A Change of Husband - Chapter 71

“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

A familiar voice woke him from a deep sleep.

It felt strange, as if he were rising from deep underground. He frowned and opened his eyes.

He was used to waking up with pain in his shoulders and neck, but it had been a long time since he woke without such discomfort.

It felt like a dream. In that odd feeling, Esperad turned his head with a dazed face.

“Your Majesty!”

“…Benjamin?”

Was this the afterlife?

He couldn’t help but frown at the sight of Benjamin, who had died tragically decades ago at the hands of Count Mirk.

“Why are you here?”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty. But Her Highness the Queen suddenly passed away just now, and I had no choice.”

“What?”

At the word “passed away,” Esperad sat up without thinking.

There was only one person he ever thought of as “Queen.”

Even though she had never once been called Queen.

He was about to ask what Benjamin meant when a sudden headache hit him. He grabbed his head and lowered it.

Strange, unfamiliar memories—yet not entirely foreign—rushed into his mind, as if being forcibly pushed in.

“Ugh…”

It was incredibly painful.

Even though he had experienced many kinds of pain due to an aging and weak body, this made him rethink what real pain was.

“Y-Your Majesty?”

Benjamin, clearly shocked by the sight of Esperad in pain, called out to him.

“Your Majesty, what’s wrong? Your Majesty!”

“Ugh… ah!”

But Esperad could only groan. He couldn’t form proper words.

Images and scenes, ones he had never seen or experienced, flooded his mind. They included “him” in them.

Unknown knowledge and foreign information filled his mind, neatly organizing themselves as if they had always belonged there.

It was all too strange. But even thinking that felt impossible because the situation itself was unbearable.

“Shall I call the royal physician? Your Majesty? Your Majesty!”

Benjamin, sensing something was terribly wrong, began to step back, ready to call for help.

“…Ah.”

And then, all at once,

Suddenly,

In an instant—

All the pain stopped, and Esperad understood.

“Asilie…”

Where he was.

Who he was.

Why he was here.

“It was because of you.”

“Your Majesty…?”

Now, it was truly his turn.

With only one purpose etched in his heart, he had come to this strange yet familiar world.

“You…”

To find the lover he had never once forgotten.

And to complete their painful and difficult love.

“Ah.”

Did she have a deep dream?

If not for the metallic taste of blood in her mouth, she would have closed her eyes again.

But that familiar smell brought her fully awake.

“Ugh…”

As her foggy mind cleared, pain followed.

The sticky, dried substance on her lips was her own blood.

She realized it too late, and the situation was unclear.

Wasn’t she already dead? Stabbed by Cordelia’s dagger…

But the scene before her was nothing like the one she saw before losing consciousness.

She had died in Esperad’s arms in the palace hall. But now, she was in a dense forest.

It looked just like the place where Joseph had abandoned her.

“Did you really think I’d take you in? Hahaha! You dared carry my child with that filthy body? Disgusting wench! Pathetic woman!”

“I-I’m carrying your child…!”

“Shut up! How do I know it’s mine when you’ve been messing around? I’d rather get rid of it than take that risk!”

“It’s your child. Please, please save me. Save me, please, ahhh…!”

“You stubborn wench! Why are you still looking at me with those disgusting eyes? Just die already!”

The pain like her heart was being ripped apart, the breath that wouldn’t come, the feeling of her body freezing, and her sobs as she died alone in the woods—

She thought she had moved past it. But remembering it made her blood run cold again.

Pretending not to notice the cold sweat on her skin, Asilie slowly sat up and looked around.

The memory had faded, but she was sure.

This was the same forest. The one where Joseph had abandoned her.

Asilie looked down.

Her shabby dress was soaked with blood.

This dress had been special. It was the cleanest and neatest one she had when she couldn’t even afford proper living expenses at the Bonaparte Count’s house.

Her cold husband had, for the first time after she became pregnant, invited her to go out.

The foolish Asilie of the past had happily searched through her wardrobe to find this dress.

“And then I checked myself in the mirror so many times… wondering if my belly showed too much, or if I looked too dressed up.”

Even the most worn-out dress Monica had would’ve looked better, but Asilie had ignored that fact.

She didn’t want to make herself feel more miserable.

“Ha…”

And finally, Asilie realized it.

In this empty world,

In this world where she had no one on her side—though his laughter and voice were still vivid—he wasn’t here.

She had returned alone.

“N-No…”

Tears rolled down her cheeks.

She had desperately wished to live. But not like this. Not in this place.

“No… no…”

Would it have been easier if he wasn’t here?

The thought of him existing in this world made her chest tighten even more.

There would be an Esperad here, but he wouldn’t be the one she knew so well.

The man who laughed with her, talked with her, loved her—he wasn’t this world’s Esperad.

He might look exactly the same, but he would be a completely different person.

A clear stranger with no shared memories, no passionate feelings.

And…

He had Siena by his side.

Even if Siena weren’t there, being with him would be impossible—and meaningless.

Because that Esperad was not the one she had loved.

“Huuu…”

A huge feeling of loss swept over Asilie like a wave.

Maybe someone else would thank the heavens for being given a new life. But she couldn’t. Not when, just before she opened her eyes again, she had been happy to die in the arms of the one she loved.

That kind man who cried while watching her as her life slowly faded was still so vivid in her mind.

His breath, and that soft scent only he had, still felt like it lingered.

“Ah, I…”

She had no confidence to start a new life in a world without him.

She had no courage to move forward in a world where he didn’t exist.

Because the one who was everything to her had disappeared, Asilie truly couldn’t do anything.

“You’ve been given a chance, yet you cry—why is that?”

Asilie lifted her head at the sudden voice.

And when she saw who it was, her eyes widened.

“You’re…”

“I saved you from death, yet you wake up only to cry? I don’t understand it at all. But one thing I do know—you know who I am, don’t you?”

She did know this person. No, she couldn’t help but know.

Because she had seen the old woman’s face even as she was about to die.

“Agua Nale Roja…”

“You know me, but I have no memory of you. Hahaha. I felt that child’s energy, and now something unexpected and interesting has happened. The world really is funny, isn’t it?”

The “child” she spoke of was surely Lydia.

Come to think of it, this world was the place where Lydia—whom she thought had died—was still alive. But that wasn’t what mattered now.

Asilie looked at her with a blank face and asked:

“Why did I come back? I clearly died. I thought I died…”

“Oh my.”

Agua Nale Roja, who had been looking at Asilie with curiosity—unbothered even by her own ugly appearance—suddenly understood something and her eyes lit up.

Agua Nale Roja had lived so long that the world had forgotten her, and even she had stopped counting her age.

She had heard of, and even experienced, similar things before.

That must be why, even with just a few words, she quickly understood what had happened to this poor woman she had saved.

“If you experienced another world and returned, then it must be because you didn’t die in this world. That’s why you were able to come back here.”

“What do you mean…?”

“Did you die in that other world?”

At Agua Nale Roja’s question, Asilie was left speechless and just stared at her.

Even though this wasn’t the same Agua Nale Roja she had seen in the parallel world, the way she saw through everything was exactly the same—and it gave Asilie chills.

Still, she had to answer. She wanted to at least get a clue to what was happening.

“…Yes.”

“Just as I thought.”

“Do you… know something?”

“You died—but to be exact, it was the ‘you’ in that world who died, not the ‘you’ in this world.”

“But…!”

“Death sometimes makes the impossible possible. And we are just small beings, so we can’t fully understand the rules of the world. Accept it.”

“You’re telling me to just accept something this absurd?”

“There must be a reason why the one who died wasn’t you, but the version of you from that world.”

Agua Nale Roja’s words were full of things Asilie couldn’t understand.

She must have noticed how confused Asilie was, yet she said nothing more.

“Anyway, congratulations.”

“For what…?”

“For gaining a new life.”

“A new life?”

Tears suddenly welled up in her eyes.

This place was probably the real world where she had been born and lived all her life.

She didn’t feel the heavy pressure in the air anymore, nor did she sense that cold feeling of someone watching her.

And yet, strangely, this world—her ‘real world’—felt so unfamiliar.

Sadly, the reason was clear. Her person wasn’t here.

Once again, the feeling of having lost everything rose in her chest.

She didn’t want to cry, but she had to. Even though she got a second chance at life, she couldn’t feel happy at all. She felt so pitiful, so miserable, so heartbroken—she couldn’t stop the tears.

“Don’t be sad about the people you lost.”

As if she understood why Asilie cried, Agua Nale Roja said this in a comforting tone.

“…How can I not be? Everything’s gone, and I’ve been thrown into the worst situation, all alone.”

“The worst situation? Do you really think that?”

“Then what do you call it?”

She had been poisoned by her husband and left for dead in the forest—only to be brought back by Agua Nale Roja’s help.

She had nowhere to go. Maybe the Count Bonaparte family had already announced her death.

If that was true, then revealing that she was alive might bring even worse problems.

Her weak arms and legs couldn’t do anything. Nothing at all.

What should she do? Where should she go? Who should she meet?

She didn’t know anything. And to know that the one she loved had now become just a memory—someone she could never meet again—only made her feel more hopeless.

“…You are so greedy and foolish.”

Asilie looked up at Agua Nale Roja’s cold voice.

Even though her face was blurred by the tears in her eyes, Asilie could tell. She definitely wasn’t smiling kindly.

“You had an experience no ordinary person ever could, yet you call this the worst situation? If you were a bit smarter, you’d think about what you do have.”

“What I… have?”

“If you didn’t learn anything from what you went through, then you’re just a person stuck in place, going nowhere.”

Asilie couldn’t say anything back.

Agua Nale Roja’s harsh words poked at her heart again and again.

“I…”

Asilie swallowed the words she couldn’t finish and closed her eyes.

But the tears that flowed, and the sticky feeling as they touched her skin, made her realize something.

It wasn’t over yet. And because of that, she had to keep moving.

“…Please help me. Just a little.”

Support