[The person I like is Lieutenant Liere’s sister, Cedine.]
[But you proposed a fake marriage to me. And you changed your mind to do it with Cedine in less than a week after proposing. I heard my sister made a counter-proposal. Let’s say Cedine could do that. I can hear later what thoughts led her to make such a judgment. But Lieutenant Colonel Wintermore.]

Addressing him as ‘Lieutenant Colonel’ rather than ‘Sir Lieutenant Colonel’ was clearly intentional.

[I wanted to know what thoughts made the Lieutenant Colonel accept the counter-proposal. That’s why I came. And when I did, you say you like Cedine?]
[I should’ve married Cedine from the start……]
[What’s with this sudden talk?]
[I had a terribly vivid and horrible dream, and in it, the Lieutenant told me this. You understood that I had a fake marriage with you instead of the person I loved because I was afraid of falling deeply in love, but ultimately, wasn’t it a mistake? Cedine is a child who knows how to turn her heart to someone who likes her, so if I had confessed honestly, I probably would have learned what happiness is, what it means to have a heart that overcomes fear.]
[……]
[Those words kept lingering in my mind.]
[……]
[One regret is enough. I didn’t want to have two.]

Karen stared at Ivlik silently for a while. After a moment of silence, her first words were,

[It’s too… It sounds like something I would have said.]

Before leaving Ivlik’s study, Karen looked back. For a moment, her last appearance before the regression overlapped.

[The look in the Lieutenant Colonel’s eyes when talking about Cedine reminded me of my late father. He was a very devoted husband. I’ll trust that look in your eyes and my intuition.]
[Thank you.]
[Tell Cedine about your feelings soon, Lieutenant Colonel. And I hope you’ll make her happy.]

Ivlik knows what mission Karen will be assigned to soon. Ivlik’s plan was to get Karen’s cooperation before the Duke ordered the school explosion to eliminate future problems. There was a way to make Karen understand without necessarily revealing that he came from the future.

However, to do so, he had to move carefully, avoiding the eyes of many people. Ivlik didn’t expect his behavior to arouse Cedine’s suspicion.

Then today, Ivlik, who had an unexpected early return from work, entered the mansion. He was just happy that Cedine was in the house. Just as he saw her, Ivlik was about to call out to Cedine.

“Butler!”

“Please, call me MacGray now, Viscountess.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. MacGray.”

“Yes, Viscountess.”

“Sister Karen’s room… Oh, that was a slip of the tongue. Forget what I just said. I mean, the brown room on the east side of the second floor? Why is it locked?”

“You mean the Brown Room. It’s been locked on the Viscount’s orders. Are you thinking of using that room?”

The moment he heard the words ‘Brown Room’, the smile on Ivlik’s face disappeared. He immediately hid behind the wall. As soon as Cedine Liere mentioned that room, move out of sight and observe her carefully. The signal ingrained in the head of an experienced soldier had been activated.

“Um… Yes, I like my current private room, but I’d like to use one more room. I think the Brown Room would be perfect. But you say it’s locked on the Viscount’s orders, MacGray?”

Cedine’s tone changed to sound even more innocent than before.

“Why did he tell you to lock it?”

“He didn’t tell me that much.”

“Is that so…?”

“I do have the key, but I can’t enter that room. No one can, including myself. This is also the Viscount’s order.”

MacGray spoke as he had been told by his master.

“But if the Viscountess wishes, I can give you the key.”

“Wouldn’t that cause trouble for you, MacGray?”

“Not at all.”

Cedine seemed to have caught a clue in the butler’s calm tone. That no one could enter the Brown Room, but the Viscountess was an exception, and this too was Ivlik’s instruction. MacGray, who was merely relaying his master’s words, asked,

“Shall I give you the key, Viscountess?”

It was palpable that Cedine was in intense contemplation. Ivlik learned what choice Cedine had made from the butler’s subsequent words.

“Here it is.”

The butler left after a polite bow. Cedine stared at what was in her hand as if it were the key to hell’s gate, then went up to the second floor. As his wife moved, Ivlik went upstairs through another staircase. Cedine seemed completely unaware that someone was following her, lost in thought.

Should I go in or not? Should I go in or not?

Standing in front of the Brown Room, Cedine looked around several times like a wary herbivore. With her stern face and tense shoulders, Cedine was visibly nervous to anyone. Ivlik wondered why she was so tense.

In fact, he hadn’t had the chance to ask her many things, being intoxicated with the happiness of his married life with Cedine. Perhaps the most important question would be this: Why did Cedine agree to a fake marriage with Ivlik Wintermore instead of her sister in the first place?

Sharing a bed, possibly having s*xual relations while living together. Even to him, it was a contract full of outrageous clauses. Yet Cedine, though bewildered, accepted his demands. Despite being so surprised and unable to adapt when he showed affection, not once did Cedine say she would reject the contract.

Ivlik remembered Cedine’s expression, immersed in a sense of liberation on the day the special tutoring ended. To Cedine, he was like a nightmare from a terrible summer day. He could tell she would start forgetting about him even before leaving the tutoring room.

‘Why would that Cedine… She acts like someone who has to maintain this marriage no matter what.’

The more often Ivlik visited Karen regarding the Duke’s elimination, the stranger Cedine’s words and actions became. At first, Ivlik was glad, thinking she might be suspecting his infidelity. He knew it sounded crazy even to his own ears to be happy about being questioned about his whereabouts, but that’s how it was.

Anyway, the problem was that no matter how much he tried to reassure Cedine, it was of no use. He thought she was suspecting the relationship between her sister and her husband, but what she actually cared about might be her sister’s safety. At that point, even Ivlik became confused.

‘Why does Cedine think Lieutenant Liere might be in danger?’

There were a few points to consider. But it wasn’t something to hastily conclude. So Ivlik locked the Brown Room that Karen had used in his past life and didn’t inform Cedine separately. When he’s not around, his wife roams around the mansion. Cedine would soon discover that there’s a locked room in the mansion.

Click.

Ivlik watched his wife’s back as she slowly entered the Brown Room. He approached the room, muffling his footsteps. He could see Cedine through the door crack. Cedine, who was looking around absentmindedly, muttered to herself.

“Why are the torture devices that should be in the basement in my sister’s room? Why were they moved here? Since when?”

Cedine caressed the old wallpaper.

“I guess this is how it was before it was redecorated. Huh?”

Upon discovering Ivlik’s secret document cabinet, Cedine operated the hidden mechanism at the bottom without a moment’s hesitation to open it. Whatever she expected, what’s inside won’t meet her expectations. After all, he had only put trivial items in there.

What he wanted to confirm was whether Cedine could open the cabinet at once. Cedine, who was trained by the Intelligence Bureau, would have eventually opened the cabinet even without prior information, but that would have taken more than 5 minutes.

[Cedine, do you see the cover down here? Push it sideways with force and then align the number array. It’s similar to a safe structure. I’ve always used the same numbers. I should change it soon though… Anyway, I’ll give it to you now, so change it to whatever password you want.]
[Are you really giving it to me? You said this was expensive because it’s custom-made.]
[That was just something I said. Take it.]

Ivlik quietly turned back and went down the stairs. He didn’t even breathe until he went out through the back door on the first floor and inhaled the outside air.

The first time Cedine set foot in the mansion in this life was when she barged in telling him to have a fake marriage with her instead of her sister. At that time, it had only been a few days since he had made a contract with Karen, and both rooms that the sisters had used before the regression were empty.

When speaking to the butler earlier, Cedine made a slip of the tongue due to her excitement. She referred to the Brown Room on the east side of the second floor as her sister’s room. She glossed over it with the butler who didn’t know the situation, but when Cedine entered that room alone, she said it clearly once again.

Her sister’s room, she said.

Moreover, she opened Ivlik’s secret document cabinet at once, which she should have seen for the first time in this life. There’s no need to check separately anymore. Ivlik covered his mouth at the realization that hit him like a wave.

Cedine, like Ivlik Wintermore, had regressed with her memories intact.