“Apples and… Isn’t this a tomato?”
“There’s also beef jerky.”
Surprisingly, what the bear brought was a bag of groceries. Although most of the ingredients were nearly raw, it was a miraculous timing to get food in a situation where they might have starved to death.
“My lady, please have this. It’s the freshest with no frozen parts.”
“Thank you.”
“Captain, but why did the bear bring this to us?”
“…I’m not sure.”
It’s not something a wild bear would do. Bain wore a perplexed expression.
“Um…”
“My lady?”
Litania, who had been watching them, hesitated for a moment before speaking.
“That bear…”
“Have you seen it before?”
“Yes.”
Litania nodded.
“I think it might be Pepper.”
“Pepper? You mean that cook?”
Litania nodded. She vaguely recalled Pepper’s appearance in the kitchen.
At that time, she was too surprised to look closely, but he had clearly transformed into a bear. She always thought Pepper looked like a bear, and it seemed that even in human form, his original appearance was somewhat reflected in his impression.
“Since he can’t cook in that transformed body, I think he might have brought the groceries like this.”
If that’s the case, it means his heart remains the same even though he’s become a beast. Litania felt a little relieved.
The kind servants of the dragon castle look very different from before, but at least they won’t become their enemies.
After filling their hungry stomachs, they finally felt a little more at ease.
The knights still took turns keeping watch. Bain draped his cloak over Litania’s shoulders as she began to doze off.
[This is the timeline separator]It was dawn, with the sky faintly brightening.
Litania opened her eyes, feeling the rustle of fur against her chest. Snow, who had been lying still as if dead until now, suddenly twitched and then jumped out.
“Snow? Are you alright now?”
Snow perked up his ears, then wagged his round-tailed bottom and jumped onto the railing.
“Snow, why… Oh.”
Litania started to get up, but was a little surprised to see the knights dozing beside her.
Surely one of them should have been keeping watch, but all seven, including Bain, were deeply asleep.
Litania placed her hand under their noses and was relieved.
‘Fortunately, they’re not injured or anything. But why are they sleeping so deeply?’
Could there have been sleeping pills in the food they ate? Litania had an ominous thought but shook her head to dispel it.
‘It’s gotten a little less cold.’
As Litania got up, Snow jumped down from the railing and started running forward, as if he had been waiting for her to rise.
“Snow, wait! Where are you going?”
Worried that Snow might be in danger, Litania chased after the white bottom.
“Snow! Wait!”
Litania called out. But Snow, now a rabbit, ignored her and kept running.
The rabbit left the eastern annex, scampered across the desolate garden, and headed somewhere.
‘That way is…’
The eastern tower.
Where Litania and Snow had secretly explored before, falling and getting injured when the stairs collapsed.
“Snow, what are you thinking?”
Snow entered the tower and bounced up the collapsed stairs, leading Litania to the upper floor.
The eastern tower had changed desolately, like a flower withered by time. Old bricks were crumbling, and vines ran rampant here and there.
The dangerous-looking stone stairs rose dizzily high when looked down upon.
Unlike Snow, who hopped and leaped to the next level, Litania struggled to climb the stairs.
The height of each step had become too high compared to before.
She carefully climbed the stairs, watching her footing. The view below the railing was dizzying.
“Snow… that’s dangerous.”
Litania complained to Snow but followed him up. With each careful step on the stairs, the swaying planks fell below.
“Eek.”
Litania steadied herself against the wall and caught her breath. Looking up, she could see Snow sitting still in front of that door from before.
“You said it opens if you trace the magic letters, right?”
Fortunately, as if magic had prevented the ravages of time, the hieroglyphs on the doorknob maintained their original form without wear. Litania traced the hieroglyphs with her hand, just as Snow had done before.
Beeeng. The letters glowed, and the large door opened.
Inside was still darkness.
“But we fell from here before. How are we going to go up?”
When she asked the small Snow, the rabbit hopped up and bumped against the wall with a thud.
A brick fell out, letting light in from outside. The shape of the stairs became clearly visible.
“Snow, you’re quite daring… But what are we supposed to do up here?”
Snow turned back without looking and hopped up the stairs. Litania carefully crossed, avoiding the center of the collapsed stairs, and reached the final 8th floor.
There was the Door of Farewell.
[This is the timeline separator]The Door of Farewell looked completely different from an ordinary ‘door’.
The arch-shaped door with a soft blue glow had a smooth surface like a mirror, and from within, light rippled out like the surface of a shimmering lake.
“…Wow.”
The strange shape of light that formed the door’s frame, blending with the surrounding air, was slowly changing color from blue to red.
On the doorframe, which had markings similar to the magic letters seen on the way up, small jewels appeared and disappeared like twinkling stars, forming a pattern that looked just like constellations in the sky.
“It’s a mysterious door. It doesn’t look like a door to the afterlife.”
It looked like a mystical dimensional passage connecting this world to another world. Strange and mysterious, as if time and space were twisting.
“Why did you bring me here, Snow?”
Litania asked Snow. Snow stopped in front of the Door of Farewell and looked up at Litania.
Bright red eyes.
At Snow’s gaze, Litania recalled a conversation she had with the boy once.
Snow’s initial reaction when the Door of Farewell was mentioned.
She thought he was simply worried about Litania dying because it was an extremely dangerous door.
But when she announced that she had been kidnapped and returned, Snow showed a different reaction from before.
It wasn’t saying to choose death if living was difficult.
If this world is hard, there’s no reason to insist on staying here.
This world.
“To a world other than this one.”
The Door of Farewell.
If you cross this door, you will no longer be a person of this world.
That means becoming a person of another world.
“You wanted to help me escape from Orbis.”
Litania slowly approached the door. The rippling blue light stretched out towards her as if extending branches.
As Litania approached the door, she saw the hazy and turbid scenery beyond suddenly become clear.
Beyond it, the scenery of the mortal world was reflected.
Square, tall buildings, cars passing on asphalt roads, people bustling along the streets, even miscellaneous banners hanging on street trees and fences…
It was a scenery she had forgotten.
“That’s right, I remember. It’s where I used to live.”
I remember.
I remember the mortal world I had forgotten.
I remember my forgotten self from the mortal world.
“Now I remember. My name is…”
“Litania.”
The voice from behind made her body stiffen. Litania didn’t turn around.
She clung to the pillar of the arch door like a support. Without it, she felt like she would collapse trembling at any moment.
“I’m not Litania.”
“You are Litania.”
“I’m not. I’m someone else. This isn’t my body!”
Litania squeezed her eyes shut. It was time to let go of the last thread of attachment she had been holding onto.
“Orbis, I’m a different person who entered Litania’s body. The Litania you’re looking for… has reincarnated as someone else this time.”
“It is you.”
“No, the ‘real Litania’ is Princess Herna. Herna had the memories of Litania from her previous life. Orbis, the person you’ve been looking for isn’t me, it’s Herna. So…”
“That’s just a trash can.”
“Trash can… How can you say that about a person?”
Unable to hold back, Litania turned around and met Orbis’s eyes.
He spoke with a somewhat complicated expression, as if saying something he didn’t really want to.
“I told you, Litania. That you can forget painful and difficult memories. To blow them all away somewhere.”
“…”
“I just tore out the painful memories because I didn’t want to leave them with you. I threw away what I thought was unnecessary, but it kept picking them up every time.”
Words she couldn’t even imagine followed.
Tearing out memories? And throwing them away?
And Herna picked them up? Every time at that?
“…Every time?”
“I was going to get rid of it, but I left it alone. It was a memory that would disappear anyway when you returned. But.”
Orbis narrowed his eyes as if measuring something and continued.
“It seems the trash can wasn’t emptied properly, perhaps because the human body couldn’t handle being overwritten so many times.”
“So many times, what…”
“While you’re certain that I turned back time to meet you again.”
His eyes curved elegantly.
As if revealing a very cruel truth.
“Why do you think I only turned it back once?”
My Step-brother Is Obsessed With Me (Female-dominant)
A gentle female protagonist vs pitiful in the early stage, and a sick male protagonist in the later stage
Cheng Songer transmigrated into the body of a vicious cannon fodder female supporting character with the same name as her in a female-dominant novel.
In the original story, the cannon fodder female supporting character was inhumane, committing domestic violence, gambling excessively, being lustful, and even wanting to sell her stepbrother to a brothel for money.
As luck would have it, she just happened to transmigrate at this time.
Seeing Cheng Qingzhi biting his lip, enduring the tears in his eyes, looking pitiful, her heart softened.
She stuffed the money back into the Madam’s hand and reached out to him.
“Brother, come home with me.”
