TSRTL 04

Chapter 4

“Forget what I just said. I don’t care about Winter’s face at all. Even if it looked like a lump of dough she rolled around and threw away, it wouldn’t bother me.”

<……..>

“…?”

Winter still didn’t react.

Tiya wondered if she had hurt her feelings by asking to see her face and carefully studied her expression.

<Ah, so you’re finally done talking.>

Winter spoke as if she hadn’t been listening at all.

“You’ve heard the story that the Vladizef family is blessed by a Great Spirit, right?”

It was a sudden question, but Tiya—unlike Winter—was an excellent listener. She nodded and pointed toward a huge tapestry hanging on the wall.

“Of course! That’s the Great Spirit right there.”

A silver ornamental fish swimming against a fierce current.

The symbol of the Vladizef family, said to have been subdued by the first head of the household.

But no one knew what kind of spirit it really was.

<That Great Spirit… is actually the Spirit of Time.>

Until Winter spoke.

“The Spirit of… Time?”

A spirit that tells the time?

Tiya tilted her head in confusion.

<Yes. Guided by that Spirit, I am the last head of the Vladizef family… from the future.>

Tiya didn’t understand most of what Winter said. But she caught the strangest part.

“The last head?”

<Twelve years from now, the Vladizef family will be destroyed.>

“…?”

Tiya’s round eyes trembled.

She was eight now, so twelve years later…

She tried counting with her fingers, but there were only ten.

After twisting her face in deep thought, she shouted confidently.

“I’ll be eight hundred and twelve years old!”

<Twenty.>

“T-That’s what I meant. So… when I turn twenty, our family will be… destroyed?”

The meaning of “destroyed” finally sank in, and Tiya’s eyes widened, then narrowed.

She might be bad at math, but she knew how incredible her family was.

The Frost Fortress, called the Ice Wall of the Empire.

Her grandmother, a war hero and living legend.

The northern knight order, the strongest on the continent, who could command spirits.

“Winter. You’re a really bad liar. Who would believe that?”

She nudged Winter’s arm with her elbow, telling her to say something more believable.

“Whoa—?!”

Tiya’s body passed straight through Winter’s and suddenly began falling endlessly, as if sucked into a void.

She squeezed her eyes shut and flailed her arms and legs, screaming.

<Ahhhhhhhhhh!>

But when she felt no pain for a long time, she slowly peeked one eye open.

<…Huh?>

Blue sky, a white fortress, and flags bearing the Vladizef crest fluttering in the wind.

<This is… the Frost Fortress?>

Tiya was standing at the top of her beloved northern home.

She took a step forward—and felt strangely light.

When she looked down, she gasped.

<Wow! I’m floating!>

Her feet hovered a few inches above the ground, her body half-transparent. Just like Winter!

She bounced happily for a moment—but then noticed something was off.

The fortress looked… wrong.

When she glanced outside the walls, she froze.

A moat filled with blood and corpses. A tower half-collapsed.

And across the snowfield, waves of barbarians swarming forward like a black tide.

The fortress had become a battlefield.

<G-Grandma! Sasha! The knights!>

She called for the adults, but saw no one.

Then, far away, she spotted a familiar back.

A figure standing on the broken wall.

Riddled with arrows, covered in wounds—but unmistakable.

<Winter?>

It was Winter.

Perched dangerously, ready to fall at any moment, she reached one hand toward the sky. A family ring on her finger glowed faintly.

And in a rough, cracking voice, she whispered:

“By contract… I summon you.”

A voice too small to shake the battlefield full of screams.

But then, time stopped.

Everything froze except Winter, Tiya, and…

【You know I can’t promise this contract will succeed.】

…a jet-black ornamental fish, floating around Winter.

Tiya instinctively knew.

‘That’s… the Great Spirit of Time.’

“I don’t care. Just take me three years into the past.”

As soon as Winter spoke, one of the Spirit’s scales loosened and drifted down like a dead leaf.

Winter caught it and swallowed it without hesitation.

Her body collapsed at once.

Tiya reached for her—but her hand grasped only air.

<Winter! Are you okay? Does it hurt?>

Even her voice didn’t reach her.

Winter clawed at the stone floor, gritting her teeth, then slowly raised her head.

【The contract is complete.】

Crack.

Tiya felt something shatter inside her.

“Gasp!”

It was like someone had crushed her heart in their fist.

She fell backward, unable to breathe—and landed with a thud.

When she opened her eyes, she was back in her bedroom at the Vladizef mansion.

Winter stood nearby, clutching her chest as if startled, then looked at her.

“W-What was that…?”

<…You saw it, huh.>

Tiya understood.

That wasn’t a dream or hallucination—it was Winter’s memory.

She sat up, her heart pounding hard even though the pain was gone.

The ruined fortress, the blood-soaked ground, the glowing family ring…

It all pointed to one thing.

<The barbarians launched a massive invasion. But strangely, they were armed with the Empire’s newest weapons. Normally, they’d never stand a chance, but back then… the North was different.>

Winter’s words were true.

Her dry voice carried the weight of her past—and Tiya’s yet-unlived future.

Soon, a plague called the “Reaper’s Mark” would sweep across the North. It would take years to develop a cure.

The moment it spread, the Empire would seal off the entire region. Isolated, countless people would die.

The barbarians, unusually silent until then, would strike at that exact moment.

<The main bloodline of Vladizef perished, and I, a distant branch, became head of the house. But by then, it was already too late.>

The direct line. Her family. All gone.

Tiya’s small chest rose and fell faster and faster.

Yet Winter kept speaking.

<After that… you saw it yourself. As a final measure, I made a contract with the Spirit of Time and came to the past…>

Then, Winter held out her hand to Tiya.

It felt like she was saying “Take it and stand.”

Tiya reached for it without thinking—but couldn’t touch her.

Or rather, Winter couldn’t touch anything at all.

<As you can see, I failed. In this form, I can’t change the future. But…>

Winter gazed down at Tiya.

Her eyes were hidden behind the veil, but Tiya knew she was meeting her gaze.

<…With you—someone who can see me and hear me—things could be different.