocked because of me suddenly struck painfully in my heart.
At that time, I had been dying, so naturally I had no room to observe my surroundings or think of him.
But now, looking back, I felt that I had wronged him.
“…I am sorry. For showing you something you should not have had to see.”
He had always been kind to me, yet instead of repaying him, I had left after showing him something he should never have had to witness.
However, in Rastan’s eyes as he looked at me, there was no trace of blame or resentment.
All I could feel from him was pure, heartfelt affection.
“No. If you had not come to me and had instead died alone somewhere in that snowy field, and I had learned of it only afterward, it would have broken my heart far more.”
Rastan tightened his grip on my hand.
“Because you came to me instead, I was grateful.”
Rather than resenting me, he had been grateful.
At that unexpected confession, the corners of my eyes grew hot, and my throat tightened instantly.
“…”
Rastan tightened his warm hand around mine a little more.
But what he said next was strange.
“I had been standing there in the snow, completely out of my senses. Then, in the next moment, I suddenly found myself sitting in my office, wearing different clothes. And you, whom I had been holding, were nowhere to be found.”
“What? Suddenly…?”
“When I checked the date, it was a day two years before that moment.”
Two years… that was the same point in time when I had returned. But what did he mean by saying it happened suddenly like that.
“I, I do not really understand. You are saying you went back to the past, but that it was not something you did? I mean… you are not an ordinary person.”
If time had been reversed, I had assumed it must have been done by Rastan, a being with immense power.
But he quietly shook his head.
“I do possess the ability to turn back time. However, it is something strictly forbidden, and not something a demon diligently accumulating good deeds would do.”
“What happens if you do something forbidden…?”
“Not only would all of the efforts I have made until now turn to nothing, but even my original abilities would be sealed, and I would suffer forever at the very bottom of hell.”
Because of that, he said that among the few demons who possessed such an ability, none had ever carried it out.
“And more importantly… it happened before I had even considered turning back time, while I was still in shock from your death.”
Who in the world could have done something that even a Demon God wouldn’t dare to do lightly?
Someone who possessed immense power, and who would commit forbidden acts without hesitation.
