“……And yet, your memories came back.”
“It’s not anything that grand. I only got rid of the side effects of the drug. Something like curing amnesia is impossible.”
Ludville seemed slightly disappointed by Odely’s continued explanation.
Had he been planning to use her to recover the memories he had lost?
‘He certainly dreams big.’
Not only did such a mysterious ability not exist in the first place, but even if it did, there was no reason she would help him recover his memories.
Ludville had to remain without the memories accumulated through thousands of regressions, especially all the memories involving Odely.
Only then would he someday be able to let go of his obsession with the blue-eyed woman and live a life for himself.
After that, Odely quietly and persistently followed Ludville around.
Whenever he skipped a meal, she took notes on what had happened immediately beforehand and separately recorded what seemed to affect his appetite.
If he stared blankly out the window during a meeting, she recorded the exact time.
She even kept track of how many times he went out onto the terrace and lit a cigarette.
Ludville stood leaning against the terrace railing, exhaling pale smoke through his dry, bloodless lips.
“I heard your insomnia started three months ago. If so, how long has it been since you started smoking?”
“…….”
“How long have you been dependent on them?”
“…….”
“How many cigarettes do you smoke a day?”
Ludville slowly raised his head.
There was no emotion in Odely’s eyes as she looked at him.
It was simply the gaze of someone analyzing his condition.
Like a doctor diagnosing a patient.
He couldn’t tell whether she was simply that good at hiding her emotions, or if she truly felt nothing at all.
“……How far are you planning to follow me?”
“I don’t think an open-air terrace can really be considered a private space.”
“You’re actually saying that…….”
Ludville replied incredulously, but then suddenly stiffened.
Almost reflexively, he hurriedly rubbed the cigarette between his fingers against the terrace railing and put it out.
The flame went out with a brief hiss.
“Go inside. You’re supposedly sickly, yet you’re being so careless……. What if the smoke reaches you?”
Without realizing it, he urgently waved his hand, scattering the smoke around them.
He hurriedly ordered her away, worried that she might inhale even the slightest bit of smoke.
Then……
‘……What?’
A strange thought suddenly occurred to him, and he frowned.
He had almost unconsciously put out the cigarette, scattered the smoke, and even spoken words of concern for her.
As though it had been engraved into his brain.
It wasn’t a normal reaction.
If someone else had bothered him like this while he was trying to rest, he would have blown smoke directly into their face instead.
While telling them to get lost in the politest way possible.
……Yet his body and mouth had moved against his will.
As though he had been controlled.
‘Mind-control magic?’
No. It wasn’t that.
For one thing, mind-control magic barely worked on Ludville. And if he had truly fallen victim to such a crude trick, he shouldn’t even have been capable of realizing that something was wrong.
This was more like a habit…….
“I’m just a little dizzy. It happens all the time, so don’t worry too much.”
“Stop talking and sit down. Your face is pale.”
“I’ll be careful not to burden you. So…… you won’t abandon me, right?”
“Abandon you? Ha. I don’t know if I could stop myself even if you pushed me away.”
“I would never do that.”
“……Someday, you will. But by then, it’ll already be too late. Because I’ve decided to keep living even if I have to hold on to your corpse.”
‘Again…….’
As expected, that ‘delusion’ had begun again.
Was it something from a distant past he had forgotten?
Or something from a dream or his imagination?
Or perhaps a hallucination caused by Normallin addiction?
He had no way of knowing.
Only one thing was certain.
The woman had blue eyes.
And those eyes were always looking at him, desperately begging him for help.
She was someone he wanted to hold in his arms and never let go.
Someone he couldn’t even allow to die……
She always seemed so fragile, as though she would collapse if he didn’t hold on to her.
She coughed up blood so often that she had made him carry two handkerchiefs wherever he went.
Small, fragile, and quiet.
……Everything about her was the exact opposite of Odely.
Then why did he keep unconsciously seeing one as the other?
Ludville couldn’t understand himself at all.
‘There’s no way they could be the same person.’
The only things they had in common were their blue eyes and poor health.
They were so completely different……
Yes, that ‘sickly’ trait.
That had to be the only reason he kept becoming agitated and confused.
“Wait. Are you actually sickly in the first place?”
He began questioning Odely.
“Someone who was supposedly so ill that she couldn’t even leave her family’s estate. So why are you so healthy? You lured a thief out and beat him up, and you’re constantly running around all over the place…….”
Odely stopped writing for a moment when he pointed out something she had deliberately avoided mentioning.
But soon, as though nothing had happened, she began writing again and answered,
“Rumors are always exaggerated.”
The Kardel family had spread rumors that Odely was sickly to keep her existence hidden from the world.
It was true that she had become terminally ill as a side effect of her purification ability, but that was quite different from being naturally weak and sickly.
Her insides were slowly deteriorating, but on the outside, she still looked perfectly healthy.
Of course, as her death drew closer, even that would eventually become noticeable……
But for now, she could still pretend to be fine.
“I’m actually quite healthy, more than you might think. As you said, healthy enough to lure out a thief and beat him up.”
Odely continued calmly.
Ludville seemed to believe that Odely herself had beaten up Zeke, but she saw no reason to correct his misunderstanding.
“So you’re saying you aren’t sickly.”
“I’m not sickly.”
Though she was terminally ill.
If she hadn’t been exploited since childhood, and if she hadn’t used her purification ability, she would have been healthy.
She was simply paying the price for using her ability.
Her answer carefully avoided the truth, and Ludville wore an expression that seemed to say, ‘Of course.’
As though it was exactly what he had expected.
Perhaps there was even a hint of relief in his expression.
‘That makes things easier for now.’
At least for the remainder of her life, it seemed unlikely that they would clash over the same issue.
A scam, you say?
‘Compared to the scams Ludville pulled on me over thousands of regressions, this is nothing.’
Well, most of them had been lies told out of kindness.
‘To save me. Because he was afraid I would run away if I learned the truth. Because I might give up and choose to die…….’
But as time went on, she knew very well that he had simply gotten lazy and started deceiving her with increasingly careless lies.
“Anyway, please answer my questions. I need to accurately assess Your Highness’s current condition.”
“……As far as I know, I haven’t even signed the contract yet. I don’t understand why you’re already interfering.”
Odely calmly answered while holding the notebook in her hand as though it were a medical chart.
“You may say that, but you can’t throw me out until the fifteen days you promised are over.”
“…….”
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