Chapter 09
Subtitle: The Proposal Ring I Cannot Offer—Now, I Wish for Your Happiness Instead
“A brass animal figurine, huh.”
The elephant-shaped ornament was so old and rusted it had taken on a greenish hue. Parts of it had been worn away completely.
“Is there really someone who needs this?”
Charmant recalled having seen something like it before.
It had been in a seaside village on the far western edge of Luintbel.
Most of the men there spent the majority of the year out at sea.
The women of the village would often buy small figurines like this one, praying for the safe return of their husbands.
She remembered how they would polish them daily and place them by the window.
Maybe it was because of those memories, but she could almost hear the sound of waves crashing in her ears.
“Hmm…?”
A faint vibration tickled her palm as she held the figurine—like the pulsing of mana.
Charmant focused her attention on the brass ornament.
In response, it began to hum, vibrating as if resonating with her mana.
Then, like watercolor bleeding into water, small drops of scenery began to fall, forming a blurred image of a beach.
She saw fierce waves crashing… and an unknown man and woman standing by the shore.
Before long, the large man vanished like mist, leaving only the woman behind, sorrowfully alone.
A gust of wind, cold as ice, blew through.
Even the woman’s figure faded, the mana wave ceased, and Charmant’s vision cleared.
“What… was that?”
It felt like she’d just experienced a hallucination.
She could still smell the salt of the sea.
“Was that… my power?”
Charmant blinked.
“I felt that woman’s heart. It was like falling endlessly off a cliff. It was unbearably cold and lonely.”
Though Charmant was no stranger to pain, the intensity of that emotion was almost too much to bear.
It was dizzying how deeply she’d been swept into those emotions in just a fleeting moment.
She returned the elephant figurine to its original spot.
Once it left her hand, it looked once again like nothing more than a tattered, old trinket.
Only then did the room full of antiques really catch her eye.
“Could each of these objects have memories?”
She had once heard in a fairy tale that objects, when aged enough, could gain souls—but she never believed it.
Yet thinking that way now, some of the strange rules she’d read were starting to make a little more sense.
“If they were just ordinary items anyone could buy or sell, there would be no need for such rules.”
Things that looked like they’d been dumped in from a junk shop suddenly appeared more meaningful.
Still, if these were such rare items, why leave them in this kind of disarray?
Despite the grand name Charmant’s Secret Antique Shop, the place looked more like a storage room.
Charmant found that disappointing. So, she started organizing what she could see—lining things neatly atop a drawer.
She wasn’t the type to enjoy cleaning.
Her room back when she was still Charmant Noël Kenders had been neat not because she was tidy, but because she barely owned anything.
In Luintbel, where the seasons were dominated by long winters and brief summers—spring and autumn almost nonexistent—she had only a few articles of clothing.
She had perhaps three or four more winter garments, but even so, her wardrobe never exceeded ten items.
A small bed just enough for one body, a wardrobe even smaller than the bed, a chair and table for working late into the night, a modest kitchen, and a tiny shoe rack by the front door.
It was so modest and bare, one would never guess it belonged to the Supreme Commander of the great empire of Luintbel.
Charmant had received enough from Rakan to practically sustain an entire nation.
And yet, none of it had ever truly felt like her own.
Even though she had followed him precisely to gain those things.
“…It’s all meaningless now.”
Perhaps, deep down, she had known things would turn out like this.
As she continued lining up the antiques, she found herself intrigued. She felt like she could do this all day and be content.
She picked up a small box containing a music box, dusted it off, and set it down. Just then, footsteps echoed behind her.
The careful, deliberate steps didn’t carry any hint of hostility. Charmant immediately sensed that a customer had arrived.
“Excuse me.”
She turned around at the voice and saw a tall man with long golden-blonde hair that gave off an innocent, wildflower-like impression, hesitating at the entrance.
With deep-set eyes, pale skin, a sharply contoured nose, a loose silk shirt, and high-quality dark brown trousers, he looked like a young master from some noble family.
Charmant took a deep breath and slowly lifted the corners of her lips. Then, she said the line she’d practiced for whenever a customer came.
“Welcome.”
After all, Charmant Pepé was known to speak informally to everyone.
The man visibly relaxed at her greeting and stepped inside.
“Hello. Looks like I found the right place.”
“Looking to buy something? Take your time browsing.”
She wasn’t allowed to recommend anything or discuss prices, so all she could offer was a simple introduction.
Saying it once made it easier the second time. Her voice didn’t tremble as it had at the start.
“Actually, I…”
“Yeah?”
As Charmant waited for his reply, the tall man pulled a small box from the inner pocket of his jacket and handed it to her.
“I heard you find new owners for items that have lost theirs. So I came.”
“Oh…”
So he was here to sell something.
Charmant quickly took the box he offered.
It was just the size to hold a small piece of jewelry.
Sure enough, when she opened it, there was a ring—flawless, not a scratch in sight.
Yet, it didn’t quite feel like an antique, but neither did it look newly purchased. Its color had faded a bit.
“May I… touch it?”
“Of course. I don’t need it anymore.”
The man smiled faintly as he said this—but the smile looked full of sorrow.
It seemed as though he might burst into tears at any moment, yet he smiled like sunlight.
Charmant, puzzled, picked up the ring from the box.
The moment it rested in her palm, her mana resonated with it, spreading like water.
Her vision blurred, and the man’s memories began to unfold.
He stood with a look of overwhelming joy on his face, gazing at someone.
“Eville!”
A woman with radiant, curly blonde hair threw herself into his arms.
Her tear-streaked face lifted, and she spoke with determination.
“Eville, let’s leave. Say you’ll take me away—right now.”
But before Charmant could even wonder what happened next, the scene flipped like a coin.
The woman who had begged him to run away was now wearing a wedding veil.
In another man’s arms.
Eville smiled as he looked at her, and she smiled back at someone else. Their eyes no longer met.
At that moment, a strange emotion forced its way into Charmant’s chest.
It felt like someone had stolen all the air from her lungs.
A surge of sorrow burned in her throat. She wanted to cry out like a wounded beast.
It felt like standing naked in a frozen wasteland.
Her vision blurred as time sped by in the illusion. A day, two days, a week, a year… seven years.
When the mana wave finally stopped, Charmant’s vision cleared. A single tear rolled from the corner of her eye.
“…Ah.”
Charmant met Eville’s gaze.
She carefully composed her feelings and realized—
“What was that? Was I… absorbed by his emotions?”
The depth of feeling was different from what she’d sensed with the elephant figurine.
This was his regret for letting go of the woman he loved, and perhaps fear of a future he could never reclaim.
“Seven years.”
Did it really take him seven years to let go of such torment?
And even now, he still held remnants of that sorrow in his eyes?
Though it wasn’t quite the same as the grief she’d just felt, Charmant had known pain of a similar weight.
“Then how long will it take for me to let go of mine?”
“Can this rage even be undone?”
“…Are you alright?”
The man asked, alarmed by her sudden tear.
Charmant snapped her head up as though jolted by cold water.
“Oh, just some dust. So—how much are you selling it for?”
She quickly hid her emotions and asked, pretending she hadn’t just seen everything.
The depth of what she’d felt was overwhelming, and she wanted to wrap things up quickly.
“Please just find someone better suited for it than me. Someone who can’t afford a ring, or whoever you think is right. I don’t need it anymore.”
