CH 22

“Haa… Stop. Just leave.”

He sent out all his anxious aides and secretaries, who were looking at him nervously until then. It was only after they were all gone that he could be free from their uncomfortable gazes.

Ever since his return, more and more of their gazes became bothersome to him. From the butler to the coachman, who was driving the carriage. Everyone was looking at him with unfamiliar gazes.

He couldn’t understand the reason behind it, but this attention was uncomfortable and unpleasant.

He picked up the report again and, overlooking all details about the rest of House Closch, he read only the parts about the household’s youngest child, Irene de Closch.

Tracing with his fingertips, he went over the lines that mentioned the fire accident that she had suffered, and how she had died but lived again.

No, rather, instead of dying completely and coming back to life, she had a brush with death, but she survived and lived to see another day.

—At least, that’s how people would have thought if they read this line. That she had only a near death experience.

However, Ciel thought differently.

He shouldn’t miss even the slightest of details.

If the reason for God’s intervention was because of the real star, then God wouldn’t have sent only one.

A ‘star’ could also mean a ‘saint’. The word ‘shadow of a star’ meant that there’s a possibility that the current saintess was not a real saint.

And it’s imperative to note the differences seen from the present and the past, that which had already passed.

In that very past, the novel had not been spread as a ‘prophecy’. After he had traversed to Korea, he noticed that Seohyun was reading the book—and so, he realized that the place he had once lived was only a novel in Korea.

Apart from that, he also knew that Seo-yoon had given the book to Seohyun.

“What a revolting personality.”

Without meaning to, he started thinking about Seohyun again, and his mind went blank. All that filled his mind now was Seohyun, absorbed in that book as she’s reading it, blinking her wide eyes in wonder.

While she was reading on the sofa, why did she look so pitiful like that, all curled up? It was a very wide sofa, but then she took up only one corner of it, hugging her knees as she read.

Then, when he would approach her, she’d quickly put the book down and patiently glance up at him. With how wide her eyes were, how was it possible that her face was so skinny?

Beneath one eye, there was a mole that had a teardrop shape, creating an air of mystery for her. And as her body would draw close to him as she would start guiding him, he distinctly remembered how he could not be satisfied until he would eventually become so drunk on her.

“The mole under her eye…”

Right, the young lady of House Closch also had a mole in the same exact position.

“Only the mole is the same… What the hell am I expecting.”

With a self-deprecating tone, he rebuked himself. A fleeting thought passed his mind, that he must be going crazy because he missed Seohyun that much.

Look at him, trying to see his wife in the young lady of the Closch Barony just because she exuded the same atmosphere as her.

No. Perhaps he already was crazy.

He had already died, but perhaps he was wandering because he couldn’t be with Seohyun?

Was this reality a mere delusion?

“I miss you. I yearn to hold your slender body in my arms once more, as tightly as I could. And I yearn to feel your refreshing guiding once again.”

He had taken his wife for granted, thinking that she would always be by his side. Dropping his head, belated regrets flooded over him entirely.

“Surely, surely I will. I will keep you hidden—so that only I would be able to see you, so that no one can hurt you… That way…”

With every grim word that was uttered, the more things inside his office disintegrated silently, one after another.

He urged down his silent wrath, leaving only hazy ash upon the floor.

“Don’t go crazy. Not yet.”

Having regained his senses, though distant as they were, he picked up the documents that had fallen to the floor, reading their contents again.

He skimmed over the report in hopes of discovering something—anything—more. Then, one sentence in particular stood out to him.

There are burn scars on Lady Closch’s right arm and hand.

Naturally, he thought of Seohyun yet again. Right before the breakout of his rampage, he saw that her right arm also didn’t look the same…

Whenever he looked over the report about Lady Closch, he strangely kept thinking about his wife, Seohyun.

They’re two people who had absolutely nothing to do with each other… And on top of that, they had completely different outward appearances.

Even though he knew these things, why did his instincts keep pointing him towards that direction?

Why was it that he kept thinking about his wife through another woman?

This made him feel both displeased, but nonetheless curious. He was filled with such anticipation that there might be another way for him to meet his wife again.

If God had directly made a revelation, and also made subtle changes with the past, then wasn’t it likely that another person had followed God’s intervention?

If so, he might be able to find a way to traverse back to Korea without the help of the saintess.

That is, unless the only one who could open the dimensional door was the saintess alone.

The moment his tangled thoughts reached this conclusion, he felt goosebumps rising all over his body. The hairs on his skin were standing on end.

Someone who could open the dimensional door.

Even if it’s not, what if—like the star named Irene—she was someone who could guide[1]?

Now driven by an endeavor to either question or make sense out of this theory, he packed the documents and rang a small silver bell.

“You called, Your Grace?”

The ducal household’s butler quickly came to his office.

With a blurred look in his eyes, Ciel said one thing.

“I’m going to meet Aiden.”

He concluded that he should go see his younger brother. He was now at their territory, not here at the capital.

He needed help from his younger brother, even as he was still unaware of what his abilities were.

¹ The word used for this could also mean ‘lead’, but I opted for ‘guide’ since it fits the context more.