(4) The Past Shown by God
Honestly, Asla was tired and wished she could sleep soundly.
But contrary to her wish, she found herself in a summer garden with intense sunlight pouring down.
Red roses around her emitted a strong fragrance, and the sharp cries of summer insects tickled her ears.
‘This is a dream.’
Though it was the first time she had felt a scent so vividly, Asla didn’t doubt it otherwise since she often had vivid dreams.
She just exhaled a dry sigh and shook her head.
When she woke up from such a vivid dream, her shoulders would ache more and her head would feel heavier.
But she soon smiled.
She was delighted to see the summer rose garden after so long.
‘Was I curious because Enoch mentioned the place of our first meeting?’
To even dream about it like this.
Looking around the well-maintained summer rose garden, she was overwhelmed with intense nostalgia.
This was the royal garden of the now extinct Sherita Holy Kingdom at the southern end of the continent.
The homeland where Princess Asla Sherita grew up and matured.
Her rose garden, which would now have disappeared without a trace, swallowed by the rotting earth.
The devastation of her homeland, which she had tried not to recall, tormented her.
But Asla smiled sorrowfully, thinking it fortunate that at least in her dream, this place still shone brilliantly.
Just as she reached out to a large red rose, a familiar and longed-for voice pierced her ears intensely.
“No, my goodness! How can someone be so rude? Our princess extended her hand first!”
It was her nanny’s voice.
She opened her eyes wide.
Asla’s precious nanny who had raised and cared for her from birth until her marriage.
‘My dear person whom I can no longer meet.’
Though she had desperately wanted to see her, her nanny who rarely appeared in her dreams was finally visible.
She felt a tightness in her nose, overwhelmed by profound emotion.
Nostalgia surged. As Asla turned toward the direction of her nanny’s voice, eager to see her, she stopped.
Looking down at the unfamiliar sensation, Asla’s lips parted in surprise.
‘Pants?’
Instead of the flowing dress she always wore, she was wearing straight-cut pants.
There was another bizarre situation.
“Calm down, nanny. He might not have seen…… Besides, Duke Ventus has no reason to pay attention to a princess from a powerless country like me.”
Asla heard her own voice coming from somewhere other than herself.
More precisely, it was the delicate voice of a fifteen-year-old girl, from Princess Asla Sherita’s girlhood.
‘That’s my voice.’
Asla swallowed hard, thinking she was having quite a strange dream.
She listened to the conversation between her younger self and the nanny, becoming increasingly surprised.
It was indeed the conversation she had with her nanny the day she first met Enoch Ventus.
‘How am I dreaming this so accurately?’
Asla shook her head in disbelief, thinking her subconscious was truly frightening.
Completely forgetting the strange situation of wearing pants, she carefully parted the rose vines to create a gap.
She missed her nanny who rarely appeared even in dreams.
Her heart pounded, wondering if she might be able to converse with her nanny in such a vivid dream.
No, even if she couldn’t talk to her, she wanted to see her nanny’s face to her heart’s content.
When they became visible through the rose vines, the corners of Asla’s lips slowly turned upward.
‘So that’s what I looked like at fifteen.’
Though she was delighted to see her long-missed nanny, she felt truly pleased seeing her younger self.
Her pink hair, flowing like waves and covering her back, was soft, and the eyelashes framing her clear, shining mint-colored eyes were like butterfly wings.
Her smooth nose bridge and exposed white neck were beautiful, and her lips were extremely red as if filled with fruit pulp.
Asla felt a stinging sadness in one corner of her heart.
Seeing her past self, so much brighter than her current self, gave her mixed feelings.
Her slightly flushed cheeks were as lovely as a summer peach.
‘Perhaps because I had just fallen for Enoch.’
She felt melancholic.
Had she really been that pretty in the past? Even though it wasn’t a time she felt particularly happy, she looked better than now.
“Your Grace. Do you like that princess so much?”
“……?”
Asla was startled by a man’s voice suddenly coming from behind her, but following the etiquette she had learned, she turned her head slowly and gracefully.
‘Who is…… this person?’
The young man looked somewhat familiar, though she couldn’t remember exactly who he was, with a tear mole under his eye.
Since she couldn’t possibly forget a man with such a distinct feature, Asla tried to recall who he was.
She thought his disapproving gaze was rude.
But this was all just a dream anyway.
Just as she decided not to mind, the man held his forehead and sighed deeply.
“How can you promise to send such a huge amount of money, Your Grace?”
Asla clicked her tongue, not understanding what the grumbling man was saying.
‘Your Grace? Is he talking to me? I am Asla Sherita, the one over there.’
Even for a dream, as the progression became jumbled, Asla grew confused.
As she turned her gaze toward her past self who was having various conversations with the nanny, the man approached, scratching the back of his head.
“Such a cunning king. They call themselves a Holy Kingdom, but how are they any different from thieves? Really.”
“What are you talking about?”
Asla was about to ask the man making incomprehensible statements but was instead shocked and placed her hand on her lips.
This voice was a man’s voice. Clearly.
“Enoch……?”
“Why are you suddenly saying your own name, Duke Enoch Ventus, Your Grace? Are we really proceeding with this?”
It was true.
Though slightly youthful, it was definitely Enoch’s voice.
Asla looked at her hands.
Large hands in white gloves. And a dark navy jacket worn even in midsummer.
Dreaming that she had become Enoch was utterly absurd, and she muttered quietly, “This can’t be real.”
This was the first time she had such a dream.
Even during her teens when she ardently loved Enoch, she had never dreamed of becoming him.
Though she had admired him, envying his seeming perfection without any flaws, she had never thought of becoming him.
‘Did I actually want to become Enoch?’
Dreams tended to reflect the deepest desires of the self.
As Asla let out a meaningless laugh, the man raised both hands in surrender as if giving up.
“Since Your Grace has decided, we will of course proceed accordingly. But it’s so frustrating. Even if you don’t officially reveal the donation, shouldn’t you at least take credit with that princess? You show all the signs of being smitten with Princess Asla Sherita, yet why don’t you say a word to her?”
“……What do you mean?”
Blinking as she listened to the man’s rapid-fire words, she frowned.
As if Enoch would fall for her.
Asla suddenly thought that if Margo had heard this, she would have grabbed a spear and chased after her to stab her.
Even though it was just her own dream, it was absurd and embarrassing.
She had given up on loving Enoch.
She had abandoned her feelings and expectations for him and was trying to divorce, so why was she having such a dream?
‘Anyway, stupid Asla. You’re truly an idiot.’
Filled with self-loathing, she bit her lower lip firmly.
“It’s no use pretending not to know. How many years have I served Your Grace…… I’ll follow your orders for now. I’ll prepare the donation amount of ten million luans for the purification of the Sherita Holy Kingdom.”
‘Ten million luans?’
How could a dream be so realistic yet unrealistic at the same time? Asla felt extremely dizzy.
As she recalled, ten million luans was a much larger amount than the annual budget of the Sherita Kingdom.
Blinking at the feeling of her heart dropping, she soon shook her head.
‘No, that can’t be possible. This is just a dream.’
But at that moment.
Something suddenly occurred to Asla.
It was about an event seven years ago when delegations from the Empire and various countries gathered at the Holy Kingdom.
It was also when she first encountered Enoch.
‘Father was delighted about receiving a large donation and said they had started purifying the contaminated land.’
She remembered because a large-scale conference for the purification plan had been held for several days with all the high priests gathered.
She had asked who the donor was, but her father—Walter Sherita—had declared it confidential since the identity wasn’t revealed.
‘What about mother?’
The queen, with an even sterner expression than King Walter, had merely gestured for Asla to return to her room.
She hadn’t wanted to be involved further. She hadn’t known the donation was ten million luans.
‘No, this is just a dream.’
Asla’s throat felt dry and even painful.
The so-called purification plan for the contaminated land was…… simply burying blessed holy objects in the polluted earth.
Though it seemed impossible, if the donation was ten million luans, where had all that money disappeared to so quickly?
It was an absurd dream. Yet somehow it felt connected to the truth, giving her goosebumps.
“The donor’s name……”
When Asla barely managed to ask in a trembling voice, the man answered indifferently.
“As Your Grace instructed, it will remain anonymous. Since it’s much more than the money he was planning to receive in exchange for sending his daughter to that old island king, that plan will probably be withdrawn too.”
‘What……?’
Thud, thud, thud.
Before Asla could deeply consider the man’s words, the dream world twisted and shook violently.
‘What is this, what is that man saying?’
These stories she knew nothing about. Why was she having such a dream?
As the jolting sensation intensified.
The space blurred, and as blue waves crashed over her, Asla opened her eyes wide.
The symbol of God, blue waves.
⁕⁕⁕
“Asla!”
Asla felt someone firmly embracing her severely shaking body.
Struggling in the blue waves, she barely opened her eyes.
‘This person, why is he…… so alarmed?’
Asla met eyes with Enoch, who appeared visibly tense.
He opened his mouth to say something, but she couldn’t hear properly.
Feeling as if all the blood was draining from her body, she fainted.
Even as she lost consciousness, she thought: there’s no way he could fall for me.
