It’s Time to Stop Clinging to the Fake Guide - Chapter 7

After meeting Euphen and performing the Guiding, the next all-too-familiar step was waiting for Lynette.
“Huuuk, aaah!”
This time, she didn’t hold back and cried out. Because here, it didn’t matter if she screamed all she wanted.
The only thing that could heal a body wracked with pain from fake Guiding was… another pain.
As a “fake Guide” who had forcibly taken on the aftereffects of an Esper, she had to use magic to revert her condition. In that process, her body would be forcibly altered again, and if this was repeated, it would eventually shorten her lifespan.
Lynette closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again while letting out a heavy breath.
She wiped her sweat-drenched forehead with her sleeve. Strands of hair were plastered messily to her cheeks.

“You lack manners, but you seem to understand words.”
“……”
“From now on, be careful in front of His Highness the Imperial Prince.”

Shirin warned her in a cold voice.
“If you dare pull any foolish stunt, I’ll make sure you regret it.”

This person was just the same as before.
Even as her whole body hung limp, a laugh escaped her. When Lynette couldn’t hold it back and laughed out loud, the woman’s face twisted.

“You’re clearly insane.”
“I’m frighteningly sane.”

At Lynette’s reply, Shirin scowled deeply, then swung her staff with an irritable gesture. She then struck the floor with a harsh thunk and asked stiffly,

“You understand what you need to do, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“As long as you fulfill your assigned role well, you can live here comfortably. You’ll be given regular meals, and though you’ll be a maid in name, you won’t have to actually work.”

Should she be thankful for being fed three times a day, or even moved to tears?
Nothing else stirred her much. After all, if she were to live in Euphen’s detached palace…
‘Ah, no. I won’t be able to live in Euphen’s detached palace this time.’

A bitter smile crossed her face.
Previously, he had cherished her and prepared a separate room for her in the detached palace. Thanks to that, she had been able to live far freer and in greater comfort than under Shirin’s watch.
For Lynette, who had been sold off for a paltry sum, it was a life she could never have dreamed of.

But this time, that must not happen.
Euphen must not cherish her. He must not come to love her.

Her goal in this life was only one.
To make sure that, in the end, the man whose eyes had inevitably brimmed with tears last time… would not cry this time.

When Lynette stayed silent, Shirin waved her hand dismissively.
“You’ve seen your room earlier. Stay there.”

Lynette barely managed to move her limbs, sprawled on the floor, and get to her feet. Perhaps because pain had piled upon pain, it still felt like her whole body was aching.
As she dragged her feet out of the magic circle, she suddenly thought of the people who had been sold along with her.
Before her regression, they had all died. Were they still alive now?

“What happened to the people who came with me?”

Shirin simply ignored the question. Since Lynette had already expected it, she felt no real disappointment as she walked out the door.
If it were someone of high rank, maybe, but she was just a lowly test subject, and they clearly felt no obligation to answer her.

‘I’ll see if I can find them later when I have the time.’

But she could only remember the faces of two people.
A cynical-looking woman who had said matter-of-factly that she would die, and someone who had been trembling in fear. But she didn’t even know their names.

When she returned to her room, she found a table laid out with lukewarm soup, bread still holding some warmth, and jam.
As she ate, she felt anew the strange reality that she had returned.

***

“Haa, haa…”

Lynette panted heavily as she sat up. Even though she felt no pain, her nightclothes were drenched with cold sweat and clung unpleasantly to her skin.

‘It was a dream.’

It had been so vivid that she was still confused whether she was in the dream or reality. She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them again.

“This is reality.”

She told herself.
It was reality that she had regressed. She still couldn’t believe it, nor did she understand how it had happened, but there was no doubt this was real.

Lynette brushed her hair back behind her ears.

After her death, she had dreamt of Euphen rejecting Guiding altogether and eventually following her into death.
It had been a dreadful thing.

‘What a ridiculous dream.’

She shook her head, casting off the thought. It was probably just because the face she had seen at the moment of her death before regression… his twisted, tear-streaked face had lingered so strongly in her mind.

Lynette glanced out at the still-dim world beyond the window, then slowly rose from bed. She didn’t think she could fall back asleep.

After washing off the cold sweat in the bathroom, she hesitated briefly, then stepped out of her room.

‘If they need me, they’ll find me.’

It was a rather carefree thought.

She was bound by several restrictions, including a tracking spell. Shirin probably thought Lynette didn’t know, but she had regressed, hadn’t she? Of course she remembered.
Though in her previous life, it had taken her a very long time to discover it.

Shirin wasn’t the type to explain such things in detail, and the same went for the other mages. So how could she have known?

Only once, when Lynette had decided to run away and was caught hiding in a corner of the imperial palace, had Shirin, in passing, said, “Running away is useless,” and “Even if you die, I can find you.”
That had been the clue.

‘That’s when I finally understood why such an important test subject had no visible restraints.’

Even though she might escape, they neither bound nor guarded her.
In her past life, she hadn’t had the time or presence of mind to think deeply about that.

Now, as before, there wasn’t a single guard in sight.
Lynette didn’t encounter a soul as she walked down the silent corridors. Perhaps it was simply too early.

She easily found her way outside. The air beyond the Mage Tower was cool.
She inhaled deeply, then exhaled, gazing blankly at the large mansion.

‘If it’s a mage’s mansion, why do they call it a Mage Tower?’

It was a question she’d had before her regression and still had now.
Not that she was curious enough to really dig into it.