episode_0030

I have never felt lonely before.

Because I have been alone since a long time ago.

Losing my parents and standing alone, I had to handle everything by myself.

Perhaps I am the type of person who doesn’t feel loneliness well.

Such thoughts even crossed my mind.

It didn’t take me long to realize that my thoughts were wrong.

“Lady Saint, are you okay?”

“Ah… Yes.”

Startled by the words from the guard in the distance, I retract the hand that was reaching out to the side.

My hand was cutting through empty air.

Subconsciously, I was searching for someone’s vacant spot.

So if you ask me who that is, my mouth would remain shut.

I don’t know.

I don’t know who it is, but someone was definitely by my side.

“Why am I like this…”

Even after returning home, this suffocating feeling doesn’t dissipate.

When I come to my senses, I find myself groping an empty seat.

Muttering and trying to call out to someone.

Pushing my head against an empty space.

“It’s all because of that note…”

Just a few days ago, I wasn’t like this.

The problem arose from a certain letter.

It was a note stating that I would die at the hands of assassins during the cathedral completion ceremony.

Since reading that note, a strange cascade of emotions poured down on me.

Sadness, affection, desire for recognition, longing, relief, obsession.

…And even something akin to love, which seemed impossible.

These were emotions I shouldn’t be experiencing.

Things completely unrelated to me.

It felt like someone had flipped someone else’s emotions inside out.

In that vivid sensation, tears flowed uncontrollably.

“What do you mean? You can’t trace the sender? Can’t you at least determine the sending location!”

“I’m sorry, Lady Saint. It seems it was sent directly to the central logistics center.”

They meticulously concealed both the sender and the origin, even resorting to typewriting to hide the handwriting.

Initially, I suspected it might be the work of hostile forces.

Or perhaps a curse involving magic or sorcery.

An attempt to undermine and incapacitate my mind.

“That can’t be. If it were magic or a curse, I would have seen through it long ago.”

No, it wasn’t that.

As a Saint skilled in hypnotizing people, there couldn’t be any magic unknown to me.

Even if it were a sign of sorcery, trained to react sensitively, I detected nothing.

It wasn’t due to external factors.

This was purely an internal issue.

“Is it a mental illness…?”

Finally, I had to consider even mental illness.

Have I finally gone insane?

No matter how much a mentally ill person may not realize they’re crazy, objectively, I seemed fine.

Except for occasional unexplained chest pains.

Except for yearning for someone whose face and name I don’t know…

“Who on earth…?”

It was frustrating.

I felt like I was losing my mind.

It felt like I had forgotten the presence that always embraced me.

After waking from a sad dream, a poignant and suffocating feeling persisted daily.

The warmth I had never experienced vanished, leaving behind only profound loneliness.

Digging into the empty space that had been vacant from the start, my heart ached again today.

Then one morning.

“Yu, Yu-jin… Yu-jin?”

It came to me.

Surprisingly clear.

Yesterday’s memories resurfaced so vividly that I felt foolish.

Yu-jin.

That man’s name was Yu-jin.

He was the one who didn’t fear me being a Saint.

Despite seeing my ugly side, pushing him away, he still approached and embraced me.

He accepted me as I am.

Only then did everything make sense.

The large void I had felt endlessly.

The position of my hand subconsciously reaching out.

The ambiguous height I was leaning my head towards.

If Yu-jin was in that place, everything fell perfectly into place.

“Why? Why did I forget?”

Confusion sets in.

Why on earth did I forget something so important?

There’s no one more precious to me than Yujin.

I couldn’t even imagine a life without Yujin.

There’s no way I could have forgotten about Yujin.

“Ah…”

After carefully organizing my thoughts, it dawns on me.

Yujin and I haven’t met yet.

The first time I saw him was at a construction site in Hameln.

The second time was during the knight escort interview.

And our real connection began when he rescued me at the cathedral.

So, at this point, it’s right that I still don’t know Yujin.

I must still be unaware of him.

Then why are these memories with Yujin swirling around in my head right now?

“I… have returned to the past.”

Events from the future feel vivid as if they happened yesterday.

It’s hard to believe, but there’s only one possibility left.

I who experienced the future have regressed.

Or perhaps, I have passed on memories of the future to my past self.

That’s the only explanation that makes sense.

“Why?”

So why did my future self choose to regress?

Why decide to pass on memories of the future to the past?

Soon enough, the answer becomes clear.

Amidst a vast sea of memories, a moment filled with intense emotions surfaces.

“Yujin… leaving me?”

Unbelievable information brushes through my mind.

Could it be that Yujin, who lovingly embraced me, held my hand, and played around, is leaving me?

That can’t be true.

Carefully retracing my memories, within the torrent of unfamiliar emotions and experiences, I grope to understand what happened.

“Oh… Oh…”

And soon, I find myself sinking into anguish.

It all comes back to me.

It was all because of me.

I interfered too much with Yujin.

I acted too clingy.

I treated Yujin like a dumping ground for pouring out emotions.

That’s why he left.

Of course, Yujin wasn’t entirely blameless either.

He spent nights drinking and carousing with other women after putting me to sleep.

But does that give me the right to berate him?

While I became dependent on Yujin to the point where I couldn’t live without him, the same couldn’t be said for Yujin.

He was just playing along as my knight escort.

Because of this, fearing rejection, I couldn’t fully reveal my feelings to Yujin.

I was afraid that if I clung too much, Yujin might feel burdened.

Afraid that my desperation would make me vulnerable to Yujin, I couldn’t express my true feelings.

Even though I may have indirectly shown it, I couldn’t bring myself to say “I love you.”

That was the barrier.

If we weren’t sharing love, then it shouldn’t matter what I did with other women.

Even though I had no right to be angry, I scolded him.

I was too preoccupied with my own emotions to care about how Yujin felt.

When I finally quieted down after making a scene and exhausting myself,

Did Yujin think to himself,

“This woman is too much trouble…”

He must have felt increasingly burdened by my growing interference.

“Oh no. No, Yujin…”

Yujin must have had his own desires.

I always sought childish affection while completely disregarding his needs.

He needed an outlet, and he probably found one elsewhere.

A deaf woman like her probably meant nothing more than a one-night stand; I ended up overanalyzing everything alone.

In a moment of emotional blindness, I ruined everything.

“I’ve come back to rectify my mistake.”

I’m not sure how the regression happened.

Not all memories have returned at once.

But the sole purpose of my return is clear: to make amends for my mistake.

“Sigh. I need to find Yujin first…”

I won’t repeat the same mistake.

I now realize how precious and significant Yujin was.

I will no longer treat Eugene like my slave.

I will treat him as an equal.

I will ask about his likes and hobbies.

As much as Eugene knows about me, I will also get to know him.

I will become someone indispensable to Eugene.

As much as I love him, I will make Eugene love me.

Just as I cannot be without Eugene, I will make sure Eugene cannot be without me.

Definitely.

“Yes? He’s gone?”

That can’t be true.

By now, Eugene was working as a day laborer, moving from one construction site to another.

However, no matter how hard I searched, I couldn’t find Eugene’s name anywhere.

“That can’t be possible…”

The Hameln development project is being carried out under the strict supervision of the central government.

Even with temporary laborers, every single person was meticulously recorded.

Yet Eugene’s name was nowhere to be found.

Eugene is not in Hameln.

Now I can only think that way.

‘That note!’

The identity of the person who sent that note.

The question I had momentarily forgotten was now answered.

It was Eugene.

Eugene had warned me to avoid assassination.

But why didn’t he come himself?

‘Something is wrong.’

It’s the butterfly effect.

Due to subtle changes that occurred as the chapters diverged, things got messed up.

The difference between Eugene, who was originally supposed to come to Hameln and work on the construction site before becoming my bodyguard, and the fact that he hadn’t even set foot in Hameln was now significant.

“I have to go find him.”

I have to find Eugene.

If he doesn’t show himself, then I’ll have to go to him.

With that thought in mind, I immediately began the search.

“A man named Eugene, of Northern Continent descent, could not be found anywhere.”

“Did you search properly?!”

“I’m sorry. The name Eugene is common. But that’s a story from the Southern Continent. It’s easy to find a man named Eugene with blond or silver hair, but a man of Northern Continent descent with black hair named Eugene has not been found anywhere. Besides, he was a rather incompetent man when it came to swordsmanship. It wasn’t until he read about our family’s inherited swordsmanship that he started swinging a sword somewhat convincingly. There was hardly any reason for him to be famous enough to be caught by a detection net.”

“I will find him… somehow…”

Having felt the void of a lifetime of ignorance, I had no other choice now but to retrieve Eugene.

Even now, I am barely enduring the thought of sitting next to Eugene, joking around with him while leaning my head on his shoulder.

“L-Lady Saint! What in the world is this…?!”

Crash.

With a thunderous roar as if lightning struck, the ceiling of the cathedral collapsed.

Amidst the noise and chaos, faint screams could be heard.

“Oh my. It seems there were people inside. Hurry, call the rescue team.”

“Gasp! Yes! Understood!”

Without Eugene, I pondered a lot on how to avoid assassination.

Simply not attending the completion ceremony at the cathedral would not solve the issue.

If I don’t reveal myself at the cathedral, the assassins will attack me on a different day, at a different place.

I needed a definite solution.

And the only certain method I knew of was one that Eugene had taught me.

“Eugene. Are you watching?”

It was the same scene as before.

Columns turned to dust, and the ceiling collapsed to the ground.

Perhaps Eugene, if he saw this scene, might be surprised.

Ah. This was the plan I was considering using…

“Hehehe. It won’t take long.”

I will definitely find him.

There are countless methods available.

Up until now, I’ve only used quick, almost gimmicky methods to find him.

If necessary, there’s also the method of conducting a thorough search of every village across the entire continent.

Time may be long, but I will definitely find it.

One thing I fear is how Eugene will react when we meet again.

It will be his first time seeing me.

Unlike me, who has returned to the past, he will be in a state of forgetting everything.

Considering what he knew about the assassins and that he came to rescue me, it is certain that he had an interest in the saintly woman.

But the chances are high that it will stop right there.

A just man who only hopes to survive by respecting the saintly lady.

To Eugene, I am no different from a stranger now.

“I should do well without feeling too burdened······.”

When we reunite, tears will burst out unknowingly.

I will want to embrace him tightly.

I will want to call his name affectionately.

But I must endure.

So that Eugene won’t be too surprised.

And then, slowly, I will rebuild my relationship with Eugene from the beginning.

This time, without crumbling. Firmly.

“Ah······.”

That day is eagerly awaited, sending shivers down my spine.

Just imagining the reunion makes my whole body tingle.

With pleasure reaching its peak, my body trembles.

Just hold on a little longer and wait, Eugene.

I will go find you soon.