The warm afternoon sunlight seeped through the carriage window along with white, broad flower petals.

With a soft thud, a petal landed nonchalantly right in the middle of the sentence Sergei was reading.

His reading was completely interrupted.

Sergei, however, could not bring himself to brush away this beautiful intruder at once.

The future of the petal seemed too regrettable and pitiful to immediately throw it out of the carriage.

A beautiful flower that would be trampled and crushed, soon to rot and turn black…

“Are magnolias so fascinating to you?”

At that moment, long fingers snatched the petal sitting on Sergei’s book.

Following the gaze, breathtakingly beautiful platinum hair caught his eye first.

Joseph Obreim Alperon.

As they hurriedly arranged the journey while minimizing the size of the party, he had been traveling in the same carriage with him for two weeks now.

It wasn’t uncomfortable. There was just something that bothered him.

It was Joseph’s surreal appearance. This wasn’t simply about his beauty.

Beauty aside, Sergei found his appearance quite burdensome.

Even after seeing and living with him for months, he still couldn’t get used to his hair and red eyes.

Rather, the longer they spent together, the more awkward and unnatural it felt.

Perhaps it was because he knew what the man looked like before his transformation.

Light brown hair and sea-colored eyes had been much more natural and stable for him. Of course, less mysterious than now, but…

At least back then, there wasn’t such a precarious feeling.

“…I was just lost in thought.”

“I see.”

Joseph then casually flicked the petal caught between his fingers out of the carriage.

Sergei’s gaze briefly followed the petal thrown outside the carriage.

“There are particularly many magnolias in Landgritz. Especially in this season, the area around the castle is a spectacle with white flowers like luscious fruits.”

“…Lord Joseph, you seem familiar with Landgritz.”

Sergei, feeling downcast, awkwardly opened his mouth. Joseph, however, paid no heed to his tone.

“Familiar, I suppose you could say that. I stayed there for about 181 years since the day I first visited the baron’s castle. Well, that’s only from the point I started repeating time, so it’s just 3 years in actual years.”

“Three years…”

It was a dizzying time-travel experience, even hearing about it again.

Sergei nodded his head in sympathy and suddenly asked a question.

“Then in those 181 years, the time you previously stayed in Landgritz isn’t included, right?”

“Pardon?”

But Joseph tilted his head at the question.

“What do you mean by previously staying in Landgritz?”

Who?

Joseph’s expression was filled with innocent confusion, like a blank slate.

Sergei was so taken aback by his reaction that he began to wonder if he had imagined it.

“Surely…”

His eyelids fluttered with a sense of dissonance. Surely when they first met…

‘There’s no way he wouldn’t know that Landgritz territory was where we boarded the ship together.’

After hearing the news of Lieselotte’s marriage, Landgritz was the last place Sergei stopped before fleeing to the Academy.

It was because there was the largest port where one could board a ship heading to the Academy.

Of course, there was also a small desire to visit Lieselotte’s hometown one last time.

Even though he couldn’t meet her, as she would have been in the imperial capital by then.

“You were clearly about to say something just now.”

“Ah… no.”

He had clearly forgotten. Chronomancy must have shattered his memories.

Sergei, who was about to tell him, decided to keep his mouth shut for now.

Everyone knew that his memory was incomplete.

It didn’t seem right to unnecessarily remind him which parts were lost. Especially since Joseph had collapsed once before when he learned this fact.

“I was mistaken. It was such a long time ago.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Then, may I ask why Lord Joseph had to stay in Landgritz for the past 181 years?”

Fortunately, he managed to change the subject. Joseph continued to answer Sergei’s question with an indifferent expression.

“I thought there might be clues here that could help me sustain my life. Just as the Duchess of Daiern could alleviate my headaches.”

“Could you elaborate on that?”

“It’s nothing special. Just…”

Joseph smiled, his eyes crinkling, and began his story.

His tale went back to when he hypothesized that Lieselotte might be the key to easing the headaches caused by Chronomancy.

And also to when he hypothesized that there might be something unique about the Landgritz bloodline.

At that time, Joseph said he sought out the Baron of Landgritz of that era, who might hold the key to the mystery. It was Baron Nergal Ernst Landgritz.

Thus, Joseph stayed in Landgritz through several lifetimes.

It took a long 181 years until he finally reached a conclusion after repeating various methods and experiments during that time.

“Unfortunately, none of those who inherited the Landgritz bloodline could ease my headaches. It was useless even when I sought out distant relatives, and relatives of relatives.”

“…”

“Only the Duchess of Daiern was unique.”

The conclusion was concise, but it took quite a long story to derive the process.

Sergei proposed several new hypotheses during the story, but Joseph just shook his head.

For Joseph, all of those were things he had already tried and failed.

“So now, I’ve already concluded that the Duchess of Daiern is the only person holding the lifeline to my existence. Of course, I understand that you, Lord Sergei, as a scholar, want to verify whether she is the rightful successor.”

Joseph shrugged slightly and continued.

“As you know, I can’t help but be a bit blindly devoted.”

“…”

It felt as if someone was tightly gripping his heart, making his chest feel constricted.

From Sergei’s perspective, his relationship with Joseph was truly complex and ironic.

How should this relationship be described?

‘First of all, should I call him a rival in love…’

Once, Sergei had been deprived of the opportunity to send a marriage proposal to Lieselotte due to the schemes of his brother, Duke Carlos Nikolai Daiern.

The dull, stubborn, and even naive nineteen-year-old Sergei Theseus Daiern.

However, even though Sergei of that time realized he had been deceived, he couldn’t stop the marriage between his brother and Lieselotte.

Even as he clutched his chest and wailed with anger boiling inside, he couldn’t even harbor the desire to take her back.

‘Because I never had her, because I never desired her, because I never took her away.’

Sergei, who had been oppressed by the fear his brother instilled since childhood, was a weak being who had only learned to comply thoroughly.

Thus, even when faced with such an unjust situation, he didn’t know how to stir or rebel.

He could only hide from his brother, run away from his brother…

A loser who retreated into dusty old texts, not wanting to call the woman he loved ‘sister-in-law’.

That was the reality of Sergei, of himself.

‘I know, because I know…’

This time, he wanted to turn things around.

Moreover, he didn’t want to miss the opportunity that had come this time.

‘But…’

His clenched fist trembled with tension.

His brother had died. Luckily, he learned this fact during Lieselotte’s mourning period.

She was struggling alone to protect Daiern from numerous suitors like hyenas, and Sergei’s name was more appropriate than anyone else’s to protect her and Daiern.

Above all, Sergei’s soul was still filled with emotions for her.

He couldn’t understand his past self who had once given up, who had run away.

Yes, he knows. Unlike when he was foolish and immature, Sergei had grown into a proper adult.

Now he had completely escaped from the veil of fear that had oppressed him.

He learned the courage to walk on his own, and also learned how to desire.

He learned to face things without running away.

Thus, he could approach Lieselotte without hesitation.

He learned to put words of proposal in his mouth and ask her to choose him.

But ironically.

The rival in love who appeared before such a Sergei was the boy who had taught him the courage to face himself and the life to yearn for.