“*Tsk…*”
The sunlight filtered gently through the leaves of the *path*.
Erica, walking alongside Iris, kicked a stone in front of her.
“What’s this about? You’ve just provoked Schlus for no reason.”
“……..”
She hadn’t come looking for Schlus Hainkel with the intention of being chased away.
At first, she had aimed to ask about Yulia little by little.
But Iris had ruined everything.
Suddenly making Schlus angry…
“This is enough.”
“What?”
“Have you ever seen Schlus this angry before?”
“No, I haven’t…”
“Me neither. If you had said he was going to kill someone other than Yulia, Schlus would have probably just shrugged it off or scoffed at you. But this time, he reacted strongly in a way I’ve never seen before. Isn’t that a sufficient answer?”
“So… does that mean there’s something between Schlus and Yulia?”
Iris smiled slightly.
This made Erica’s head hurt even more.
No matter how she thought about it, other than having met a few times, there seemed to be no connection between the two of them. What the heck…
“Did they fall in love at first sight or something?”
“I doubt it’s that simple. People usually don’t kill those they love.”
“What? Were you serious?”
In the future, Schlus would kill Yulia and be arrested for execution.
She thought it was just a well-crafted lie to agitate Schlus, but it turned out to be real?
Erica’s eyes widened in confusion.
“Well, it could be true or it could be false.”
“What the…! Tell me right now!”
“I’m sorry. It’s difficult to say.”
“What’s that! You can’t even tell me?”
“No.”
“That’s unfair…!”
Erica felt like she might go crazy for a moment.
Why on earth did I ever get called here?
“You know something, don’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“Tell me too, okay? It involves my sister.”
“That’s why I definitely can’t tell you.”
“Hey!”
Chasing after Iris, who kept dropping ominous hints, Erica felt a wave of powerlessness wash over her.
The fact that she knew less about matters related to her sister than Iris was frustrating beyond measure.
Still, since it was Iris’s doing, there must be good intentions behind it…
That fact was the only comfort she had.
‘By the way, that guy… he didn’t deny meeting our mom.’
Biting her nails, Erica recalled almost forgetting about it.
When she pressed Schlus about secret meetings with her mother, he had answered like this:
-“Don’t worry. I’ll only use her a little and return her soon.”
“Just use her a little and return her…?”
What on earth did he mean by that?
As Erica’s imagination ran wild, her face flushed red.
“That crazy…!”
He was a ridiculous scoundrel.
Playing around with someone else’s mother?
What kind of leverage did her mother have to be going with a guy like that…?
“Is he really crazy?!”
“………”
Erica, holding her head and shouting, was looked at pitifully by Iris without a word.
*
She had calmed down a lot.
Her heartbeat had stabilized.
Now, she was in such a state of tranquility that she couldn’t comprehend why she had been so worked up earlier.
“The Ring of Miracles… It’s probably because of that, isn’t it?”
No matter how many times she thought about it, the only thing that could cause this situation was the Ring of Miracles.
It was the only thing she could think of that might make a character from the *novel* call her name.
It felt like some kind of bug.
Trying to call forth Han Ah-reum’s persona, maybe her similar body just happened to exist, causing her to imperfectly inhabit this one…
If that were the case, it would explain Yulia’s nightmares or why she was calling her true name.
“But how could this happen…?”
To mimic Han Ah-reum’s personality, she would at least need to know that guy. How on earth could the reader who created this world know that?
As these thoughts swirled in her head, she quickly gave up thinking.
If they could create a world this absurd, they could be deemed practically omnipotent.
So, there was no need to worry or ponder further about it.
Though it wasn’t a satisfying answer.
She should have stopped thinking here.
However, her thought processes took another leap, making her heart race again.
“So, what about Yulia…?”
Did Yulia contain Han Ah-reum’s soul or persona, or something resembling Han Ah-reum?
Did she remember me?
If even a part of her could be called Han Ah-reum…
Couldn’t Yulia, who looked exactly like her, essentially be Han Ah-reum as well?
“Shit…”
Her composure shattered like glass.
Now, it started to make sense.
What Iris had said.
About the future where I kill Yulia.
Perhaps if Yulia spoke in that guy’s tone and voice, looking just like him in front of me…
Then I would probably go insane upon facing a person that I wanted to deny existed, losing my mind and killing her wouldn’t be completely out of the question…
That thought suddenly struck her.
“There’s a time limit…”
It would vanish soon.
Since it resided in an imperfect body, it might last longer than just a soul descending, but it wouldn’t last forever and would eventually fade away.
So should I meet her before that?
What if I went to meet her and ended up killing her, just like Iris said?
But if I didn’t meet her, would I regret it for the rest of my life?
“Haah…”
This was an once-in-a-lifetime dilemma.
To carry the risk of regret…
Or to actually regret?
It wasn’t something easy to decide.
It also wasn’t something to delay.
“Damn… I don’t know.”
For now, she decided to postpone her decision.
As she was sure her fragile mental state would shatter the moment she set out to find Yulia.
Midterms were just around the corner, so she couldn’t do something like that.
“Tsk. I’m hungry.”
Just as she tried to study, her stomach audibly grumbled.
No matter how hard she tried to study, feeling hungry and tired was the same back then as it was now.
She couldn’t concentrate anyway.
Without hesitation, she stood up and opened the door to the *training room*.
“Are you out, Mr. Hainkel?”
Emilia greeted her from the stairs.
Had she been waiting the whole time?
No way.
She must have just happened to stop when the door opened.
“You’re late. Lunchtime is already way past.”
“Excuse me? What time is it?”
“It’s just past 2.”
No way, this crazy…
She thought she had only taken a moment to think, but four hours had slipped by just like that.
It was already afternoon and she hadn’t accomplished anything.
With a sigh, she climbed the stairs.
“I have something here that Saintess Iris told me to give to you…”
Emilia said in a gradually quieter voice as she unfolded her palm.
Something small was there, a little cross.
At first glance, it looked like something one would hang as a necklace.
What the heck?
Upon closer inspection, it looked just like the cross Iris had been wearing.
Did she take it off to give it to me, or is it just a similar item…?
I would find out when I confronted Iris later.
“Were there any accompanying words?”
“No. Just this… If you don’t want it, shall I throw it in the fire to melt it?”
Emilia seemed to be regarding her with concern and probably thought it was serious after their earlier argument.
In reality, it hadn’t been a big deal.
It was just Iris teasing her as usual, and she had let it get to her this time.
Something like this shouldn’t ruin their relationship.
As Iris said, they had known each other for a long time.
Like it or not, they were destined to move through this *novel’s* ending together.
Maybe by then, they would be on opposite sides.
“Just give it to me.”
“Okay.”
The moment she took the cross, everything around her suddenly changed.
To be precise, the surroundings turned black.
As her sight was completely blocked, the only sensation left was the texture of the small metal piece at her fingertips.
She realized immediately.
This was the activation effect of “Memory of True Self.”
The sensation she felt at her fingertips was definitely the cross.
Once she realized this, everything brightened suddenly, and she was able to return to reality.
“Mr. Hainkel. Mr. Hainkel?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Could you prepare lunch?”
“Yes. I understand.”
Sending Emilia away, who was looking at her worriedly, or perhaps suspiciously, she stuffed the cross into her pocket.
She didn’t understand Iris’s intentions in giving her this.
However, she realized that she had seen some future and by handing this over, she believed it was to avoid or manipulate that future.
If not, it could just be a meaningless gift to complicate her mind.
But the chance that this meaningless gift was somehow tied to Schlus’s memories was exceedingly slim.
‘This was quite intense.’
Normally, considering that “Memory of True Self” manifests in the form of a faint hologram, this time it had overwhelmed her senses.
It was one of the three strongest instances she could remember where reality was nearly suffocated.
The first was when she faced Fenrir with a sword in Whist Forest.
The second, she couldn’t quite recall, was when she glimpsed Iris through a closing door.
And just now.
Among those, two of them were related to Iris. Was that truly just a coincidence?
Did the similar situations in Schlus’s memories overlap too often?
‘That can’t be.’
The strong activation of such abilities could only occur when the circumstances closely matched.
When she faced the training golem on the first day of classes, the image of Fenrir had been opaque and blurry.
Yet, the last time she faced Fenrir in Whist Forest, the exact same memory had appeared as vividly as reality to the point she could hardly distinguish between them.
Even the same memory could manifest differently depending on how consistent the situation was.
The fact that Iris appeared in vividly recalled memories twice meant…
‘Schlus must have met Iris before.’
This was the only conclusion she could draw.
