Chapter 100
What stained his clothes was medicine.
The medicine his nanny had given him to swallow a few minutes ago, the one she had checked his mouth for as usual afterward.
Sierre had vomited it all out.
Emptying his stomach wasn’t particularly difficult.
He had done it to the point of exhaustion with nausea.
“Ugh… mmph.”
Though his eyes were half-glazed from exhaustion after throwing up everything in his stomach, Sierre refused to close them.
His ashen eyes, similar to Einar’s but slightly darker, gazed in the direction of the Second Prince’s palace.
How long could he hold on?
How much time remained for this body that consumed the medicine his nanny gave him?
Fortunately or unfortunately, his nanny didn’t increase the dosage or make it stronger.
She loved caring for him while he was sick, so a dead Sierre would be of no use to her.
“Ha… haha.”
His needlessly sharp mind clearly deduced even the facts he didn’t want to think about.
If only he had been stupid.
“The story.”
Having opened his mouth without realizing it, Sierre quickly clamped it shut.
He understood what his brother meant when he said he would listen to his story anytime.
If he pointed to his nanny and said just one word, this entire situation would end.
He would live.
With a “healthy” body he had never experienced since birth.
But Sierre couldn’t bring himself to speak the truth aloud even now, without Einar present.
Sierre wanted his nanny to stop what she was doing to him of her own accord, before everything collapsed.
Even knowing the possibility was extremely slim, Sierre didn’t want to hastily let go of the thread of hope.
No, he couldn’t let go.
“Nanny, please. Please…”
Making pleas that would never reach her, Sierre clutched his throbbing chest and curled up.
This wasn’t just pain from physical illness.
His heart ached.
Sierre loved his nanny.
As if she were replacing his mother, whose face he had only seen in paintings.
The child couldn’t help but love the person closest and most intimate to him.
Even after learning she was slowly killing him, he couldn’t abandon his attachment.
That’s why Sierre, still writhing in agony, still walking into death of his own accord, wished:
“That I won’t have to kill Nanny with my own hands.”
Just before Sierre vomited out the medicine that was eating away at his life.
“So Riina approved it, you say.”
“Yes.”
Duke Bolshevik stamped the document titled “Investigation into Suspicious Foreign Groups” without hesitation.
“Process this first.”
“As you command.”
Left alone after the aide departed the office, Duke Bolshevik gazed at his empty palm stained with ink the same color as the black medicine Sierre was vomiting, and sank into thought.
No, perhaps it should be called the past.
“Not the past, but a future that will never come?”
The voice that dispersed with his exhaled breath didn’t reach even his own ears.
Eventually, his gaze slowly turned toward the window.
Somewhere in that distant Imperial Palace.
On the cold floor of that place he didn’t even want to remember, my daughter closed her eyes.
‘Duke, this won’t bring your daughter back.’
The Emperor looked down at Duke Bolshevik’s sword hovering at his neck and spoke calmly.
The sword tip trembled like the Duke’s boiling insides, causing a wound on the Emperor’s neck, but he continued to speak calmly.
‘If this was your intention, why didn’t you prevent her execution?’
‘I… couldn’t do that.’
The Duke’s voice trembled miserably.
‘I suppose not. Because Riina Bolshevik wanted it.’
Before the Emperor could finish speaking, the Duke withdrew his sword and fled the palace like a fugitive.
Yes. Riina had wanted it.
Like a moth throwing itself into the flames, his daughter had desired death.
Execution? He could have prevented it.
He was a Bolshevik.
Even if accused of plotting to overthrow the country, he was confident they could have survived.
But he couldn’t protect her.
His daughter from herself.
He had lost his daughter after his wife.
Yet the sky didn’t collapse, nor did the earth split.
The sun still rose and set, the moon still waxed and waned.
How much time passed like that?
‘Ah, yes. What meaning does it have?’
After losing you, after losing everything, what meaning does this world have for me?
Duke Bolshevik, the pillar of his family, finally let go of the thread of life he had somehow maintained.
No, he was about to let go.
‘Hmm? Who’s there?’
Until a voice reached him through his gradually fading consciousness.
That overly clear voice was terribly dry.
And the next moment.
‘Hah!’
The Duke, whose heart had nearly stopped, opened his eyes wide.
That voice continued to echo in his mind.
‘Who are you to bear my disciple’s mark? Though it’s very faint, it clearly belongs to my child.’
Though he felt no pressure or compulsion, the Duke’s mouth opened of its own accord.
‘Bolshevik. I am Bolshevik.’
After enough time passed to blink twice, a voice that could have been either admiration or a sigh sounded.
‘Bolshevik? Did you say Bolshevik?’
For the first time, the voice hammering at his ears contained “human” emotion.
And the next moment, the Duke felt something very faint, so faint that it wouldn’t be strange to dismiss it as an illusion.
Hope.
He didn’t know why he felt hope from this unidentified voice.
But now.
Now that his daughter had grown cold, the Duke couldn’t help but grasp at whatever hope it might be.
‘Yes. Bolshevik.’
The voice seemed to laugh hazily.
‘This must be another connection. No, should I say two?’
‘What do you…’
‘Ah, my one and only disciple’s one and only friend called himself Bolshevik.’
The voice continued, even containing fondness.
‘My disciple left my gift in the bloodline of his only friend. That rascal. I told him to live as he pleased, and he really did just that before leaving.’
Though the words made no sense, the Duke questioned none of it.
He simply listened to the voice.
After a while of silence, the voice spoke again.
‘Good. Since you’ve given me time to remember my disciple, I’ll give you one gift. Bolshevik. Truly an interesting family.’
‘A… gift?’
‘Yes. The gift you desire.’
The Duke didn’t think twice.
‘Make my daughter happy.’
‘Hmm? Your daughter?’
After a few seconds of silence, the voice continued.
‘Happiness cannot be created by others. However.’
‘However?’
‘One can create it for oneself.’
The Duke’s heart pounded as if it would burst.
Hope. He saw hope.
‘Well, in that case, I’ll have to turn back time. I’ll return you to one year before your daughter’s death. The future and happiness after that must be seized by the child herself. Though as gifts go, this has become rather unimpressive.’
The voice seemed to regard turning back time as casually as dropping by a neighbor’s house.
‘I can’t interfere with another world without a price.’
The Duke exclaimed before the voice could finish:
‘I will pay whatever price it is!’
To this, the voice whispered to the Duke:
‘The price for turning back time is…’
The Duke’s eyelids slowly rose as he recalled that far.
“I cannot change a single thing.”
It was the price he had paid for turning back time.
He must act exactly the same as before the regression.
He could only participate in the flow of movements dictated by Riina’s—his beloved daughter’s—actions and decisions.
If Riina changed, he too could act differently.
But if she didn’t step forward, he had no choice but to move exactly as he had before the regression.
That’s why he had brought back that shadow who deserved to be torn apart.
That’s why he left that abominable, detestable Third Prince alone.
That’s why.
“I cannot even tell you that I love you.”
The Duke stroked the document bearing Riina’s flowing handwriting and smiled.
Terribly sorrowful.
“Riina?”
Einar bent down toward Riina, who had suddenly stopped while walking quickly.
He couldn’t see her face as she lowered her head.
Einar, who had unconsciously reached out wanting to see her shadowed face, paused.
Soon withdrawing his hand, he moved directly in front of her and knelt down.
Looking up from below would allow him to see her face.
“Rii…na?”
She had her eyes tightly closed as if enduring something.
Her pale cheeks, furrowed brow, and forehead beaded with cold sweat.
To anyone’s eyes, she appeared to be suppressing pain, causing Einar’s face to instantly fill with urgency.
“What’s wrong? We need to go back right—!”
But he couldn’t finish his sentence.
Riina grabbed his arm and shook her head.
“Just… just a moment like this and I’ll be fine…”
For some reason, her chest ached unbearably with each breath.
Just like the day she lost her mother.
At the moment when the pain became so severe that even breathing was burdensome.
Warmth flowed in.
“I’m sorry. But I can’t just leave you like this.”
And a low voice sounded above her head.
Einar embraced Riina.
He pulled her waist close, holding her so tightly there wasn’t even room for a sheet of paper between them, and his heartbeat pounded rapidly.
That sound was so loud it seemed to swallow even the pain she had been feeling in her chest.
That’s why Riina didn’t push him away.
She simply raised her trembling hands and embraced him in return.
