On the path leading back to my room, where Victor is waiting.
Next to me, there was Dad. He was in his pajamas, even carrying a pillow.
“Brother Victor said he felt hurt. He came home, and you didn’t even come to see him.”
“…? You talk like I used to give him a grand welcome whenever he came home. I’m here now, aren’t I?”
I asked him, who spoke grumpily, “If I’ve been the one away from home for a long time, you won’t show your face, too?”
“You’re my daughter. You’re a girl and the youngest.”
Wow, there’s quite a favoritism difference compared to my brothers…!
Feeling oddly pleased by this trivial matter, I chuckled and sealed my lips.
The corridor became close enough for my room to be visible a few steps ahead.
Suddenly, the door creaked open.“Brother?”
Victor’s eyes were fierce for some reason. Almost instinctively, my heart pounded.
‘Why is he like this?’
Victor looked enraged as he approached.
“B-Brother, what’s wrong?”
Victor, who had come right up to us, paused momentarily, then looked down at me with a look of barely contained anger. “You…”
Whatever he was about to say, he quickly passed by me. He moved forward as if he had a destination he had to reach immediately.
I tried to reach Victor despite my anxiety, but my dad was quicker. “Wait.” He lightly grabbed Victor’s arm and turned him around.
Smack! He coolly slapped Victor’s forehead with the palm of his hand.
At the same time, Victor’s eyes cleared up, and with a loud noise, he collapsed onto the corridor.
“Oh, dear.” I took a startled step back.
Victor, who had sprawled out, began to snore after inhaling deeply.
“Hehehehe… Your Highness, you say it’s impossible for me? Aren’t you tired of this…?”
“Wh-why is he like this?”
“Come at me, Prince! There can’t be two suns under the same sky!”
Victor wriggled like a fish thrown out of water.
It seems like he’s having delusions of swinging a sword…
“Today, I will show who the top knight of this Order is!”
Dad swiftly scooped up Victor, who was making a racket even in his sleep, and headed toward my room. He had used his ability to make him sleep.
Dad, who had gently placed Victor on the bed, still squirming in his sleep, asked me, “What’s this? Why is this happening?”
I shook my head vigorously because I really didn’t know.
“You shouldn’t talk to him about it. You know his temperament,” Dad muttered.
I immediately understood his words and nodded again. “No, I didn’t say anything. Victor doesn’t know anything yet. He was perfectly fine until just a while ago. But suddenly, why…?”
“It seemed like he wanted to go to Molga’s room.”
Right, that’s what I thought, too. No matter how I thought about it, it seemed like the excited Victor was heading toward Molga and the twins’ bedroom.
But why so sudden…?
I couldn’t figure out the reason and was feeling confused when I suddenly noticed the nightstand next to the bed. For some reason, it had an open drawer.
And underneath it, my diary was scattered.
“Oh my goodness.”
In an instant, my head went blank, and I rushed over.
I hadn’t bothered to flip through the diary again because it was difficult to read the earlier parts.
What on earth did Victor see?
With trembling hands, I flipped through the diary and soon became disheartened.
“Wow.”
This was bad.
***
The next day.
Victor opened his eyes, as the intense sunlight streamed in, piercing through his eyelids. After briefly recalling the events of last night, he suddenly sat up.
“Hold it right there.”
His steps toward the door came to a halt. When he turned around, he saw Rubette sitting cross-legged on the floor.
“Brother, did you sneak a peek at my diary?” Rubette pointed at the diary on the table with her chin.
“Yeah.”
“What kind of manners are these? Snooping around a lady’s diary so casually?”
“Sorry, but let’s talk about it after I return”
“Brother!!!” Victor, who had attempted to leave the room, stopped again. “If you leave right now, you might never see me again. I’m serious.”
“…”
“Come and sit down. Let’s talk.”
Victor shivered with his shoulders hunched.
“Brother, please.”
“Sigh.”
He closed his eyes tightly, wetting his lips, and took a deep breath for a long while. Yet, it wasn’t easy to quell his anger. It had always been like this.
‘Right. Let’s start by asking Ruby. I might have misunderstood.’
Having barely brainwashed himself internally, Victor turned around and sat in front of Rubette.
“Do you have something you want to ask me?”
“Yeah. About Grandma and the twins—”
“What you saw in the diary is true. The twins bullied me a lot. The grand duchess knew all about it but pretended not to. No, that’s not it.” Rubette added calmly, “She hated me more than the twins did. She said a lot of mean things.”
“Yeah, I see. So, why shouldn’t I turn everything upside down?”
Victor seemed ready to bolt out of there, raising his buttocks as if he could sprint at any moment. Rubette, with a furrowed brow, grabbed his arm. “We haven’t finished talking yet.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“…”
When Victor asked sharply, Rubette fell silent for a moment. “If you had read my diary, you would know I didn’t stay silent—”
“Do you mean to say you talked to my foolish brother? I mean me. Me. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wasn’t sure if you would believe me, just like he didn’t, so I thought… Moreover—”
“You call that an excuse?” Victor exclaimed, looking bewildered as he ran his hand through his hair.
Rubette was surprised by the tears welling up in Victor’s eyes, visible through his bloodshot gaze.
“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”
“I saw you crying!!”
In an instant, Victor held his breath.
Tears quickly filled Rubette’s eyes. “I saw you crying alone in your room because you missed Mom! Since then, I thought I shouldn’t throw tantrums at my brothers. I don’t remember Mom well… at all…”
Tears fell steadily onto Rubette’s cheeks as she closed her eyes tightly.
Yes. At the age of six, Victor was at an age where a mother meant everything in the world. Unlike Rubette, Victor remembered his mother’s face, voice, and scent.
“The grand duchess comforted you, didn’t she? She hugged you and told you she loved you when you cried. So, you also…thought of her as a mother, right? She was the one you desperately needed, the one who’s like a mother, because you missed Mom so much…”
“…”
“So, h-h-how could I say that? H-how…?” Rubette cried like a child.
Watching his little sister, who couldn’t stop the tears from bursting out, Victor couldn’t say anything.
“My brother needed a mother, so how could I… how could I say…”
“Haah.”
Feeling as if his breath had been cut off, Victor clutched his own chest. His sister’s silence had been considerate of him.
Yes, embarrassingly, Rubette’s words were entirely true.
“I… I…”
He had thought he was left alone after his mother passed away. His father, though alive, was barely able to provide for them, and the siblings were all young. At that time, the boy had nothing to rely on, and without Molga’s support, it would have been incredibly difficult to endure.
Yes.
Certainly, Victor, too, had thought of her as a mother. It was an undeniable fact.
“I’m sorry.”
“Ugh… huu…”
Victor was bitterly remorseful for the situation just a few minutes ago when he scolded his sister.”
“Gosh darn it…”
Soon, he, too, began to cry like a child.
He despised and pitied his father. The eldest brother, who had urged him to stop thinking about their mother for the family’s sake, had grown distant. The younger sister remained unaware.
Even after several years had passed, this large house was still filled with their mother’s traces, so Victor eventually ran away.
He had been a coward.
He had surrendered without hesitation.
Holding his pitiable little sister close and crying until his tears dried, Victor cried for a long time. There were countless apologies mixed with his tears.
And after a very long time.
“Sigh… Brother…”
How many hours had they cried? In a nearly exhausted state, the two siblings sat side by side, their swollen eyes almost shut.
Rubette wiped away the tears from Victor’s eyes. “So…”
“Yeah…?”
“Is there anything else you’re curious about?”
Victor froze for a moment. As he cautiously looked down, Rubette was visibly tense.
“Yes, there is.”
“Uh-huh. What is it?”
Victor swallowed hard as he opened the diary that was on the table.
The first page, the first entry.
[Imperial Calendar January 7, 1519
I’m back.
Dad is alive. Thank you, God.]
Pointing at the words ‘I’m back’ with his finger, Victor asked, “What does this mean?”
***
Swish, swish—!
Every time the razor-sharp blade of his sword sliced through the air, the knights flinched in surprise.
In the afternoon, Vice-Captain Victor appeared at the training grounds. He seemed visibly angry. He had been vigorously practicing with his sword, alone, for the past two hours.
“Hey, I told you it was too much to put posters on the wall, didn’t I?”
“We put them together, so why the fuss now?”
The two knights, who had been quarreling, fell silent.
“The vice-captain was suspended for no reason because of us!”
The crown prince had suddenly appeared and kicked Victor out of the quarters last night. It was probably because the knights had unknowingly disrupted the order in the living quarters, and he was likely delivering the punishment to the commanding officer.
The reason why Victor was so angry was probably because of that… or so they thought.
Victor was simply practicing with his sword to clear his complicated thoughts.
“What does this mean?”
When Victor asked about the meaning of the word ‘I’m back’ written in the diary, Rubette responded as if she had prepared the answer in advance.
“I don’t know if you’ll believe it, Brother, but I had a dream.”
“What?”
“I saw my future in the dream. When I wrote ‘I’m back,’ it doesn’t really mean I came back from the future to the past.”
“…”
“I’d been 45 years old in the dream, but I was 15 when I returned. So, saying ‘I’m back’ is not accurate, but I used it for convenience.”
“Really? That’s fascinating.”
“Don’t you think? Maybe God showed me that because I was somewhat pitiful. In the end, everything turned out well. I’ve changed, and we even cleared up our misunderstanding, right, Brother?”
Victor didn’t ask Rubette any more questions after that.
Because he was sure her words were lies.
If that were the case, pressing for more answers would only lead to obvious responses…
‘Ruby.’
Victor silently repeated his kind sister’s name in his mind.
She’d never said a thing about Molga because she had supported her brother, who missed his mother. She clenched her lips and endured, no matter how difficult it was.
So Rubette would definitely lie. She wouldn’t want to tell anyone that she had lived a lonely and dreadful life alone for a lifetime before returning.
“Hi-yap!”
Then how could such a magical event as ‘returning’ have happened?
[Imperial Calendar January 7, 1519
I’m back.]
It wasn’t difficult to deduce.
January 7th was Rubette’s 15th birthday. The day she had made a pact with a spirit. Even though the pact had failed…
“Hiyah!”
Swish—! Victor’s sword struck a massive rock-like object in one corner of the training grounds with a powerful strike.
No, it looked like a massive rock, but upon closer inspection, it had a form. It resembled a human covered in armor from head to toe—the Indestructible Spirit, Boulder.
With a deep, resonating voice that echoed like it came from deep within a cave, Boulder asked, “Why did you summon me and swing your sword for two hours?”
“I want to ask you something.”
Boulder was tense.
Victor, being a skilled individual, could handle most situations even without the power of spirits, and that’s why Boulder was rarely summoned.
But now, he had been unexpectedly summoned, and there was no sign of a battle or conflict. So, there must be another reason for his summons…
“I can answer only the questions I am able to,” Boulder cautioned.
“Alright. Answer me.”
“…”
Victor, who had been swinging his sword, stopped and stood before Boulder. “It’s about something I don’t know, but you might know.”
“…”
“My little sister’s secret.”
Boulder swallowed hard. He had anticipated this. Wasn’t this the most talked-about issue in the spirit realm right now? “I don’t know.”
“Don’t waste time.”
“Victor.”
“What?”
“As you may already know, spirits cannot divulge the personal affairs of other spirits to their contractees. Do you want to disturb the order?”
“My little sister is more important than the order.”
“Sigh…” Boulder cautioned, “Forcing the taboo will sever the connection between you and me. There’s a reason your sister’s secret is a secret. You don’t need to go through all this trouble to find out.”
Swish—! Victor struck Boulder’s shoulder with his sword.
Of course, not a single scratch appeared. It was just a threat.
“This is driving me crazy.”
“Do you plan to keep your mouth running until sunset?”
Victor seemed determined and showed no signs of backing down. Boulder knew very well that once he set his mind on something, his contractee couldn’t be easily swayed. Finally, he sighed deeply and left with a brief farewell. “Take care.”
“Sure.”
“As you suspect.” Two eyes flashed from a crevice in the solid rock. “Your sister is indeed a summoner.”
“…”
In an instant, Boulder’s form vanished completely.
With a soft thud, Victor’s sword fell to the ground simultaneously.
He looked up with a helpless expression.
The blue sky stretched above, starkly contrasting the turmoil within him.
“Sigh…”
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