It Turned Out She Wasn't a Favored Concubine - Episode 95

“Hahahahaha.”

I laughed bitterly. Not because I wanted to, but because if I didn’t laugh, I felt I might cry. It had already been a year since I woke up in the unfamiliar body of Arne. Which meant that fifty long years must have passed in my original world.

Fifty years. It felt unfathomable. So distant that even my mind felt hazy.

I added fifty to the age I had been when I left. That would make me about seventy-five. Suddenly, I thought of my late grandmother.

My grandmother, who left me a transparent shard of stone. She had passed away at seventy-five.

My original body must have aged as much as my grandmother’s. The thought of my aged self…

Even the image of how I looked when I left was blurry, so imagining myself as old as my grandmother was nearly impossible. Now, not only Arne’s body but even my original body felt unfamiliar.

If Arne’s soul had properly entered that body, it meant Arne had lived in my body longer than I had.

Arne, not I, had lived my life in my body and grown old. That made me feel even more estranged from myself.

“Roughly speaking, fifty years have passed. Then your original body might already be dead, right?”

Perlo muttered while counting on his fingers.

“Perlo!”

Marianne gasped, eyes wide. Perlo quickly covered his mouth, realizing his mistake, but I accepted it calmly.

It was a valid point. My body might already be buried underground. My grandmother had passed at that age, after all.

Then would Arne’s soul have died with it? Or would it have flowed into the cycle of reincarnation?

I lifted my gaze and spoke bitterly.

“You shouldn’t have saved me.”

I enunciated each word clearly.

“You should’ve let me be torn apart by the wolves. Eliot shouldn’t have crafted that useless Motus. Louis shouldn’t have hidden the Motus shard behind my back. And Giscal shouldn’t have recklessly jumped in front of the wolf.”

No one understood what I meant. So I explained kindly.

“Because I really, really hate being alive right now. If I had died then, at least I could’ve died with hope. But now, I can’t even do that.”

My voice cracked. My lips trembled.

“This world is full of people who kept their mouths shut and deceived me. And in my original world, there’s probably no one left who remembers me. My body might be buried—what about my friends? My sibling? My parents?”

Emotion surged out of me. Could my parents still be alive? It wasn’t impossible, but the odds were slim.

I finally understood the heart of the woodcutter. In a place that was his home but no longer felt like it, in a village that was his but no longer familiar, clutching a rusty axe, he would turn away in solitude.

I laughed. Probably like the woodcutter had—hollowly, like a madman.

“A substitute! I was so arrogant. A substitute should at least be someone similar. I’m nowhere near that. No wonder you all denied it. A substitute? A lab rat standing in for a human? Ridiculous.”

I rambled like an actor delivering a monologue. Perlo and Marianne tried to calm me down.

“Hey, take it easy.”

“Please, Ar—no, Yoon Se-ha. We don’t understand what you’re saying.”

But I ignored them and continued my monologue.

“Ah, sorry. In the world I lived in, we usually use mice for experiments. It’s dangerous to test directly on humans, so we use animals with similar biology.”

“Experimental… animals?”

“Yes, lab animals. Pitiful lives used and discarded in place of noble humans.”

I pointed to my chest.

“They have no say. Everything is controlled by humans inside small, transparent boxes. Just like I was, unknowingly performing as Arne in the palace, struggling to survive.”

I raised both hands to shoulder height and smiled faintly.

“I proved that Motus can transfer between worlds, so was I a decent test subject? Lab animals always end in death, so I hope mine is quick and painless.”

“…”

Everyone blinked, mouths agape. They finally seemed to understand what I meant. While Perlo and Marianne were speechless, Giscal clenched his fists and managed to speak.

“You can resent me. Blame me all you want. But don’t hurt yourself. You’re not a substitute or a lab animal. You’re just someone who took a wrong step.”

“If you didn’t intend to treat me like a lab animal, you should’ve said so earlier. You just wanted to delay a troublesome problem. While you kept postponing it, you hoped I’d get buried in this world.”

I bit my lip and glared at Giskal. His usually noble red eyes were clouded.

“No. Lord Giscal never had a moment of peace. He agonized deeply, which is why he couldn’t bring himself to speak.”

Ortland received my resentful gaze on Giscal’s behalf and responded.

“When you were suffering from the fever, you needed absolute stability. No one could predict what might happen if you were shocked.”

“Yes, I said that. Louis told me you remembered the day the Marquis and I visited Arne’s palace. Back then, Lord Giscal insisted on telling you the truth, but I opposed it.”

Eliot added to Ortland’s explanation. The renowned physician who had come with Giscal during my fever was Eliot himself.

“At the time, we couldn’t tell you the truth, nor could we properly assess the Motus shard you carried. Honestly, we had no idea that time flowed differently between the worlds.”

“So that’s why you brought me to the Edelheit estate?”

Looking back, it was strange. Giscal had been very determined to bring me to the Edelheit estate. I had been too distracted by Rean to notice, but Giscal had defied Erich’s opposition to take me there.

Not out of kindness to reunite me with Rean, but to investigate the Motus shard I carried.

“Did you use Motus to treat Rean too?”

“Yes. We used a sedative, so he won’t remember anything. Please don’t worry.”

I was speechless. Eliot ignored my twisted expression and continued.

“Only after repeated contact with your Motus shard did we realize the time discrepancy between worlds. The problem was the difference in time units. We only figured it out when you were about to leave the estate—by then, half a year had passed here, which meant twenty-five years in your world.”

“We’re sorry, but we had no choice. It was hard enough to tell you that returning to your world meant risking death, let alone that twenty-five years had passed.”

Ortland suddenly looked older and spoke weakly. Even a stranger would feel sympathy seeing him like that, but I curled one side of my lip.

“You call that an excuse?”

Twenty-five years was still a long time, but shorter than fifty. That span meant my body might still be alive, and my parents too. It couldn’t be an excuse.

“No, it’s all my foolishness.”

Giscal was always consistent. He dismissed Ortland and Eliot with a glance and admitted his fault without any excuses.

It was only right. They had deceived me even when I was worrying about their well-being. So of course, they had no right to make excuses.

Still, I felt disappointed. A part of me had hoped he’d offer an explanation I could accept.

—Bang! Bang! Bang!

Someone pounded on the door as if to break it down. This was the lord’s study. No servant would dare knock so rudely unless it was extremely urgent.

Ortland quickly wiped his tears and rushed out, only to return moments later in haste.

“Lord! Outside—!”

Giscal briefly turned his gaze from me to check the window. When he pulled back the curtain, dust clouds were rising beyond the beautiful garden of the Edelheit estate. Giscal urged Ortland with his eyes.

“The Imperial Royal Guard is advancing toward the Edelheit estate!”

Everyone reacted with disbelief to Ortland’s cry.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why the Royal Guard?”

“Why does trouble keep coming nonstop?”

Marianne, Eliot, and Perlo expressed their shock one after another. Louis, who had just stopped crying, staggered to her feet, visibly anxious.

“The Royal Guard only obeys the Emperor’s orders.”

Giskal stared out the window and spoke. The deployment of the Royal Guard meant it was the Emperor’s will.

But it wasn’t yet time for the Emperor to attack the Edelheit family. Maybe after Giscal stabilized the western front—but not now. My shallow assumptions were shattered by Ortland’s next report.

“The person leading the Royal Guard is none other than His Majesty the Emperor himself.”

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