I frowned at the somehow familiar figure. Suddenly, I realized that she had appeared in my dream once before. The day I first saw black magic with my own eyes, the day Ilian fell into my room—I had seen this exact woman in my dream.

‘Who is this woman?’

I strode toward her, hoping to escape the hallucination. Characters appearing in hallucinations were usually significant figures. Simply recognizing that she wasn’t real might give me a good chance of breaking free.

However, at that moment, the woman who had been standing quietly until now slowly raised her head. I froze in place.

‘What… is this?’

The face visible beneath the woman’s cloak bore a serious resemblance to mine. No, it was beyond mere resemblance. She had my original appearance—she looked exactly like Estria, down to the last detail. It was almost like looking into a mirror.

‘What the hell?’

How could she look so identical? I’d heard that there might be one or two people in the world who look exactly alike, but this was too absurd.

‘Is this another trap deliberately set to psychologically ensnare me? These bastards are truly playing dirty.’

With a serious expression, I slowly moved forward. I needed to find out who this woman was first. That seemed to be the key to escaping this place.

Just as I was slowly approaching her to speak, the woman in the fluttering cloak suddenly opened her mouth.

– It seems that after all my wandering, only this gorge becomes my resting place.

– ……

– Don’t be sad when I die… I won’t be sad either.

‘Gorge? Die?’

I narrowed my eyes. The woman seemed to be murmuring toward someone. I naturally followed her gaze and, surprisingly, Lerrhagen came into view.

‘Oh, Lord?’

I was so relieved that I almost called out to him loudly. Whether this was a hallucination or not, just having Lerrhagen there was reassuring. I was about to call him when—

“Huh?”

Suddenly, the thick scent of blood washed over me. Simultaneously, the woman in front of me collapsed.

“…!”

Brilliant droplets of blood were etched in midair. Like embroidery spreading across the void, the dots flowing were human life force, and what scattered above them was golden hair bathed in sunset light. And beyond that was…

‘Lerrhagen?’

Lerrhagen’s empty expression. It was something I had never seen from him before. Although we hadn’t spent a long time together, I thought I’d seen quite a variety of his expressions. But I had never once seen him make a face like that.

It was an expression like he had witnessed the end of the world. However, what surprised me most was the helplessness contained within it.

‘Impossible, helplessness?’

The great Lerrhagen?

I tightened my lips. I couldn’t understand what was happening. I couldn’t even tell if the Lerrhagen before me was part of the hallucination or the real one. The profound emptiness and helplessness he displayed suddenly constricted my heart.

After a moment of silence, I calmly called out to him.

“Lord.”

At that moment, almost unbelievably, Lerrhagen turned his gaze toward me.

“Esht?”

Lerrhagen’s expression returned to normal, but confusion still lingered in his eyes. Looking at his gaze filled with strange emotions, I slightly curled the corners of my mouth.

“What are you doing here?”

“I should ask you the same.”

“I’m trapped in a hallucination.”

“…”

“Is this your hallucination, Lord?”

A hallucination would never admit to being a hallucination, because then the person under the spell would immediately recognize it and escape. If he was the real Lord, he wouldn’t deny that this place was a hallucination. I thought that even if he had believed it was real until now, the moment I asked, he would realize it. He was intelligent, after all.

Sure enough, Lerrhagen touched his forehead. Soon, he answered.

“Yes.”

I smiled brightly at that.

“Shall we leave then?”

Lerrhagen blinked slowly at my words. After some time, he replied.

“Let’s do that.”

No sooner had his words fallen than our surroundings shattered once again with a crash. We returned to Sitchif Forest where the hunting competition was being held. The horse we had tied to a tree by the lake earlier was whinnying.

Lerrhagen just tightened his lips, lost in thought. Looking at his face, I said nothing. After some time had passed, we left the forest.

* * *

The hunting competition ended safely. As planned, Duke Shart, who caught the most game, was awarded a jewel. The Duke was grinning from ear to ear, perhaps genuinely coveting the jewel.

Beside him, Duke Elvierts was lamenting for quite some time about not catching a wild boar. However, since he had caught quite a lot of game, I gave him a halfhearted round of applause.

Surprisingly, Duke Delmen caught the least game. I heard he used to hunt quite a bit in his younger days—perhaps he had bad luck. Proving this, Duke Delmen’s face showed clear signs of displeasure.

After finishing the hunting competition, we returned to the imperial palace by carriage.

“Did the hunt go well?”

As soon as we returned to the palace, Ilian greeted us with his usual good-natured face. I replied to him curtly.

“The competition was a success, but the hunt was a failure.”

“Oh my.”

“What about you?”

“Me? Well…”

“…”

“I always do well, don’t I? At everything?”

That meant he had done what I asked better than anyone else. I smiled with satisfaction.

“Want me to tell you right now?”

But I shook my head at Ilian’s question.

“No, I want to rest for now.”

“Ah. You do?”

“Come to my playroom tomorrow morning. You know where it is?”

Ilian nodded at my words.

However, contrary to my statement about resting, after contemplating for a moment, I turned to Lerrhagen and said:

“And Lord, I need to talk with you. You have something to tell me, don’t you?”

Lerrhagen seemed to have guessed what I wanted to discuss. After briefly hardening his expression, he replied.

“Yes.”

The location for our conversation was naturally set to be my room. I told Sela that I would prepare for bed alone, so there was no need for her to wait.

“Then have a peaceful night.”

Sela gave her evening greeting and left the room. As soon as the door closed, the room fell into silence. I stared at Lerrhagen’s face before speaking.

“I have too many questions right now, so I’ll ask them one by one.”

“Go ahead.”

“First, why did we suddenly fall into a hallucination?”

“It was a tracking reversal spell.”

“By tracking reversal spell, you mean they used my tracking spell to find our location?”

“Yes.”

However, that didn’t seem to be the whole story, as Lerrhagen added:

“But it wasn’t just a simple tracking reversal spell. They added black magic to the spell I cast, making us feel greater pain than what they experienced.”

“So the magic you cast was a simple hallucination spell, but what we experienced had black magic added to it?”

“Yes. It seems it had the effect of inducing extremely cruel choices.”

No wonder. Now I understood why they repeatedly emphasized that I should die. Although it backfired, certainly someone else might have unconsciously picked up the sword and stabbed themselves.

Moreover, in hallucination magic, only what you see is an illusion—your actions carry over to reality. If I had stabbed myself there, my life would likely have been in danger.

“But what was the content of the hallucination magic you cast, Lord? Hallucination magic generally has specific content, right?”

However, Lerrhagen remained silent at my question. Eventually, he answered slowly.

“Something I never wanted to happen. That was the content of the hallucination.”

At that moment, his blue eyes seemed to sink coldly.

I tightly closed my mouth, feeling an inexplicable emotion welling up inside me.

‘No wonder I saw such things.’

I actually knew. The memories I never wanted to recall in my life encompassed my entire past. They must have been floating in fragments inside my head.