Didn't Plan to Become a Companion (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 81

The door closed, and tomb-like silence settled over the room with only the two of them left.

“I’m sorry, my son.”

An unbelievable phrase echoed through the space. Ricardo choked up and abruptly rose from his seat.

“Forgive me. For letting you go like that.”

Hearing his father’s desperate words as he sensed his son preparing to leave, Ricardo froze in place. “It must have been difficult, but please forgive me,” came the repeated apologies. Ricardo closed his eyes, his lips slightly parted but no answer emerging, and shook his head.

“No, no, it’s fine. Back then, you had no choice. Even I… even I would have done the same.”

Ricardo barely managed to reply. He genuinely understood his father’s decision. Then why did something hot surge up from deep within his chest? Had he really understood it after all? Had he, as Lienne once suggested, simply wanted to hear an apology?

“No. Even if it was unavoidable, I’m still sorry. Even if I could turn back time, I’d make the same choice—but forgive me for that as well.”

Ricardo exhaled with a sigh, finally releasing a breath.

Before receiving the prophecy that Ricardo would become emperor, Duke Rochester had already sent him into hiding in Resotia. In hindsight, it was only natural that the emperor—without the labyrinth’s map—feared the most powerful being in this world, born alongside the Saintess’s Star.

At that time, even with the Temple’s aid, the Duke couldn’t protect Ricardo.

Kidnapped by Count Fennel, acting on the emperor’s orders, Ricardo endured a long and painful ordeal.

Yet all this belonged to a life Duke Rochester couldn’t remember. Still, he said it: even if time were turned back, he’d make the same decision.

For some reason, those words comforted Ricardo.

If the Duke had regretted the decision itself, Ricardo would have found it even harder to bear.

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