24-Hour Regression Counseling Office, Episode 28
‘Why?’
There had been nothing at all to cry about this time.
Trickle, trickle—
Tears rolled down Sorinte’s face, drop by drop, falling from beneath his chin onto the dining table.
Sorinte squeezed his eyes shut.
“It’s been a while. A really long while—”
He finally managed to continue.
“For the first time in a very long while, I had a meal without blood.”
Huh? A meal without what? Blood?
At the unexpected word, Rora’s eyes went round.
“I—”
Sorinte opened his eyes and looked at the knife in his hand.
A small knife that wasn’t even sharpened, since it was only for bread.
“Before my regression, I was always on the battlefield.”
That place was hell.
“The smell of burning, the smell of explosives, and the smell of blood. Food didn’t smell like food there.”
Sorinte recalled the time before his regression.
Vivid memories that felt like they could unfold at any second.
“Everything around me was red. With blood, with fire.”
Murmuring, he raised his head.
The table was abundant, compared to right before his regression.
Food that held the Duchess’s heart and the chef’s devotion toward him.
And even a counselor who listened to his story and cared for him sincerely.
“……This morning, no bloody wind blew in my heart.”
Instead, a different wind blew. A ticklish spring breeze, like the one currently blowing outside the window, brushed against his heart.
“A little— no, I was very happy.”
Sorinte could be honest with Rora, at least. The words came out relatively smoothly.
“I enjoyed breakfast.”
And lunch now, too.
He didn’t say the latter part aloud.
Because she hadn’t asked.
“I enjoyed it too!”
Rora gave a bright smile. However, on the other hand, she felt worried.
Even from the brief explanation, she could roughly imagine how desolate and horrifying Sorinte Cheoseu’s life before his regression must have been.
And among those who had lived in such desolate circumstances right up until their regression, quite many suffered from aftereffects even after regressing.
‘There were many cases of hallucinations, auditory hallucinations, and extreme terror.’
The Sorinte Rora had seen so far hadn’t shown any such symptoms yet.
‘But I haven’t seen every side of him.’
That was why she shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
‘I’ll need to watch over him through counseling for a while.’
And once we grow a bit closer.
Then Sorinte Cheoseu would be more likely to bring up any aftereffects first.
‘Of course, the best-case scenario is that he has none.’
Please let there be no aftereffects at all, Rora hoped.
‘Mmm.’
Even then, Rora’s hands didn’t stop.
The same went for her mouth.
She ate diligently within the bounds of table manners.
“…….”
Sorinte continued his meal slowly, gazing at Rora quietly.
‘She really eats well.’
Without a single breach of etiquette, Rora ate continuously.
“Gyeo— ah, no, Customer, aren’t you going to eat?”
At her question, Sorinte stared at Rora blankly for a moment before opening his mouth.
“You don’t have to call me Customer. Call me whatever is comfortable.”
Whether it was Gyeong or Customer. Since it made no particular difference to Rora, she nodded her head without much thought, intending to follow the customer’s wishes.
At that, Sorinte briefly averted his gaze before speaking hastily.
“Ah, I ate too much for breakfast, so I’m full—”
Stopping there for a moment, he added again.
“I’ll eat slowly, so don’t mind me and eat.”
Though she already seemed to be eating perfectly well without paying him any mind.
Sorinte swallowed the latter words.
Rora had certainly eaten elegantly, yet perhaps because her innate impression was a gentle face—
“A squirrel…….”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s nothing.”
Sorinte shook his head resolutely.
Without knowing what the other was thinking, Rora continued her meal.
‘It seems she likes it.’
Without saying it aloud, Sorinte could tell she liked the Ducal estate’s food.
‘Hmm.’
Compared to the Ducal estate, an absurdly small dining room.
Judging by the mansion’s size, this place probably hadn’t been a dining room for receiving guests from the start.
There must certainly be a larger dining room.
‘……So I’ve heard her family has no money.’
If Sorinte were still a ruffian, he wouldn’t have known a life without money.
But living his pre-regression life, he had learned just how much of an impact money had on a person’s life.
Even so, she was warm-hearted, and despite her poor circumstances, she was the type to share a pie with others.
Compared to the people he had met on the battlefield before his regression, she was truly too kind.
During the civil war, how many had there been who stole food without reason and killed without reason.
By Sorinte’s standards, she was truly kind.
Perhaps that was why, when the civil war broke out, Count Rien’s family had been nowhere to be seen. Because their nature was so gentle that they couldn’t have survived in such a battlefield.
‘To say they didn’t survive—!’
Displeased with his own speculation, Sorinte furrowed his brow before quickly smoothing it.
‘The more I see her, the more decent a person she is.’
A person who didn’t smell of blood at all.
Sorinte thought about what reward to give her, while simultaneously feeling that he should give it a bit sooner.
Just then.
“You really are eating very little.”
Rora spoke, looking at Sorinte’s plate which was almost the same as before. Sorinte hesitated on how to answer before responding.
“Mm…… I eat a bit less.”
“I see!”
Rora answered brightly and elegantly placed the last piece of bread into her mouth.
Thanks to that, he forgot his complicated thoughts and could only stare blankly at Rora’s cheeks, which were working hard as she chewed.
So the two finished their lunch, and they seated themselves on the hall sofa again.
‘This is a bit troubling.’
Rora worried as she watched Tom set down the teacups and step back.
‘Making a regressor recall memories of their pre-regression life is something to approach cautiously.’
People by nature find it difficult to have their pasts dug up.
Now that a new life had begun, they would want to recall the past even less.
‘I’m still far too lacking to be a counselor.’
Rora wondered if she had needlessly asked Sorinte to tell her about the Empire’s fall.
‘Even if I can’t hear the detailed story today, I mustn’t rush.’
She made up her mind and opened her mouth.
First.
“Gyeong, did you sleep well last night?”
“Yes, I slept well.”
Rora saw the smile tugging at Sorinte’s lips.
It was a faint smile, but by Sorinte’s standards so far, it was quite a large one.
Sorinte recalled the previous night.
‘I did wake up a few times in between.’
That was a habit.
Before his regression, there had been many times when he couldn’t fall asleep in situations where he didn’t know when a blade aiming for his life would fly at him.
Compared to that, habitually waking up a few times to check his surroundings was nothing.
He could say he had slept very deeply.
Before speaking of the Empire’s fall, Sorinte felt his palms tickle for no reason at Rora’s concern for his sleep.
Feeling awkward, he opened his mouth at once.
“In two months, the Emperor dies.”
“…….”
Rora was silent for a moment before opening her mouth.
“Excuse me?”
She doubted her own ears.
‘What did I just hear? I was planning to find out about Sorinte Gyeong’s condition first?’
But Sorinte didn’t know Rora’s thoughts.
He simply wanted to quickly tell this kind person who cared for him the information he knew.
“And he’s murdered in a gruesome state.”
The Emperor dies in two months.
And in a gruesome state at that.
“It can’t be…….”
“The Empress Dowager is found at the scene together, having been struck in the back of the head and collapsed while bleeding.”
Rora couldn’t believe those words.
“In the very heart of the Imperial Palace?”
It was the Keullan Empire, renowned throughout the continent as a powerful nation.
For the Emperor to be murdered in a gruesome state in the center of that place, and for the Empress Dowager to be injured in the head and faint?
“Yes. You may not believe it, but it’s the truth.”
“……To be honest, I can’t believe it.”
‘For something like that to happen in just two months?’
Precisely because of that, two months was truly not much time at all.
“But I believe you.”
Rora looked at Sorinte.
“Because it is what you say, Customer.”
Her green pupils resembled emeralds.
When that green gleamed, it was as fresh as grass leaves holding morning dew.
And it was upright.
“……I see.”
The counselor believes Sorinte’s words.
Sorinte repeated those simple words in his mouth.
“…….”
He averted his eyes from Rora slightly and recalled the past.
No, to be exact, the future that had not yet come to pass.
“After the Crown Prince died, the Imperial Palace security was extremely tight.”
The poisoned Crown Prince.
In Sorinte’s memories, the Crown Prince had hovered between life and death before eventually dying.
“Even so, the Emperor died in a gruesome state that made the chamberlain faint on the spot. And the culprit was identified as the Empress Dowager.”