Chapter 78

Sabina sprang up and leaned back against the headboard. At the end of her gaze, a pale boy flickered. One day sixteen years ago, in this room, she met a ‘ghost.’

She had thought it was a ghost because the boy suddenly appeared in a space sealed off on all sides.

「Are you a ghost?」

「Maybe. Are you… Sabina D’Vialis?」

The fact that he knew the name of a person he’d never met also felt like proof that the boy she saw that day was a ghost. But could she be sure it was a ghost? He had been too vivid to be a ghost.

「I came here by mistake.」

Only after opening the window latch could that ghost leave. And the wind swept the ghost’s bangs back……. He even left handprints behind where he went.

「Sabina, my name is Helio.」

Yes, that ghost had said something like that, too. That was why, at the carnival, the Sabina of the very first timeline bought a boy who resembled the ghost from that day. And she named that boy Helio. Because the boy’s attribute was extraordinary and dangerous, and because he showed Sabina boundless affection and trust, the reason for the bid changed somewhat from the second round onward, but at the very beginning, it had been like that.

Sabina cherished the boy she had bought at the carnival. So much so that even Jacqueline Maslado—whom her grandfather left to her—handed her the watch. That watch, under the influence of the magic Sabina had cast on it, displayed time with perfect accuracy, without even an error of one ten-thousandth of a second.

She had seen a watch like that before. Coincidentally, it was even the same brand and the same model.

That man, who had a watch far too similar to Sabina’s, said that because it was something he’d received and he had no warranty, he couldn’t replace the worn strap with an authentic one.

He believed the watch had been given to him by a wealthy old gentleman. But thinking about it, that man had never said Sabina’s answer was the correct one.

“Ah……. Aah…….”

Moaning, she clutched her head. When Reyes killed her, someone shouted and burst into the room. And who that was…….

Helio.

On the day Reyes killed Sabina, Helio intervened.

“Ugh…….”

Back then, she had been using an enormous magic. Faced with an unjust and horrific death, she had let her magic rampage. It wouldn’t be strange if someone there got caught up and was flung somewhere.

Sabina had been unconscious, so she couldn’t remember exactly what happened, but she could form a hypothesis.

Something went wrong in the process of turning back time, and Helio was thrown sixteen years into the past.

That was why he suddenly appeared like a ghost in six-year-old Sabina’s bedroom……. Then, through some process, he crossed over to Letona, and grew up as he was, and returned to Brinita again after sixteen years.

And he approached Sabina as if it were their first meeting, asked for the position of contract lover, stayed glued to her side, and kept Reyes Brinita in check.

Sabina hadn’t recognized him because he’d grown nearly twenty centimeters taller, his skin tone and bone structure had changed, and he had even changed his name.

The ghost from childhood, the slave boy she had bought, and the foreign businessman were all the same person.

“That medicine……. the medicine is…….”

Her hands trembled violently.

Ashton’s current body and this world’s time axis were misaligned by sixteen years.

If what Sabina researched was correct, there was no way he could have endured this long without any measures.

His ‘illness’ had occurred because of the misaligned time axis, and the ‘medicine’ existed to manage the symptoms caused by it.

At last, the puzzle fit.

There were still many questions left, but at least, to some extent.

***

『Grandfather was my only friend in childhood. In truth, I never felt I needed any other friends besides Grandfather. Grandfather alone was enough. As a child, I vaguely believed Grandfather would remain by my side forever, for my entire life.』

Sabina’s Walter D’Vialis memoir began like that.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that every Reedblon resident who could read had read the article.

Among them, of course, was Helio, Sabina’s ward.

Helio didn’t usually read the newspaper. He was too busy studying. As if proving true the saying that those who endlessly burrow into their own field are weak to the way the world turns, he had no interest in outside matters.

So until the professor brought him the newspaper, the boy hadn’t even known that day was Walter’s Memorial Day.

Helio’s heart turned cold. Once again, Sabina hid her dark side from Helio.

The day after Walter’s Memorial Day was the day of ‘practice’ with Ashton. The moment Helio saw the man’s face, he couldn’t endure his jealousy.

“Did you go to Sir Walter D’Vialis’s grave yesterday?”

Ashton, folding his coat and hanging it on a chair, glanced down at the boy. He replied plainly.

“I did.”

“With my master?”

“I went separately, but I ran into her there.”

Helio’s brow furrowed honestly. The boy, who had been showing hostility without filtering it, sighed a moment later.

“Was my master suffering a lot?”

Ashton recalled Sabina, unable to stop crying.

He knew her personality well. She believed worrying her ward was not a virtue of a good guardian. She would hope that news of her crying would not reach Helio’s ears.

“How would I know? Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

At those words, Helio’s expression grew fierce again.

“My master doesn’t show me her weak side.”

There was even a trace of anger in those words.

‘She would be like that.’

Ashton thought so. Helio’s insides were plain to see. Because he was, after all, Ashton’s past self.

“Well, that’s because you’re a child and she’s an adult.”

His mouth tasted bitter as he said it.

Naturally, Ashton had suffered what Helio suffered.

Only after he became older than Sabina was he able to share some of her worries. If he were still ‘Helio,’ he wouldn’t have dared to dream of it. What happened to him had been a tremendous disaster, but it had also been an opportunity that gave him what he longed for.

In a thoroughly soured mood, Helio only glared at the column Sabina had written. Even there, it was hard for the boy to find any fragments of Sabina’s emotions. Because it was writing to be published externally, she had written with extreme restraint of emotion.

“Stop staring at that scrap of paper now. I’m busy.”

Only then did Helio fold the newspaper and approach Ashton. The boy, who had taken off the gloves he wore to prove he was safe, stared down at even Ashton’s bare hand with a jealous expression.

He asked abruptly.

“Why are you teaching me all this?”

Ashton gained, once again, the realization that his self from sixteen years ago had been a rather troublesome child.

The only person he loved was Sabina D’Vialis. He held no particular tenderness for his past self. Rather, to the point that anger rose, he resented the fact that because he would soon die due to the side effects of time travel, he had to hand over everything he had to this child and disappear.

His self from sixteen years ago was anxious, absurdly weak, foolish……. He looked far too lacking to be entrusted with Sabina.

But there was no alternative. Ashton silently held out his hand.

The boy, ignored, asked again without taking Ashton’s hand.

“Why are you giving me this kind of favor?”

“Favor?”

Only then did Ashton’s eyes turn toward Helio. His lips twisted upward.

“This looks like favor to you?”

He was only passing on an inheritance he had no choice but to pass on.

When Ashton came out sharp as a blade, Helio flinched despite himself. He hid his hands behind his back and whispered.

“But this……. makes it look like you want me to break the Seal.”

Ashton had the feeling: so he finally understood.

That harsh evaluation was also a whip aimed at his own foolish self, who had known nothing until the day Reyes tried to kill Sabina. He often confused self-reproach and contempt toward Helio. He felt no guilt. Because Helio would soon be himself.

The man let out a long sigh.

“That part is right. But it’s not favor. I hate you.”

Since his contempt and hatred for Helio were radiating from his whole body every moment, the boy only nodded with a sickened face. He didn’t want to speak with Ashton anymore. He shut his mouth and took the man’s hand.

That day’s ‘lesson’ wasn’t easy, either. Helio wanted to know why Ashton was training him, and Ashton didn’t want to tell him. Feeling his mind being eroded, the boy quickly pulled his hand away.

Ashton’s mocking laughter was heard.

“Knowing something only partially is really suffocating, isn’t it?”

Of course it was. Helio glared at the man who was making fun of him. There was no reason to treat with favor someone who hated him. Having to cling to such a hateful opponent brought defeat and humiliation.

Helio was the kind who barked like a chained dog even while afraid. But as time passed, little by little, he was learning that such an attitude often didn’t help him at all.