The words she intended to say retreated deep inside her. Summer felt dazed, as if something had struck her on the back of the head.
“What do you mean?”
She was confused. More so than the foreign land, the strange and bizarre people, or the immense fate that awaited her.
Perhaps she had already known, but had been trying to ignore the truth.
A fierce impulse arose within her to silence Mary. Yet, in the end, she listened and spoke.
“Will you go back to the world you originally belonged to, even if your body is not safe?”
The most important fact that Summer had arrogantly overlooked until now.
Her answer to this was no. She had never thought about such a thing. She was going to return, no matter what.
Above all, her last memory of the original world was of falling asleep. She hadn’t been in bad condition when she fell asleep.
Naturally, she thought she would return to the original world as if waking from a dream. How naïve she had been.
Even after witnessing Selena's end.
She felt like she might vomit.
“Stop. Mary, please stop.”
Summer lamented.
The air in the room grew damp and dark.
The warm sensations she had felt while talking with the maids had long since vanished.
This was reality. Summer was tormented by Mary, who awakened her to it.
“There are only two types of people who reach out after seeing something collapse and ugly: the good or the deceiver.”
“Stop!”
“Which do you think that witch is?”
Mary asked, pointing at Fay. Summer immediately covered her ears with both hands.
“Stop it!”
She wondered why Mary was acting this way, but it was futile. There was no explanation for Mary’s words and actions, no matter the reason.
“Miss, I was not even a being until I met you.”
Mary had her hands firmly placed on her lap.
Her slightly hunched shoulders and shadowed eyes revealed the hardships of her life.
“Leave.”
“I am more afraid of returning to that life than of ceasing to exist. But the reason I don’t bind you or try to dissuade you is not for any other reason.”
“Mary, please...”
She hated it. When she looked at Mary, she saw her own self from the original world reflected back.
Perhaps it was a fragment of the life that lost that name.
“I know how painful this world is, so I couldn’t carelessly force you to stay here.”
“......”
“Miss, you are precious. Even if I am trapped in that terrible time again, I will not obstruct the path you choose.”
“Mary!”
“All I can do is persuade and plead. Miss, I have waited my whole life for this moment. But tomorrow, I will vanish like a midsummer night's dream.”
The fragments of that life, where she silently did her work while pressing her tired eyes at the desk all day, were visible through Mary.
Summer stared blankly at Mary’s hunched shoulders and slightly weary eyes.
“I need time to think.”
“Yes. Whenever you have sorted out your thoughts, just call for me.”
Fortunately, Mary left the room willingly.
“Ha, haha...”
Summer collapsed onto the carpet as if she had crumbled. The soft red carpet wrapped around her hands.
She was not a cruel person. Yet, she was not an adult either.
Summer knew. The Mary of this world resembled the lost self of the other world.
If she abandoned them and returned to find her name, could she endure the guilt?
Surely, she had conversed and breathed with them here, but could she dismiss it all as a dream?
Was it a dream she could ignore? Was it a reality she should not turn away from?
Cruelly, almost everything in the world was inherently unclear. Thus, choices were always painful and difficult.
“Ugh, ah...”
It felt as if someone had turned her mind into mush, melting into chaos.
It was a mess. Everything was a mess. If this were a game, she would want to hit the reset button.
Summer began to breathe heavily, soon making strange choking sounds, as if she might suffocate at any moment.
At that moment, the sky suddenly began to darken. Fay approached the window with a startled expression.
The sun disappeared beyond the ridge, and soon night was approaching.
“Why?”
Had a day passed? Had a day returned? She had to check immediately. Fay pulled out the pocket watch from her bosom.
“Damn it.”
9:23 PM.
It was last night. Time had returned to a few hours ago.
Had the world gone mad? Otherwise, there was no way time could be reversed.
What on earth was the purpose of this reckless act of turning back time?
“Black hair, this is bad. It seems the world is... black hair?”
“......”
A hazy, white moonlight shone through.
In a scene as beautiful as a fairy tale, a silent wail spread out, both mournful and desperate.
Fay looked at Summer, who was silently crying, with a dazed expression.
Aside from the sound of a bird fluttering away from a tree, it was an exceptionally quiet night.
Regrettably, there were no secret meetings between princesses and knights, nor love stories between princes and maids.
Here, only the cries of a misplaced black-haired foreigner existed.
When the white, round moon was obscured by clouds and then revealed again, Summer closed her tired eyes.
As if she would not wake up again on the red carpet, her face was pale.
“......”
Fay's eyes took in every detail of Summer's pale face.
Seeing the dried tear stains and her pale complexion, Fay's face twisted in anguish.
“Black hair, you.”
Why is the world intervening in your death?
Fay looked up at the sky.
“Oh God.”
Why do you abandon us and intervene so much in the death of this foreigner?
“I no longer understand your will.”
Hot tears fell down Fay's cheeks.
For the sake of the world's existence, she had committed any act without hesitation. All of this was for you, the Creator.
So that the foreigners would not dare to change the world you created. But why?
“Why do you want to draw in this foreigner instead of me... why this foreigner...?”
What does it mean to draw her into this world? Do you truly not understand, oh God?
Now, you, the cold God who does not come to me, who has abandoned me.
Fay bowed her head, crying softly. The hazy moonlight shone above her head.
Fay, with her head bowed, was too focused on her shadow to see the moonlight above her.
Time, which the world had turned back, flowed again, reaching the time before it was turned back. Dawn broke, and the moon vanished under the sunlight.
Only then did Fay stop her wailing and, as if to say she had never cried, she shamelessly glanced at Summer.
“......”
The carpet was particularly red, making it look as if Summer's blood had been spilled.
Thinking that way was so horrifying that Fay quickly dragged Summer's arm and laid her on the bed.
The moment the red carpet looked like blood, her heart raced anxiously.
“Black hair.”
“......”
“Black hair?”
“......”
“Wake up. Black hair!”
There are days like that. Days when one wakes someone who is sleeping soundly out of unnecessary anxiety. For Fay, that was now.
As Fay shook Summer's shoulder, her swollen eyelids lifted, and Summer opened her eyes.
“......”
There were no kind greetings. Fay sensed something was off.
Whatever emotion filled Summer's eyes, it was clear that it was not good.
“Black hair. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Fay. You said you found me for this world.”
Summer's voice was muffled, as if submerged in water.
“Right.”
“Then, could you kill me for the sake of this world?”
“What nonsense is that?”
Fay avoided answering. It was uncharacteristic of her.
Fay felt it herself. Killing one human for the sake of this world should not be a problem.
But if that human was Summer, an immediate answer did not come.
Did her heart weaken as the time to die approached?
“Fay.”
“I shouldn’t have woken you. Go back to sleep, stop talking nonsense.”
Fay grumbled and hurriedly tried to leave. But Summer's hoarse voice caught her ankle.
“Did you really recommend I return without knowing what state the original me is in?”
“I never recommended it. You were the one who said you wanted to go back.”
“What if I don’t want to go back?”
“......”
“See? You were going to send me back even if it was against my will.”
“......That’s true.”
Fay answered, lowering her gaze. She had a mission to restore the small distortion before it created a larger problem.
But if that meant killing Summer to achieve it?
Summer, who had been quietly watching Fay, smiled faintly. That expression was more sorrowful and pitiful than her crying face.
“What happened to my body in the original world?”
Fay maintained her silence for a long time.
A witch loses all her power if she speaks a lie. So she could neither lie here nor tell the truth.
After much contemplation, Fay slowly opened her mouth.
“I cannot interfere with your original world. Your world is a bit higher.”
“Then does that mean you don’t know what state my body is in?”
“......”
Fay completely sealed her lips. That was enough of an answer for Summer.
Seeing Fay exercising her right to remain silent, Summer squeezed her eyes shut.
How could she claim to send her back, as if doing her a favor, without knowing what state she was in? How? What if her body had disappeared in the original world?
A painful sense of betrayal surged within her.
She realized from Fay's attitude. Fay had deliberately not told her, fearing that Summer might say she wouldn’t return to the original world.
In this world, Fay was the only one she could confide in and rely on. She had even approached her first and extended a hand of salvation.
The only lifeline that could help her escape this world.
With a sense of futility, a hollow laugh escaped her lips.
“Fay. I climbed to the top of the spire and jumped into the lake to return to the original world.”
“I know.”
“Why did you do that to me? Did I really seem less than a cockroach to you?”
“......”
“I’m in so much pain. Still, I won’t ask for an explanation from you, Fay. I feel like I would get hurt.”
“......I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You don’t mean it. To me, you were like salvation, but to you, I must have been the foreigner who twisted the world.”
“Black hair, I...”
Fay opened her lips repeatedly but soon fell silent. No explanation could serve as justification.
“Don’t worry. Everything will happen as you wished.”
“I wished for that?”
Fay's face twisted in despair. Is this what I wished for? She kept questioning herself without respite.