“Yes, Your Grace.”

“It’s truly fortunate. That you’re alive.”

“Unfortunately so.”

Summer retorted with a sweet smile. That annoying male lead. The words “Go and be good to Julian” rose to the tip of her tongue.

Ian Lancaster filled his gloomy gray eyes with Summer.

Summer also read the pain in Ian’s eyes. But she soon turned away, pretending not to notice, and smiled artificially once more.

“Let’s walk together for a bit.”

“Sure.”

Fortunately, Ian didn’t say anything more.

As Ian strolled through the garden following Summer’s lead, he seemed to be deep in thought while simultaneously appearing to have let go of all thoughts.

“……”

It felt like they had already circled the garden once. All that remained was the flower garden.

Finally, Summer stopped walking and turned abruptly to face Ian.

Ian met her gaze steadily, as if he had been looking at Summer all along.

“Your Grace. I’m very busy. Stop playing around and tell me why you came to find me.”

“Summer Lindsey. Do you really know nothing about me?”

“I don’t know. Except that you’re a war hero and the protagonist.”

It was true. The original work was a romance centered on the female protagonist’s narrative, so there was hardly any story about the male protagonist.

“Protagonist?”

Ian asked, slowly tilting his head to the side. As his hair, like fine ebony, flowed smoothly, his dark and clear eyebrows were revealed.

“Yes. The sparkling prince who is bound to be happy in the end.”

Summer let out a small laugh. You could call it arrogance.

Seeing the innocent appearance of the protagonist in the novel, Summer felt as if she knew something great. She might have felt a little proud too.

But Summer herself quickly came to her senses, remembering that she had been failing so far, even though she knew how to return to her original world.

It wasn’t time to flirt with the protagonists.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not a prince, I’m a duke.”

Ian’s expression was quite serious.

“The prince on a white horse in a popular novel. That’s your role, isn’t it?”

“My role? I didn’t know I had such a role. I don’t know. Everyone either fears me or endures me because they need me. It seems like it’s just those two.”

“Anyway, that’s all I know about you, Your Grace.”

Of course. If Summer had been a person of this world, she probably would have revered and feared Ian Lancaster just the same.

As far as Summer knew, Ian was a ruthless figure who would eliminate his relatives in the power struggle within the family.

After gaining the title of duke within the family, he went to war and achieved merits.

“… I see.”

Somehow, a sense of loneliness crept into Ian’s slightly lowered eyes.

Summer found his heavy atmosphere burdensome. She forcibly tore her gaze away from him and fidgeted with the flowers blooming around them.

“I had a mother. Until a few years ago.”

“……”

“I thought if I became a duke, my mother would be happy.”

Ian’s gray eyes traced back to the past. Summer was flustered by his inner thoughts, which she was hearing for the first time.

The desire for him not to tell her and the curiosity about the male protagonist in the novel clashed within Summer.

“They say my mother was a shining person until she got married. She was active in social circles and had a few close friends. But that person changed after getting married, no… after giving birth to a child.”

Ah. He’s blaming himself. As Summer listened to Ian’s words, she quietly reached out her hand. Her small hand lightly tugged at his sleeve.

“Your Grace. Let’s go to the flower garden.”

Ian’s eyes widened unusually, as if he hadn’t expected Summer to touch him first.

Is this why Julian helped Ian and chose him in the end? Summer felt like she would burst with frustration if she didn’t help him, finding him pitiful, regrettable, and exasperating.

Again, Summer had not the slightest desire to die.

She only wanted to return to the original world she had built stitch by stitch.

“How is it?”

“It’s beautiful. Summer… it’s like it’s stopped in summer.”

Upon arriving at the flower garden, Summer seated Ian on a bench while she crouched down in front of the flower bed. How could there be so many beautiful flowers? Summer pressed her nose to a pink flower.

It’s fragrant.

“Summer. Please live.”

“… You just ruined the nice atmosphere, Your Grace.”

Summer moved away from the flower with a faint sigh.

To the people of this world, Summer was just a strange girl desperately trying to die.

Perhaps that’s why Ian could openly talk to Summer about his mother.

There was one fact that only Summer didn’t know. For Ian, talking about his mother was a sore spot.

Even those nobles who loved to gossip would keep quiet about it, as Ian had already pointed his sword without hesitation at those who spoke about his mother, challenging them to duels and beating them until their teeth fell out.

“One day, she cried all day long. On another day, she raged at me furiously. What did she say? I think she said everything was ruined because of me. That she couldn’t go back because of me.”

“……”

“I might have been only a part of my mother’s life, but to me as a child, even such a mother was everything. But she left.”

But now Ian was bringing up the story first to Summer. To Summer, who was breaking flowers with a face that looked like she was dying to not hear it.

“I’m not like that.”

“She fell from that tower you had climbed.”

“I really didn’t know the tower was that kind of place.”

“I know. Now I believe you.”

Ah. So that’s why he stopped me with such a desperate face.

Summer could now understand Ian a little. Still, she didn’t want to get immersed. If she got immersed in this story and understood him, even sympathized with him.

Summer wasn’t confident she could leave Ian alone. In other words, it meant she would go crazy twisting the original story.

She instinctively closed her ears, not wanting to engage in such tiring and grandiose actions before returning.

“I wonder why she did it. I thought you might know. I still don’t understand.”

“I don’t know either. I’m not your mother, Your Grace.”

Summer replied curtly, continuously breaking flowers and gathering them.

“My feelings of sympathy and resentment are so mixed that it’s now vague whether I loved my mother. Maybe I just needed her too.”

“Why are you thinking like that? Here.”

Summer handed Ian the clumsily gathered bouquet. Ian, looking a bit surprised, accepted the bouquet reflexively.

A whiff of mild grass smell mixed with flower fragrance hit him.

“This is,”

“If you came to the flower garden, just look at the flowers to your heart’s content. I keep telling you I’m not that kind of person, why do you keep talking about gloomy things, really.”

“… Thank you.”

Ian quietly lowered his head and pressed his nose to the flower petals.

Summer looked at Ian, who seemed somewhat deflated, then turned around abruptly and broke off a red flower.

“It’s sad that your mother passed away early, but why are you blaming yourself for it? Did your mother ever say it was because of you?”

“No, she didn’t, but,”

“Then that’s enough. It’s all just speculation, isn’t it? Your mother must have loved you. You loved your mother too, that’s why she’s still in your heart.”

Summer approached Ian, holding a single red flower. Then she stood on her tiptoes and stretched out her arm.

“Oh, it’s pretty. The protagonist is different. I feel sorry about your situation, Your Grace, but those who are to live should live. And I keep telling you, I’m not the same as your mother.”

Summer chattered away as she lowered herself from her tiptoes. The red flower that had been in Summer’s hand was now tucked behind Ian’s ear.

“Summer.”

“You should live in this world, Your Grace.”

“Then can you promise me you won’t die?”

It’s going back to Korea, not dying, right? Summer nodded while rationalizing like that.

But she couldn’t make her voice come out. This must have been the reason why Fei had maintained silence towards her.

“Summer Lindsey. I want to hear a definite answer.”

“Your Grace. I won’t die. But it might look like I’m dying.”

“What nonsense is that?”

Ian’s dark eyebrows shot up. Now he looked like the male protagonist Summer knew from the original work.

Cold and rude, but warm only to his woman, something like that Northern Duke on a black horse.

“I meant that even if I die, this body will wake up again and move around just fine.”

“Summer!”

Ian called Summer’s name with a growl and gripped both her shoulders.

For a moment, a sense of betrayal filled his gray eyes. By this point, a sigh escaped Summer’s lips.

“Your Grace. Can’t you just withdraw your interest from me? There are countless deaths in the world. If you want to save someone, save them first.”

Go and save Julian instead. Julian will face numerous crises now that she’s been targeted by Ferotia Legacy.

If only he would stick by Julian’s side like this.

“I’m asking you to live.”

However, Ian showed no signs of backing down. His gray eyes sparked with the determination to save this person no matter what.

“I have no intention of dying.”

Summer was no pushover either. It was because she was sick of the people in this world who perceived her joy as unhappiness.

Naturally, Summer’s voice began to sharpen as well.

“Don’t play word games.”

“Think as you like.”

“Summer Lindsey.”

“Duke Lancaster. It was an honor to meet you. Please return safely.”

Summer bowed her head in greeting and coldly turned around to leave the flower garden.

Fortunately, Ian didn’t follow. Summer returned to the mansion as if fleeing and climbed the stairs.

Don’t tell me such things. Don’t make me care. You’re all just text in a novel anyway. She kept muttering incessantly.