Chapter 5. Confusion, Another Farewell

“Huh…… Hah……”

Melissa woke up in the middle of the night, breathing roughly.

Her body instinctively curled up to protect herself.

‘I just……’

What did I just see?

Melissa urgently reached out her hand to feel her stomach.

She had dreamed that a very thick, sharp magical power pierced it. It was a decisive attack that seemed determined not to give even the slightest hope of survival.

And the person who carried out that attack was…..

‘……Edgar.’

Yes, it was Edgar.

Edgar Shortiras. Her fiancé from her past life and…….

The man who had become her lover in this life.

Melissa’s face turned deathly pale.

The hand that had been feeling her stomach only stopped after thoroughly checking that there was no wound anywhere. She couldn’t feel at ease without doing so.

‘It felt too real.’

Edgar standing in front of her.

Herself looking up at him while crying, collapsed on the ground.

The cold winter wind brushing past her hair. The lush trees around. The soft earth touching her legs.

Everything was excessively vivid.

Somehow feeling the room temperature drop, Melissa quickly rubbed her arms. Her hands trembled uncontrollably.

Melissa calmed her increasingly rapid breathing.

‘Ca, calm down. Stay calm.’

It was just a dream anyway.

Just a terrible nightmare she had because her physical condition wasn’t good.

It was surely because too many good things had been happening lately. Isn’t there a saying?

That when you’re too happy, you become anxious that everything might shatter.

This was clearly that kind of situation.

She had felt that Edgar liked her, unlike in her past life, and she had definitely felt that he truly cared for her.

‘It’s just nothing important.’

Melissa tried hard to compose herself like that.

But things didn’t go as Melissa wished.

Because after that, she had the same dream almost every day.

* * *

By this point, Melissa decided to acknowledge it.

This was definitely not something she could just ignore.

‘……I’ve had similar dreams for almost a week.’

Each time she dreamed, the time, place, and the clothes Edgar and Melissa wore changed. But Edgar kills Melissa. This conclusion alone never changed.

As if it were an absolute law that could never be altered.

Melissa slumped weakly onto the desk.

She had come to the library wondering if there might be any information about her current situation. There were more books to look through than she expected.

Since coming to the north, she had practically lived in the library, but she had always focused on books about magical contracts and had never looked for this kind of information. After gathering all the relevant books, she realized most were materials she had never seen before.

‘Even the ones I’ve seen need to be reviewed now.’

Since she had only skimmed books for information about magical contracts, there might be details she had missed. She couldn’t afford to overlook even the slightest thing.

Melissa slowly examined the books.

She desperately wanted to discover the cause of this issue from the texts.

Otherwise, she would have to ask someone else.

‘If I talk about it, I’ll inevitably have to mention the content of the dream.’

They would certainly ask what kind of dream it was.

Melissa didn’t want to show her face at that moment to anyone else. It would surely look miserable to anyone who saw it.

After quite some time passed like that, Melissa closed the last page of the books she had stacked.

She had left home at dawn today after not sleeping properly for a week, and somehow it was already late evening.

‘……I couldn’t find anything after all.’

A sigh escaped from between Melissa’s lips.

There was nothing. Nothing about these symptoms anywhere.

Melissa was about to open the book again but bit her hand. She had already looked through them enough. Nothing would change by looking more.

Rather than wasting time like this, it was better to look for another way. If she couldn’t figure it out on her own, there was only one place to go next.

‘I should see a doctor.’

There might be something wrong with her body.

Melissa stood up to organize the books she had read.

As she placed the books back on the shelves, she thought.

She wished it was just some physical malfunction.

If they said she was having hallucinations because of that, her mind would feel at ease. This anxiety would soon disappear too. Since there were many people in this world who would do anything to save a member of the Lucid family if they fell ill, she wasn’t worried about dying.

In fact, in her past life, she couldn’t even die when she wanted to.

“The infirmary should still be open.”

Melissa glanced at the clock and murmured quietly.

After finishing organizing the books, she headed straight to the infirmary.

She planned to ask quickly and go home, since Edgar stayed in the same building and they might run into each other. It was fortunate that today he had said he would be a bit late because he was inspecting the northern wall.

“Is anyone here?”

Melissa knocked on the door when she arrived at the infirmary.

The doctor, who was coming out with a slightly annoyed face as it was almost closing time, opened his eyes wide when he saw who his visitor was.

“Lu, Lucid! What brings you here……”

“I have something to ask.”

“Please come in first!”

The doctor hurriedly guided Melissa inside.

Melissa sat in the seat he prepared for her.

“Wh, what would you like to know? Is there something wrong with your body?”

“Actually, I’ve been having the same dream repeatedly lately.”

“A dream?”

The doctor asked again, as if it was an unexpected statement.

Well, not many people would seek him out because of dreams.

Melissa nodded and opened her mouth.

“Yes. I keep having similar dreams, and I was wondering if there’s any illness with these symptoms?”

“May I ask what the dream is about?”

……I knew he would ask that.

Melissa couldn’t answer immediately and her lips quivered.

But no matter how much she thought about it, she didn’t have the courage to tell the exact content of the dream. After contemplating briefly, she finally said:

“Just a nightmare. A truly terrible one.”

Terrible. There was no better word to properly describe Melissa’s dream.

So Melissa closed her mouth after saying this.

Fortunately, the doctor didn’t ask more about it.

“Hmm. You keep having nightmares. Has anything happened recently? Sometimes this can happen when you’re in an anxious situation. Because of stress.”

“No. Nothing like that.”

Melissa’s condition had been good until she started having the nightmares.

Even the last knot of tension with Edgar had disappeared.

It could even be called optimal.

“Then are you facing some important event? Sometimes this happens due to excessive expectations before a big event.”

“That’s not it either.”

Melissa said firmly.

After that, the doctor asked a few more questions.

Each time, Melissa shook her head.

The doctor watching her let out a small groan and said:

“Hmm. Miss Lucid. This might be impertinent, but I’ve been thinking something since earlier.”

“What is it? Please speak freely.”

“I’ve asked you quite a few questions, and you’ve been answering with a definite ‘no’ each time. Even for things that might warrant some consideration.”

The doctor cleared his throat briefly.

It seemed less like his throat was actually blocked and more like he was contemplating what to say next and how to say it.

“Ahem. So I think that you might already know the reason for these nightmares. You’ve realized it subconsciously.”

“……”

“Sometimes, people realize something but find it impossible to accept, so they search for evidence to deny it. I’m truly sorry if this sounds offensive……”

The doctor continued, lowering his eyebrows.

No, that’s not it.

She needed to say that wasn’t the case.

But Melissa couldn’t say anything.

Even though it shouldn’t be true, her breath caught as if he had hit the mark precisely. Her eyes grew hot.

Her hands clenched involuntarily.

The doctor was right.

Perhaps she had known all along.

Considering how a certain possibility flashed through her mind as soon as she heard the doctor’s words.

‘That wasn’t just a nightmare.’

Such realistic sensations couldn’t be just a dream.

Melissa had experienced a similar feeling before.

When she used precognition.

When she experienced future events in advance.

‘In other words, what I saw was the actual situation.’

She could deny it wasn’t precognition because she didn’t feel pain, but Melissa already knew.

That at some point, there had been more times when she didn’t feel pain even without Edgar.

……She didn’t know what conclusion to draw.

Should she be amazed at seeing her own future for the first time in her life?

Or should she feel miserable that the future happened to be a situation where she died? Or should she feel fear and sorrow that Edgar Shortiras killed his beloved with his own hands?

Her head was spinning.

“……Thank you for listening.”

Melissa pressed her forehead and stood up.

Then she opened the door to leave the infirmary before the doctor could stop her. He seemed to be saying something behind her, but honestly, the shock was too great for her to hear clearly.

As she was about to leave the building….

“Melissa?”

A familiar voice was heard.

The voice that Melissa had welcomed until just yesterday.

“What are you doing here?”

The man who would kill Melissa in the future smiled.

Very affectionately.

“That’s strange. Didn’t I say I’d be late with work today and go to your house?”

Edgar murmured with a small smile.

Melissa couldn’t say anything.

She had just learned minutes ago that the dream of Edgar killing her wasn’t simply a dream but a vision of the future. How could she be happy to see him in such a situation?

If she had a little more time, she might have come up with some countermeasure, but Melissa didn’t have that luxury.