I thought it was far too bright a day to face death.
A perfectly fine body without even a cough. Was I really going to die today?
As nothing happened even until the party ended and we returned to the ducal estate, I began to grow anxious.
“I am sorry, Your Grace.”
The Founding Day was the biggest festival of the Kelletar Empire.
The streets of the Capital were packed with people. The carriage that Kalhan and I were riding could hardly move through the overflowing crowd.
“It seems we will have to take a different route.”
At the subordinate’s words asking for understanding, Kalhan fell into thought.
“Shall we turn the carriage around, Your Grace?”
“No. If we turn the carriage, we’ll only waste time unnecessarily.”
Kalhan, who had been seated, gave an order.
“Prepare horses on a side road. It would be better to ride than use the carriage.”
He stepped down from the carriage.
“Please get up, Hanna. It seems we will have to go on horseback.”
He said that at this rate, we might end up spending the night on the street. Since I somewhat agreed with that opinion, I followed Kalhan and got down from the carriage.
But once I was placed in the middle of the bustling crowd, I somehow grew uneasy.
Even with escort knights, it was common to have my shoulders bumped by people whose faces I didn’t even know.
“Let us go together.”
Mixed among the people, I couldn’t tell who was an escort knight and who was Kalhan.
To make matters worse, flower petals were even being thrown, making it hard to see.
So the moment I spotted Kalhan, I absentmindedly grabbed his sleeve.
I didn’t hold his hand, I really only grabbed his sleeve.
Of course, my fingertips lightly brushed the back of his hand.
“…!”
At that moment, Kalhan flinched and instinctively shook my hand off.
“I apologize. The party is already over, so you did not like me touching you, right?”
Embarrassed, I offered an apology to salvage the situation.
However, Kalhan didn’t answer at all. Instead, he had a flustered expression.
Maybe it was my imagination, but his neck and ears seemed slightly flushed.
‘Hmm. It must be my imagination. Kalhan being embarrassed makes no sense.’
“Now that I think about it, there is no need to act even here.”
He really did dislike me. I organized my thoughts as I looked at his face.
“There were so many people that I reached out without thinking. It would be a problem if you got lost, you know?”
“Me getting lost? That’s nonsense.”
“You never know, do you?”
Like cats bristling at each other in a territorial fight, the two of us used to be on edge with one another, but now we were somehow living while keeping a certain line.
Even so, it didn’t mean we had grown close.
We simply weren’t baring our fangs at each other anymore, but I still thought our relationship was bad.
“Is it far to the side road?”
Since I was going to leave anyway, there was no reason to grow close to Kalhan. So I passed the time exchanging light jokes with him.
A relationship where, even if we parted, we could let each other go coolly. Maybe that was exactly what we were.
“It’s not very far.”
Kalhan looked at me, who kept getting bumped by people, with an expression that somehow didn’t seem pleased.
“The crowd will only grow thicker as time passes. Let’s return quickly.”
It seemed he didn’t like that I was following at a distance. He made a reluctant expression and then took my hand.
Since we weren’t even close enough to hold hands comfortably, it was closer to our skin merely brushing against each other.
“Wow.”
But as I looked around, distracted by the sights, Kalhan tightened his weak grip.
Because I had possessed a terminally ill body, I hadn’t properly been able to look around outside until now. At most, I had only wandered near the estate in a carriage.
“Hanna.”
Kalhan lightly urged me as I stood there absentmindedly, busy looking around.
“I am sorry. But there is so much to see.”
To think that only on my last day could I finally look around the streets of the Capital.
“Come to think of it, is this not the first time the two of us have gone out together like this?”
“…It is.”
Everything kept catching my attention, so I felt excited like a child.
Seeing me smiling brightly, Kalhan, as if resigned, allowed me to look around for a while.
“Do you want to eat?”
At that moment, noticing that my gaze had lingered on the food stalls, Kalhan asked.
“Yes, yes! I would like to eat.”
“No.”
He refused with a refreshing smile.
“I only eat the finest.”
“Then why did you even ask?”
I had been neatly played again. Fuming, I protested to Kalhan.
“And who told you to eat? I can just eat by myself.”
“I refuse. I do not want to see you enjoying yourself.”
“…Wow, your personality is really something.”
“Thank you for the compliment.”
If there had been desserts over there, his thoughts would have changed. Despite appearances, Kalhan was a dessert fanatic.
He pretended otherwise, but he particularly loved desserts.
Even if he left other food unfinished, he would thoroughly finish desserts without leaving a single bite.
“Wait here for a moment.”
Once we left the central street, the crowd thinned somewhat. At least it was no longer enough to bump shoulders.
Kalhan briefly left, saying he would bring the horses. Left alone, I passed the time looking around the street.
Being mixed among the excited people somehow made me feel lifted as well.
It was different from sitting alone in one corner of the banquet hall earlier. Now, I didn’t feel like a ghost, but like I was mixed among people.
‘Oh?’
Suddenly, I saw two horses tied to a carriage stopped in front of a building. One looked fine, but the other kept stamping its feet and snorting as if something was uncomfortable.
Pushed by the crowd, I found myself only a step away from the horse.
The crowd suddenly surged, leaving no proper place to avoid it.
I stared blankly at the horse’s hooves. Maybe Hanna’s death on Founding Day wasn’t due to illness, but because she got caught in an accident?
It was when I was watching the agitated horse, lost in thought.
“Hanna.”
Kalhan gently pulled me.
“It is dangerous, so do not go close.”
“The horse looks uncomfortable.”
At my words, he glanced at the horse.
“It seems the horseshoe is bothering it. It looks dangerous, so do not go near it.”
“How can you tell so well from just a glance?”
“I have taken care of horses myself.”
Kalhan told me the name of his horse, Selillehi.
“On the battlefield, it is difficult to have a separate handler, so I simply learned horse care. And I personally delivered that one when it was born.”
“You delivered Selillehi yourself?”
“There was a small accident when it was born. I had no choice but to pull it out myself.”
Selillehi hadn’t received its mother’s protection since birth. So he said that he took care of it.
“I will show it to you next time. So let us head back now.”
Kalhan firmly warned me not to approach the horse carelessly.
***
After returning to the estate, I spent my time wrapped up in blankets under the pretense of being tired.
Every hour, I kicked off the blanket three or four times to check my condition.
Each time, I was perfectly fine.
No cough? It almost felt like my throat was tingling all of a sudden.
On the day of Founding Day, which was supposed to be the day Hanna Sestrain would die, time passed quickly, and before I knew it, it was close to midnight.
There were three minutes left before the date changed.
From the once-quiet clock came the sound announcing midnight. In the end, Founding Day had passed.
“What is this? What is this really?”
Hanna Sestrain, who was supposed to die on Founding Day, didn’t die. I couldn’t return to my original world.
When morning came, I immediately called for my attending physician, Jackie.
Jackie came running in a hurry. He seemed startled, thinking something had happened to me.
He looked puzzled at my complexion, which seemed better than expected, then checked my breathing and temperature, and his expression brightened.
“It is a relief that you are improving as time goes on.”
“Really?”
I grabbed him by both shoulders and asked. Jackie looked bewildered.
“Pardon?”
“I really got better? I became that healthy?”
“It is true that your condition has improved compared to before.”
At first, I didn’t believe his words. Hanna’s illness had long been known as something that couldn’t be cured.
There was no one in the Capital who didn’t know that she was terminally ill, and I also thought I wouldn’t live long.
For someone like that to suddenly improve made no sense.
“You said it was a disease that’s hard to cure. You said it was incurable! You said there was no hope!”
For me, who had only dreamed of the day I would return to my original life, this was like a bolt from the blue.
“Then how can my condition suddenly improve? It doesn’t make any sense!”
“P-Please calm down.”
Jackie, whose collar I had grabbed, choked. Then Jodin pulled my hand away.
“Can the illness be cured? Will I fully recover like this? Do I have to keep living here?”
I had thought that only when Hanna’s life ended could I return to where I came from. But what if Hanna survived like this? That meant I had to keep living here.
“Unlike the past when there was no hope, your condition has now improved. If you receive proper treatment, I believe a full recovery is not an empty hope.”
“With such a frail and delicate body, how can I become healthy? What if it suddenly gets worse like this?”
Maybe Hanna wasn’t meant to die on this Founding Day after all.
Founding Day came around once every year. Then that meant I would have another chance next year.
‘…No. No matter how I think about it, that’s not right.’
It was clearly said that Hanna would die before even completing a full year of married life.
“The reason you could not receive proper treatment until now is because you have been extremely frail and lacked stamina, Madam.”
“Then doesn’t that mean I still can’t receive treatment now?”
“You can now. Your stamina has improved enough that we can prescribe stronger medicine, so if you are managed consistently, a full recovery is also possible.”
“That means…”
With a trembling voice, I tried to make sense of the current situation.
‘I have to keep living here?’
I was horrified by the reality I couldn’t believe.
