My Ruin to You - Chapter 246

One of the knights, who had been quietly listening to the conversation, covered his mouth as if overcome with emotion. He muttered without thinking, “Such profound consideration, truly fit to be the Grand Duke’s mistress,” and got an elbow in the ribs from another knight for his trouble. Edan, also seemingly quite impressed, readily lent her his emergency funds. Fortunately, they weren’t far from the hut, so they turned back with light steps.

However, it wasn’t long after they spotted the hut that they all stopped in their tracks as if on cue.

“…Huh?”

The hut, which, though old, had felt lived-in, was now in ruins. The plants in the yard were gone without a trace, replaced by overgrown weeds, and the door had completely come off its hinges and was leaning diagonally against the wall. In front of it sat the box Giorno had carried, all by itself.

“Wh-what in the world…?”

It was unclear whose voice it was. They were all thinking the same thing.

Roseline and the nine knights just blinked, spellbound as if possessed. Giorno was the first to move. He strode over and examined the box.

“Were these lilacs originally white?” a knight who had followed Giorno into the yard asked, tilting his head as he looked at the flowerbed. The lush purple blossoms had turned white. A chilly aura lingered among the delicate petals.

“They were purple. I remember clearly because it’s not the season for lilacs to bloom,” another knight nodded with a half-dazed expression, and Edan scanned the hut with a confused look.

“This building is indeed a ruin. I thought it was strange earlier. There are no houses in this forest, you know.”

“Are you saying we were all bewitched by that old man? Then what’s this?” Giorno, his face scrunched up, roughly opened the lid of the box.

The gazes of Roseline and the knights, who had belatedly approached, simultaneously turned toward the box.

“……”

The box was filled with stones, large and small.

“For heaven’s sake,” Giorno cursed, kicked the box, then shook his head roughly and turned away. The others were equally baffled, merely opening and closing their mouths as they alternated looking between the stones in the box and the ruins.

“It might be magic. Let’s investigate the hut,” Edan said, leading the bewildered group as they combed through the hut meticulously. However, no traces of magic were found.

Just as they were sighing in frustration, unable to make head or tail of it, Roseline, who had been looking down at the mirror in the pouch and the lilac left behind like a symbol, spoke.

“But, by any chance… does anyone remember the old man’s face?”

There was no answer.

◇◇◇

An untimely debate erupted on the way back to the temple. Since they had all experienced it together, it couldn’t be a collective delusion, yet there was no rational explanation. If it wasn’t magic, then who was that old man, and what was the hut all about?

“Wasn’t it strange that we followed the old man in the first place?” someone asked.

Everyone nodded. No one had objected at the time; even Giorno had followed without dissent. As if they were all enchanted.

They returned to the temple where they had left their carriage and horses, but found no clear answers. Someone suggested, “Could it be because Sir Giorno insulted the Goddess and she came to punish him?” The reactions were mixed. The devout knights looked up at the sky and muttered prayers, while some shuddered and scratched their arms. Giorno himself seemed indifferent.

“Are you going to tell Sir Merrick about this?”

“Yes.”

“Tch, we’ll just be treated like fools,” Giorno said, shaking his head as he imagined Merrick’s reaction.

Another knight, who agreed with that assessment, mimicked Merrick’s frosty expression, saying, ‘He’ll probably scold us, asking if being duped is something to be proud of.’ Some laughed bitterly, others sighed.

Roseline stared intently at the statue of the Goddess in the temple. The Goddess’s pose varied slightly from region to region; the statue before her held a flowering branch in its hands.

“……”

After quietly observing the flower in the statue’s hand, Roseline took out the mirror and examined the pattern on its back. The flower held by the Goddess statue and the pattern engraved on the mirror were identical. It was a lilac.

Lilacs held different meanings depending on their color. While interpretations varied slightly by region, purple generally symbolized first love, and white symbolized eternal vows and memories. It seemed to imply that a first love is remembered as an eternal promise, but this, too, was just a forced interpretation.

What puzzled her most was the old man’s true identity. Her intuition insisted the old man was the Goddess, but that was absurd. Yet, her own regression was equally nonsensical, so her thoughts circled endlessly.

On the confused journey back, as Roseline gazed blankly out the carriage window, she took out the mirror again. After studying the floral pattern on the back for a long while, she flipped it over to look at the front. The mirror, which had only faintly reflected blurred shapes before, now changed hue and displayed a scene like a painting.

“…Huh?”

She was so startled she nearly dropped the mirror. The scene appearing on the bronze surface was of her own self, unconscious in someone’s arms. A pale face, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

Roseline recognized this moment. It was the moment of her death in her past life.