I could hear the voices of my family. I could also hear Carlothian’s voice. But I couldn’t understand any of their words.
My head felt empty, as if nothing could penetrate it.
I sat huddled in the sheets, my eyes open but unseeing.
What should I do from here? Am I supposed to live this voiceless life again?
Forced to live without dying? Ha ha, I chuckled to myself.
If there is a God, I wanted to curse. What do you want from me? What have I done wrong?
Why is this happening only to me?
Now, even tears wouldn’t come. After falling hundreds of times, it felt like all my blood and tears had drained away.
Why can’t I go back to the beginning? If I could return to the start, I would do anything. Yes, anything at all…
Ah.
In that moment, a fleeting memory came to me. It was from a book I had read to prepare for my encounter with Yermondi.
[Spell to Reverse Time]
As soon as that popped into my head, I sat up straight. Yes, there was such a spell.
It exists.
[You can borrow the power of the devil to reverse time, but you cannot determine what, how much, or how far it will go. It is a forbidden magic that must be cast while entrusting your life to fate, usable only once in a lifetime.]
I sat there quietly, wrapped in the sheet, recalling the accompanying memories.
There could be side effects. Since it said that I wouldn’t know what, how much, or how far it would go, I could end up dropped in a completely unknown place.
Still, I wanted to sing.
Swoosh-
Someone pulled back the sheet. It was Carlothian. It seemed he had come after noticing that I had woken up while talking to my family.
“What’s wrong? Are you thirsty? Or do you need something else?”
I tightly grasped his arm and moved my lips.
‘I think there might be a way.’
At those words, Carlothian frowned deeply.
“What way?”
‘I need to go underground.’
“Underground?”
Surely, Carlothian’s face hardened. I held onto his arm and struggled to stand up. Carlothian naturally supported my body.
‘Please take care of my family.’
“I can’t let you go alone. You’re going to…?”
You’re planning to do something dangerous. I felt like I understood the words he hadn’t fully voiced. And he was right.
I was about to use a magic spell whose outcome I couldn’t predict. So, I decided to make him one promise.
‘If this method doesn’t work…’
I slowly exhaled.
‘I won’t try to take my own life again.’
Carlothian’s gaze shook violently. I raised my hand and stroked his face.
‘So, Carlothian.’
I’m using his heart right now.
‘Please take care of my family for a moment.’
I forced a smile and began to walk out, mustering strength in my weak body.
“Ariadeline, where are you going?”
Erwin, Ariadeline’s older brother, asked. Carlothian stood there, seemingly deep in thought, without taking any action. But I knew.
He loves me.
He confessed that he loves me.
So, in the end…
“Take care.”
Yeah, I knew it would be like this. I’m sorry, Carlothian.
I opened the door and stepped outside the room. Erwin walked toward me, but Carlothian held him back.
“She wants to be alone for a moment.”
“How can you leave her alone…!”
“She promised.”
“What?”
Carlothian’s dark eyes twisted with pain.
“She promised me. That she wouldn’t do that again…”
His voice came from behind me.
“I believe in her…”
Leaving his desperate feelings behind, I slowly descended the stairs. With each step, hope and despair intertwined and brushed against me.
If this method doesn’t work, I will have to live a life without a voice forever.
I will have to live a life where I can’t sing. Tears, which I thought I had completely shed, began to drip down again as I went down the stairs.
Passing servants spoke to me, but I didn’t respond at all as I slowly made my way to the underground at the back of the stairs.
I unlocked the door with the key and pushed my body into the gaping darkness.
I descended the stairs and reached the underground library. There was no change in sight. It looked just as it had the last time I visited.
Among the books, I selected the one without a title. With a desperate heart, I opened the pages.
[Spell to Turn Back Time]
I slowly ran my fingers over that section. Below the words “Spell to Turn Back Time,” there was a sentence whose meaning I could not grasp.
But I instinctively knew. If I executed this with magical power, I could go back.
Perhaps I would never see Carlothian again.
Perhaps I could end up somewhere I don’t wish to be.
Yet, I began to recite the spell slowly in my mind. The incomprehensible incantation.
‘Oiyahheunnaeileunahihsi’
A rising purple magical energy enveloped me.
‘Inahadonoreosehunneunahnuhwage’
It was a spell whose purpose and destination were entirely unclear. I executed it without hesitation.
“……!”
However, as I slowly pronounced the spell, a strange pain began to bloom throughout my body.
Huff, ugh.
I paused for a moment, as if my lungs were being torn apart, but I gritted my teeth and continued to recite it to the end.
‘Eosusushideoryeolunawoyisine’
“Ugh…!”
As the purple magical energy emanated, the divine power that had been dormant inside me suddenly began to stir.
“……-!”
I felt a sensation as if my whole body was being torn apart. The power of dark magic and divine power began to clash and fight within me.
In that moment, I realized. This was the side effect that Dorothea had mentioned.
Two types of magic could not coexist within one body. Especially when opposing forces like black magic and divine power came together, it would be akin to poison.
My entire body trembled. Yet, I did not withdraw my magic.
I had bet everything on this.
I began to suppress the divine power that rejected black magic.
But the divine power seemed to raise its spear like an angel welcoming a demon. The pain was piercing and tearing throughout my entire body.
“……!”
Then, at some point, scenes began to unfold before my eyes. Everything that had happened until now played out in reverse.
The last image shown to me by Yermondi.
The night spent with Carlothian.
Dorothy’s face and even Dorothea’s image flashed by.
And then to the temple where I had first hanged myself.
But I thought the reversal would end there; it pulled me further back into the past.
The moment I had hanged myself over the fact that I could not sing.
The sudden car accident I had experienced.
The fire that led to my mother and brother’s deaths.
And when I was very young. When my father was still alive.
The moment I was born.
I began to feel fear. Just how far back am I going? There shouldn’t be any more past to show.
But then, at that moment.
Completely unexpected scenes unfolded.
Ariadeline’s face was there.
‘What is this? Why is a scene I saw in the book connected to my past?’
The moment when black magic was used to strike Carlothian.
The scene of surviving after being mocked by Yermondi and hanging in the monastery.
And then, further back, the wedding with Carlothian.
Paaah-!
The black magic that tormented my body exploded in an instant, filling the room.
I writhed in pain, scratching the floor.
Gah, ugh. I screamed at the sensation tearing my entire body apart. Ah, ahh. I clutched my head and screamed madly.
And then, at some moment, it stopped.
The movement of black magic ceased.
“Huff, huff…”
I raised my hand and touched my cheek. My face was the same. My body was still the same.
So, it meant I was still in Ariadeline’s body.
It’s strange. So strange.
My body had clearly reversed time.
And so it had reversed time until before I possessed this place. But why, why had I returned to Ariadeline’s time again?
‘No, could it be? No way…’
I gasped and crawled on the floor. I, I.
Am I really Ariadeline?
Memories that felt like watching someone else’s life flew in and tore at my heart.
The despair when Yermondi deceived me.
The resignation when I hung myself.
And the malice that drove me to come back to kill Dorothea.
Thus, my emotions burned and rose, reaching a peak.
Ah-.
I opened my eyes wide and shed tears.
Carlothian, my love.
The Ariadeline who loved Carlothian fiercely, no… my emotions surged like a tidal wave.
No, I can’t.
I clutched my hair in anguish. I couldn’t withstand the wave of emotions crashing over me.
Feelings accumulated over decades seemed to engulf me.
Ah, ugh. Hah. I gasped for breath, overwhelmed by it all.
Yet what I felt was.
‘Carlothian.’
Carlothian, my love, whom I cannot abandon, even in death.
