I had never felt loneliness until now.
Well, that’s because I’ve been all alone since distant ancient times.
I had to stand on my own after losing my parents and do everything by myself.
Maybe it’s just my personality that doesn’t really feel loneliness well.
I even thought about that.
It didn’t take long for me to realize I was wrong.
“Priestess, are you okay?”
“Ah… Yes.”
I was startled by the bodyguard knight’s mention from afar and pulled back the hand I had stretched out.
My hand was cutting through an empty space where no one was present.
Unconsciously, I was brushing over someone’s absence.
So if you ask me who it is, I would be at a loss for words.
I don’t know.
I don’t know who it was, but someone was definitely beside me.
“Why am I like this…”
Even after coming home, this suffocating feeling doesn’t go away.
When I snap out of it, I’m groping at the empty space beside me.
I’m making little snorting noises, trying to call someone.
I find myself pushing my head into an empty space trying to lean on it.
“This is all because of that letter…”
I hadn’t been like this just a few days ago.
The problem started with a certain letter.
It was a note saying I would die at the hands of assassins during the cathedral’s completion ceremony.
Since I saw that note, a torrent of strange emotions poured down on me.
Longing, affection, the desire for acknowledgment, admiration, a sense of relief, obsession…
And maybe, love or something similar.
Feelings I should never have experienced.
Things that have nothing to do with me.
It felt like I had simply worn someone else’s emotions like a coat.
With that vivid sensation, tears flowed out uncontrollably.
“What do you mean? You can’t trace the sender? You can at least know the sending location!”
“I’m sorry, Priestess. It seems to be direct mail sent to the central logistics center.”
They meticulously concealed both the sender and the sending location and even used a typewriter to hide the handwriting.
Initially, I suspected it was a terror from hostile forces.
Maybe a curse with magic or an incantation.
Was it an attempt to destabilize me and neutralize my mind?
“That can’t be. If it were magic or a curse, I would have sensed it long ago.”
That’s not it.
If it were a hypnosis-related spell, there shouldn’t be any magic I’m unaware of as a priestess.
Even though I am trained to be sensitive to the signs of incantations, I didn’t sense a thing.
This wasn’t caused by any external factors.
It was purely an internal issue.
“Mental illness…?”
In the end, I had to suspect mental illness.
Have I finally lost my mind?
No matter how much mental illness suffers don’t know they’re insane, I was objectively fine.
Except for sometimes feeling a strange pain inside my chest.
Except for the point where I long for someone whose face and name I don’t know…
“Who the hell are you…?”
It was frustrating.
It felt like I was going crazy.
I felt like I had forgotten someone who always hugged me.
Who would pet my head.
Who would hold my hand.
The poignant and suffocating feeling that lingers right after waking from a sad dream continued to overwhelm me every day.
The warmth I had never felt before vanished, leaving nothing but terrible loneliness.
Today, just like from the beginning, I pulled apart an empty space where no one ever was, and my heart ached.
Then one morning.
“Yoo, Yoo Jin… Yoo Jin?”
I remembered.
Clear as day, as if it were startlingly vivid.
Yesterday’s foolishness faded away, and memories came back to life.
Yoo Jin.
That man’s name was Yoo Jin.
He was the one who didn’t fear me, the priestess.
Who showed me his ugly side, pushed me away, yet approached and embraced me.
Who accepted me as I was.
Finally, everything was explained.
The space beside me that felt infinitely large.
Where my hand had unconsciously reached out.
The ambiguous height I had tried to lean on.
If all of that meant that Yoo Jin was there, it all fits perfectly.
“Why? Why did I forget?”
It was confusing.
Why on earth had I forgotten such an important thing?
No one could be more precious than Yoo Jin.
I couldn’t even imagine a life without Yoo Jin.
There was no way I could forget him.
“… Ah.”
After deeply contemplating, I realized.
Yoo Jin and I had yet to meet.
The first time I saw him was at a construction site in Hameln.
The second time was during the bodyguard knight interview.
And the real connection began when he saved me at the cathedral.
So, at this point, it was indeed right that I didn’t know Yoo Jin.
I shouldn’t know him yet.
Then what are all these blurry memories of Yoo Jin swirling in my mind?
“I… have regressed to the past.”
The events of the future are as vivid as yesterday.
It’s hard to believe, but there’s only one explanation left.
The future version of me has regressed.
Or the future memories were transmitted to my past self.
That seems to be the only possibility.
“Why?”
Then why did the future me choose to regress?
Why did I decide to send the memories of the future back to the past?
It didn’t take long for the answer to come.
Amidst the vast amount of memories, a moment filled with intense emotion surfaced.
“Yoo Jin… is going to leave my side…?”
Unbelievable information flashed through my mind.
The Yoo Jin who lovingly embraced me, entwined our fingers, walked hand in hand, and joked with me was leaving?
That couldn’t be true.
I slowly retraced my memories.
I felt my way through the torrent of memories and emotions I had never experienced before, trying to decipher what had happened.
“Ah… Ahhh…”
And soon, I collapsed in pain.
I remembered.
It was all my fault.
Because I interfered too much with Yoo Jin.
Because I was such a bother.
I used Yoo Jin as a trash can for my emotions.
So, he got tired and left.
Of course, Yoo Jin also had things to feel guilty about.
After drinking and putting me to sleep, he had spent the whole night with another woman.
But did I have the right to scold Yoo Jin for that?
While I had come to rely on him completely, it wouldn’t have been the case for him.
He was merely playing the role of a bodyguard, accommodating my whims.
Because of that, I was afraid Yoo Jin would feel proud if I clung to him.
I was too scared to reveal my true feelings altogether, fearing I might end up overshadowed by his greater desire.
I might have expressed it indirectly, but I never could bring myself to say, “I love you.”
That was the root of the problem.
If we weren’t lovers, then it shouldn’t matter what he did with other women.
I had no right to be angry, yet I scolded him.
So caught up in clashing with my feelings that I didn’t care how Yoo Jin felt.
When I fussed and cried, eventually tiring myself out and falling silent.
Did Yoo Jin perhaps think?
“This girl is such a pain…”
He must have felt a heavy burden from my increasingly intense interference.
“Ah, no, no, Yoo Jin…”
Yoo Jin must have felt desires too.
Yet, I always yearned for nothing but childish affection, never considering his needs.
He needed an outlet for those feelings, and he had simply chosen to resolve it somewhere appropriate.
That woman, a mere fling, meant nothing to him other than a one-night stand, but I over-interpreted everything.
In an instant, I lost everything by being blinded by my emotions.
“I must have come back to correct my mistakes.”
I don’t quite understand how I regressed.
After all, not all my memories have returned yet.
But the only thing clearer is that I came back to make up for my mistakes.
“Huff. First, I need to find Yoo Jin…”
I won’t make the same mistake again.
Now that I realize how precious and enormous a person Yoo Jin was.
I won’t do anything foolish like treating him as my slave anymore.
I will treat him as an equal.
I will ask what he likes and what hobbies he enjoys.
As much as Yoo Jin knows about me, I will learn about him too.
I will become an indispensable presence for Yoo Jin.
As I love him, I will make him love me too.
Just as I cannot live without Yoo Jin, so too will I make him unable to live without me.
I must.
“Excuse me? There’s none?”
That can’t be true.
At this time, Yoo Jin should have been moving from construction site to construction site as a manual laborer.
But no matter how much I searched, I did not find Yoo Jin’s name.
“That can’t be…”
The development of Hameln is a project being conducted meticulously under the central government’s management.
Even if they hire manual laborers, they should have perfect records without missing anyone.
And yet, I couldn’t find Yoo Jin’s name anywhere.
Yoo Jin is not in Hameln.
I have no choice but to think that way now.
‘That note!’
The identity of the person who sent that note.
The question I had momentarily forgotten was unraveled.
It was Yoo Jin.
Yoo Jin was concerned about me, warning me to avoid assassination.
But why didn’t he come in person?
‘Something must have gone wrong.’
The butterfly effect.
A tiny change caused by the branching of time has led to this mess.
Originally, Yoo Jin was supposed to come to Hameln, going from construction site to construction site to become my bodyguard, but now the gap has grown so much that he doesn’t even set foot in Hameln.
‘I need to go find him.’
I have to locate Yoo Jin.
If he won’t show up, then it’s up to me to go find him.
With that thought in mind, I immediately began my search.
“There were no men named Yoo Jin from the northern continent bloodline to be found anywhere.”
“Are you sure you really looked properly?!”
“I’m sorry.
The name Yoo Jin is common.
But that’s only in the southern continent.
It’s easy to find a man named Yoo Jin with blond or silver hair, but there’s not a single man with black hair from the northern continent bloodline named Yoo Jin anywhere.”
Now that I think about it, he was a rather clumsy swordsman.
He only started to wield a sword decently after reading our family’s secret teachings.
He wasn’t famous enough to even register on the detection network.
“I will find him… somehow…”
Once I’ve felt the empty space I lived my whole life without, there’s no other way for me.
I have to bring Yoo Jin back.
Even now, I can endure just sitting beside Yoo Jin, intertwined fingers, leaning my head on his shoulder, thinking about making some silly jokes.
“P-Priestess! What on earth is…!”
Crash!
With a thunderous noise like lightning crashing down, the ceiling of the cathedral collapsed.
In between the roar and the sound, I thought I heard faint screams.
“Oh my. It appears there were people inside. Hurry and call for rescue teams.”
“Huff! Yes! Understood!”
Now that Yoo Jin is gone, I have thought a lot about how I could avoid the assassination.
Simply not attending the cathedral’s completion ceremony won’t solve anything.
If I don’t show up at the cathedral, the assassins will come after me on another day in another location.
I need a sure-fire method.
And the only sure-fire method I know is one.
The method that Yoo Jin taught me.
“Yoo Jin, can you see this?”
It’s the same scene as before.
The view of all the pillars turning to dust as the ceiling collapses to the floor.
Perhaps seeing this, Yoo Jin might be surprised.
“Oh, isn’t this the method I was thinking of using—”
Ugh, heh heh. It won’t take long.
I will definitely find him.
There are countless methods to choose from.
Up until now, I’ve only used a quick, sneaky method.
If necessary, I could survey every village across the continent.
It will take time, but I will find him, for sure.
One thing I’m afraid of is how he will react when we reunite.
He will certainly see me as someone he’s never met before.
Unlike me, who has returned from the past, he will have forgotten everything.
Considering that he knew about the assassins and had come to save me, it’s clear he had some interest in the priestess.
But that’s likely where his feelings will end.
Just a noble man hoping to survive, revering the priestess.
For Yoo Jin, I’ll be a complete stranger.
“I have to make sure not to overwhelm him…”
When we meet again, I’ll cry out without realizing it.
I will want to embrace him tightly.
I will want to call his name affectionately.
But I have to hold back.
So he doesn’t get too startled.
Then slowly, I will rebuild my relationship with Yoo Jin from the beginning.
This time, I must not let it break. It has to be strong.
“Ah…”
I shiver in anticipation of that day.
Just imagining our reunion sends shivers down my spine.
The thrill rises to a peak, and my body trembles.
Just a little longer, wait for me, Yoo Jin.
I’ll be there to find you soon.
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