This time, I clearly owed Lucia a debt.
If she hadn't been there, Celine would've been framed without a chance to defend herself.
Once Celine, who'd been sobbing in my arms, had calmed down, Lucia glanced up at me.
"I have a mountain of questions I want to ask you, Young Master."
Her crimson eyes swept over the ballroom. Her brow furrowed ever so slightly.
"But I don't think we can talk quietly like this. There are too many people in the way."
She was right. Even now, hundreds of pairs of eyes were watching us.
Lucia, the darling of high society, had taken the side of Astin the rogue.
It was certainly juicy enough to draw the attention of the nobles.
"That's true. There are a lot of eyes on us."
And some of them were especially spiteful.
The Crown Prince, the Northern Grand Duke's second son, even the Merchant Guild Master.
Just standing beside Lucia made me a public enemy.
I rubbed my chin, lost in thought. I had a lot to talk about with Lucia, too.
Not to seduce her. Just man to woman, person to person.
Lucia let out a troubled sigh.
I raised my index finger for her to see.
"It's not like there's no way."
"Really?"
Lucia tilted her head, curious.
Before I answered, I gave her dress a quick once-over.
"These flashy outfit makes us stand out even more. If we change clothes, we will be a little less noticeable."
Lucia's eyes went round as marbles. Her lips fell open like a fool's.
"You want to change clothes?"
***
"Ah, that's what you meant. I thought you were going to put on my dress, Young Master."
"...Surely you don't think I'd do that."
I had a spare outfit. A navy tailcoat.
It was a little stiff, but at least I could breathe.
Whoooosh—
A cool breeze blew pleasantly. The open terrace was much more comfortable than a crowded, enclosed room.
Lucia awkwardly straightened her clothes. As I watched, our eyes met.
"Wh-why are you looking at me like that...? Does it not suit me?"
"No. I was looking because it suits you."
I'd given her the uniform I had been wearing.
If she'd changed into another feminine outfit, she'd still stand out.
The outfit least associated with the Lucia people knew was a uniform.
As luck would have it, I'd come wearing one. Its color was the Black Lion's black, the complete opposite of Lucia's bright, yang-like presence.
Her hair was tied in a ponytail, too, so no one would recognize her from a distance.
"Hmm, so this is your type, Young Master~"
Lucia smiled mischievously.
It was true that I felt more at ease with Lucia in a uniform. It wasn't exactly my type, though.
"It suits you much better than a dress. You should enlist."
"I didn't realize you were a recruiter."
I stole a sidelong glance at her profile.
Against the night sky, her profile looked especially beautiful.
Ash, blood, smoke, and gunpowder had never left a blemish on her face.
"It's nice and all, but it's a little big, isn't it?"
Lucia's sleeves fluttered.
She'd folded the sleeves, the hem of the jacket, and the trouser cuffs to make the size work.
Even so, the shoulders were still too loose.
"But it isn't uncomfortable. And it doesn't smell too strongly of perfume."
Sniff, sniff. Lucia ran her nose along the uniform.
Even an action that would've looked silly on anyone else seemed graceful on her.
Beauty made anything believable. In her presence, men and women alike would lose all objectivity.
"I hate the smell of perfume. It gives me a headache."
Nobles wore perfume to cover up their body odor.
A fragment of my modern sensibilities still remained. From my perspective, the nobles' stench was unbearable.
They showered maybe once a week. It wasn't quite as bad as in the Middle Ages, but they still smelled awful.
"Smelly nobles slather themselves in perfume. I don't use perfume, but I keep myself clean. I always shower once or twice a day."
"I never thought I'd find a kindred spirit in a place like this!"
Lucia's voice rose in volume.
She looked like someone who'd just found another two-eyed person in a village full of one-eyed people. She really did seem happy.
"No wonder you smell so nice. I don't like strong perfume either. People should smell like people, don't you think?"
"I agree. Honestly, cigarette smoke smells better than perfume."
"Come on, that's a bit much. Do you smoke, Young Master?"
"No, I don't."
"Really? You're strange."
Lucia rested her arms on the railing. I leaned against it, too, and tilted my head back.
The sky where the red sunset had faded was a deep blue curtain, with clusters of stars scattered across it like silver dust. It was quite a sight.
"It's strange. Other men are desperate to exchange even a single word with me, but you seem indifferent, even when you're right beside me."
"My heart's pounding like crazy right now."
"Want to feel it?"
I kept silent. Lucia chuckled and jabbed me in the side with her elbow.
"You even tried to run away from me. So indifferent."
"Did it ever occur to you that I might dislike you, Young Lady?"
"Come on, you just called me a kindred spirit, and now you're already putting up a wall."
"You were the one who called us kindred spirits..."
My thoughts interrupted me.
Kindred spirits. Lucia was far more than just that to me.
A comrade who'd shared life and death with me. My one and only friend, who'd survived until the very end.
"Ahhh—! Haah, I finally feel alive again. The ballroom must be in an uproar by now."
She stretched, then giggled playfully.
"They'll be searching for me with their eyes burning. Let them search forever. They probably wouldn't recognize me even if they saw me."
"It must be exhausting, hiding like this. Why didn't you just push them away if you didn't like it?"
"Can you push people away just by pushing them? People aren't objects."
Lucia rested her chin on the railing.
"People don't get pushed away. They fall down. Then I'm the only one who gets hurt and becomes the victim. That happened a lot when I was little."
"When you were little?"
"It still happens a lot."
Lucia gazed up at the night sky. The Milky Way seemed to settle in her ruby-red eyes.
"I guess everyone cares more about what they want, no matter what anyone else says. Well, I suppose that's just how people are."
Soon, my reflection appeared in her eyes.
"But you still seem altruistic, Young Master. You think more about others than yourself, don't you?"
"I'm selfish to some extent, too. I only care about myself."
"Then why did you buy General Vermang's sword? You paid 50 million Shillings for it."
"Because it was worth buying."
"So you're a knight who understands honor?"
"Because it's Kardenos. I can see the honor and glory in an old sword, the sweat and blood that seeped into it."
"I see. You're not selfish. You're understanding."
Lucia's lips moved. For some reason, it seemed hard for her to speak.
"General Vermang was someone very close to me."
I started to say something out of habit, then closed my mouth again. I was at a loss for words.
It was the first I'd heard of Lucia having a connection to Vermang.
Not in the novel, or in my first life.
"He was my anonymous benefactor. He paid off all my family's debts, and even covered my living expenses and tuition. He was a kind man."
"That's the first I've heard of it. Do many people know besides me?"
"Probably no one. He kept it a secret. He hid it because he thought people might suspect a military general of using patronage to form ties with a noble family."
Lucia's eyes curved as she looked at me.
"You didn't know, did you?"
"No. I never would've guessed."
"I thought so. If you'd bought the sword to win my favor, it would've been so obvious. I think that's why I like you even more."
Thinking about it, I still didn't know much about Lucia.
"I thought I knew you pretty well, at least vaguely, Young Lady. I was wrong."
"Pfft. This is our first time meeting, isn't it?"
In my previous life, I hadn't met Lucia until after the Great War began.
Back then, all I knew of Lucia was the Lucia from the romance fantasy novel.
"Didn't you just say I'm not selfish and that I'm understanding?"
"Yes, I did."
"I gave it some thought, and I think I'm selfish after all."
"Why do you say that, Young Master?"
The Lucia I knew from the novel was the same as she was now.
The title alone was The Men Keep Bothering Me, So I Keep Running Away.
Lucia had lived up to that title right through the ending.
It was a dark fantasy novel wearing a romance fantasy's skin.
There'd been countless comments like, "How can it be a romance fantasy if she doesn't even flirt with the men and the ending is the apocalypse?"
"I unilaterally hated someone."
In my first life, before I regressed.
The rumors about Lucia that had circulated.
"Back then, I had my reasons. I thought that while I was suffering, that person had everything and still did nothing but complain."
There'd been rumors that she'd kissed the Crown Prince in a corner of the Imperial Palace, exchanged embarrassing love letters with the Tower Master, and had private outdoor rendezvous with the Northern Grand Duke under the pretense of hunting monsters.
These lewd rumors followed in Lucia's shadow.
"There were plenty of others who thought badly of that person, too. All I had to do was listen, and I'd hear some scandal."
A blessing hoarded by one person was bound to feed on others' jealousy and come back as a curse.
I was among those who were jealous.
Let's be honest.
I hated the woman named Lucia.
"I listened to those rumors, too, and added to them."
The grand cause of saving the world.
Ironically, it couldn't be done with an upright heart.
Human emotions were shallow and fickle, but malice could harden into something solid.
No. Not everyone was like that.
"It wasn't just that one person. I did something awful to someone closest to me, too."
A person like me needed an emotional trash can.
Before I remembered my past life, I used Celine that way.
Her day depended on my mood.
Remembering my past life hadn't changed me.
Leaving my family had only been an escape, and trying to save the world had been nothing but flailing.
"After driving away the person I'd treated so horribly, I used someone else as a replacement. The person I mentioned earlier... the one I hated unilaterally."
I never changed, right to the end.
I used Lucia, someone I'd never even met, as my new emotional trash can.
-You're a man-crazy bitch. You're the slut who jumps from one man to another and has fun with all of them.
The protagonist of a romance fantasy who shirked her responsibilities and played around with men.
A male-obsessed heroine who threw away her duties as the protagonist.
That's what I'd decided Lucia was.
While I was busting my ass to save the world, the protagonist was probably still playing around with men.
Using my own suffering as an excuse, I arbitrarily belittled and shamed her.
"I wallowed in self-pity, cursed at her and blamed her... I pushed all the responsibility onto her, saying it was all her fault that we'd ended up like this."
My own psychological issues had given me an excuse to hate Lucia.
I blamed everything on the protagonist so I could endure the hell I was going through.
Human malice could become this ugly.
And without knowing what was going on inside me, Lucia in front of me was worrying about me with clear eyes.
An unbearable shame washed over me.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to look away. I felt like my voice would start shaking at any moment.
"It took me a long, long time to realize that every mistake and all the blame were mine."
-You're right about everything. I was crazy. It was all my fault.
The more I blamed Lucia, the more she took all that blame upon herself and blamed herself.
She was different from me.
She was the kind of protagonist who blamed herself instead of others.
-I should've just tried to find real love.
A poor woman whose insides had rotted away under unwanted obsession.
Unlike what I'd imagined, Lucia had never experienced real love.
Her regrets and lingering feelings came from that absence.
-Hey, Astin. If tomorrow were the last day of the world, what would you want to do?
What she'd said to me might've been a confession she'd struggled to make.
Lucia wanted to fall in love with a man, kiss the man she loved, and roll around in bed with him.
Maybe even on the last day of the world.
Lucia had loved me, wanted to kiss me, and wanted to roll around in bed with me.
"It's okay."
Those words brought me back to reality.
I saw my face reflected in her ruby-red eyes.
"You realized it and reflected on it, even if it was late. Just sincerely apologize to that person. I'm sure they'd forgive you, the way you are now, Young Master."
"I can't anymore."
"...What?"
"I can't apologize."
Lucia's mouth fell open slightly. A brief silence settled between us.
I had nothing to say, so I waited for Lucia to speak.
"That person..."
I heard a tremor in her voice.
"What were they like?"
My thoughts tangled up in my head.
I barely managed to open my mouth.
"They were a good person, and it's hard to describe them. I was pathetic for hating someone like that."
I still regretted it.
If only I'd been with Lucia from the start. If only I'd opened up to her even once. If only I'd tried to get to know her.
A lot would've changed if I'd tried to save the world with an upright heart.
In the end, the apocalypse was my fault, not Lucia's.
I was the one who should've regressed. Maybe Lucia knew that, too, and sent me back.
Lucia might've seen right through my feelings from the start.
When she asked me to seduce her, did she mean I should stop hating her and love her instead?
"Poor thing."
I turned my head.
I forced my thoughts aside and faced reality.
"What about me is so pitiful?"
"No, it's nothing. Just... don't bottle things up so much from now on. You look pitiful."
Lucia leaned her upper body forward. Her chin was hidden behind her folded arms.
Her eyes, visible above her arms, stared straight at me. Two red eyes. No scars.
"If there's something you want to say, say it openly, like you are now. That's how you live longer."
She was raising her voice to lighten the mood.
I decided to play along.
"I want to live until I shit myself in a nursing home."
"That's good! The more you want to live, the more you need to take care of your mind."
This conversation felt familiar.
Haah—
Lucia breathed out deeply.
Her white breath was visible in the night air. It looked just like cigarette smoke before quickly scattering into the air.
Lucia's scent drifted to the tip of my nose on the breeze. The pure, unadulterated scent felt strangely empty.
"If you're upset, say you're upset. If you don't like something, say you don't. If you like something, say you do. Live your life expressing yourself that way. Ah... now that I say it, I don't do that myself. Well, I can start now."
The uniform sleeves fluttered in the night breeze. The uniform was untouched by dust and blood. Lucia pulled her collar closed.
Her ponytail fluttered in the breeze. My gaze wandered to her neat hair.
"First, I'll start with me. I'm sorry, Young Master. I want to apologize again for misunderstanding you earlier."
"...I do, too."
I wanted to apologize in the same way.
But when I saw her pair of red eyes, I closed my mouth.
Lucia quietly watched my face. For some reason, I wanted to avoid her gaze.
"And thank you. For protecting General Vermang's honor. I mean it."
"..."
"You said you could see the honor and glory in the sword, right? I couldn't. I just wanted to protect my benefactor's dignity. That's... a little embarrassing."
Just as there were things only I could see, there were things only Lucia couldn't see.
People couldn't see themselves without a mirror.
"A knight who understands honor... doesn't that sound romantic? And cool."
It didn't feel real, hearing her say the word "cool."
I'd rather have heard her say I looked like a chain smoker.
I stared blankly into space. I fixed my gaze on the night sky, pretending to admire it.
-High mountains~ deep valleys~ remember? The one you taught me.
"High mountains— deep valleys—"
A song slipped through my lips.
"Silent— mountains and rivers—"
"What is that? Why are you singing out of nowhere?"
"It's a military song. One I made up."
"You made up a military song yourself?"
"Yes. Would you sing along with me? It's a little awkward alone. You can start with 'High mountains— deep valleys—.'"
"Eek, a military song for a lady? It doesn't suit me. It really doesn't."
"...Is that so?"
It hadn't suited her. Back then, I'd hated hearing it so much.
I hadn't taught it to her, and we'd never sung it together.
She'd heard me muttering to myself and sung it alone like a nightingale.
Traces of me had seeped into her world.
"Young Master Astin."
"Yes?"
"Do you remember the question I asked you at the ballroom entrance? When I asked if we'd met somewhere before."
"I said you must've seen me once or twice in passing."
"I didn't mean a brief encounter. Hadn't we ever met somewhere much deeper?"
"I'm not sure."
I looked at Lucia, dazed.
She wore a uniform untouched by dust or wear.
Her ponytail was neat, not tangled like a dog's fur.
Her scent was clean, yet somehow empty.
Her eyes looking at me were both red. Neither was dark gray, neither bore a scar...
"Not that I know of."
"Really?"
"Yes."
The night breeze felt especially cold.