Chapter 37

Sabina, for once, was not dressed in black, but in a neat, simple ivory dress.

She fastened the stubbornly high-necked dress with an obsidian brooch, her hair twisted up and adorned with twenty feather and jeweled pins.

She wore bright colors instead of her usual somber clothes because she was at the royal palace.

Kenneth Brinita had a habit of slyly asking people in black, “Who exactly are you mourning?” with a smirk.

Luxurious pastries and fragrant cold-brewed tea sat before her, and beyond them, that ill-tempered King.

The tea, sipped at her lips, smelled of southern fruits and lavish flowers.

“First, let’s give thanks. To my new friend, Ashton Bryant.”

Kenneth raised his teacup like a wine glass, clinking it against Ashton’s cup, seated beside Sabina.

“You’ve given me a very good opportunity.”

Ashton raised his cup slightly in response, smiling faintly.

“And to Miss D’Vialis, who readily accepted the research proposal.”

Kenneth clinked his cup against Sabina’s as well. But Sabina didn’t play along with the King. She just sat quietly, blinking slowly.

“It wasn’t because you are the King, Your Majesty, but because the proposal was interesting.”

“Indeed, indeed.”

Kenneth, unlike Reyes, wasn’t sensitive to minor rudeness. Whether Sabina responded or not, he seemed happy. In fact, Kenneth was someone who seemed cheerful 360 days a year.

“Should I give you a trophy or something, Miss D’Vialis?”

“No need.”

Ashton smiled invisibly at Sabina’s answer. She was clearly not in a good mood.

The reason was Ashton, sitting beside her.

He had his reasons, but still, he and Helio had upset Sabina with their childish rivalry just two days ago.

Unable to truly get angry with her young ward, Sabina had declared to Ashton that she wouldn’t see him for a while. She’d said she’d be busy until Helio’s entrance, so she’d expected about a month of separation.

But Kenneth, citing a midterm check for the achievement conference in two weeks, had invited Sabina and Ashton to tea just two days later. Her declaration not to see Ashton was instantly void.

When she saw Ashton at the palace gates, her expression was one of disbelief.

‘I don’t need you for the project anymore, so why are you here?’

Ashton, pretending ignorance, escorted Sabina to Kenneth.

And now, here they were.

“Don’t be so stiff, Miss D’Vialis.”

Kenneth’s playful remark made Sabina shake her head. She meant she wasn’t being stiff. But anyone could see she was, so Ashton gave a slightly awkward smile and Kenneth laughed with interest.

“You look like you just want to finish up and go home. Well, then, let’s get on with the demonstration for which you were summoned.”

Even while feeling as prickly as a freshly bathed cat, Sabina smoothly demonstrated what she’d present at the conference.

She aligned the front and back of the device containing scrolls of ‘Time Stop’ and ‘Record’, pointing the ‘front’ toward what she wanted to record. With a weak flow of magic, a picture was drawn on the blank inside the device, using the same principle as the attribute test.

When she separated the device at the seam, the scene of the tea time was imprinted on a small piece of paper.

“The size of the device determines the size of the image.”

Sabina explained simply.

Kenneth, aside from having provided a few bottles of his magic-infused solvent at Sabina’s request, hadn’t contributed much. He clapped like a child, repeatedly asking for demonstrations of the device Sabina had developed almost entirely on her own.

Once she’d finished all the demonstrations, Sabina truly wanted to go home. But the King didn’t seem ready to let her leave.

“By the way, the boy you’re looking after took the entrance exam the other day, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Kenneth didn’t mind her curt reply.

“His class will be assigned today.”

“……Yes.”

Grading for the academy entrance exam was always quick.

“I hope I can meet that boy again.”

As Sabina, sipping her fragrant tea and half listening to Kenneth, widened her eyes.

The King had already met the boy at Ashton’s carnival, asked a few questions, then lost interest. Helio was sensitive, easily nervous, and shy, so it was natural.

And Kenneth was the type to never glance at something he’d lost interest in.

When Sabina looked at him in surprise, Kenneth smiled sweetly.

“Did I not make myself clear? I’d like to see the mage boy you took in again.”

She was briefly surprised, but soon understood why Kenneth said that. The boy’s attribute was unprecedented; word must have reached Kenneth. Since the attribute was still undefined, it made sense for the King to be interested.

“I’ll make sure he’s prepared to receive your honor after the achievement conference, Your Majesty.”

Sabina replied quietly. Kenneth gazed at her and laughed softly, sinking back into his chair.

“Good. After the achievement conference, I’ll summon him to the palace before he enters the academy.”

His silver eyes lowered. Sabina wondered if Kenneth had ever shown such interest in Helio in the ‘original’ story.

After a brief recollection, her conclusion was ‘never’.

Of course her gaze shifted sideways. Was Ashton’s involvement even changing Kenneth’s attitude?

“To meet that child once…”

Kenneth trailed off. He looked at the two, smiling as their eyes fixed on him. Watching that smile, Sabina was struck by how much Kenneth resembled someone.

Of course, Kenneth resembled Reyes.

They were twins.

Their manner, tone, and expression differed as much as black and white, but their features were identical. That was why Kenneth sometimes unsettled Sabina.

But what she felt from Kenneth now wasn’t Reyes.

Recently, she’d been feeling a vague, elusive sensation, and as she quietly watched Kenneth’s eyes, she inadvertently shifted her gaze.

Her silver eyes now rested on Ashton.

A light shiver ran down her fingers.

Ashton and Kenneth, their personalities were surprisingly similar.

‘Ah, that’s right. That’s why Reyes was so angry and appalled when he first saw Ashton.’

Even at the carnival…

Maybe Ashton and Kenneth’s similar words and actions were nothing special. There are many people in the world, and somewhere there must be someone who talks and acts like Sabina, too.

But realizing that the attribute she’d conveniently used in Ashton came from ‘resemblance to Kenneth’, she couldn’t shake a strange feeling that tickled the back of her neck.

Ashton was almost too convenient a tool for pushing Reyes away…

Just by existing, ‘resembling Kenneth’, he was Reyes’s nemesis, and created a link between Sabina and Kenneth.

‘I hadn’t realized before. I didn’t have much of a connection to the King. I just thought he had a personality Reyes disliked. But seeing the two together, I get it now.’

She sat, hands folded on her lap, lost in subtle feelings. While she kept silent, Kenneth and Ashton chatted.

‘They really are similar.’

Yes, Reyes had lost to Ashton an oddly large number of times.

It wasn’t because Reyes was stupid. He was a smooth talker with a sweet voice, a clever person. In the original, first life, when Kenneth noticed Reyes’s rebellion, it wasn’t because Reyes wasn’t cunning enough. It was because Reyes, in front of Kenneth, always got excited by his inferiority complex and showed his weaknesses.

Ashton, with the same temperament as Kenneth, also led Reyes to defeat.

Even as tea time ended and Sabina walked through the palace gardens with Ashton, she kept comparing Ashton and Kenneth in her mind.

Caught up in these thoughts, she couldn’t tell if she was judging the situation objectively or trapped in confirmation bias.

“Sabina.”

Just as she sighed and decided, ‘I should stop thinking about this now,’ Ashton suddenly leaned down and whispered in her ear.

“Hm?”

As she tried to turn her head, he gently slid his fingers between hers.

Sabina was wearing lace gloves. Through the thin mesh, she felt Ashton’s warmth. She realized he always went barehanded, at least since coming to Brinita.

There was no prickling sensation.

The sudden, tender touch felt strange, and Sabina frowned slightly, only looking at Ashton’s face. His head was bent toward her, but his eyes were glancing somewhere past the back of her head.

“Don’t turn your head.”

With their fingers entwined, Ashton pulled Sabina into his arms.

Even though she felt uneasy and even a little angry at him, Sabina let herself be guided, resting her forehead on his shoulder. From behind, they would look like a very affectionate couple, she vaguely thought, then wondered if that was exactly what Ashton intended.