After organizing his thoughts for some time, Grandfather finally asked,
“Why are you trying to give that maid an opportunity to take revenge on Her Majesty the Empress? You said it wasn't simply because you felt sorry for her, didn't you? Is there some reason you specifically need to use that maid to… attack Her Majesty?”
“If what happened this time wasn't an accident… if it was something deliberately done by someone… then perhaps… Father and Mother… might have…”
The moment Grandfather heard his deceased daughter and son-in-law being mentioned, his hands began to tremble.
As though the nightmare of that day had come flooding back to him, Grandfather covered his face with both hands. Then he slowly wiped his face as though washing it dry.
“Hoo… Rachel…”
His voice trembled with tears as he called out the name of his deceased daughter.
“I need to know what that maid saw that made them discard her so cruelly. That's why this incident…”
“I understand.”
Grandfather nodded.
“I'll make sure this matter is buried appropriately. After that, I'll do what I can to have that maid's identity changed and send her to you. I'll also speak to His Majesty myself.”
“Yes. And there's one more thing I want to ask.”
I continued.
“Please make it seem as though I wasn't the one who asked you to send that maid to me today.”
“Th-that means…”
Grandfather looked bewildered.
“You want me to tell His Majesty that it was my own decision, and that I'm using you as an excuse to hide a witness?”
“Exactly.”
“Ha! Good grief. I don't think your maternal cousin Rudian was like this when he was eight…”
Grandfather let out a breath of disbelief.
Well, if I were him, I'd be speechless too.
I quietly ignored my grandfather's muttering.
Deep within the dark woods, the sound of footsteps crunching softly against the earth echoed through the silence.
Cold moonlight settled over the evening dew.
Ar walked through the entire mountain wearing a black cloak, breathing heavily.
It has to be here…
He thought so as he rubbed the back of his neck with his fingertips.
“I'm going crazy. Was I scammed?”
No.
That couldn't be it.
Judging by the fact that he had returned here, it didn't seem as though he had been deceived.
If it had been a scam, he should have been in the afterlife by now.
And not as a thirteen-year-old kid, either.
He should have been twenty-three—a young man.
That day, long ago… or perhaps, in a sense, in the future…
At that time, he had been Princess Amelia's escort knight.
On the day the death poison had been ordered for the princess, Amelia had refused to accept the humiliation of being executed alive and had decided that she would rather drink the poison and die herself.
Ar had forcibly dragged her out and brought her into these mountains.
It had been raining steadily that day.
A pursuit party had followed them after they escaped from the Cold Palace.
They had already been battered and bruised all over from desperately trying to evade their pursuers.
They had endured by sheer force of will, gritting their teeth and pushing forward.
His mission had been to escort the princess to a predetermined meeting point, where they would meet Lloyd Kroizen, the second son of the Duke of Kroizen and Amelia's fiancé, and then flee together to the continent of Sahaim.
He had devoted his entire body and soul to that great cause—to survive and prepare for a future beyond the Empire.
Looking back now, however, he honestly wasn't sure whether what he had done back then had been purely for the greater cause.
But that wasn't important anymore.
Things would be different from now on.
No.
They had to be different.
In any case, arrows came flying from behind them.
They were poisoned arrows.
Since the intention had been to kill them with poison anyway, it was only natural that the arrows had been coated with poison.
One of the poisoned arrows grazed Amelia's forearm.
Unfortunately, there was no antidote.
No, more precisely, they didn't even know what kind of poison it was, so they had no idea what antidote to use.
The one thing working in their favor was the tremendous amount of rain pouring down.
It was falling so heavily that it was washing away their footprints.
Without tracks, it would be difficult for the pursuers to follow them.
At the same time, the sound of the rain made it easier for them to conceal their movements as they fled.
The fact that the cold made his body tremble was something he could endure.
Once he thought they had put a considerable amount of distance between themselves and the pursuit party, he spread out a sleeping bag in a suitable spot.
Then he laid the exhausted Amelia down on it.
Whether it was because she was completely soaked from the rain or because the poison had spread through her body, she was trembling violently.
In desperation, he opened the only two potions they had left and made her drink them.
She immediately cried out in agony, saying it felt as though her body were burning.
“You have to live, Your Highness. You have to drink it if you want to survive.”
His voice caught in his throat.
But he couldn't let it show.
Amelia clung desperately to him, writhing and saying that it felt as though her arm was being torn off, while he forced the potion down her throat.
Looking back now, he wondered if he had been selfish.
Had he wanted to save her purely because of his own desires?
Whatever poison they had used, blood continued to trickle from her wound without stopping.
“I'll find some blood-stanching herbs, Your Highness.”
He pulled himself away from Amelia, who shook her head desperately, asking him to stay beside her, and stood up.
He searched every inch of the surrounding area, gathering every herb he could remember that was supposed to be good for treating poison or stopping bleeding.
He was tearing through the mountain like a madman when someone suddenly appeared in front of him.
Without so much as an introduction, they blocked his path and announced themselves.
“We are servants of Chronos, the God of Time.”
“...?”
“This is the sacred relic of the God of Time. The one mentioned in the founding myth of the Empire… I believe you know of it.”
They held out a silver dagger toward him.
Though it was called a dagger, it was quite long—roughly the length from an adult woman's wrist to her elbow.
Ar accepted it almost reflexively.
The dagger was surprisingly light.
And cold as ice.
The handle was shaped like the head of a dolphin, and on either side of the end, where the dolphin's eyes would have been, were two small blue gemstones.
“The sacred relic from the founding myth…?”
“It is said to be an object bestowed by Chronos, the God of Time, when the First Emperor offered sacrifices to the gods immediately after founding the Empire.”
“It is said that when the Empire faces the threat of destruction, this relic can use the power of the God of Time to rewrite history.”
When he had read the founding myth as a child, he had imagined something resembling a clock because the story said that its user could be sent back into the past.
Perhaps he had imagined flipping an hourglass or turning the hands of a clock.
But a dagger?
Its appearance was completely different from what he had expected, which made him suspicious.
Yet there was something extraordinary about the dagger.
The strange sensation it gave off—an otherworldly feeling, as though it didn't belong to this world—made him strangely inclined to believe the supposed priests.
“When I read the founding myth as a child, I imagined that since it could send its user into the past, it would look something like an hourglass or a clock…”
“Hahaha! The shape of a sacred relic doesn't always match human expectations.”
The priest laughed.
“In any case, its usage is simple.”
“How?”
“You must kill someone.”
Ar's expression hardened.
“If you kill someone with this dagger, only that person will retain their memories of the present when time is turned back into the past.”
The priest continued.
“The dagger will remain exactly where it was used. You must retrieve it.”
“...Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because the Empire is facing the threat of destruction, and the time has come to use it, just as the myth foretold.”
The priest's voice was calm.
“Wouldn't the deaths of the entire Imperial Family constitute a crisis? The person who takes the throne after wielding power with the blood of thousands on their hands could never possibly rule benevolently.”
Ar stared blankly at the dagger.
Did gods actually exist?
He had lived his entire life without ever specifically denying their existence, but he had never believed in them either.
Yet when he looked at this object, he couldn't help but feel as though perhaps the gods truly did exist.
While he stood there, mesmerized by its strange appearance, the people claiming to be priests of the God of Time suddenly disappeared.
Only then did Ar come to his senses.
Someone who isn't of the Imperial bloodline became Emperor?
Voltaire isn't Imperial blood?
What does that mean?
But the people who could answer his questions had already vanished.
When he returned to where the princess had been, carrying the dagger and the herbs, all that awaited him was the sleeping bag containing Amelia's corpse.
Her face had gone deathly pale.
Her body was cold.
That had been the end of his previous life.
Amelia was dead.
If I'd known this would happen, I should have stayed beside her when she told me to leave.
Regret came flooding over him too late.
Amelia was dead.
What use was any of this now?
He threw away the herbs he was holding.
His past self had been so foolish and pathetic to think he could save her with a handful of grass.
He looked down at the dagger in his hand.
Whether he went back to the past or not no longer mattered.
Nothing meant anything anymore.
No period of time meant anything.
It would be nice if he could return to the past, but he wasn't going to expect it.
He didn't care about such a ridiculous fantasy anymore.
Besides, it was difficult to cut his own throat with a long sword.
But a dagger of this size was perfect.
Without hesitation, he plunged the dagger into his own neck.
One of the two blue eyes of the dolphin shattered with a faint crack.
That had happened only yesterday—or so it felt.
He had definitely used it here that day.
“Haa… This is seriously driving me insane.”
Judging by the fact that the remaining dolphin eye was still intact, perhaps he had one more opportunity.
In other words, it might not have become an ordinary dagger after all.
It might still possess the power of the sacred relic.
He had one chance left.
Did I come looking for it too late?
Was it swept away somewhere by the rain and wind?
Or did someone find it first and take it?
But would anyone even come into these woods?
Unfortunately, Ar was still only a trainee in the knights' order, so he wasn't free to move around as he pleased.
Because of that, it had taken him five years after his regression to finally sneak away and search for the dagger.
There was no way it would simply have remained in the exact place where he had left it.
In the end, Ar failed to find the sacred relic once again that day.
Every three or four days, I would secretly sneak into my dressing room at night and open the mirror.
The dagger was always there.
Exactly where it belonged.
Wrapped in the cloth just as it had always been.
Lately, even during the day, whenever I was alone and my nanny and maids weren't in the room, I would sometimes open it to check.
As the weather grew colder and winter fully arrived, with ice beginning to form over puddles on the ground, I stopped going outside very often.
Perhaps because I was bored, I found myself checking the place for no particular reason.
Ugh…
What exactly is so special about that thing?
I was shaking my head to myself when my nanny noticed my sigh and expression.
She had been melting chocolate into some warm milk when she approached me.
“Your Highness?”
“Hmm? Yes?”
“What are you thinking about so deeply?”
“Nothing.”
I paused.
“I was just wondering if it would be possible to turn back time…”
I gave a playful little laugh.
“Did you do something you regret? Is that why you want to turn back time?”
My nanny answered my joke with surprising seriousness and a smile.
“No, well… Not exactly.”
In truth, I did want to turn back time.
I had desperately wished for it.
And astonishingly, I had actually gone back.
My nanny quietly looked at my face before speaking softly.
“Your Highness. Once time passes, it does not come back. If you've done something you regret, you should do your best to fix it as quickly as possible.”
She smiled gently.
“And from now on, you should do your best in the present so that your future self won't have anything to regret. Understand?”
“Y-yes.”
I nodded almost instinctively.
Come to think of it, even if time continued to pass like this, there was no guarantee that I would ever regress into my childhood again.
In that sense, she was right.
Once time passed, it could not be turned back.
The me from my previous life couldn't turn back time because she had no idea that the me of the present would return to the past.
And the me of the present couldn't turn back time because I had no guarantee that my future self would ever be able to return to the past again.
I hadn't actually gone against time.
I had simply lived through the same period twice.
Therefore, my nanny's words were truly the perfect answer to a foolish question.
Just then, one of the maids standing nearby brought me a cup of chocolate milk.
She had finished melting the chocolate into the milk my nanny had set aside.
The maid was Bell—the girl whom my uncle had driven away after searing both her eyes with a branding iron in my previous life simply because she had glared at him.
“Thank you, Bell.”
“You're welcome. Hehe.”
Then she suddenly added,
“But… I once read about an object that could turn back time in a myth.”
She looked excited.
“It's in the founding myth, isn't it? The sacred relic of Chronos, the God of Time!”
