CHAPTER 76…………………………..
There are moments one wishes they could return to, over and over.
If you asked Adrina when that moment was, she would choose it without hesitation.
The moment she spent in prison, waiting alone for the day of her death.
What exactly had gone wrong? She often thought about it at the time.
Her wish was nothing grand. She simply wanted to be loved.
That was all she truly wanted.
In the pitch-black darkness, unable to see even an inch ahead, Adrina screamed alone, stretching her hands forward.
She could not endure without grasping something.
But all that welcomed her outstretched hands was the cold metal of the prison bars.
She clenched them tightly.
The sharp scent of iron mixed with a stale stench stung her nose.
She could not tell if it was the smell of blood or of metal.
Perhaps it was both.
But she had no time to care about such things.
She missed him. She needed to see him.
Kalak…!
The man who had never smiled at her.
Still, she liked the rare moments of his honesty.
After days spent thinking about him, she realized she loved him deeply.
But in retrospect, her feelings had been too extreme.
In the end, she perished like this without even receiving a single gesture from him.
She laughed.
“Ahahaha!”
She could not stop laughing at her own pathetic self.
She tore at her once-praised silver hair until it was a mess.
Her scalp protested in pain, but it was nothing compared to the grief lodged deep inside.
Why were you so foolish? Why so naïve?
She reproached herself, but the grim reality did not change one bit.
She regretted, regretted, and regretted again in that prison, blaming herself.
My life… I…!
“What have I lived for?”
Her sobs, unheard by anyone, echoed through the silent prison.
Tears streamed endlessly.
What went wrong? Where did it all go wrong?
…Was it just me who was wrong?
And so, is this how it ended?
I don’t want to die… I want to see him again…
She no longer wished for love. But she wanted to apologize, even once, to the one who suffered because of her.
Even if he never loved her again…
It was then that a demon came to her.
“You look troubled.”
A guard? Through her tear-blurred vision, she saw a pale figure.
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand.
It was not a guard.
“Who are you?”
To that question, the man answered:
“Me? I’m the one who’ll make your wish come true.”
Looking back, she wondered if he had even been human.
The one thing she knew for certain was that the demon had reached out to her.
The demon asked again:
“Well? Shall I help you?”
“Why would you help me?”
“Just for fun, maybe? I think you’d be entertaining.”
As absurd as his words were, Adrina did not ask further.
She had no time, and she figured it didn’t matter what the reason was.
She simply wanted to escape from the guilt and mistakes she had caused. The process did not matter.
So who cared whether it was a demon or anything else?
When she reached out and took the demon’s hand,
time itself turned back.
On top of that, she gained a strange new power.
Neutral Attribute.
It was hard not to feel joy, yet she also felt a bitter tinge.
Why only now…?
She knew this attribute well because it had once been the one she had desperately wished for.
At the time, she had dismissed it as legend.
Excited by the attribute for only a brief moment, she soon abandoned it.
Because she had acted, many, including him, had met with disaster.
She considered herself a sin.
So this time, she vowed to do nothing.
Adrina decided that. Yet not loving him was far too difficult.
Perhaps it had been inevitable.
Back then, every moment had been so blissful that she had not even considered what would come after.
Her uncontrolled power had ultimately led the man she loved to death.
When she fell into despair again, he returned.
“So? Did your wish come true?”
The demon had returned.
Flash.
“Ugh… gasp…!”
Adrina woke, panting and trembling.
The dreamscape blurred with the room around her, and she slowly became aware of reality.
Sweeping her sweat-soaked hair back, she muttered:
“It was… just a dream.”
More precisely, it was what she had experienced in the past, a past no one now remembered.
Just as she tried to rise, a twisting pain gripped her chest.
“Ugh…”
She clutched her chest and curled up.
The pain, which seemed it might last, gradually subsided.
Adrina got up immediately and went to the table.
A bottle of medicine awaited her.
She took the pills and swallowed them with water.
As they passed down her throat, the instability in her body calmed.
Perhaps the dream she had just had was a warning directed at her.
“I cannot delay any longer.”
Her blue eyes shone coldly.
The letter had come from Adrina herself.
Now that she remembered, Adrina had said she would contact me upon arriving in the capital. I had been too distracted and forgotten.
I tore open the envelope and read the letter.
The contents were simple.
She thanked me for my help the other day and asked if, when I had time, we could meet at a café she knew, where we could enjoy something delicious.
Looking back, I realized that during my stay here, I had never had a personal meeting with anyone.
Not an informal meeting—an official one, I meant.
“Somehow, this is exciting…”
And the person in question was the heroine herself.
I immediately pulled out stationery from my drawer. Just as I was about to write the first line, my pen froze.
Hmm… would Cidheron allow it?
“Even if he says no, I’ll find a way to go.”
I could almost hear Cidheron’s voice in my head, warning me I couldn’t go anywhere.
“Well, a short outing shouldn’t be a problem!”
Besides, judging by his recent behavior toward me, he would probably allow it.
Cidheron seemed unhappy about my going out, but when I said I was lonely without friends, he surprisingly gave permission easily.
Every time I said something he disliked, he made a particular expression. It was unexpectedly cute, making my heart race.
Even if it was just an act, it still made me flutter.
“…It really feels like I’m in a relationship.”
I smiled wryly and arrived at the place Adrina had told me about.
“I’ll wait here.”
“If anything happens, I’ll call out.”
This was a rule between Richard and me.
Richard tried to follow me everywhere outside the mansion.
I agreed that I would scream if anything happened, as long as he kept a reasonable distance.
“Of course, nothing is likely to happen in the capital anyway.”
It didn’t hurt to be cautious.
When I entered the café, Adrina spotted me from the center and gave me a bright smile.
Reflexively, I smiled back and hurried to sit across from her.
“Thank you for inviting me.”
“No, thank you for coming.”
Adrina raised her hand, and a staff member quickly approached to place tea and cakes of every variety before us.
It seemed she had ordered almost the entire menu.
“This table might break under the weight…”
Anyway.
“Not many people today, huh?”
Mary had told me this café was quite famous, yet strangely, it was empty.
Adrina’s smile deepened further.
“Since a rare person has taken the time to come, I had to prepare a proper place. Today, no one will enter here except you, Ma’am.”
Which meant she had rented the entire café.
For a moment, it felt as though a strong light radiated from behind her.
I suppressed the urge to give a thumbs-up.
“Flex level… over 9000…!”
