As she thought of Orbis, her heart ached again, so Ria shook her head and looked around her room.

The scenery outside the window, darkened by the flowing time, created beautiful shadows on the wall next to her bed.

It was a small room filled with simple yet practical furniture. Not as spacious or lavish as her room in Yongseong.

Practical books, miscellaneous notebooks and writing utensils next to the computer desk, picture postcards stuck on the wall for sentiment, cushions placed on the bed beyond the wire mesh partition.

‘Right. This was originally my room.’

Ria stared blankly at the succulents arranged by the window, lost in thought.

“Huh?”

Suddenly, there was a thudding sound from the ceiling, and Ria looked up.

It was the sound of a child’s footsteps.

Come to think of it, a young couple with twin children lived upstairs. It seemed their grandmother looked after the children during the day.

‘I forgot because no one made footsteps in Yongseong. Originally, such footsteps should be heard.’

Realizing anew that they truly weren’t human made her feel strange.

‘Besides, there were no children there.’

In the past, she had thought the footsteps of the child upstairs were noisy.

Though she didn’t show her discomfort, she often disliked having her thoughts interrupted by those footsteps.

But after spending a year in another world that felt like a dream and returning to reality, the noise that should have been uncomfortable didn’t bother her much.

Perhaps because it was the noise of people who only existed in this world, she even felt a bit glad.

Ria leaned back against the chair and listened quietly to that noise with her eyes closed.

The child’s footsteps soon stopped. It seemed the child’s parents or grandmother were scolding them.

‘A child…’

Orbis and Litania were not an ordinary couple.

Their beginning was as friends, their wedding was just a facade, and though they gradually grew closer and eventually developed a relationship like real lovers, they were still not a complete couple.

It was practically a marriage riddled with lies and deception.

‘But if… there had been a child.’

Would both Orbis and herself have made different choices?

Would they have changed for the child’s sake?

Such vague thoughts occurred to her.

She didn’t know whether a child could be born between a divine dragon and a human.

‘But if a child were to be born.’

Would it be a daughter or a son? What would they look like? What kind of personality would they grow up to have?

Once she started thinking, her thoughts continued one after another.

Ding dong.

This time, it was the doorbell that interrupted Ria’s thoughts. Then came a sound like someone lightly knocking on the door.

“It’s not time for anyone to visit?”

Ria shrugged slightly, got up from her seat, and walked out of the room towards the front door.

Passing through the not-so-spacious living room, she checked the video intercom in front of the middle door, and it was the mother of the child living upstairs.

Ria opened the door.

“What’s the matter… oh.”

“Oh, student. I’m sorry. My kids keep running around, it must be very noisy.”

The child’s mother held out a fruit basket to Ria.

Seeing it beautifully packaged with a ribbon and artificial flowers, it seemed she had brought a gift basket she received, unopened, straight to Ria.

“Ah… thank you.”

“I’m sorry for always being so noisy.”

The basket she held was quite heavy. It seemed quite expensive.

Ria shook her head and smiled.

“It’s okay. Kids can be like that.”

“Oh, my. Thank you for understanding.”

“It’s fine. That’s just how kids are. And it wasn’t that noisy.”

Though there are stories of murders due to noise between floors, the children living above Ria weren’t that inconsiderately loud.

A bit uncomfortable, but tolerable level of noise.

Since the children’s parents always came to apologize to Ria, she wasn’t particularly displeased.

“Thank you for being so considerate.”

At Ria’s words, the child’s mother thanked her and left. Ria carried the rather heavy basket with both hands, placed it on the kitchen table, and patted her shoulders.

“That’s just how kids are…”

Because they’re young. Because they haven’t learned yet. It’s the adults’ responsibility to teach children not to make mistakes.

“Orbis had no adults to teach him.”

Dragons are sublime beings with all knowledge.

He certainly possessed various knowledge of the human world, but he didn’t properly understand it. That’s why there was always something missing in his consideration.

‘I should have taught Orbis how to be considerate.’

Looking back, she had always just received from Orbis. He taught her horseback riding and swimming, sent gifts, protected and guarded her.

Litania had done nothing for Orbis.

The original Litania before the regression had taught him love and respect, and how couples care for each other.

Although the dragon Orbis misunderstood and accepted this, leading to her death.

‘Who gets everything right on the first try? Orbis said it himself.’

That he took a long time to learn things.

She thought it was just his modesty, but it wasn’t.

Orbis had only begun to imitate human consideration bit by bit after turning back time for so long.

Even the sublime divine dragon was more ignorant than a child when it came to dealing with people.

‘I should have taught him.’

If she had known he wasn’t perfect. No, even if she didn’t know, the fact was that he had problems communicating with her.

Instead of just accepting it while feeling troubled, she should have properly taught him.

Then perhaps a slightly different result might have been created.

‘Although Orbis deceived me…’

Though it’s hard to forgive him for deliberately putting her in danger and then rescuing her when she was too scared to think of anything else, it’s true that she also received normal help many times.

Not everything he had done for her had disappeared.

He had been devoted to her and also hurt her. There were things he did well and things he did wrong. Just like any relationship between humans.

“If I had acted differently, our relationship might not have deteriorated to the worst.”

Orbis seemed to have completely given up. He looked as if his wounds were so deep he didn’t even know they hurt.

That’s why he could smile so calmly and send her away.

‘I should defend Orbis a little.’

Painful memories turn into fond ones as time passes.

It had only been two months since she returned to reality, but already the memories from that world felt distant, as if years had passed.

Perhaps that’s why, even Orbis’s way of thinking, which she had only thought terrible at the time, seemed somewhat understandable now that she had returned to reality and could look at it from a step back.

That he truly, desperately wanted to learn how to love Litania.

“Hmm?”

Litania, who had accessed the serialization site to revise the content of the novel, narrowed her eyes at a newly added comment.

− I enjoyed reading. Is the ‘Door of Farewell’ that appears here perhaps inspired by the Door of Farewell urban legend?

“Urban legend? Was there an urban legend about the Door of Farewell here too?”

Ria wondered as she searched for the Door of Farewell urban legend.

Perhaps because it was a common phrase, most of the results were irrelevant, but when she used advanced search, she found a few posts on urban legend boards.

“A door that only opens to those who desperately wish to leave this world. The moment you cross that door, you disappear from this world and become a person of another world…”

It was different in that what was a legend in that world was just an urban legend here, but it was the same in that crossing the door made one a being of another world.

“That actually exists? No way.”

Of course, it was just an urban legend.

Like those ridiculous urban legends about riding the subway to a closed terminal late at night when no one’s around, or a hidden B4 button appearing if you hide in an elevator until the department store’s closing time.

But the difference from such nonsensical urban legends was that this one was so similar to the ‘Door of Farewell’ she had experienced.

“Where is the Door of Farewell in this world?”

Ria searched for related stories on the urban legend boards, trying to gauge the location where the ‘Door of Farewell’ urban legend originated.

It was difficult to find because many buildings had disappeared or new ones had been built since it was an old story, but by chance, she found a site that had uploaded past maps.

Stairs on the outer wall of an old 8-story building. A place said to be too dangerous to use.

They said that a few years later, the building was renovated and its exterior remodeled, turning it into a residential officetel.

“…That’s my house?”

The first light of dawn seeped through the gray crevices of the ruined Yongseong.

Orbis leaned against the cold stone wall, watching the sun’s light color the scenery of the castle.

Even surrounded by such high cliffs, if the sky is open, sunlight enters.

The reason he didn’t block the sky too was because he felt he might really feel dead if trapped in darkness alone.

Because if he died, time would turn back.

‘That’s why I left it open.’

The sun’s position, which was low at first, gradually rose higher, then dimmed and repeated its inclination, making him feel like he was losing his sense of time.

Perhaps because of the repeating light and darkness, it felt just like wandering in a dream.

“I think I understand why weak beings want to live in illusions.”

Litania doesn’t exist in reality. But she does in memories.

When the sun rose, he recalled memories of being with her during the day, and when the sun set, memories of being together at night.

Doing so made him feel as if he really existed in some past scene.

A drowsy and cozy feeling.

Like a cat rolling a ball of yarn, fluffy memories unraveled messily. Though they were jumbled memories not organized chronologically, Orbis liked that too.

Weren’t they mixed-up memories anyway?

He could just recall the happy ones among them.

Orbis closed his eyes again, trying to immerse himself in memories.

But then.

There was a sound of something breaking with a thud.