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Chapter 4
“Thunderroute! S-slow down…!”
My thighs and hips hurt like hell. Since I’d hiked up my skirt, my bare thighs were scraping directly against the horse’s hard sides. The only reason I was managing to hold on right now was thanks to the experience from before my regression.
After all, it took at least ten years of riding to stay on a horse without a saddle.
‘Still… if I can just hold on a little longer…’
I recalled the terrain on the way to the Imperial Palace. To get there, one had to pass through the townhouse district where the nobles lived, then cross a low mountain.
If the assassins were planning an ambush, that route was their only option.
After that, the road became smooth and well maintained again. We were almost there.
Once we entered the mountain path, utterly devoid of lights, it became pitch dark. The chirping of insects hummed softly through the air, and every sudden rustle from somewhere nearby was probably a wild animal moving through the brush.
And I was completely unarmed.
Perhaps Thunderroute was frightened too, because he slowed his pace, while I clung desperately to his mane like it was a lifeline.
Then it happened.
Swish—
“Kyaa!”
A water deer! A water deer had leapt out in front of us!
Fortunately, Thunderroute stopped short before he could kick it. But the problem was that the startled horse reared up, lifting his front legs high into the air.
“Waaah!”
I’m gonna die! No, I’m not! Sophia, just hang on!
Neighhh—
Thankfully, Thunderroute calmed down quickly and lowered his front legs again, and in the blink of an eye, the deer vanished back into the darkness.
Damn, I almost died right after regressing.
And from a broken neck after falling off a horse, no less.
But Sophia wasn’t about to give up over something like this.
I steadied myself again and tapped the horse’s side with my heel.
“Hm?”
But Thunderroute refused to move. He merely snorted through his nose.
Tap, tap.
Prrrrh.
Huh? Look at this guy.
Tap, tap!
Prrrrh!
Oh no. This was bad. Thunderroute clearly had no intention of going any farther through the mountain.
“There, there, it’s okay, Thunderroute. It’s nothing serious. We’re just continuing on our way, alright?”
I stroked his soft mane over and over in an attempt to soothe him, and Thunderroute lifted one hoof… only to set it back down again.
Ugh, seriously!
“Thunderroute, Thundy, pull yourself together, okay?”
Even as I spoke, I sensed something strange.
It felt like the darkness behind me was slowly growing brighter…
“What are you doing out here?”
“Kyaaa!”
Startled, I threw my arms around Thunderroute’s neck and pressed myself flat against him.
When no immediate response came, I slowly straightened up and turned my head.
Huh? This man is…
“Duke Glentino’s son?”
“Lady Bartoli?”
The familiar-looking man holding a torch in one hand was Owen, the eldest son of the Glentino Ducal House.
Which meant he was the older brother of my fiancé, Arnold.
Thunderroute turned his head in a full circle to face the man.
He was dressed for going out.
And honestly… he looked good.
His dirty blond hair, his sharply handsome face with its strong jawline and deep-set eyes—it all came together infuriatingly well. Add in his slightly rough demeanor, tall frame, and casually draped trench coat, and the effect was ridiculous.
I hadn’t seen this face since my fiancé’s funeral before my regression.
That had been decades ago, and yet I remembered him so vividly. He must have left quite the impression on me.
The handsome man swept his gaze over me and frowned.
“Your appearance right now is…”
What do you mean, my appearance?!
I was about to snap back when he spoke first.
“You rode a horse… bareback? Without even a saddle?”
I answered,
“Yes.”
“You barely have any muscle. Tch, you must be in agony.”
How would you know whether I have muscles or not?
Though, admittedly, I was wearing clothing that made it fairly obvious.
Tsk.
The old me would probably have fainted from embarrassment by now.
For women who normally wore long skirts, exposing their legs to a man outside the family was practically tantamount to blatant seduction.
In short, absolutely insane.
Perhaps realizing I was trying to act calm while secretly dying of humiliation, the man clicked his tongue and removed his trench coat.
Then he tossed it toward me.
“Where are you going at this hour? Visiting a lover hidden away in the mountains, perhaps?”
“I don’t have any man besides my fiancé!”
“……”
Ugh. I could’ve just asked what nonsense he was talking about, but I’d become too conscious of the fact that he was my fiancé’s brother…
Without another word, I focused on tying the coat around my waist.
Come to think of it, why was this man even out here at this hour?
As I wondered that, my eyes landed on the brown paper bag in his other hand.
And sticking out of it were… my indoor slippers.
I looked down.
My toes wriggled in the cold air.
Right. I was barefoot.
He’d probably been returning from some errand when he spotted a pair of discarded slippers and horse tracks nearby.
Perhaps he’d thought someone had been abducted.
So he’d gone home, brought a horse, and followed the hoofprints here.
Despite always looking like everything in the world annoyed him, he was surprisingly righteous.
With that crooked attitude of his, he asked again,
“So? Where exactly were you headed in such a hurry, dressed like that?”
“My younger sister is going to die.”
“…What?”
I’d been so anxious that I blurted out the conclusion first.
I hurriedly explained.
“Leoni. The future Crown Princess. I found out there’s an assassination plot targeting her.”
“And so you chased after her… bareback?”
“I just wanted to confirm it! Just confirm it!”
“……To see whether she dies properly?”
“No, that’s not what I meant…”
Ugh, somehow this conversation was becoming more ridiculous by the second.
Had my speaking skills regressed too after turning back time?
No, the problem was definitely this man’s attitude.
Still, I roughly understood what he meant.
If I thought about it calmly, whether I went or not, Leoni would survive this assassination attempt anyway.
That girl always slipped past danger as though protected by the goddess of fortune herself.
In fact, she even kept a maid blessed by divine favor at her side.
And honestly… right now I disliked my sister so much that part of me wondered whether I really needed to risk myself trying to save her.
But ever since I’d gone back in time, the flow of events had already started changing.
Like how I’d almost spoken words of reconciliation during dinner earlier.
Or how I’d run into this man right now.
I tried to leap dramatically off Thunderroute’s back.
But the moment I looked down, I realized the ground was much farther away than I’d expected.
So I declared proudly,
“Please help me down.”
“Ha… honestly.”
The man dragged a hand down his face, set the torch on the ground, and slowly walked over.
Then he slipped his arms beneath my armpits and lifted me up effortlessly.
I assumed he’d simply place me on the ground.
Instead, Duke Glentino’s son suddenly dropped to one knee and sat me on top of his other thigh.
“W-What are you doing?!”
“Please stay still. Be careful not to let your feet touch the ground.”
I stiffened instinctively, tension flooding my entire body.
My chemise was so thin that I could feel the hard muscle of his thigh beneath me.
Then the man reached out, and before I could stop him—
Grab.
He wrapped his hand around my ankle.
‘H-He’s insane?!’
How could he just grab a lady’s ankle like that?!
But his hand was surprisingly warm.
Maybe it was because my feet were freezing.
Now that I thought about it, it was still early spring, and the nights were rather cold.
The man slipped the slippers back onto my feet himself.
The very indoor slippers I’d lost on the way here.
“……”
I hadn’t expected this level of kindness, so I silently watched as he carefully put the slippers on both my feet.
At some point, I’d even become comfortable enough to rest my hands on his shoulders.
In a low voice, he said,
“To be honest, I wouldn’t recommend wearing indoor slippers on a mountain path. But it’s better than wearing nothing, and my shoes would be far too large and only make walking harder. So wear these instead.”
“Y-Yes…”
“Why are you suddenly so quiet? It doesn’t suit you.”
“I am not!”
His personality was seriously strange.
Did he absolutely have to get the last word in every time or what?
And so, with one horse beside each of us, we began walking toward the Imperial Palace together.
I knew my story sounded absurd.
Suddenly barging into the mountains alone, claiming my sister was about to die.
And yet, surprisingly, the man stopped questioning me. He simply followed along in silence.
Had there ever been anyone in my life who trusted me like this?
It felt… strange.
After walking for some time, I spotted what looked like a wrecked carriage in the distance.
At the same moment, my heart dropped.
“Leoni!!”
Before I knew it, I was already running.
See, Sophia? What are you going to do now?
The future has changed.
What if the assassination succeeded this time?
What if you really did kill your sister?
Half out of my mind, I arrived at the shattered carriage.
“Hah… huff…”
The carriage was crushed so horribly that anyone inside it would surely have died instantly.
Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—there were no bodies or injured people nearby.
I ran toward the carriage door.
