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Chapter 03
The ground rushed closer in an instant.
“Ugh.”
“Ah.”
Right before hitting the ground, I squeezed my eyes shut in fear. So I don’t really know exactly what happened afterward.
First, a firm hand wrapped around my waist. Then someone grabbed my arm.
But both sides that were grabbed hurt, and the impact afterward was even more unbearably painful. My body lurched forward and my legs got tangled.
As I toppled to the ground with the person who had wrapped their arm around my waist, the person who had grabbed my arm didn’t let go. As my arm was pulled up, I thought my shoulder would pop out.
“Ah, ugh.”
“Lady Linea! I, ah, I’m sorry. I thought Sir Jestian would dodge…”
The one who had grabbed my arm was Sylvia. She let go belatedly and apologized, but I wasn’t in any state to receive it. It hurt so much that tears genuinely started to well up.
And that wasn’t the end—a throbbing pain rose from my ankle. I pressed my face into the hard ground, barely able to breathe, groaning.
“Damn. Where does it hurt? Your arm? Which side?”
It wasn’t the ground. It was Jeste’s arms. As I barely drew in a breath, the scent of a snow-covered forest washed over me.
When I couldn’t answer, Jeste, apparently frustrated, sat up and pulled me up with him. In the process, the pain from my moved ankle made me lift my head, only to bury it back in Jeste’s shoulder.
“Ugh, ah, not my arm, my ankle… it hurts…”
I wiped the flowing tears on Jeste’s clothes and barely completed the sentence. My ankle hurt far more crazily than my shoulder.
Even the light brush of Jeste’s fingers made me groan in pain.
“It doesn’t seem broken. What did you hit it on?”
“It looks like a shoe guard.”
As Jeste muttered lowly, a knight standing nearby answered. A shoe guard? So not something hard like the ground or a tree, but a guard?
“Well, iron guards are quite hard.”
Another knight added hurriedly. In the North, where battles with monsters are common, wearing iron armor and protective gear is only natural.
But no matter how much iron it is, it’s still a shoe. Afraid that Jeste might think I was exaggerating, I quickly lifted my head.
“If it’s not broken, maybe it’s cracked. …It really hurts.”
I hesitated before adding that it hurt. Jeste said nothing. He glanced at me, tears falling as I watched his reaction, then looked back at the injury.
Even when Jeste’s fingers touched it, I held back my groans and endured.
“That might be possible. It’s swollen.”
Jeste finished speaking and ordered someone to fetch a healer. As the two knights disappeared, Sylvia, who had been silent, crouched down beside me.
“Is your shoulder alright?”
Sylvia looked apologetic, so out of courtesy I wanted to say it was fine, but it was throbbing too much for that.
“It hurts, but I can stand it.”
“I’m sorry. I acted without thinking and…”
“No. Rather, thank you for grabbing me.”
Jeste had been trying to dodge, after all. Though she had helped belatedly, her reflexive action must have come from genuine concern.
Wiping my tears with my unhurt arm, I realized I was awkwardly sitting on Jeste’s lap. Come to think of it, Jeste’s face was awfully close.
I felt my ears burn hot. My current state was a mess, and I didn’t have the confidence to face him this close.
Embarrassment came before the pain.
“Sir Sylvia, could you help me up? I want to stand.”
“Yes!”
Sylvia readily nodded and helped support me. Watching this, Jeste spoke flatly.
“Just stay put.”
“No, you’re uncomfortable too. And it’s cold, so it’d be better to go inside.”
It wasn’t an empty remark. Getting examined by a healer would also be more comfortable inside the castle. As I half-rose, holding Sylvia’s hand, Jeste irritably ran his hand through his hair.
“Then why did you climb up that tree in the first place? You’re not a child. What a nuisance.”
“Hmm…”
I just pulled up the corners of my mouth in a smile. There are just some things people say. Unremarkable words that somehow strike deep in the chest.
“You went up there and only got hurt…”
Jeste looked at me and widened his blue eyes. The tears I had barely stopped must have started again, as my vision wavered. I put strength into the hand gripping Sylvia and stood up in one go.
“Ah.”
“Miss?”
Sylvia looked at me with a bewildered expression. The injured ankle throbbed and beyond, feeling like it was being stabbed with something sharp.
It hurt so much that I gripped Sylvia’s arm tightly and waited for the pain to subside even a little. Jeste, who had been staring blankly at me, hurriedly rose and reached out his hand.
“If it hurts, why are you getting up so hastily? You need to be careful. Do you want to get hurt more?”
I looked at Jeste’s hand approaching me and slapped it away. A small but sharp smack sounded, and the surroundings fell silent. Only the rustling sound of leaves brushing against each other in the wind could be heard.
My palm was hot. I didn’t know if it was because it had touched Jeste’s hand, which had a higher body temperature than others, or because I had struck that hand.
Jeste stood still, looking down at his own hand, then reached out to me again. When I slapped that hand away once more, Jeste twisted the corner of his lips.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I didn’t want to be like this either. But perhaps it was because I had realized the regression, or because the pain in my ankle made me remember old wounds.
The memories and emotions of Linea, who died at 22, came flooding back. A time that no longer exists because I’ve already regressed. Memories that no one would know if I forgot.
I wish I could just let it go, but it was so heartbreaking.
“Jeste, you…”
As soon as I opened my lips, a sob escaped, so I closed my mouth again. With every blink, tears fell drop by drop.
At the end of this novel I was reincarnated into, the world is destroyed and everyone dies. But 22-year-old Linea Hanover did not die when the world was destroyed. I lost my life several months before that.
Linea Hanover is a villainess, but closer to an ambiguous supporting character without much weight. She didn’t commit any major wrongdoings, but she did constantly interfere with the protagonists in minor ways.
Especially annoying Jeste and the female lead. Jeste because of her unrequited love, and the female lead because of her unrequited love’s unrequited love.
It wasn’t like she grabbed anyone’s hair, spilled wine on clothes, or talked behind people’s backs. She just anxiously loitered around and cluelessly butted in.
The last words Jeste said to me were, ‘Stop being so annoying.’ I can’t erase from my mind the cold look Jeste gave me as he said those words.
From the first time we met, even after we got engaged, and after the engagement was broken off. Was I always just an annoyance to Jeste?
“…You were bad.”
“…Who was.”
“You were bad.”
I blamed Jeste like a child throwing a tantrum. But you were bad. No matter how bothersome I was, even if that was truly the case.
You didn’t have to kill me. You could have just ignored me, or humiliated me in front of everyone, or at the very least, sent me far away.
The 22-year-old Linea was murdered. Fortunately or unfortunately, the one who attacked me wasn’t Jeste. But the knight who pointed a sword at me wore armor engraved with the Levegayn crest.
What had Jeste commanded that knight? What did he think when that knight returned after completing the mission?
I know that the Jeste before me now is different from Jeste back then. The current him hasn’t done anything. So maybe this is just me taking out my anger.
But when the sorrow surged to its peak all at once, I simply couldn’t stop.
“You didn’t have to go that far. Why did you…”
I never thought you’d tell someone to kill me just because I was annoying. No matter how annoying I was, I never knew I meant that little to Jeste.
Jeste said nothing. As I lowered my head, tears fell in dots onto the dirt floor.
It wasn’t like crying was something to be proud of, and I didn’t want to keep standing there, so I turned around. As soon as I took a step, I heard rustling behind me, so I quickly said,
“Do, don’t follow me.”
No answer came, but when I took another step, I heard the sound of following again.
I didn’t say it twice and went on my way. Limping. Every step hurt, but I just wanted to quickly get to my room where no one was and rest alone.
Everyone I passed fixed their eyes on me. If I saw someone walking like this, I’d look too. It must have been funny.
And as soon as I barely made it inside the castle, I realized a desperate fact. My room was on the third floor. Which meant I had to go up the stairs.
‘How am I supposed to climb that…’
I wanted to just sit down. At that moment, someone quickly turned their back to me and crouched down.
“Let me carry you, Lady Linea.”
It was Sylvia. So the footsteps that had been following me all along must have been Sylvia’s. I had no energy left to be stubborn, so I climbed onto her back.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. Shall I call a maid?”
Sylvia set me down on a plush chair and asked with concern. I had no strength to even open my mouth, so I barely raised my hand to refuse.
Just then, a knock came at the door.
