Volumes 1-4 + Side Stories of DMS are available uncensored on ko-fi! ※ This work contains depictions of coercive relationships, explicit language, and other graphic content. Reader discretion is advised.

XV.

The memories of him surged violently through her mind like a storm.

“It’s not much, but if you’re okay with this, do you want to use it?”

“I know someone in the kitchen who gave this to me. Would you like to try it?”

“When I see you, I can’t help but think of my little sister.”

“Have you been well, Jaha?”

The handkerchief he gave me. The bread we shared.

The soap I made as a gift, snatched away by the Emperor.

Dragged out by the Emperor, I was strolling through the garden when I found him lying face down on the ground with the other slaves.

The sweet dream of softly kissing him. The moment I left the detached palace and unexpectedly ran into him.

Our eyes met, and he approached me slowly, shyly, to kiss me. And…….

“It’s been a while… Prince Cedric.”

“It seems the fallen prince has found slavery unexpectedly suited to his tastes. Rather than biting his tongue and dying, he’s adapted and lived quite well, I see.”

“Was he really that good to you? That fallen prince—did he mean so much?”

“You think he approached you with no ulterior motives? That his kindness was pure? Everyone in this palace knows how tightly I keep you wrapped around my fingers. He was playing you! Using you! Did you really think he was any different from me? He was royalty too—you think a prince would ever see a slave as human?”

Jaha ran after the carriage like a madwoman.

“Cedric! Cedric!”

He was alive!

No—no matter how much this was a world where mages and priests existed, a beheaded man couldn’t come back to life. Then did that mean she had traveled back in time? To a point before his death? Or was this not the world she had been in before, but a parallel universe where he was still alive?

Her mind was in chaos.

She had to know for sure.

Did he remember her, just like she did? Would he recognize her?

But no matter how much she pushed through the endless sea of people, the carriage only grew farther away.

“Cedric!”

Even her scream, loud enough to tear her throat, was drowned out by the roaring cheers of the crowd.

Before long, the carriage vanished from sight, and the throng of people blocking Jaha’s path dispersed as if they had never been there in the first place.

The streets, now eerily empty as if it had all been a lie, were where Jaha staggered forward. A crushing sense of exhaustion weighed down her entire body.

Even if there had been no spectators, she wouldn’t have been able to reach the carriage. There was no way the knights would let an unidentified person approach the prince. It was hopeless from the start. And even if she had met Cedric—even if he remembered her—what could she have done?

Jaha was the one who had driven him to his death.

There was no way he would welcome her. And she had no right to face him.

Logically speaking, it was better if they never met again.

There had been a time when she felt a physical attraction to him, but now, she had no desire to rekindle any kind of sticky relationship with him. That impulse was long gone.

“Ah.”

A sudden thought made Jaha frantically pat herself down. In her dazed state, she had blindly pushed through the crowd—had she dropped it? Thankfully, the gift was still safe in her pocket.

Letting out a sigh of relief, Jaha ran her fingers over the surface of the box.

I decided to forget everything. To never be tied down again.

How long was I going to cling to the past?

Life is too short to waste chewing over past pain. There’s barely enough time to be happy as it is.

Cedric wouldn’t be unhappy either. The Cedric Jaha knew—the fallen prince treated like a slave in the imperial palace—no longer exists.

“This is for the best.”

It’s better this way.

The sharp-witted man seemed to have sensed something from her unusually late return, his excitement barely contained. His already unrealistically beautiful features were flushed with delight, radiating an otherworldly charm that defied mortal standards.

Jaha realized she was still captivated by this man’s face—both inside and out. It was so dazzling she couldn’t even look at him directly.

“I don’t know if you’ll like it, but…”

Hiding both hands behind her back, Jaha extended only her right hand to offer the gift. Rikanan’s expression shifted as he carefully opened the small box resting on his palm.

Scratching her cheek awkwardly, Jaha then revealed her left hand, which had also been hidden behind her back. On her fourth finger sat a ring—the matching pair to the one she’d just given him.

“Where I come from, couples wear these even if they’re not engaged or married.”