Please Leave The Sickly Villainess Alone

Even when I asked what she meant, Senia just kept smiling.

‘What could it be.’

That smile looked artificially pretty, but it seemed sharp as if harboring thorns.

“I’m glad you seem to have recovered a lot. Now that I’ve seen you doing well, I can go on my way.”

Senia muttered as she turned around abruptly.

“Oh right, I was supposed to give you this. We should shake hands since we’ve met after a long time.”

Senia grabbed my hand and shook it mechanically up and down.

The thing she was going to give was a handshake…? She was really strange today.

“I’ll really be going now. Hope to see you again next time.”

Senia disappeared instantly among the countless crowd.

It seemed she was returning to her attendant who must be waiting somewhere.

I looked down at the hand that had briefly held Senia’s.

“It felt hot somehow.”

Literally, when our hands touched, it felt hot as if electricity had flowed.

It was a different, unpleasant sensation from when I held Luka’s hand.

I thought I saw a very small pattern glowing near my wrist for a moment. But when I blinked again, nothing was visible.

It happened so quickly that I wondered if I had seen an illusion.

At that moment, Luka’s voice was heard from behind.

“Ria!”

Luka, who rushed to me in one step, looked disheveled as if he had been searching for me here and there.

“Luka.”

“I’ve been looking for you for a while. It seemed like you were with someone until just now…”

“It was Lady Senia.”

“Lady Senia, from the Kablos family?”

“Yes, we greeted her last time too. She said she stopped by briefly while passing through the west.”

I was enveloped by a strange sensation.

-To think His Highness would be with you… When I heard it by word, I doubted my ears, but it was true.

Senia had definitely said that.

But thinking about it again, doesn’t it sound like she came to confirm if Luka was really with me, just as she had heard?

I glanced in the direction where Senia had disappeared.

It was an unexpected encounter that felt unbelievable, as if I had seen a ghost in the middle of the night.

“Please show your pass.”

Luka took out the imperial family’s pass from his chest and showed it to the gatekeeper guarding the clock tower.

Although the black hair unique to the imperial family wasn’t visible, he must have intuitively known he was the Crown Prince from his characteristic red eyes and undisguisable beauty.

Although we hadn’t specifically spread rumors about coming to the west, word had spread underground that the Crown Prince was in the west.

Senia had come knowing that too.

“I behold the esteemed imperial family of the Empire!”

The gatekeeper opened the clock tower door wide.

“Is there anyone else accessing the clock tower now?”

“No, only you two today!”

As expected. Today we could watch the fireworks to our heart’s content as if we had rented the place.

The interior of the clock tower was covered in gold.

Countless gears were meshing and turning as if the entire tower was part of the giant clock’s mainspring at the top.

“You can go up to the top through this magic circle.”

The tower’s caretaker guided us to the intricate magic circle in the center.

The moment we stepped on it, light burst forth, and the caretaker’s figure became blurry as he bowed deeply, saying, ‘May the blessing of time be with you. Enjoy the view.’

“Ugh…”

The scene before my eyes, which had been brightly lit, was infinitely quiet as the light faded.

The top of the clock tower, where a bluish darkness had settled, had the sea spread out right in front, and far below, we could see the city center where the festival we had just been at was being held.

“Wow, this is it. Just as I imagined.”

It’s a thousand-year regret that Garnett couldn’t come along.

However, someone had to stay at the mansion to let my brothers know where I had gone when they returned in the middle of the night.

Otherwise, they were the type to search all over the west to find me.

The night air was cold, and Luka took off his himation and draped it over my shoulders.

“Hey, what if you catch a cold doing that?”

“Those who inherit the blood of the imperial family don’t catch colds.”

Well… that’s right. A healthy body is indeed the most enviable thing.

We sat on the terrace chairs where the fireworks would be best visible.

“Ria, do you know the legend of this clock tower?”

We had hurried our steps fearing we’d be late, but there was still some time until midnight as we waited for the bell to ring.

“Th-the legend?!”

I inwardly flinched. The meaning of eternal love, or the place where the two protagonists of the popular novel come together. There were many legends that came to mind, but I couldn’t answer that I knew.

“They say this clock tower has been in the west for so long that no one knows when it was built. It’s said that an eccentric who was hailed as a time mage in ancient times made each gear of the clock.”

“A time mage…”

“Maybe that’s why strange things sometimes happen in this clock tower. I hear there are people who claim to have experienced time’s pranks.”

I barely felt relieved at Luka’s words as he grinned.

The legend he knew was completely different from what I had thought.

“Time’s pranks. That’s interesting.”

Just as I said that, suddenly the bell hanging on the upper floor started ringing.

Dong- Dong- Dong-

It was the bell sound announcing midnight. At the same time, fireworks burst, coloring the scene before us brightly.

It wasn’t right in front, but bursting over the sea, and as even the sea was dyed in various colors, it was truly a spectacular sight.

The booming fireworks were louder than expected, so we couldn’t continue our conversation.

Bang! Boom!

Along with the sound of fireworks bursting, the festival atmosphere seemed to be heightening.

“Luka, can you hear me?”

He didn’t react to my words. They were drowned out by the fireworks sounds.

I whispered softly.

“I have something I want to tell you… I think I like you a lot. Just saying.”

Bang-!

This is when you say such things.

The sound of fireworks bursting was still loud.

And of course, Luka didn’t turn his head towards me.

He hadn’t heard.

At the moment when a particularly bright red firework burst, Luka’s face was dyed red in that light.

I pulled my knees up to my chest and curled up into a ball.

I buried myself deep in his himation that Luka had draped over me.

It was warm as if he was embracing me.

I turned my gaze to look at the dreamlike spectacular scene.

I was so glad I could share this moment with Luka.

Bang, Boom-!

As the last firework burst, the sky finally turned black.

“That was really amazing. Let’s come again next time, Luka.”

Oops, by next time, Luka would be on the battlefield.

‘Was this the last time? How regrettable.’

It was when I was about to turn to Luka, hiding my regretful expression.

I couldn’t help but doubt my eyes.

I had only blinked once, but the world had turned upside down.

‘What’s this.’

The pitch-black darkness was gone, and I was standing in the middle of a garden full of green grass.

In the midst of unnamed white flowers in full bloom, I even felt the gentle breeze blowing.

It was a wind blowing from the blue sky that looked as if it had been painted with watercolors.

‘What is this? The time’s prank I’ve only heard about?’

I recalled the legend Luka had told me.

Did that eccentric mage cast some time-related magic?

I walked forward. A huge stone slab lay before my eyes.

‘This is…’

The writing on the old stone slab was partially erased.

What was engraved there was in elven language, and although I couldn’t read what was written on the parchment Luka had brought with the Elven Stone, I could read this.

I soon realized the reason. It was because I had changed.

My hands had matured, and my vision wasn’t as low as a child’s.

Even my silver hair fluttering in the wind had grown longer.

‘If it’s time’s prank, does it mean we can see not only the past but also the future?’

I slowly read the letters written on the stone slab.

[Time only knows how to go forward, it has no way of going back.]

‘It really can be read…?’

A language I had never learned before was naturally interpreted.

[Traveler, but you shall be different. Making a single exception is the most joyous thing for me who has lived for an eternity.]

I couldn’t tell who these words were directed at.

[My chosen child, live the life you wanted as you wished when you extinguished the world’s unrest and made a wish to me. I have turned back time for you.]

I read the next content as if entranced, on and on.

[You will soon forget this moment as if waking from a dream. But do not worry. Although constraints have been placed on me due to causality, an envoy in my stead will always be with you.]

The being who engraved these letters on this stone slab seemed to possess the ability to turn back time.

‘Judging by it being written in elven language… Could it be the Elf King? If a wish was made and it was granted…’

There was one thing that came to mind.

The Elven Stone.

‘Someone has already used it. And that person turned back time.’

I was standing at a point either in the past or future due to the magic cast on the clock tower by the eccentric mage.