IRGS 05

Chapter 05

I yanked hard on the warped carriage door. Then someone wrapped an arm around mine from behind.

“Careful. You’ll hurt your hand.”

It was the Duke of Glentino’s eldest son.

The man tore the carriage door off with absurd ease. I only had a moment to marvel at his strength before I hurriedly looked inside the carriage—but no one was there.

‘Why is nobody here?’

My thoughts were sluggish. Maybe I’d used up all my energy on the way here, because my brain simply refused to work.

Meanwhile, the man casually tossed the ripped-off door aside. Then he pulled out a handkerchief from somewhere—this man has a delicate side too? Even in my dazed state, I found myself oddly surprised—and took my wrist to wipe my hands clean.

“It seems your younger sister knew there would be an assassination attempt.”

“Huh?”

Even to my own ears, my voice sounded stupidly blank. The man explained calmly.

“She knew the ambush would happen around this route, so she sent out a decoy carriage disguised as her own. By now, your sister is probably taking another side road to the Imperial Palace.”

“Ah…”

I let out a hollow laugh and nodded. After taking a few steps, my legs suddenly gave out and I collapsed to the ground.

I didn’t even know how to describe this feeling.

Leonie had probably escaped the assassination the same way in the previous timeline too. As if she’d known exactly when and how the attempt would happen.

Which also meant that Leonie hadn’t believed me.

Even after hearing my confession at dinner, she must have avoided this road because one of her aides warned her that an assassination attempt—clearly ordered by me—was coming.

Had Leonie hesitated at all? Had she said she still trusted her older sister, that her sister had changed?

“……”

Of course not.

What hurt even more was the fact that Leonie had made the right choice by not believing me. Now I’d become the kind of older sister whose sincerity itself was a lie.

‘How pathetic.’

At least before the regression, I hadn’t been a liar to my little sister.

We never hid our hostility from each other. We snarled face-to-face, fought openly, poisoned one another, sent assassins after each other—but we never lied.

I’d thought that was our own twisted form of honor, the rules of our duel as sisters.

So absentmindedly, I muttered,

“I’ve become… a coward, Young Master.”

“Coward or not, if you’re done here, let’s go home.”

My tears vanished instantly.

“What?!”

I whipped my head around while still sitting on the ground, but nobody was there. At the same moment, my body lifted into the air again.

The man had somehow moved behind me without a sound and pulled me to my feet.

I barely managed to stand before a sharp pain shot through one foot. It was only for a moment, but somehow he still noticed the way my face twisted and clicked his tongue.

“I knew this would happen. Who runs through the mountains in house slippers?”

Before I could answer, the man scooped me up again.

Seriously, what was with this man? He kept lifting people around like puppies just because he was strong.

He placed me onto the horse he’d ridden here on.

The horse looked like a racing stallion—huge, with glossy black fur. Thankfully, it at least had a saddle.

The man pressed the reins into my hands. In his other hand, he was somehow already holding my slippers.

“This one has a nasty temperament, so he usually throws a fit if anyone else tries to ride him.”

I realized he was talking about the horse beneath me.

“But he’s staying still?”

If anything, he seemed gentle.

From my experience before regression, I knew horses liked to test their riders. That’s why I could tell immediately the moment I mounted him.

This horse was tame!

As proof, when I leaned against his neck and stroked his mane with one hand, rubbing his nose, the horse stuck out his tongue and licked my hand.

“Hah. Look at this bastard…”

Ignoring the betrayed muttering from beside me, I sat up straight and stroked the horse’s mane.

“Take care of me, Dagadakdak.”

“What kind of bizarre name is that?”

“It’s my choice.”

Just as I grabbed the reins, thinking we should get moving, the man suddenly sat behind me without making a sound.

“Now then, let’s go.”

What?

“You’re riding together with me?!”

His chest pressed against my back, and every time he spoke, I could feel the vibration through his body.

His attitude might have been crooked, but his voice was genuinely pleasant to hear.

With shameless composure, the man wrapped himself around my back and took the reins with both hands.

“So the lady rides the horse while I walk?”

“You can ride Thunderbolt!”

“It’s Thunderroot. And even I can’t ride without a saddle. You steal my horse and then complain?”

He was the one who’d put me on the horse without asking!

When I glanced back, Thunderroot somehow looked pitiful, as if silently asking whether I was really abandoning him after he’d carried us all this way.

“Thunderroot… will he be okay following us?”

“If he wants to live, he’ll follow.”

Well… fair enough.

“We’ll go slowly.”

The man spoke as if soothing me.

Honestly, I didn’t care much about the speed.

But somehow, this outing didn’t feel bad at all.

So I quietly nodded.

Dagadakdak really did walk slowly, and Thunderroot faithfully followed behind us.

I could feel the man’s breathing above the top of my head.

When my fiancé Arnold merely held my hand, it felt strangely unpleasant. But this man—my fiancé’s older brother—was pressed against me like this, and somehow it didn’t bother me at all.

If anything, my heart was beating at just the right pace.

The position, with my back against his chest, felt surprisingly secure.

Since we were holding the reins together, every sway of the horse made us bump lightly into each other, but that wasn’t so bad either.

Except for the long pepper-grinder-like thing pressing against my backside that I was becoming increasingly aware of.

‘Even in tight pants, Arnold barely showed anything, but this man—what the hell—is that thing attached all the way down his thigh?!’

I resisted the urge to fan my burning face.

The more attention I paid to it, the more I’d suffer.

To distract myself, I started observing the black horse we were riding.

A paper shopping bag with handles hung from Dagadakdak’s saddle. Inside were my slippers and the extinguished torch shoved in carelessly.

Then something I’d been wondering about suddenly came to mind.

“By the way, where were you headed, Young Master? Out this late at night… maybe to see a secret lover?”

“I don’t have one.”

A man like this without a lover? What a tragic loss for the Empire.

Still, he stubbornly refused to tell me where he’d been, so I started piecing things together myself.

A place that packaged items like that was probably one of the capital’s shopping districts. But why would the eldest son of a ducal house personally go instead of sending servants?

And at such a late hour too.

Trying to look casual, I shifted slightly to peek into the paper bag.

But I was stopped immediately.

“It’s dangerous to move around on horseback.”

Tch.

Still, I’d already seen enough.

Alongside my slippers and torch were a cube puzzle toy for children, a fountain pen for kids, and a brightly colored notebook.

‘…Huh?’

Those were all things a child would use.

But as far as I knew, the Glentino family only had three grown sons.

And a child young enough to use those items couldn’t have been older than ten. Yet the eldest son was unmarried, the second son was my fiancé, and the third son had only recently married.

Meaning there shouldn’t be anyone in the ducal house who would use things like that.

‘Forget it. Don’t dig too deeply into other people’s affairs.’

Besides, before my regression, I’d never had anything to do with him anyway.

So I dropped the thought.

Soon, Dagadakdak crossed the hillside.

When the familiar streets I’d seen my entire life finally came into view, the tension in me eased a little.

Nothing had actually been resolved, but… looking at it another way, things weren’t entirely bad either.

My sister now carried an even deeper sense of betrayal toward me than she had at this point in the previous timeline, but at least she was alive.

And I, returned young and healthy, had been given another chance to start over.

I could see Popo again.

And now I was riding home on the horse of the duke’s eldest son—a man I’d barely known in the previous timeline.

“This is nice.”

The words slipped out unconsciously.

“Yes?”

“Being alive.”

“For someone who says that, you don’t seem to value your life very much.”

The man was still just as sarcastic.

There went my attempt at being sentimental.

Still, even I knew that trying to cross a mountain barehanded on horseback had been reckless. Maybe I’d gotten too excited after regressing.

I mumbled awkwardly, then added like an excuse,

“That was… an emergency. My sister almost died.”

“……”

If this man knew—if he knew how many assassins I’d sent after Leonie before regression—he’d probably think I was ridiculous.

He might even sneer and ask why I was pretending.

But strangely, I didn’t care anymore.

And for some reason, I had the feeling this man wouldn’t care much either.

The man stayed silent for a long time.

Sleepiness was starting to overwhelm me.

Come to think of it, I’d really overdone things today. My thighs throbbed from riding without any muscle strength, my backside hurt, and the night air was cold.

Blink. Blink.

Sleep weighed down my eyes, and I struggled to keep my head from drooping.

Then, from behind me, his low voice murmured quietly:

“Instead of worrying about your sister, who’s surrounded by layers of guards, try taking care of yourself.”

“I have… guards too.”

Ah, I shouldn’t have said that.

But my sleep-soaked brain betrayed my reason.

“Who?”