Don’t Concern Yourself With That Book

Her heart was thumping wildly. She had never met anyone as eye-catching as her before.

‘Aside from Rebecca, this is the first time I’ve ever met someone this pretty.’

When it came to beautiful women, the only person that came to mind after searching through her memories was her birth mother whom she had only seen through a portrait.

“My word, you’re joking, right? Have you forgotten all the sweet times we’ve had together?”

Her mischievous voice sounded unfamiliar.

‘Is she a noble?’

She must have been a noble with a status high enough to be able to visit the Crown Prince’s Palace. However, based on her attire, that didn’t seem to be the case.

“This is going too far for a joke…”

When the woman brought her face closer, Ashley took a step back in response. But her actions were in vain as the woman effortlessly narrowed the distance between them.

From the corner of her eye, Ashley noticed the troubled faces of those who she assumed to be the woman’s attendants but from their inability to stop her, Ashley realised something.

Firstly, she was someone of a high status. Secondly, her status was as high as hers.

“You’re being strange?”

There was no place to run because without any warning, she grabbed Ashley’s hand. In an awkward position, Ashley alternated her gaze between their hands and the woman’s smiling face.

Why… was she doing this?

“Child, I won’t eat you up so could you stay still?’

“… Like this?”

“That’s it. You pretty thing–oh my my, your skin looks great–now look at me.”

Eventually, Ashley gave in and stared at the woman’s face. However, unlike the woman’s smiling lips, upon a closer look, her gaze was immensely serious.

In the edges of her deep red eyes, there were flecks of gold, as if fireworks were going off in her eyes.

‘So, she’s a templar.’

From the edges of her eyes, the gold gradually expanded inward like a mist, dying her eyes in gold.

“My word, you… I was wondering if you’ve been cursed by something bad…”

“C-Cursed?”

“I wonder why? You’re full of divinity.”

“I’m filled with divinity?”

The woman winced.

“Yeah. Even more than when I first mistook you for a templar. Hm, it’s not a bad thing. What kind of blessing did you ask for? Though I am curious about your reckless act, I’m more curious about the ignorant expression you have.”

“… Does that mean that I have divinity now? Who gave me that?”

She roughly knew how divinity worked so Ashley managed to understand what the woman was saying. However, her questions only increased.

What was this person saying right now?

“Alright. I had been surprised by what was surrounding you which was made by that templar who gave you a blessing for protection so I can’t do anything recklessly.”

Ashley stared at the woman who tapped on her shoulders.

“Are you forgetting some things?”

“Forgetting?”

“You must have forgotten about me, it’s obvious. Because your reaction can only be explained by amnesia.”

“… Why have I forgotten?’

“I don’t know.”

In a stranger mood than before, Ashley replied her.

“I really don’t know. Maybe I had to forget or maybe I wanted to forget. If not me, who else would know?”

With her long hands, the woman tapped on her cheeks.

The weather was warm but she was wearing gloves.

‘Gloves?’

For a moment, her vision blurred and a vague image passed by. It was an alley. The image was unrecognisable as it was fragmented and distorted like a melted oil painting before quickly disappearing.

“Alright, child. Are you happy now that you have forgotten?”

“…..”

Happiness. It was a word unfamiliar to Ashley. Could anyone say that they were happy being with a terrifying object that could predict deaths?

However, wasn’t happiness distant from her?

Ashley glanced at the fairy. People should always live in the present. It had been so tough for her that Ashley felt like dying but she didn’t die.

‘I managed to not die even once.’

At one point, she thought she would have never witnessed this season again. She had spent every day stricken with fear. But in the end, spring never came for her. She decided not to be greedy for too much.

“You’re asking if I’m happy?”

“That’s right.”

“I enjoy simple things. I like to eat good food, read my favourite books and see my favourite people smiling. I also like to make fun of people I don’t like. The joy I feel whenever I do something I like is what I consider happiness as well. If that’s the case, I consider myself happy.”

“Is that so?”

The woman was staring at Ashley with a strange expression and while Ashley wondered what she was thinking about, the woman grinned.

“I have committed so many taboos. Using my powers, telling you things I shouldn’t, they’re all against the rules but…”

The Saintess, Marissa, smiled before putting a serious expression on her face.

“It would have been nice if you remembered me, because I liked the you from before more.”

“… How flustering.”

“Hear me out. Now, it seems as if you had just drunk the ‘Water of Oblivion.”

With a reverent expression, Marissa whispered so that only the most noble princess could hear her.

“The Water of Oblivion?”

“It is a type of water from the underworld and can only be found in the Temple of Death.”

Her breathtaking yet chillingly seductive voice was so charming that Ashley was almost intoxicated.

“A long time ago, back when the Temple of Death was still in the capital, people would drink it to be happy.”

Would people be happy if they were able to forget their painful and difficult memories? Was that happiness really happiness?

The girl might have only forgotten her most painful and difficult memories.

“I have seen, met and parted ways with countless people. That’s why it wasn’t difficult to realise what your condition was. I wonder what the caster’s intentions are. I can’t help it if you’re happy but it’s still a shame.”

The woman gave a light smile.

“I’m sorry that you’ve forgotten me, child.”

At that moment, Ashley had three thoughts.

Firstly, she was already used to this person whom she didn’t know calling out to her and talking to her without hesitation.

‘She’s a stranger so how can that be?’

Secondly, she didn’t hate this person.

Lastly, what this woman said was absurd.

‘How could I have lost my memories…’

The woman had spoken seriously like she was reciting lines from some drama so she couldn’t treat it like a joke.

‘I shouldn’t be at the age where I’m already forgetting things or getting dementia though?’

The woman had already left Ashley behind and was walking towards the Crown Prince’s Palace.

As Ashley massaged her shoulders from which the woman’s warmth had yet to dissipate, she raised her head.

‘Let’s head home first.’

She spotted her carriage and the knight in the distance. Ashley walked towards the dark navy hair fluttering in the sky. One step, two steps, three steps…

She whipped her head around.

‘Wait.’

At the end of the long road. She spotted the red hair that was already so far away amidst the flowers.

Her heart was thumping wildly.

“Those who abandon their dignity to live are not truly living.”

The faint cheers and the humid air filled with the smell of blood. The white gloves and the attractive woman carrying a heavy sword.

She was the Saintess, Marissa.

“Why…?”

She remembered. No, rather she remembered it so easily that it was funny to even admit that she had forgotten.

‘Why did I forget her?’

Everything was mixing up.

Actually, the divinity that was surrounding Ashley was unstable and required periodic replenishments. However, since she had refused Amor’s blessing and was influenced by the divinity that Marissa exerted on her, there was now a small gap.

Because of that, the girl could remember Marissa.

Additionally, Ashley easily noticed how her memories were now a web of holes.

When she recalled the moment she met the Saintess, she realised some of the cogwheels in her memories were missing some teeth.

“Are you forgetting some things?”

A creepy chill crept up the girl.

‘What have I forgotten?’

***

‘The timeline of events in the <Light of Rusbella> that I made a long time ago.’

She laid the parchment open haphazardly before pondering. She organised the events, the characters and a chronology of contents in an easily understood timeline. Also, the diary.

The future of this world and her predicted future were melding together.

It was only recently did she realise that something was strange.

When she smiled, she noticed that there were people who thought she was being strange. To Ashley, yesterday was today and each day passed like any other but from some point on, she could feel the uncomfortable gazes directed at her.

‘Why were they looking at me like that?’

Unlike how it was at first, she could now count the people who looked at her strangely with one hand. Fleon, Ray and Amor.

The Saintess told her that she was forgetting something. Even if that’s what she wanted to do.

Did she have something she longed to forget? Even with the strange feeling, she couldn’t put her finger on it.

‘Could the answer be here?’

She scanned through her record of the <Light of Rusbella>. The reason she took this out was not only because it reflected the future of this world but also because it was a record of herself. This, for her, was another diary.

Not like the terrible prophetic writings but a diary in which she wrote the contents herself.

She had been writing in this all this while. She wrote down anything new she learnt and thought of together.

“It doesn’t seem like much…”

She thought of Hernandez.

‘The duke seemed to know something more.’

He looked at her with eyes filled with sorrow.

‘He talked as if I was missing something big within me.’

So could he wager a guess on what was missing from her?

“I liked the you from before more.”

Actually, should she even be looking for that something at this point in her life?

‘I don’t think the current me is that bad.’

For a short while, she felt as if she was denying herself. It was only for a moment but she was furious.

“I cannot feel anything from you anymore. Even your hate towards me.”

Hernan said that he was the Templar of Beasts and he could tell from his senses her thoughts and feelings.

“If I become someone who means nothing to you, I’d rather you just hate me. Please just hate me.”

Was the thing she lost so important it made him feel that pathetic?

‘Why does he want me to hate him when he likes me?’

Ashley drew a line on any parchment she could find with an ink-stained quill. She was not angry but her rough crooked lines made it seem like she was.

Then, she spotted a doodle in a corner out of pure coincidence.

“What’s this? An emergency situation with the tyrant?”

She must have written something about Castor without much thought.

She had written down everything she possibly could about the tyrant. The contents she had written later rippled throughout the paper with some words looking more like scribbles and some written roughly and messily. It left traces of how she must have felt at that time.

‘That’s understandable.’

Considering what he had done to her, it was understandable.

But what was this?

[The 43rd… 43rd day.]

[A day I continue to live through without being able to die, how will this end?]

[I’m sure it’ll be the same.]

The words were written neatly and tidily. It was clearly her own.

Ashley placed the quill down before lifting the corner of the parchment to inspect it carefully.

‘I’m sure that this is my handwriting.’

There was no way she wouldn’t recognise it.

But why? When? Did she write this?

She had no memory of it.