Chapter 75
Chapter 75. Your Past Self
For a moment, Tatar shielded his stinging eyes with the back of his hand against the light that pierced through helplessly.
After blinking a few times, the darkness that had been covering his eyes disappeared as if it were a lie.
Tatar lowered his hand. Crunch. The small grass being stepped on the floor was vividly alive, but its length was inconsistent. Perhaps because it hadn’t been properly managed since the regression began.
With his gaze fixed on the ground, he took one slow step after another.
Memories he had long forgotten came back to life from his toes. Memories of his younger days that he thought he would never recall again, even if they didn’t evoke much emotion.
It seemed like he had walked in this garden holding hands with his mother, or maybe he had come up here alone. Was this also the place he came to seek comfort, soaked in sadness, on the day his mother passed away?
While it was a distant past in his memory, this place was passing through the present, so everything that came into view quickly repainted his blurred memories with vivid colors.
His silver-gray eyes, filled with light, soon dropped his head slightly, creating shadows under his eyelashes. A faint darkness once again fell over his eyes.
It was an unusual sentiment he hadn’t felt in a long time, but that was all. Didn’t he have a different purpose for coming here?
Whether she, who had lost her memories, was with someone now, or if she had given her heart to Balak Utar. In this life where she knew nothing, would she finally choose that man?
‘—And what would you do after confirming that?’
Suddenly, at this crazy thought, he lightly clenched his right hand, which usually held his sword.
Did he intend to kill her if things went wrong this time too? Because he would regress anyway? Then could he bear her resentment?
The bet with Vinea was not over yet. He was just guessing the duration based on the day when his heart would naturally stop in the first year, but it was clear that killing Balak was not the way to win the bet.
He stopped in his tracks and closed his eyes. The slightly furrowed brow relaxed, and as he opened his eyes again, he took a deep breath in a much more stable state than before.
The scent of Baloua, which couldn’t be easily experienced, vibrated all around. It was a fragrance that gave off a soft floral scent, ending with a cool, refreshing feeling.
The state of the indoor garden was good, considering it hadn’t been properly managed. Had someone visited here recently? When he tilted his head back, the chandelier hanging from the ceiling caught his eye.
What appeared to be lighting was actually magic stones engraved with spells, and there would be magic cast there to create an environment where Baloua flowers could grow.
They would need to be changed periodically every year. Should he order someone to fix it soon?
For a moment, his expression subtly hardened as he naturally thought of the future.
He lowered his head and looked around.
The garden on the roof of the Empress’s palace wasn’t very large, but the arrangement of green topiaries and marble statues modeled after apple trees showed the care and love of the person who cherished this garden. It was a trace of his late mother.
Passing by a small fountain where no water was flowing, he walked towards the center.
The topiaries stretched out on both sides had grown quite a lot in the past few months, making their original shape unrecognizable, but they had taken on a natural branch form of their own.
Upon reaching the center of the glass garden, a huge statue came into view.
Urogia. The statue modeled after the god boasted its magnificence at a height one and a half times his own.
The face of the god, covered with a cloth that dragged on the ground while holding the branch said to have opened Sefitiana, was not sculpted. All sculptures modeled after the god were like this.
Was it because of the belief that humans couldn’t dare to specify the face of god, or because no one had ever faced god?
However, he, and she before losing her memories, even though they hated and denied god, couldn’t truly think that he was just an illusion that didn’t exist.
This tremendous act of turning back time required power far beyond the realm of mere humans.
He guessed that stopping this regression also required the realm of god, a miracle.
Under the statue, there she was, the one he had been searching for. Her figure sitting in front of a white piano that wasn’t originally here looked like a scene from a dream.
Whether she knew he had come or not, Vinea slowly placed her hands on the keys and began to play.
Soft harmonies filled the small glass garden. More intensely than the fragrance, more intensely than the light pouring through the glass.
It was a beautiful melody. And it was also a performance he was hearing for the first time.
Could she play the piano? His gaze, which had been confident that he knew everything about her, was fixed on her fingers moving gracefully over the keys.
It was a movement he had never heard anywhere. Was it from Veshnu?
It had been too long since he had properly listened to music. A strange calmness forcibly suppressed the chaos in his mind.
He quietly appreciated Vinea’s performance, forgetting why he had rushed here in one breath.
Long eyelashes lowered towards the keys. The gleaming blue eyes half-visible beneath them. Her hair, lightly braided and tied in a round shape, had a few strands loosely covering her neck, and her upper body swaying slightly to the rhythm of the keys, along with the faintly audible soft humming, felt like a scene from an unrealistic dream.
Was it because she wasn’t the her he knew?
Along with a completely unfamiliar feeling, it was a scene that seemed as if it might disappear before his eyes like smoke.
Tatar finally reached out his hand. He lightly grasped the back of Vinea’s neck. The performance that had been flowing like water came to an end at the sudden contact.
Vinea, who had been aware of the intruder’s presence even before starting the performance, removed his hand from the back of her neck.
Vinea, who had dropped his hand without much effort, stood up from her seat.
He opened his mouth a beat late.
“…It seems I’ve interrupted.”
“I won’t say you haven’t. I had to get up soon anyway because I have a lot of work piled up.”
A flower petal from an unknown source had landed on the keys. Vinea picked it up, smelled the fragrance remaining on the leaf, and then released it into the air.
“I quite liked the piano I bought from one of the merchant guilds Your Majesty summoned, so I brought it here. Have you come to reprimand me for abusing the Empress’s power too much?”
Her clear blue eyes looking at him blinked. The same age as him, but probably much younger, and an ordinary human.
He put on the expression his pre-regression self would usually wear.
A faint smile on a tired face. A respectful distance towards someone who felt closer than others because they were bound to each other for life by contract. He imitated his past self, which he could barely remember now.
“Of course not. It’s the palace assigned to the Empress, so strictly speaking, if anyone has abused power by bringing merchants into this palace, it would be me.”
Vinea let out a light laugh, covering her mouth with her hand.
“I didn’t know you could joke.”
“It’s just the two of us, so we can put aside some of the formalities we maintain in front of the pack of wolf-like nobles, can’t we?”
“I agree. It’s been strangely quiet since I woke up, but I don’t mind this peace for now.”
Tatar moved alongside Vinea as she slowly walked through the glass garden. Following Vinea’s gaze, he too looked at the sky-blue Baloua flowers blooming profusely here and there.
“I ordered it to be tended to again from three days ago, but there are still many places that haven’t been finished. It would be good if they could hurry, as it seems a waste to leave this beautiful place idle.”
“It might be good to change everything according to the Empress’s taste while we’re at it.”
Vinea stopped for a moment and looked up at Tatar.
“Your Majesty seems a bit unfamiliar today. It feels similar to when you came to see me right after I woke up.”
“…Let’s say I was a bit overwhelmed with work that day. It wasn’t a sight good enough to remain in the Empress’s memory.”
Vinea lightly shook her head and resumed her steps.
Passing by an olive tree growing on one side of the garden, her thin fingertips brushed against the small, stiff leaves.
“It might be good for us to be a bit more honest with each other. Whether we like it or not, we’re in a relationship where we have to spend our lives together.”
“Don’t you dislike that? You might want to meet new people.”
Like Balak Utar, for instance, someone who has the freedom he couldn’t give her.
“I don’t know what Your Majesty thinks, but I consider you quite a good companion. Starting from the respect you show me, who came from Veshnu.”
“Respect…”
He was the one who had respected her the least. That’s why this situation had unfolded.
He looked at Vinea with sunken eyes as she plucked the largest and most splendidly blooming flowers one by one and held them in her arms.
Vinea walked towards another Baloua flower bed blooming a little distance away. Tatar watched her back for a moment in silence before speaking.
“What kind of person am I in the Empress’s memory?”
Snap.
Vinea, who had just plucked another flower and held it in her arms, turned around. A few petals of the Baloua flowers she was holding fell onto her white dress.
“Someone who shares the same goal as me, willing to bear hardships to achieve it.”
“And the Empress’s goal is…”
“You’re asking such an unexpected question.”
Vinea buried her face in the bouquet she was holding. The unique floral scent penetrated deep into her lungs.
“To endure for the sake of the many lives our marriage bears. And to live. I hope they can live in a peaceful future where they don’t have to worry about war.”
Tatar gazed into her clear, shining blue eyes.
Yes. It seemed the past Vinea always had eyes like this. Somehow, they also seem exactly like the eyes of her in this life. Is it because both the past and present her hold hope and the future?
Overwhelmed by an indescribable feeling, he blurted out a question without knowing what he wanted to know.
“Then, what about the life the Empress wants, not for others, but for yourself—”
Would she say she wanted to leave the palace? That she wanted to find a new life after divorce? She might wish to return to her home country, or say she wanted to go on a long journey for a while.
Tatar felt an inexplicable sense of anxiety.
Vinea’s eyes, which had lowered towards the Baloua flowers she was holding as if she had heard a somewhat difficult question, eventually turned to Tatar.
