Summer looked completely exhausted.

“It’ll all be over today.”

Meaning, don’t bother her anymore and leave her alone. But there was one thing Summer didn’t know.

Fei scratched her head awkwardly and hesitantly opened her mouth.

“Um, sorry Black Hair. It’s tomorrow.”

“…What are you talking about?”

Summer’s eyes turned triangular. She was tired. It felt like the world wouldn’t leave her alone and kept tormenting her.

She wanted to hurry back and cry in her mother’s arms. Then eat some ramen and sleep deeply.

In her real bed in her original world.

“The world turned back time a bit. A few hours ago. So now is yesterday.”

“What nonsense are you saying? Why would the world do such a thing? Is turning back time that easy?”

But it was postponed, she said.

Does that make sense? Why would the Creator, that is, the author, go so far as to turn back the world’s time.

“No. The forest I live in must be in chaos.”

“Oh, no…”

This can’t be happening. This can’t be happening. Even the world couldn’t stop Summer now.

Summer stood up abruptly with unfocused eyes. Fei grabbed Summer’s hand, fear overtaking her.

“Black Hair?”

“It doesn’t have to be tomorrow, right? That’s how it is, right?”

“W-well, that’s true, but…”

“Fei. I absolutely must leave today. I can’t bear to stay in this strange world any longer.”

“Yesterday, I mean today, you were giggling with the maids, why so suddenly?”

Fei’s attitude somehow seemed to be trying to stop Summer. That attitude was incredibly frustrating to Summer.

“I can go back, right?”

“You can go back, but…”

“I asked if I can go back! I just asked if I can go back, right now!”

Summer shouted, shaking off Fei’s hand.

Why? Why are you stopping me? Even though no one will remember me when I return to my original world anyway.

Even though it will end like a scattered dream when I return to the original world anyway.

Like closing a book after seeing the ending.

“So I don’t understand why you want to hurry to do something that’s not even good,”

Summer cut off Fei’s words and glared at her.

Her blue eyes, glowing as if burning, seemed hotter than red flames.

“I never once wanted to die! Every moment I wanted to survive! It’s just that it wasn’t in this world, I, I… wanted to live, you know? No!”

“Summer, calm down…”

“Don’t you call me by that name too!”

Summer shouted as if throwing a tantrum and stomped her foot. She was so angry she couldn’t stand it.

She had endured. Endured it all. Even when Fei deceived her, even when Mary kept holding her back, even when the protagonists tried to stop her. Everything.

Because this was a story with a set duration anyway. Because it was a story that would end someday.

But the story didn’t end.

It felt like reading what she thought was a single volume novel, only to find out at the end that it was a ten-volume epic.

As Fei approached Summer flustered, a cheerful knock cut through the tension between them.

“Miss. A guest has arrived.”

Mary’s voice was heard from outside the door. Summer glared at the door fiercely and said.

“Tell them to get lost.”

“It’s Duke Bertrand.”

“…Ha. Tell him to wait.”

“Yes.”

Summer’s intensity subsided a little. But her eyes were still somewhat unfocused. Like someone who had lost their mind.

Summer staggered past Fei.

Fei wanted to say something more, but just opened and closed her mouth. She couldn’t speak honestly or tell the truth.

“Tonight. I’m going back. So bring Summer’s soul.”

“Where to?”

“…The temple. To the temple.”

“…Alright.”

Summer threw her last words to Fei in a very hoarse voice and opened the door.

Mary, who had been waiting outside the door, sensed the grim atmosphere and alternately looked at Summer and Fei with slightly rounded eyes.

Fei, who usually whined like a child, was strangely quiet.

The witch, who was lost in thought with her gaze slightly lowered, looked very similar to the Pope Fei that Mary had seen long ago.

“He’s in the reception room.”

“Ah, yes! He’s waiting in the reception room.”

“Alright.”

Summer walked slowly down the hallway. It was a long, long corridor. Mary worriedly watched Summer stumble unsteadily.

“Witch. Is this your doing?”

“It’s because of you, you frog! Because you unnecessarily mentioned something about the original world.”

“She doesn’t seem to be considering the most important thing at all. Is it true there’s no way to check if she’s safe?”

“Yes. Even I can’t interfere with another world.”

Fei nodded readily to Mary’s questioning. It was the truth.

If she could have interfered with that world in the first place, she would have done so long ago. She would have gone and grabbed the god who abandoned her and demanded to know why.

“…Why did time turn back?”

“The world doesn’t want to let Black Hair go.”

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

“Strangely, the world is preventing Black Hair from leaving even at the cost of breaking itself.”

“Why on earth.”

Mary’s expression darkened rapidly.

Fei’s purple eyes also sank darkly. It felt like the eerie calm before a storm.

Feeling like a small creature that could only look up at the sky without knowing what storm was coming.

“Summer.”

Russell called Summer’s name as she entered the reception room.

Somehow Summer looked much more precarious than the day they had parted.

Summer plopped down opposite Russell and roughly picked up a teacup, downing it in one go. Her sore throat that had been stinging seemed to subside a little.

“That’s not a name I particularly want to hear today. If you had seen me for the last time that day, you could have been left with a pleasant memory.”

“What happened?”

Russell really seemed unaware of the atmosphere in the mansion.

“If something had happened. Could you solve it?”

“Can I solve it?”

As expected of the Prime Minister. Summer shook her head and replied.

“Ha, no. What could the world’s puppets do gathered together?”

“…”

“Why did you come here anyway?”

“Because today is the day you leave. I wanted to engrave you in my eyes one more time.”

“…”

Summer felt strange at Russell’s honesty.

Is it because he’s rational that he can be honest? Or is it because he hasn’t experienced any storms that he can be like that?

“Russell, you really speak in a way that causes misunderstandings.”

“Me?”

Russell asked quite innocently.

As he tilted his head to the side, his fine blue hair fell softly downwards, revealing his neat eyebrows.

She could understand why the people of the empire loved Russell so much.

He was calm and neat.

But rather than warm, he was a bit cold, which felt rather refreshing in a hot and noisy world.

“It’s really too much to say such things with that face.”

“…I’ll correct it.”

“Pfft, I was joking.”

Summer let out a weak laugh. She still looked drained. It seemed like she could stop breathing at any moment.

“Are you very tired?”

So an unrefined question popped out.

“Maybe. I think I might have just gone crazy, but I’m not sure. I don’t want to think about it. It’s hard.”

Summer glanced at Russell’s expression. Fortunately, Russell didn’t seem to feel much emotion seeing her unsightly state.

Summer suddenly thought that she liked Russell, who was always calm and composed, but also felt a little resentful.

As that feeling made her lips pout involuntarily, Russell’s calm and low voice began to speak.

“I’ve lived my whole life seeking efficiency. Because administration must be rational. Because it’s not an administrator’s job to listen to everyone’s individual circumstances, but a clergy’s job.”

“…”

Ah. Russell’s story. Summer stared blankly at the side of Russell’s face as he began to speak.

Below his downcast eyelashes, as if filled with melancholy, his purple-blue eyes sparkled in the sunlight.

Everyone loves him, but Russell himself never learned how to love anything anywhere in the work.

He’s a cold person. At the same time thoughtful. How easy it is to misunderstand.

Summer focused on Russell’s story while looking at her own reflection in the teacup following Russell’s gaze.

Summer thought that if she had to say, she was an emotional and passionate person. That’s why she often got tired easily. Like now.

“I see the world through statistics. What is the poverty rate, how much is this year’s harvest, then how much of the national treasury should be released for poor relief to be most efficient. My thoughts are usually filled with things like this.”

“…Russell.”

He really is Prime Minister material to the bone. When she goes back, she thought Russell would come to mind often while working.

Her chest fluttered. Summer suddenly thought that this was really goodbye now.

Because there wasn’t only bad things in this strange world that had more terrible things. That’s why she kept looking back unnecessarily.

“I was raised that way from childhood. That I should become a talented person who contributes to the country. My life was quiet and calm and at the same time cruel because of it. Because it was the fate of a child raised with a purpose, I accepted this too.”

“…I thought Russell was just someone who lived well and ate well. But when I heard the lie last time, you seemed quite protagonist-like.”

“Everyone has a narrative. They just don’t know it themselves.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“I heard you prepared for a long time. I too was mostly raised by wet nurses and tutors as soon as I was born. When my head grew a little, I entered the academy, and before coming of age, I started work taking on my father’s duties.”

“…”

“I too have walked a long, tedious, and boring path.”

“I,”

Summer felt like she wanted to refute something, but in the end couldn’t say anything.

Was it because Russell’s mood as he spoke like that was too sorrowful? Or was it because of his sad habit of hardening his face to suppress even that sorrow?

“Summer.”

“…”

A calm voice called her name. Summer. If that name had been mine, would I have fallen for him hopelessly in this moment?