"Now that you’re done trying to flirt with , then I guess I should head out," I said, letting my voice drift out casually, almost like I was trying to snap her out of whatever trance she was stuck in.
But when the words actually reached Lady Asada, she didn’t move. She didn’t twitch. She didn’t even blink. It was like she turned into a perfectly carved statue—breathing, alive, but completely hollowed out. I knew she heard ; I said it loud enough for her to catch every syllable. Yet she stayed there, stiff and unresponsive, as if the world around her had already gone silent.
So I guess polygamy really was accepted here. Not taboo. Not frowned upon. Not even enough to earn a reaction. I honestly thought she’d at least flinch, glare, or say sothing sarcastic, especially after that whole conversation earlier that almost felt like walking on emotional eggshells. But she just stood there like it ant nothing. Maybe I’d read too much into it. Maybe I really did guess wrong.
Or maybe... she had already given up on any chance she thought she had. Maybe she believed there was no hope for her from the very beginning, to the point where even imagining her lover ssing with other won barely stung anymore. Like she’d already cried every tear she had and went past the point where emotional pain even registered.
"Why are you still standing there, Princess?" Sir Amakawa asked, glancing at like I was intruding on sothing.
"Are you alright, Lady Asada?" I asked, ignoring him completely. "You look like you’re already past your breaking point."
"She’s fine," Sir Amakawa said before she could even open her mouth. His tone was too quick, too dismissive. "She was just... suffering from a loss."
"A loss?" I repeated, my brows lifting.
"She lost a friend," he said. "So if you’ll excuse us, I want to comfort her."
Comfort, huh. Yeah, right.
I glared at him imdiately. I knew that type of tone. I knew that kind of look. I knew exactly what kind of "comforting" he was planning to do. And with Lady Asada in this state, vulnerable and barely holding herself together, I wasn’t going to let him drag her into sothing she’d regret. If I let him take her now, she’d just sink even deeper into whatever despair she was already drowning in.
And I was not letting that happen.
"I don’t think I can allow that," I said firmly.
"Huh?" he muttered, confused.
But I wasn’t waiting for him to understand. I moved behind him in one fluid motion—not graceful like a trained assassin or anything, but quick enough—and delivered a sharp chop to the back of his neck. His body instantly went limp. He collapsed forward like soone snuffed out his fla. I rushed to catch him before he slamd onto the floor and carefully laid him down, arranging his limbs to make it look like he had simply fallen asleep.
"What... what have you done?" Lady Asada asked.
Her voice was soft, almost detached. Even though she just saw knock out his lover in a way absolutely unbecoming of a princess—especially in front of a knight who was supposed to be respected—she didn’t flinch. She didn’t gasp. She didn’t panic. She didn’t even look surprised. It was like the shock inside her was already dead.
I looked at her closely. "You’re trying to go deeper into the despair, aren’t you?"
The mont those words left my mouth, she flinched—just barely, like a faint tremor.
"What would you know?" she spat, but it wasn’t anger—it was pain. Her voice cracked like sothing inside her had been scraped raw. "There’s no way soone like you can understand what I’m suffering."
She wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t going to pretend I understood the weight she was carrying. How could I? Pain wasn’t sothing you could just imagine accurately. I really was just ddling, inserting myself because I couldn’t stand watching her sink.
"I may not know it," I said, my voice steady but not cold, "but what you’re trying to turn yourself into will only destroy you more."
Her shoulders trembled.
"Y-You... you don’t know anything. You can’t act like you know anything. You don’t know." Her voice shook harder with each word, like sothing inside her finally broke open. "I failed. I failed him. When he needed the most, I failed him. When he told he loved , I ignored him. When all the signs were already there, I pretended to be indifferent. I failed. I failed to realize sothing important. And when it finally beca clear, he was already closer to soone else. And before I knew it, he slipped away from . And then... he’s gone. And I regret not telling him how I really feel."
Her voice cracked on that last part, like she was holding back a scream or a sob or both.
From the way she was speaking, it definitely didn’t sound like she was talking about Sir Amakawa. This was soone else—soone who mattered much more deeply. If I had to guess, it was the friend she lost.
"I’m sorry for the loss," I said quietly. I wasn’t good at comforting people. Never was. "But if you’re going to wallow in your despair, then... you can’t do it here. At least go back ho. You can wallow in it there—since that’s the world where you felt those regrets. Let that regret haunt you there. Face it there. Since the world you left is the world where all of it happened, then continue that regret and end it there."
She stared at for a long mont. I didn’t know what exactly she was thinking, but I saw sothing flicker in her eyes—weak, but still there. A tiny spark in the dark.
"You sounded... a little bit like him," she whispered.
"Huh?"
"My friend," she said. "My bestest friend in that world. You sounded like him just now... I feel like if he were here with in this world, and I was drowning in despair because I might never go back ho again, he would say sothing like that."
So she saw him in my words.
And honestly, that made sense. I only said that because I felt like that Leon—the version of him I imagined—would’ve told the sa thing if I were in her shoes.
"That’s a relief then," I said softly.
She took a breath, deeper this ti, and when she looked at again, I saw the faintest glow inside her—like soone trying to relight a candle in a storm.
"I still don’t think... I’ll be able to stop myself from feeling despair," she admitted. "But... you’re right. If I’m going to wallow in it, then I should wallow in it in the world where I left him. I have to go back."
"That’s the spirit," I said.
"Princess," she whispered.
I looked at her again, and this ti the flicker inside her eyes wasn’t fading—it was growing, small but steady, like embers catching wind.
"Can you teach how to fight?"
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