Even If Your Regret Tries to Hold Me Back - Chapter 23

Eugene rose from his seat and looked out through the long window behind his desk.

Watching his straight back, Natasha asked cautiously.

“Your Grace… are you saying that you will personally go to find the madam?”

“Yes. I must leave as soon as preparations are ready.”

“Then what about me…!”

“Please continue as you have been until I return. I trust you, Nat.”

Eugene asked Natasha to take care of things, even using the affectionate nickname he rarely spoke aloud. His tone was quite resolute—it sounded more like a command than a request.

Natasha couldn’t answer immediately and showed a worried expression.

“But… will the advisors and servants listen to me? Even though I’ve become your person, I came to the mansion too suddenly, and also…”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll give them firm instructions. No one will be able to treat you carelessly.”

Eugene turned around to face Natasha and gently reassured her. However, the shadow on Natasha’s face only deepened.

“Starting tomorrow, I’ll be left alone in this enormous mansion, and I’m so afraid. Please give me a promise I can be certain of.”

Natasha approached Eugene like down feathers and grasped his arm. Eugene let out a heavy sigh.

He soon withdrew his white hand briefly and rummaged through the bundle of keys hanging on his desk. Then he held out something small to Natasha.

“Take this.”

“What… is this?”

“It’s the key to the drawer where the east wing’s ledgers are kept. I’m entrusting you with financial matters. Though it’s limited to the east wing, this will serve as proof that I trust you. Can you trust me with this?”

Natasha carefully accepted the key. Her lowered, full eyelashes trembled.

She looked up at Eugene and smiled brightly.

“I won’t disappoint you. Thank you, Your Grace.”

Natasha kissed Eugene’s cheek and then turned away.

As she left the room, the corners of her mouth were as straight as if drawn with a line.

****

The next morning, Eugene stopped by Helena’s bedroom one last time before leaving the mansion.

Since she had disappeared, he had forbidden even the servants from entering, so the interior remained as it was.

The jewelry scattered on the floor, the dresses thrown about carelessly, and her faint lingering fragrance.

[Let’s divorce.]

The words she had said while elegantly putting up her long hair, wearing the dress he had given her, looking straight into his eyes, were still vivid.

But she was no longer there.

‘What on earth made you decide to leave me? Helen, why exactly…?’

Eugene’s gaze, which had been slowly looking around the room, suddenly stopped at one spot.

An object that didn’t match the antique atmosphere of the bedroom. A disc-shaped thing tangled with colorful threads was hanging at the head of the bed.

Just then, an elderly maid who was passing by the bedroom stopped when she saw the open door. She was the maid who had been exclusively in charge of Helena since she came to the mansion.

Eugene called her out and pointed to the strange object with a conspicuous nod of his chin.

“What is this?”

“That… that is…”

“Madam Tara. You know that my time is not the same as your time.”

When the maid hesitated and dawdled instead of answering readily, Eugene snapped at her. The maid hurriedly bowed her head.

“The madam often had nightmares. She had a shaman make it for her.”

“…Nightmares?”

“Yes, she would always wake up clutching her throat and convulsing….it wasn’t just once or twice…”

Eugene was momentarily speechless.

Looking back on the past, on nights when he worked late into the dawn, he seemed to have occasionally heard strange sounds.

Agonizing sounds like a trapped baby animal whimpering terribly.

And the next day, Helena would always appear wearing dresses that covered up to her neck. As if she had something to hide.

Eugene, who now learned the source of those sounds, burst into a bitter laugh.

“Ha…! Helen, you really are…!”

She was a woman who scraped at his nerves without fail.

How could she manage to shake him up even at the moment he was leaving to find her?

Sensing Eugene’s anger, the maid cowered with her bent back even more.

“I’m sorry, Your Grace. I know it’s something wicked, but the madam was so desperate… I’ll remove it right away.”

“No. Leave it alone.”

Eugene stopped the maid who was hurrying to remove the object.

“Don’t touch anything in this room and keep it as it is. Clean it daily so Helena can stay here as soon as she returns. Understood?”

“…Yes, Your Grace.”

The maid bowed her head with a strange expression. Eugene turned around, grinding his teeth.

‘Helen, I don’t care where you’ve gone. You’re still my wife.’

Even if she didn’t want it, her place was here. Next to Eugene Evergale.

He didn’t understand why he had such longing himself. He just felt that if things continued like this, he wouldn’t be able to move forward and would only repeat the same steps. He felt like he would stagnate and rot for life.

Eugene didn’t want that. Somehow he had to find the missing wheel, put it back in place, and make everything mesh together and turn again.

‘Wait, Helena. I need to hear directly from you why you left.’

Coming outside, he hastily mounted his horse. Several knights who had been waiting swiftly aligned themselves and drove their horses behind him.

Eugene glanced once at Helena’s bedroom with its tightly closed windows and pulled the reins.

Believing without doubt that when he set foot in the Grand Duke’s residence again, it would be with her.

****

Helena couldn’t regain her senses. She couldn’t even tell if she was breathing properly.

She just kept cutting, falling, cutting, falling, cutting and falling repeatedly.

‘Please stop, stop!’

She screamed until her throat was raw, but the scene didn’t cease.

Her head rolled with a thud, and her body flailed in a bottomless pit before passing through ornate curtains and landing with a thump on a large bed.

Even after her head was cut off dozens of times on the guillotine, when she opened her eyes, it was a dream of being next to Eugene.

That was all it was, but it was also everything. It was the only thing she was allowed to see in the world spread before her eyes.

That alone was telling her it was her life.

[The execution of Helena Evergale begins.]

Execution. Execution begins. Begins. Started. Start. Starts…

The executioner’s voice echoed in her ears. She felt trapped in an endless abyss.

She screamed with all her might, and finally the execution ground turned upside down. Instead, a boy coughing incessantly now occupied that place.

‘Basil…? Basil! Basil!’

Helena ran toward him, calling his name almost like a scream. Her beloved younger brother, whom she could barely see even in dreams, slowly turned around as if responding to that voice.

His eyes were gouged out.

[Sister. Sister. Why did you do that?]

With eyes as black as the darkness covering all around, indistinguishable from it, he asked her.

[Why didn’t you come to see me? Did you like being alone? Did you like living alone in the big castle? Sister, sister, sister. Why did you do that?]

She wanted to cry out that she was sorry, but no voice came out. Her lips were stuck together as if someone had sewn them shut and wouldn’t part.

Basil, who had been ceaselessly calling for his sister, rapidly decayed and melted away until only his skull remained.

Shouts to kill the witch appeared and grabbed her ankles, dragging her down. An angry giant seized her and slammed her down. She rolled and fell back to the execution platform.

There was no way for her powerless self to escape. Enemies were everywhere, and everyone waited for her death.

In that place, Helena clawed at the floor until all her fingernails came off. She just hoped the next blade would strike her neck quickly.

She desperately hoped that even if she died, this suffering would just end.

But what struck the next moment wasn’t a flashing blade or anything like that.

“Helena!”

It was somehow a longing voice.

“Helen!”

It was so dear and longing that she just wanted to grab onto it like a lifeline.

“Helena!”

So she grabbed it.

Then her vision flipped like a book closing. Finally, everything that had surrounded her collapsed.

Really everything.

“Haaa, huff…!”

Helena jerked her upper body up and gasped for breath.

Her heart pounded as if it would burst, and her vision was all jumbled.

The heavy sensation pouring over her entire body told her it was no longer a dream, but it was hard to regain her senses.

She just grabbed whatever she could touch and wailed.

No, no, I’m sorry, I was wrong, I was wrong…

She couldn’t even open her tightly shut eyes. She was afraid of what she might see again. Only screaming breaths went in and out roughly.

Please, I want to die, please, please, I want to die.

Before the terrible nightmare, Helena collapsed helplessly.

The monster inside her finally burst through her flesh, tore through her ribs, and emerged. And then it devoured her alive again. Crunching and munching.

Stop, it hurts, it hurts so much, it hurts…

‘Just kill me!’

She only felt a merciless stabbing pain in her throat. Helena grabbed her throat as if strangling herself and scratched roughly. She dug mercilessly as if trying to pull out an embedded blade.

Then, someone’s firm hand grabbed her hands.

Those large hands removed the two arms that were clawing at her nape, wrapped them around that person’s neck, and finally embraced her. Embraced her so tightly she couldn’t breathe.

She gasped and struggled, but the embrace holding her didn’t budge at all. Only the now-familiar scent enveloped her entire body.

“It’s okay. It’s alright. I’m here, Helen.”

He held her tightly like that, again and again, again and again. Like comforting a crying child, he stroked her back soothingly.

“Nothing can harm you. When you open your eyes, it will all disappear—it’s just a dream. Your reality is here. You’re safe.”

It was a voice gentle enough to cover that terrible nightmare. He repeatedly kissed her forehead and whispered.

“Everything’s okay.”

Low breaths poured over her head. The words ringing in her ears were strange.

What was okay?

When everything was such a mess, what exactly was okay?

But she was crying. So she just kept crying. Unlike usual, she couldn’t hold back.

The tears wouldn’t stop.