Chapter 54
Chapter 54. The Thirty-Fourth Regression, That Hell
The thirty-fourth regression…
Sitting in a chair on the terrace, feeling the wind parting her hair, Vinea covered her hazy eyes with the back of her hand.
How should she end this life? As she sat quietly recalling, waves of tedious regret washed over her.
What pulled Vinea up from gradually sinking into the abyss was someone’s kiss on the top of her bare foot.
“…You were away, Balak.”
“It seems we briefly missed each other.”
Kneeling on the cold floor, Balak carefully put down Vinea’s foot. His gesture was reverent, as if handling a sacred object.
Vinea gently stroked Balak’s red hair. This revealed the scar on his forehead, acquired long ago while sailing.
“It’s a pity. That you got this scar before meeting me.”
“It was from a sudden accident. There was no way to prevent it. So please don’t worry about it.”
“No. I could have prevented it. I could have made it as if it never happened.”
“Is there anything you can’t do, Vinea? Everything you wish for will come true. And I’ll help make that happen.”
“Do you really think so, Balak?”
“Yes.”
Balak stood up, looking at Vinea with unwavering eyes. Turning away from him, Vinea gazed at the sky beyond the railing.
“I’m not as great as you think. I can’t even escape, so I’m living like this.”
As Vinea spoke, her eyes trembled as if about to go out, and Balak felt a faint impulse to hold onto her.
“Do you want to run away?”
Though he didn’t know what Balak meant by asking, Vinea lowered her gaze, thinking of the tedious regressions.
“…If only I could.”
Vinea looked at her toes where Balak had kissed with empty eyes, then raised her head.
Sometimes, one can read another’s despair or pain without words being spoken. Balak felt as if he had glimpsed a corner of Vinea’s depths.
‘What could be tormenting you so much? If you would just share the burden you’re carrying with me even once, I would do anything to help you…’
But Balak knew well how far he could go. He also knew that unless she spoke first, he hadn’t been given permission to cross that line.
He forced a smile.
“Shall we run away together, Vinea? Didn’t you say that freedom is the most beautiful thing I possess?”
“Yes. Your freedom, which God hasn’t taken away… was beautiful enough to dazzle.”
Yet Vinea didn’t answer his suggestion to run away together. Balak’s clenched fist slowly relaxed.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t guess why she was suffering so.
The Emperor and Empress who had hardly met since the wedding, the vile rumors and contempt following her. Even how she rarely left her bedroom in the Empress’s palace unless he suggested it, just staring at the sky outside the palace.
This palace, and the Emperor’s existence, must have tied her to a stifling cage.
For the sake of his brilliant love, Balak was a man ready to willingly take risks, and so he decided to act first without Vinea having to say anything.
Using Eurene Castallo’s hand.
Soon, his actions would cause a storm-like change. A storm strong enough to bring his brilliant love crashing to the ground.
* * *
As always, it was Deron who broke the tedious and boring afternoon silence, coming to find her with an ashen face.
“—His Majesty has collapsed, Your Majesty the Empress.”
Vinea rose from her seat with an expressionless face. Deron turned around, swallowing a bitter sigh at her leisurely attitude.
No matter how bad their relationship was, how could she be so indifferent?
Following Deron to the Emperor’s room, Vinea’s gaze fell on Eurene standing quietly among the servants.
A pale face, hands trembling as they were clasped together, a head bowed low as soon as their eyes met.
It wasn’t surprising anymore. Though it was unexpected that she had made advances to Tatar instead of herself.
“Lady Eurene discovered His Majesty first. We’ve detained the servant who moved His Majesty’s tea in the dungeon, but in the meantime, His Majesty activated the magic on the door, so we have no way to enter.”
Vinea turned her gaze from Eurene to look at the golden doorknob.
The Emperor’s bedroom had several special magic spells, one of which prevented anyone other than the Emperor and Empress from opening the door.
Everyone found it strange that he had locked the door from inside when there was no assassination attempt, but Vinea alone knew why he had activated this magic.
As Vinea grasped the doorknob, a small magic circle appeared on the back of her hand. Then, as if nothing had happened, the locked door opened.
It was Vinea who stopped Deron as he tried to enter the room immediately with the doctors.
“Your Majesty the Empress…!”
“Isn’t it enough that he’s not dead? He’s still breathing, so wait a moment.”
Having said this, Vinea closed the door again without waiting for an answer.
* * *
“Your Majesty.”
She knows he’s not dead yet. If he were, they would have already woken up on the red carpet of the wedding hall.
A teacup rolling on the floor, the navy carpet deeply stained with tea, Tatar lying on the bed, breathing heavily after coughing up blood.
Vinea moved towards the bed.
“What on earth did you drink to end up like this?”
“…Cough, Empress.”
He turned his head towards Vinea, belatedly coming to his senses. His hazy eyes looked as if his breath might stop at any moment.
“From the scent, it seems to be Arpanium flower. It has no known toxicity, so someone must have added poison.”
“Well… It feels a bit different, ha, from what I’ve experienced before…”
Vinea sat beside him as he trailed off in pain. The blood droplets he had coughed up were scattered like paint on the white bedsheet.
“Hold on a little longer. If we regress now, there won’t be time to investigate the poison you drank.”
They always had to remember how they died and regressed, to avoid failed methods of stopping the regression next time. What use was there in needlessly repeating worthless deaths?
Tatar painfully raised his hand to cover his eyes.
“Is the next one the thirty-fifth?”
“Yes. Hah, how long must we repeat this?”
“Who knows. Maybe we’ll find a way… when the Empress grows tired of Balak Utar.”
“You almost sound jealous.”
“I thought I possessed you completely, but it seems that wasn’t the case…”
He lowered his arm and closed his eyes. Thinking that it would be better to have his breath cut off at once rather than dragging it out like this, he heard Vinea’s voice spreading like waves through his fading consciousness.
“Balak hasn’t possessed any part of me. Because Your Majesty has taken it all.”
* * *
“You said there wouldn’t be any problems!”
Eurene, who had called Balak out, shouted at him with a pale face. Then, worried someone might be eavesdropping, she glanced at the garden entrance.
Confirming no one was there, Eurene bit her lip anxiously.
“You say His Majesty has collapsed. Coughing up blood!”
“I didn’t lie. There’s a slight fever, but it should pass in 3 days. I didn’t expect this to happen either.”
Now that it had come to this, if he were to die, wouldn’t she become a little freer? They were bound by contract; perhaps she might even return to Veshnu. If that happened, he was willing to follow her.
“Don’t worry too much. No one has ever died from drinking that before.”
“What about the memories, is the effect certain?”
Balak nodded with an expressionless face. He had heard the rumors, but to still be expecting the drug’s effect when the object of her unrequited love was in such a state.
Those who drink the Arpanium that has become toxic forget the most intensely remembered subject in their memories.
“The memories return after 2 weeks. You should use that time, my lady.”
“2 weeks…”
Balak curved the corner of his lips. The pitch-black desire in his dark red eyes urged him on, and Eurene reflected in them.
“I think it wouldn’t be impossible for you to enter the bedroom of an Emperor who has no memories of Vinea. Since the memories from those 2 weeks don’t disappear even after he regains his other memories, you should use the given opportunity well – whether to turn the Emperor’s heart or to conceive a child by sharing his bed.”
“How vulgar…!”
Balak chuckled and took a step. As he passed by Eurene, walking back towards the Empress’s palace, a sneer spread across his face.
She talks of love, but she doesn’t even have the slightest expectation that she might be the most intense subject in the Emperor’s memory.
She must know too. Whether it’s love or hate, there’s a line that can’t be crossed between the two of them.
* * *
Vinea visited Tatar’s bedroom after four days. It was the first time since he had lost consciousness and collapsed.
She didn’t feel the need to visit often. It was because Eurene Castallo had been entering and leaving his bedroom daily to check on him.
Although there were unkind glances towards the unmarried lady who had obtained neither the position of Empress nor official concubine, useless rumors didn’t pass beyond the palace walls due to the Emperor Emeritus’s influence protecting her.
Vinea approached Tatar’s side.
Since he hadn’t died, there was no regression. Thanks to this, they could buy time to investigate the poison he had drunk.
Just as she was wondering how they should die this time, Tatar’s fingertips twitched as if on cue.
“Are you coming to, Your Majesty?”
At Vinea’s soft call, Tatar lifted his heavy eyelids. His silver-gray eyes blinked blankly before regaining focus. They were clear and distinct eyes, as if the shadow that had always been there had somehow disappeared.
He raised his upper body. His eyes widened slightly when he saw Vinea sitting in the chair beside the bed, but he showed no other reaction.
“It’s been four days since you collapsed. They say there’s nothing particularly wrong with your body.”
“I was unconscious for four days…”
Having confirmed that Tatar’s condition was fine, Vinea stood up. Her eyes narrowed as she noticed the water pitcher and glass on the bedside table.
It’s the same shape as the teacup Tatar had drunk from when he collapsed. Recalling who had been frequenting this bedroom most recently, Vinea easily identified one person.
“Eurene Castallo…”
She had guessed it anyway, but to commit such an act and still brazenly come and go with this teacup. In some ways, it was truly bold.
Vinea frowned, looking at the lily embroidered on the teacup.
‘Blessed Lily.’
It was a phrase praising Eurene Castallo for resolving the epidemic in Haksya village a few months ago. A teacup with such a lily drawn on it. Unlike her seemingly innocent face, her interior was incomparably sinister.
“Don’t use this teacup anymore. Unless you want to regress again without any gain.”
“Regress?”
Vinea’s hand stopped as she was about to put the teacup down again. She turned her head to look at Tatar once more.
Though nothing had changed in his eyes, nose, or mouth, she belatedly felt an inexplicable sense of unfamiliarity. Why did it feel so strange? It was clearly him, but it felt as if she was facing a different person.
“…I’ll call Deron. You don’t seem to have fully recovered yet.”
“Deron? Who’s that?”
“Your aide. Deron Morkan.”
Vinea’s fingertips tightened on the teacup. A strange anxiety arose. An anxiety so terrible she hoped it wasn’t true, not even as a hypothesis.
“Your Majesty, do you remember which regression this is?”
Tatar furrowed his brow slightly and answered.
“You’ve been saying strange things since earlier.”
The empty teacup fell from Vinea’s hand.
