YWTO 06

Chapter 6

‘You, go back.’

It was just as the Duke and Ayla were making their way toward the memorial storage room.

Lampus stepped in front of Yurein, who was about to follow them, and told her to go back.

Yurein stared silently at Lampus.

The glasses he was wearing gleamed coldly.

Lampus did not say anything more, but his intentions were conveyed clearly enough.

There is no place for you here.

I cannot stand the thought of someone like you going into Mother’s memorial room.

Vivid hostility seemed to drip from him.

Watching him, Yurein merely raised one corner of her lips into a crooked smile.

It was ridiculous to see him acting like this when he had not even realized that the memorial items had been switched.

But that was not what she needed to worry about.

As she watched them hurriedly make their way upstairs, Yurein turned around and returned to her room.

They were not important right now.

She had something she needed to do.

Sitting in the reception room, Yurein looked at Rebecca beside her and smiled brightly.

“Rebecca.”

“Y-Yes, yes. Yes, my lady.”

Rebecca stammered.

Yurein stared at her for a moment before giving her another gentle smile.

“Go back and rest, Rebecca. There’s no need for you to stay here.”

“But…”

Rebecca flinched.

Even so, her fingers continued to fidget nervously.

“It’s all right. You’ve been through something difficult.”

Yurein soothed her with a kind gaze, and Rebecca’s eyes reddened.

“My lady… My lady, you’re not all right either.”

“I’m fine. It’s not as though this is something that only happened once or twice.”

Although she said it calmly, Rebecca’s eyes grew even redder.

She hesitated for a while, fidgeting uneasily, before finally leaving the room.

Click.

The door closed, and Yurein took a breath before getting to her feet.

She had gone looking for Rebecca and ended up getting caught up in one incident after another, but she had been about to make the most important preparations.

‘This worked out even better.’

With everyone’s attention focused on the memorial storage room, this was her chance.

Yurein calmly thought through the events that were to come.

She now had a rough idea of what she needed to do next.

‘First, I need to move quickly.’

Yurein organized her thoughts as she walked.

She did not have much time, so she had to hurry.

Click.

Yurein entered the dressing room and widened her eyes.

“Huh?”

The dressing room was filled with silvery, shimmering mana.

Yurein could not help but stare in astonishment at it.

The silver mana was brilliant and beautiful.

The power contained within it was immense, yet it looked fragile, as though it could disappear at any moment.

Yurein naturally followed the flow of the mana with her gaze.

Mana was leaking from the drawer where her accessories were kept.

Rattle.

When she opened the drawer, there were only a few pieces of jewelry inside.

It was a sparse collection for the daughter of a ducal family—or even for a noble lady in general.

And this was all the jewelry Yurein owned.

Yurein quickly took out a small box that had been tucked deep inside the drawer.

A little mana was leaking from the box.

Yurein ran her fingers over the box, whose surface was covered in soft velvet.

‘It was left behind by your mother.’

It had been around the time when Yurein had realized her position in this family and was just beginning to mature.

One day, the Duke had handed her this box.

He told her that it was something her mother had left for her.

‘If I had known you would die because of it, I wouldn’t have left something like this with you.’

Her heart, which had begun to beat excitedly at the thought that it might be a gift, sank instantly when she heard the Duke’s low murmur.

Yurein lifted her gaze from the box and looked at the Duke.

It was not a gift.

He was merely fulfilling his wife’s request.

The Duke’s expression was so cold that she could immediately understand what he felt.

Was that the moment?

The moment Yurein first gave up on the Duke.

Ayla’s wardrobe was said to receive new jewelry throughout the year, but Yurein’s did not.

She merely bought a few pieces whenever she had to attend an event as the eldest daughter of the ducal family, just enough to look the part.

But Yurein had never envied those things.

Back then, she had worried that Ayla, who had entered the unfamiliar ducal household, might feel lonely.

So she had thought that, as the legitimate daughter of the Tarbargen ducal family, she should help Ayla adjust.

The only thing she had ever envied was…

The warm gazes the Duke and Lampus gave Ayla whenever they presented her with jewelry.

The little handwritten notes Lampus sent whenever he looked after Ayla.

Those things sometimes made Yurein ache with envy.

There had even been times when she desperately longed for such affection.

That was how it had been…

‘But not anymore.’

Yurein narrowed her eyes.

She had certainly felt that way once, but now those emotions were only faint remnants. The envy she had once felt had long since eroded away.

Yurein opened the box that had made her reminisce about the past.

Inside were two thin bracelets.

“This is…”

Yurein picked up the bracelets with both hands and examined them closely.

The two bracelets had originally been a pair.

One was decorated with fresh green peridot, while the other had a brilliant blue sapphire set into it, gleaming beautifully—

‘had’.

That was right.

These were the bracelets she had worn at her younger sister’s celebration banquet for becoming the Crown Princess before she died in her previous life.

The sapphire decorating that bracelet had been shattered.

Its once-brilliant light was gone, replaced by a dull, ashen gray.

After looking at it for a while, Yurein turned her attention to the other bracelet.

It was a simple bracelet made of platinum.

However, the crest of the Tarbargen ducal family was engraved along its slender platinum body.

Mana flowed from the green peridot set in the center of the bracelet.

It was the mana of the Duchess, Rosalin Tarbargen.

‘…Mother’s mana was activated.’

Yurein naturally understood why the sapphire bracelet had been destroyed.

Once certain conditions had been met, the mana of her mother, who had been an Esper, had activated.

Her mother’s ability was Time.

Yurein squeezed her eyes shut.

Sometimes, the mana of a powerful Esper could be absorbed into a medium and continue to exert its effects even when separated from the Esper.

Once certain conditions were fulfilled, the mana would emerge from the medium and become active once again.

Yurein clenched the bracelet tightly and bit down hard.

Now she was certain.

She had regressed.

Until just moments ago, she had been too busy putting her thoughts in order, but now she knew for sure.

Wasn’t the proof of her own death lying plainly before her eyes?

Yurein reached out and grasped the bracelet set with the peridot.

At that moment, she felt a sharp tingle- as the Duchess’s mana flowed through her fingertips and into her body.

‘Strange.’

Yurein blinked and frowned.

It was strange how the mana seemed to wrap around her as though it had been waiting for her.

No matter how much of a Guide she was, it was not normal for the mana of any Esper to simply flow into her body.

Such a phenomenon was only possible after the two had connected with each other and exchanged guiding for a long time…

Then, suddenly—

The peridot set in the center of the bracelet flashed.

And the silver mana filling Yurein’s dressing room began to be absorbed into her.

“Ugh…!”

Yurein frowned slightly at the strange sensation.

Her entire body tingled.

Little by little, the sensations throughout her body began to awaken.

As if entranced, Yurein raised her hand.

Then she concentrated her mana in her palm.

And—

Vwoooong.

Mana gathered at her fingertips much more naturally than it had when she first awakened.

Yurein stared at her fingertips for a moment.

The Duchess’s mana blended harmoniously with Yurein’s own mana, as though they had originally belonged to the same body, peacefully circulating through her.

‘Huh? This is…’

Yurein narrowed her eyes slightly as she recalled a memory from her previous life.

It was rare, but there had been cases like this in the past as well.

Because Guides had no ability to protect themselves, Espers sometimes imbued their own mana into jewels for the sake of their precious Guides.

In that case, the Guide could temporarily use the Esper’s abilities as well.

‘So that’s why.’

That was why Mother had left this bracelet for her.

The keepsake her mother had left behind was not merely a bracelet.

It was a medium that allowed Yurein to temporarily use her mother’s power.

It was the legacy Rosalin had left for Yurein so that she could use mana in a moment of crisis.

Mana warmly floated through her body.

Feeling the comforting warmth contained within it, Yurein’s face twisted.

If she did not, she felt as though all the sorrow inside her would burst out.

Before her regression, Yurein had lived believing that she was the sinner who had caused her mother’s death.

Everyone had said so.

That she was an ordinary child who had been born by killing the Duchess, an exceptionally gifted Esper.

At every moment of Yurein’s life, people had searched for traces of the already-dead Duchess, Rosalin.

The child who had devoured her own mother.

It was only natural that her family hated her, and it was only natural that the servants looked upon her unfavorably.

So Yurein had felt that merely being alive was a sin.

She had even believed that Rosalin, who had died, must hate her from beyond the grave.

And yet, at this very moment…