Didn't Plan to Become a Companion (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 121

Though he couldn’t possibly hear my voice, Ricardo looked back at me once again.

“Goodbye, Ricardo.”

Watching him prepare to leave, memories of my childhood involuntarily came flooding back—of that day when Ricardo departed from Count Fennel’s estate in a pitch-black carriage.

The child from the East Wing, whose life I had risked everything to protect, had now begun a new journey toward the highest place imaginable.

From childhood until now, he has waged an unending battle—not against anyone else, but against fate itself and the god who assigned it.

Whether this situation was divine providence or divine jest, as Ricardo had said, I couldn’t tell—but just as I had on that day at age thirteen when I bid him farewell, I waved my hand bravely and wished him well.

The child of prophecy, who once fled from his destined path, would no longer be swept up in that whirlpool of fate.

He was leaving again—leaving me behind, once more.

Yet this time, watching Ricardo’s back didn’t fill me with the feeling of being abandoned.

I stood rooted in place, lost in thought long after the sunlight had begun to illuminate the empty space where he’d disappeared, until his figure had vanished into a mere dot.

Then, suddenly, I recalled Ricardo’s words: “The door will always be open.”

“Painting!”

My heart pounded relentlessly as I headed toward that room to see the painting. Though I feared that revisiting our childhood might finally break the tears I’d barely held back, my steps never faltered.

As my hand gripped the cold metal doorknob, goosebumps prickled down my arms.

It was merely opening a door inside a room, yet I felt like a child stepping onto a forbidden path.

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