It’s Time to Stop Clinging to the Fake Guide - Chapter 124

Her face grew slightly warm.
If Eshar were to laugh, she thought she might feel miserable, but to her surprise, the woman only nodded with a serious expression.

“Alright. I’ll tell Euphen. That it would be better for him to receive Guiding every day.”

“Thank… you.”

Lynette barely managed to open her mouth, her voice trembling with embarrassment.
She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again. If she said anything more, she might end up meddling needlessly.

As she clenched her hands tightly on her lap, Eshar let out a soft laugh.

“I wanted to talk to see if there’s any help you might need, something you can’t directly ask Euphen for. There are still a few days left, so if you need anything, don’t hesitate to tell me, Lynette.”

“Yes.”

With that brief reply, she practically fled from the reception room.
Only after she had hurried down the corridor did she finally stop, exhaling the breath she had been holding.

“Haah…”

Now, there was truly nothing left between her and Euphen.
She reminded herself of that fact once again.

‘Come to think of it, I haven’t even seen him properly since he told me to leave.’

Until then, she had spent time with him every day under the pretext of Guiding.
Even if the actual contact lasted only a few seconds, they would talk about their day, look into each other’s faces, and speak as if nothing in the world troubled them.
All of that now felt like something from a distant past.

Euphen hadn’t even asked when she was leaving.
Did he know there were only three days left?
It didn’t seem like Eshar would tell him.

‘Does he intend not to see me at all until the end?’

She couldn’t say she didn’t understand.
She felt the same way.

If they faced each other, they would no doubt become unable to part.
The moment she sees him, she would fully realize that they could never meet again.
So she didn’t want to see him.

But even so, she missed him.

Lynette let out a long sigh.
She had thought a week would be enough time to sort out her feelings, but even as the days passed, her heart remained tangled.
Even if a few more days went by, she was sure nothing would change.

She gave a faint, bitter smile. Perhaps it was for the best that she had set a departure date.
If there had been no deadline, she probably would’ve kept lingering here, telling herself,
‘Just a little longer.’

She drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly, then began to walk again.
There were only three days left.

***

Why did time have to move so fast?
The week that had seemed so long now had only a single day remaining.

Tomorrow, she will be leaving with Sillian.
Unlike her, who still hadn’t been able to settle her heart, the man had carefully prepared for the long journey.

‘He said we’d be traveling on horseback, didn’t he?’

Lynette frowned slightly.
When he had asked if she could ride, she’d said yes, so he had prepared horses instead of carriage.
Though she had learned horseback riding, she wasn’t particularly skilled, and when her worry showed, Sillian had assured her they wouldn’t be riding fast.

He said they would take it easy, like a leisurely trip, then asked if she had ever left the
capital before.
When she answered that she hadn’t, he smiled, saying there were countless things to see in the world.

At those words, she should have felt anticipation for the sights ahead.
But instead, the sense of loss from leaving this place forever weighed heavier.
If she were to return someday, perhaps she would have felt excited at the thought of traveling so far, but that wasn’t the case.

Lynette stared blankly at her small bag.
Since they weren’t taking a carriage, she could only bring what could be loaded onto a horse.
Not that she’d planned to take much anyway, but she still had to cut down more than expected.

She selected only a few simple outfits and left everything else behind. She distributed the rest to Lara, Mari, and the other maids.
What remained were just her clothes and shoes, she didn’t even own any jewelry to begin with.

‘I wanted to bring something that would remind me of His Highness.’

But no matter how much she searched while sorting her belongings, there was nothing that could serve as a keepsake of him.
There wasn’t a single special gift he had personally given her, nor any object that held some particular meaning between them.

It felt oddly bitter.
If she had known this would happen, she would’ve made something herself, even if it were just a small trinket.

Lynette gazed out the window.
The view she had grown so used to seeing was now truly coming to an end.
She had looked upon it countless times. Before she regressed, and even after coming back to life, and yet she wondered, would she still remember it after a lot of time had passed?
She carefully studied the garden she had always taken for granted.

‘Tomorrow, I’ll really be gone. Yet His Highness still hasn’t said a word.’

Since she hadn’t been hiding her preparations, he must have realized by now that the time was almost up.

Yet he showed not even the slightest reaction.
It was enough to make her feel miserable.

She had thought about going to see him first, but since he was deliberately avoiding her, she decided against it.

Her mood sank even lower.

For the past week, Mari and Lara had tried their best to cheer her up, but perhaps because it was the last day, the two had kindly given her space to be alone.

Staring out the window, she let out a faint sigh.
So many thoughts tangled together in her head that she could no longer tell one from the other.

She didn’t know how long she had been sitting, there staring blankly, when a calm voice reached her.

“Lynette.”