If you cross that door, you will no longer be a person of this world.

“Huh!”

The woman who woke up from sleep tried her best to gather her senses.

But she couldn’t. As dizziness and nausea swept over her, she stumbled and ran to the bathroom.

As she vomited her spinning insides, bile ran down her lips. Her stomach burned, but thanks to that, her mind became a little clearer.

“Huh, haa…”

The woman who rinsed her mouth after turning on the faucet checked her familiar yet unfamiliar face reflected in the mirror.

Wavy dark brown hair, fair skin, round eyes slightly turned up at the corners.

It’s definitely the same face she remembered.

“The eyes are… brown too.”

It must be the same face, but compared to when it was glowing pink, it oddly looked less lively.

Is it because she just threw up? She sighed while pressing the towel firmly against her gaunt cheeks.

“Am I back?”

She asked herself in the mirror. She could see the still familiar but somewhat unfamiliar face moving its lips earnestly towards her.

As soon as the woman who brushed her wet bangs to the side came out of the bathroom, she could see the dawn breaking.

She checked her cramped room.

Clothes and books strewn here and there, a small desk and bed. A cell phone thrown on the bed.

‘Ah, the cell phone!’

Come to think of it, when she was possessed by Litania’s body, she was in the middle of reading a romance fantasy novel, saying she would burn through the holidays. She quickly picked up her phone.

‘The date is… the same.’

Despite her worry that a year might have passed in reality since a year had passed in the world of the novel, the date indicated the end of the holidays.

“Was that really inside a novel?”

The woman shook her head and skimmed through the list of novels she had been reading.

“Orbis, Litania, The Scorned Princess and the Divine Dragon.”

Even after going through the entire list, there was no novel describing the other world she had experienced. It was the same even when she searched using keywords she remembered.

She clearly thought that world was inside a novel, but among the real-world novels, there were none featuring Litania and Orbis.

‘Well, starting with the long-haired blonde divine dragon male lead is quite niche.’

Then what exactly was that other world she had visited?

‘Was it perhaps a dream?’

The woman opened the personal information tab on her phone.

She saw her name that she had forgotten.

Han Ria.

It was a name referring to just a humble and ordinary woman living in reality, not the scorned princess and dragon’s bride.

In place of the illusion of that dazzling other world, only the shabby reality remained.

The sun that illuminates the darkness was shining beyond the window.

The night had ended.

The dream had ended.

Bain woke up with a gasp. He had been sound asleep.

‘Even in this situation, despite being exhausted from hunger and fatigue!’

Feeling a chill run down his neck, Bain quickly grabbed his sword and raised his head. The surroundings were quiet.

“My lady?”

Bain checked the spot beside him where Litania had been, but only a crumpled red cloak remained there.

At some point, Bain had turned away after covering her knees with his cloak.

She had left behind only the cloak he had given her and disappeared.

“Could she have been… kidnapped.”

“I should have trained you in accident scenarios as well.”

Startled by the low voice coming from above, he looked up to see the divine dragon sitting on the railing.

Although it looked like it would break and bend, unable to even support the weight of a small child, the huge divine dragon was sitting in an unbelievably stable posture on that precarious railing.

“What have you done with the lady!”

“I only did as she wished. I let her escape.”

“From the dragon castle…?”

“From this world.”

At those chilling words flowing out so casually, Bain jumped up, drawing his sword and shouted.

“Everyone, wake up!”

At the captain’s shout, the knights who had been sound asleep jolted awake. They too seemed flustered by the fact that they had been sleeping so deeply, looking back and forth between the captain and the divine dragon with pale faces.

“The first time is difficult, but it gets easier from the second time on.”

Orbis tilted his head sideways.

“Now you don’t even hesitate to point your sword at your master.”

“I cannot serve as my lord someone who harms the person I’m supposed to protect.”

“I don’t understand why you say I harmed her when I only granted her wish.”

“…?”

“Ah. I forgot that my words can be difficult to understand.”

Litania always said that Orbis’s jokes were prone to misunderstanding.

Most of them were not jokes but the truth, but she tried to brush off his words as jokes. Still saying it was creepy.

“I didn’t harm Litania. I just let her go to another world.”

“What do you mean…”

“The Door of Parting. I heard it’s a famous legend even among humans.”

The Door of Parting. If you cross that door, you can no longer exist in this world.

It sounded like a door leading to the afterlife, so Bain had dismissed it as some kind of urban legend.

“Then, where has she gone?”

“To a place where I don’t exist.”

Another world where even the divine dragon, who can freely manipulate this world, cannot exert any influence.

He sent her back to the world of the ‘possessor’ she spoke of.

“I don’t fully understand Litania’s words either, so it’s difficult to explain.”

They both use difficult words, but if he had known it would be like this, he should have complained to her a bit. He should have asked for a more detailed explanation.

He should have listened to her story, not just lavishing her with what he wanted to give.

‘Why didn’t I realize until now.’

Only after sending her away like this did he realize it, perhaps it was arrogance to think that dragons possess all the knowledge in the world.

“The new emperor announced our divorce, didn’t he.”

The connection between Orbis and Litania was severed.

They are no longer a couple, and now they will live their separate lives forever apart.

Seeing how empty he has become, at least she will be able to live a full life.

‘That’s enough.’

All that’s left for Orbis now is to live with the memories of her.

He has no intention of tarnishing those beautiful memories.

So the ending should be clean.

“There’s no reason to keep garrison knights at the dragon castle anymore. So you should return as well.”

“Please wait a moment! An explanation…”

As Orbis snapped his fingers, Bain’s figure disappeared. The six knights who were watching nervously by his side also vanished.

After sending back the knight who lost consciousness under a pillar, the knight who collapsed from hunger and fatigue, and the remaining twenty-four knights, gardener, and cook scattered around the dragon castle, there were no more humans left in the castle.

Orbis looked up at the heavily clouded sky and muttered softly.

“Litania. A new treasure has been added to the dragon castle’s vault.”

The memories with you.

“So I intend to protect that treasure safely. Very safely.”

Orbis stood up and looked around the dragon castle, now desolate with the disappearance of humans. The castle with thunderbolts and hail of ice falling wasn’t uncomfortable to live in, but it was somewhat noisy.

‘It would be better if it were quiet.’

As Orbis snapped his fingers, the hail falling from the sky stopped, and the flowing lava began to harden and turn black.

Kugugu. As the ground rumbled, huge rocks rose up around the lake. They formed high walls, encircling the dragon castle in a circle.

The dragon’s nest, which no human could approach, had now become the dragon’s tomb.

Someone once said that those who have tasted supreme happiness feel unhappy in ordinary reality.

Ria felt an inexplicable sense of loss as she looked at the twinkling night view outside the subway window.

In the dragon castle, the only place where lights didn’t go out at night was Raven’s workshop. Even that was only when Litania commissioned work.

There, Litania’s room was quiet and cozy, and except for a small candle lit on the console, it was dark enough for a good night’s sleep.

Yet it was not at all scary or lonely.

‘But this place is lonely.’

Among so many people, living such a busy life, why does she feel this emptiness? Ria absent-mindedly fiddled with her phone.

No matter how many times she looked, the ‘original work’ was nowhere to be found. The story of Litania and Orbis that she thought she had read as a novel was truly just a memory from another world, not existing in reality.

‘No. Is it really a memory?’

Could it perhaps be a dream? Could she have dreamed an absurd dream of being loved by an impossibly beautiful man? When it was time to wake up from the dream, did her brain arbitrarily change the ending to be miserable, worried that the real her would be disappointed?

Whether it was a dream or reality.

Whether this world is real or that world is real.

Whether she is Han Ria or Litania Veriberbium.

She could no longer tell.

But one thing is certain, she is now living here as Han Ria.

‘Whether it’s a dream or a memory, as long as I live here, those memories will gradually fade.’

Orbis said he would live the future reminiscing about the past.

Then shouldn’t she do the same?

‘Let’s write down our story.’

If there is no ‘original work’ containing their story anywhere in this world, then Ria can create that original work.

As a goal was set, strength returned to her slack hands. The subway stopped at a station and the announcement played.

Ria tightly gripped her phone and stood up to walk.

It was the first step to connect that world and this world.