Perhaps realizing her desperate efforts to dilute the fortune-teller’s curse, a hint of sympathy crossed the old man’s face.

“Miss, even if you’ve regained all your memories~ how can you be the same person?”

“That’s right, Miss.”

As soon as the old man finished speaking, a strong wind blew into the tent.

Charty desperately grabbed her fluttering hood in response to the wind’s strength, which was strong enough to make her sway.

“So, catch him.”

Sitting alone peacefully, the old man smiled at Charty.

Then, slowly, the old man opened his eyes.

“Imprint emotions on that emotionless man. Someday, those emotions might turn him from a ghost into a human being.”
“What on earth…!”

Charty squinted her eyes and shouted at the old man, but her voice was drowned out by the howling wind. In response, Charty abruptly stood up, but her body swayed, and she closed her eyes tightly.

The wind, so strong that her ears felt stuffy, continued for a moment and then abruptly stopped.

“Ah!”

As the sound of the wind disappeared, Charty immediately opened her eyes.

“…”

Literally, there was nothing in front of her.

There was no old man, no table, no crystal ball. Charty was alone inside the tent, just as the quarantine facility was left with the furniture as it was, without blackout curtains.

“Ha.”

Regaining her senses after being momentarily stunned, Charty exerted strength in her legs. Her heart thumped belatedly.

Charty stepped out of the tent and looked around again.

The street seemed undisturbed, as if the sudden wind had never blown.

“…”

Charty stared at the sky for a moment and then clenched her fist.

There was only one person in her mind.

‘Ren!’

She wanted to see him.

At that moment, the wind blew behind Charty.

Feeling as if the wind was urging her to run freely, Charty ran out forcefully.

In front of the deserted tent, where Charty had been standing, the old man revealed himself again.

“Hmm~”

The transparent skin of the unsealed old man was smooth and firm. Carefully styled hair had grown so long that it could be dragged on the ground, and the once bent waist stood upright.

As the woman’s body gradually returned to a plump figure, the jewels worn on her body shimmered with iridescent colors, lightly swaying.

“If I hadn’t met that doctor, I might have really been destined to die.”

Matapchu, who had been staring until Charty’s back disappeared from view, smirked.

“Now, what to do. I have to inform her, but she doesn’t want it herself.”

Recalling the conversation she had with Ren, or rather ‘Len,’ last night, Matapchu continued.

[I can help you find your memories. First, I’ll let the person who’s desperately looking for you know that you’re alive.] [Is the person looking for me family?] [No, not family. Not even like family.]

A knight of the Gwenhill Duchy and a duke couldn’t be family.

[About memories…]

‘Len’ took a long time to choose his words.

Watching the conflicting scene, Matapchu asked.

[Don’t you want to find it? Because you want to be with the woman you like?] [Well.]

In a response that neither affirmed nor denied, Matapchu read Len’s decision.

He had long since given up on lost memories.

[I am ‘Len.’ That’s enough.]

More precisely, he chose the present instead of lost memories.

He chose to live as the present ‘Len.’

“Foolish indeed. Choosing love.”

To invest everything in an emotion without a form. It was truly a futile choice.
Duke Gwenhill gave up everything for something as trivial as love. He sacrificed everything for a woman of even lower status than commoners.

It was absurd, amazing, and laughable. However, at the same time, it was understandable.

“He must have been pushed to the edge to instinctively discard everything. Truly, to the point of willingly desiring death.”

Leo del Grande Gwenhill, affected by forbidden magic, might have sensed impending death.

However, fate, instead of Leo del Grande Gwenhill’s life, exchanged his memories as payment and saved him for the time being.

“But does the gods know? There’s no being that defies fate as much as humans.”

The information Leo del Grande Gwenhill provided to Charty was mostly true. Of course, there were many rumors about Duke Gwenhill among the social circles and commoners, but after the conversation with ‘Len’ last night, Matapchu transmitted information through Pottopju as close to the truth as possible.

To Charty, it was a candid disclosure of information.

“If the forbidden magic is indeed mind-controlling magic, then that lady doctor is the only reasonable solution.”

Matapchu no longer wanted to kill ‘Len.’

Hearing all the facts, she just couldn’t bring herself to think about getting rid of him.

Leo del Grande Gwenhill looked pitiful. He had been rejected by ‘Len,’ even by his own transformed self.

A man who had traversed countless battlefields wielding a sword, now protected and happily living under the care of a small, delicate woman—how could one not feel sympathy?

“It’s not like me.”

Of course, there was also such an impulse. Whether he had memories or not, he could just drag the Leo del Grande Gwenhill who had become ‘Len’ to the emperor or the knights of Gwenhill Duchy and hand him over.

Whether to clear the charge of treason or to kill, it would be everyone’s business related to him.

It had nothing to do with Matapchu once she completed the assigned request. It was simply a matter of stepping back.

“But the tears shed by those innocent people are truly disgusting.”

However, Matapchu didn’t want to tell ‘Len’ to give up this moment when he could simply love.

She didn’t want to make him give up. She didn’t want to force someone’s tears with his choice.

It was a somewhat awkward and unnatural emotion for the inhuman Matapchu.

“Ah~ really, too troublesome even though you’re so great.”

With a childish tantrum, Matapchu turned around.

She had to finish the entrusted request for now.

“I wonder what Her Majesty thinks.”