The Regret Novel Female Lead with Unbreakable Mentality Chapter 176 - Special Story 4. What I Want to Say If I Meet Your Older Brother

Special Story 4. What I Want to Say If I Meet Your Older Brother

 

“Giselle, what on earth is going on?”

 

It was not long after bringing the mages over from the magic tower. The deepest part of the Kalinos Research Institute had become <Archmage Giselle’s Laboratory>. After I had been staying and eating there for more than a week, Duke Vientin Kalinos came to see me.

 

“I’m going to meet your older brother!”

 

“What are you talking about? Forget everything else for now. Have you eaten? I’m worried about you, Giselle.”

 

“Ah! You don’t have to worry!” I cheerfully exclaimed as I casually swept back my hair, which had burned into a frizzy mess. “I finally developed a time machine! Do you remember the one you made before?”

 

“Ah… I remember. That failure.”

 

Perhaps he remembered how gloomy I had been for a while after returning from meeting my parents. Vientin’s expression gradually darkened. But I spoke to him seriously.

 

“I learned from that failure and made something that actually works this time!”

 

That’s right. As a result of devoting myself to research day and night, I had finally reinvented a device for time travel.

 

Vientin stared at me before letting out a sigh. “You’ve worked hard. Then I think you should eat now. Let’s start with a simple soup.”

 

“…That doesn’t sound like Vientin Kalinos.”

 

“What would sound like me?”

 

…What an absolutely drama-protagonist-like line.

 

“I thought you’d be really happy that I’d finally succeeded in my research on time travel.”

 

“I am happy. But I’ll be even happier if you eat.”

 

Saying something like that with a completely straight face was cheating.

 

I lifted the machine that looked like a small controller and grinned. “How about using this to go meet your older brother? You could at least go and say your final goodbye.”

 

Vientin’s eyes clouded over. I knew very well why he was looking at me like that.

 

“You skipped meals for something as trivial as that?”

 

The moment he finished saying that, I realized something new about him yet again. This man would absolutely refuse to listen to anything I said unless I put something in my mouth right now. I thought he was only obsessed with research! Who would’ve thought he’d become obsessed with making me eat?

 

I sighed and nodded. Immediately afterward, nourishing foods were laid out in front of me. I picked up the spoon and fork in both hands, ate quickly, then spoke. “Then can I talk now?”

 

“Ah, yes.”

 

“How about going to meet your older brother with this machine!”

 

“Um… This?”

 

“…Yep, that’s right.”

 

Vientin swallowed a low groan as he looked at the time machine. As soon as he finished speaking, I looked down at the palm-sized controller. Well, of course he would have a hard time believing it, too. Unfortunately, the time travel machine I had invented was crude.

 

“Of course there are some restrictions. You mustn’t encounter your original self, use the new body created through the time travel machine, and don’t leave any traces of your presence in the past.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“We have to follow those conditions so that the past doesn’t get mixed up into a complete mess.”

 

“I see.”

 

“Yes, so… shall we go see your older brother? Right now.” I shook the time travel machine and smiled brightly.

 

Then he stared at me before looking back down at the meal tray.

 

Seriously, his obsession with making me eat…

 

Once he noticed that I had eaten everything, his expression changed. It was the face of someone who would now seriously consider meeting his older brother. He gently ran his fingers over the controller of the time machine and carefully asked, “Then, how much time do we have?”

 

“Um, I think about a day. We can’t stay for long. The longer we stay, the more our actions will affect the past.”

 

He looked somewhat hesitant. But I knew an effective way to manipulate Vientin when he was like this.

 

“It’s a kind of experiment too, right?” I looked into his eyes and quietly chuckled.

 

His lips pressed firmly together. “…Indeed. I hope it will be a good experiment.” Looking deep in thought, he stroked his chin as he spoke. “But we must be fully aware of the side effects of time travel. There’s something called the butterfly effect, isn’t there?”

 

“Of course.”

 

The apple brooch I was holding right now was probably an example of that. The very brooch that had ended up in my hands thanks to accidentally meeting my father.

 

“So, let’s steel ourselves before we go.”

 

Up until then, we were happy. After all, our plan was simply to see his older brother from a distance for a very brief moment, without affecting the past.

 

* * *

“But you see.”

 

“…I never thought… we’d end up looking like this.”

 

Wearing plain, shabby clothes that were thoroughly worn out, Vientin and I stared at each other blankly.

 

How had things ended up like this? The conditions for activating the time machine had certainly been perfect. On top of that, we had thoroughly familiarized ourselves with the conditions we had to follow in order to use the time machine.

 

[1. The duration will be one day.

2. Use bodies created specifically for the time machine rather than the original body.

3. Don’t leave behind any traces of the future humans’ existence in the past.]

 

And so, we manipulated the buttons on the controller and returned to the past, but…

 

“The second clause is the problem.” The clause stated that we had to use a new body created specifically for the time machine.

 

I had used magic to create new bodies that could be used for time travel. At the same time, I temporarily separated his and my souls from our physical bodies and transferred them into the new bodies. That had been the most difficult task of all the time-machine technology. It was practically akin to dark magic. It was a great feat that no one except me, an archmage, could even attempt.

 

After setting the coordinates for the past, I had even used magic so that we could move to an ‘appropriate place, wearing appropriate clothes.’ But…

 

“Even the power of an archmage has its limits…”

 

We were merely humans conducting a rather unique experiment. Completely imitating humans, creatures created by a god, was difficult.

 

“I keep feeling like this body is creaking. And my face feels strangely unpleasant, too.”

 

It had eyes, a nose, and a mouth, all of them. But there was something uncomfortable about the face. Unlike me, who wore a dissatisfied expression, Vientin didn’t look particularly displeased.

 

“Still, it’s fortunate that we successfully made the time travel.”

 

“…Yes, and we even got respectable jobs as stable hands.”

 

I had simply envisioned us becoming ‘extras who could easily be replaced and had no connections to anyone around them.’ But I never expected that we would end up getting jobs as stable hands.

 

Vientin also murmured with a fascinated expression. “I see. It’s an interesting occupation. New occupations are appropriate subjects for investigation.”

 

But I quietly murmured to him. “…But there’s a problem. The whole reason we went back in time was to meet your older brother, right?”

 

“That’s… true.”

 

“But can we even see a direct member of the Kalinos family with these identities in the first place?”

 

I opened my eyes wide. The difference from when I met my parents was that this time, we had moved according to our own will. We would eventually be forgotten as nameless extras anyway. That was the rule of time travel.

 

“We have a whole day, so we might run into him while working!”

 

And if we couldn’t meet him, I would find a way to see him even from a distance.

 

“Then, let’s work first!”