Weren’t You the One Who Was Dying? Chapter 123

I slowly walked toward Ehit. For some reason, I was afraid to hurry my steps.

Ehit should wake up while I was walking toward him like this.

He should wake up at the sound of my footsteps and reassure me that he had only been asleep for a little while.

“Ehit.”

He would need that much time, too. So I walked toward Ehit slowly, one step at a time.

One step, then another.

“……”

But even after I reached his bedside and saw his peaceful face up close, even when I called his name again and shook him, Ehit did not wake up.

I turned around.

“What happened?”

“Well……”

While Randy only blinked with an awkward expression, Riedel came in from behind.

“He’s only been unconscious for a day, so there’s still a good chance he’ll wake up soon.”

That meant Ehit had not regained consciousness for an entire day.

He was stronger than anyone I knew, and even after staying awake for several nights, the only sign of fatigue he ever showed was the dark circles under his eyes.

“……It’s because of the carriage accident, right?”

My voice trembled.

Ehit had been hurt while trying to protect me.

“No, Daphlen. The Colonel woke up soon after the carriage accident.”

“Then what? Then why is Ehit unconscious?”

I was pressing Riedel for an answer even though none of this was her fault.

She comforted me as if she did not find my tone rude at all.

“They said it was because of the foresight ability the Colonel possesses.”

“What?”

What did that mean?

“But Ehit said he wouldn’t use his foresight ability anymore……”

‘I was once told that if I continued using my foresight ability, I wouldn’t live for more than a few years. But that only applies if I exceed the limit.’

He had clearly said that since he would no longer use his foresight ability, he would never cross that limit……

At that moment, I sucked in a breath.

He had used his foresight ability.

While I was unconscious after the carriage accident, he had used it.

Why?

“We were able to find you thanks to the Colonel’s foresight ability. You disappeared after the carriage accident. Because the Colonel saw the future with his foresight ability, we were able to find where you were.”

Riedel stopped speaking and came closer to me.

“Daphlen.”

There was a helpless worry in her voice as she called my name. Her gentle, kind voice was filled with concern for me.

“It’s not your fault. Don’t make that face.”

She must have said that because I looked as though I might collapse at any moment while listening to her.

My eyes turned toward Ehit. He was sleeping peacefully, breathing without any sign of waking.

“He’ll wake up soon, Daphlen.”

I slowly nodded.

I had no choice but to believe that.

 

 

****

 

 

Several days passed.

Ehit still had not woken up.

“Ehit.”

Sitting beside Ehit’s bed and looking at him, I muttered that this world must really hate me.

Otherwise, it wouldn’t have done this to Ehit at the happiest moment of my life, as if everything had been planned out.

I sat there quietly, looking at Ehit, and closed my eyes.

I knew the truth. This had not happened because the world hated me.

What happened that day was not simply an accident. Rather than an ‘accident,’ it would be more accurate to call it a planned attack or an act of revenge.

We had been attacked by bandits who had been paid a large sum of money by Sonya.

The moment the accident happened, Ehit was badly injured while trying to protect me, and in the meantime, the bandits seemed to have simply picked me up and disappeared with me.

In the end, Ehit was able to find me without much delay thanks to his foresight ability, but they said he collapsed right after handing me over to the others.

“Ehit.”

I knew he wouldn’t answer, but I called his name again.

Maybe he could hear me. Maybe even while wandering through a dream, he might hear his name and wake up.

“I’ll be gone for a little while. I really need to wake you up somehow. Of course, it would be best if you woke up while I was gone.”

I soon stood up.

Ehit had said with his own mouth that he was not dying from some time limit. I couldn’t make him out to be a liar.

So I had no choice but to find a way to treat him.

 

 

***

 

 

“Are you Lady Veltia?”

Inside a small teahouse overlooking the forest, an elderly woman looked up from her book when she heard my voice.

She turned her head slightly toward me.

She took off the glasses she had been wearing, placed them on the table, and gestured for me to come closer.

“Hello, Lady Veltia Senel. I’m Daphlen Har……”

I was about to give the last name I had used for the past year, ‘Harn,’ without thinking, but I stopped.

Now that I had found my family, there was no longer any need for me to use the name ‘Harn.’

But I wasn’t sure how I should introduce myself.

Should I say I was from Trustia?

“Enough. What brings you here?”

When I stopped in the middle of introducing myself, Lady Veltia waved her hand and nodded toward the seat.

I sat down in front of her first. Then I got straight to the point.

“Colonel Ehit Kloyden has been unconscious for several days. Because of the…… side effects of his foresight ability.”

At the name Kloyden and the word ‘foresight ability,’ Lady Veltia’s eyes narrowed. It must have been a word she hadn’t heard in a long time.

I had come all the way to this countryside to find Lady Veltia because she had once been Kloyden’s personal physician.

She was retired now and living far away, but she had known the Kloyden family for a long time. She must have also heard a great deal about people who possessed the foresight ability.

Since she spent her retirement traveling from place to place, she had not been easy to find, but I eventually managed to track her down.

“Side effects?”

“Yes.”

“Give me your hand.”

“What?”

“I don’t say things twice.”

Perhaps because she had spent so long with the Kloydens, even Lady Veltia’s way of speaking seemed a little like theirs. I hurriedly held out my hand.

Lady Veltia held my hand and closed her eyes.

For a moment, I felt a faint divine power pass through my body.

“That’s enough.”

She let go of my hand.

“So, you’re saying he collapsed because of the side effects?”

“Yes. His ability doesn’t agree with his body, so the more he uses it, the more strain it puts on him. He said he would be fine as long as he didn’t cross the limit, but he went past it. He’s been unconscious for several days now.”

Lady Veltia clicked her tongue once.

“Ehit knew about the side effects, so he tried not to use his foresight ability. In fact, he hadn’t used it for a long time. This time…… he must have decided that there was no other choice.”

“Yes. That sounds like something that young master would do.”

“I came because I thought you might know how to treat him.”

“A way to treat him.”

Lady Veltia nodded with an indifferent expression. Then she spoke in a casual tone.

“When someone asks me about something like this, you see, my answer is always the same.”

I focused on Lady Veltia.

Could there really be a reliable treatment?

My heart beat a little faster at the thought that I might be able to wake Ehit soon.

“What’s your answer?”

“I tell them there’s no cure.”

“……What?”

“I said I tell them there’s no cure. Honestly, I don’t say things twice.”

Lady Veltia raised an eyebrow at me as I froze, unsure of what to say.

“Why are you making that face? Was that not the answer you were hoping for?”

“……No.”

Of course, that was not the answer I had come here hoping to hear.

“After all, you came to me because you were desperate enough to grasp at even a straw, didn’t you? Judging by the fact that you came all the way to this backwater place, I assume even the best healers in the capital told you there was nothing they could do.”

I couldn’t say anything. Everything Lady Veltia said was true.

The Kloyden family was the greatest ducal family in the empire. They would never have spared any expense to save Ehit, and even healers who normally only set foot in the imperial palace had come to Kloyden.

But no one had been able to find a solution.

So, just as she said, I had come here truly desperate enough to grasp at even a straw.

“You simply came all this way to grasp at that straw. Don’t be too disappointed.”

She waved her hand dismissively.

Lady Veltia acted as though telling me to leave, then opened her book again.

But I remained sitting quietly in front of her.

Lady Veltia was about to turn a page when she finally looked up again.

“You’re not leaving?”

“No.”

“Why?”

“I heard you were the one who made the first diagnosis.”

“What?”

“I heard you were the one who first diagnosed that Ehit could die from the side effects of his foresight ability.”

I had learned that on the night I first discovered that Ehit was not actually dying from a time limit, when we talked through the night.

She had told him about it when she briefly stopped by Kloyden during one of her long journeys.

“So you must know. You knew how he could cross that line, so you must also know how to bring him back from it.”

“Hah.”

Lady Veltia let out a dry laugh. I seemed to have left her baffled by stubbornly stating exactly what I wanted to say.

But this wasn’t simply stubbornness.

I genuinely believed she could know.

Especially because of her relaxed, indifferent attitude.

Lady Veltia stared at me quietly. Before long, a glimmer of interest appeared in her eyes.

“I said I tell people there’s no cure, didn’t I?”

“……But.”

“That doesn’t mean there’s absolutely no way to treat him.”

“What?”

I immediately asked again at Lady Veltia’s almost teasing words.

“There is a way. But most people can’t do it. That’s why I don’t tell them.”

“I can do it.”

“Anything?”

“Yes.”

If there was a way, I would do it no matter what.

No matter how difficult it was, no matter how long it took, if it meant he could wake up again, I would do anything.