Don’t Concern Yourself With That Book

“You want me to be the shield that protects you?”

I nodded my head.

I sat on his bed that had been carved out of cypress trees and leaned my head against one of the pillars. I thought a room that resembled a forest had suited Amor very much.

“Yes.”

I touched my wrists and neck which had already begun to swell before lifting my head. I had never experienced such a thing before. Since everyone around me had been happy with their lives and blissful, I never had a problem with sore throats or swelling wrists. When I touched my wrists, I winced and hoped that the pain could quickly disappear.

“Alright. Go ahead.”

Amor accepted my request and said it in his own way but it felt as if he was just giving a neutral response. He sounded neither positive nor negative.

“Your answer?”

The boy who was wearing a soft, silver-white gown and had the complexion of a patient still had an unremovable expression of arrogance on his face. I pulled the ends of my lips up for a smile.

“I said I’ll think about it.”

I could not change anything now but I still cursed myself for not being friendlier. Shaking my head, I realised that I did not have enough time to act naive and innocent anyway.

“… Uhm, brother, I have a request.”

“What is it?”

“Please tell me another shortcut to my palace. Not the one you showed me the last time.”

Amor widened his eyes.

“Why?”

“That road led to the Forbidden Forest and there’s a hound there.”

I trembled as I talked about the guardian. Goosebumps still rose on my skin when I thought back on the hound I saw the other day. Rubbing my stiff neck, I asked him for another way.

Thinking, Amor tilted his face. I could see the ridicule hanging on his lips.

“Well, that’s a problem You see, I know no other way.”

“Then, I’ll just walk the long way back.”

“Hold on.”

Amor stretched his hand towards me with a satisfied smile. As I was being mesmerised by his dimples and unconsciously smiling in response, his hand lowered.

“What is it?”

“I’ll give you another good path instead.”

He handed me a very small seed.

‘What is this…?’

The seed was black, thin and long.

“It looks like a sunflower seed.”

Amor muttered something that sounded like curse words before explaining to me what it was used for.

“This seed chases beasts away. It only lasts three days but it’s reliable. If you carry it with you, no beasts will come near.”

Amor who was leaning against his chin lifted his finger and waved it around before smiling. A seed that could chase the hound away. I stared at the seed that was smaller than the nail of my thumb before looking at Amor’s face.

“You seem to have everything.”

“Because that’s my ability.”

I flinched when his dry hand frantically grabbed me.

“Don’t move.”

The place he grabbed was the part where the plant roots had wrapped around just a while ago. I held back my anger. Amor seemed to not have noticed the groan I let out and rubbed the red skin gently with his cold fingers.

I winced.

My body trembled slightly. It was not until a little later did I realise the part of the skin he rubbed was turning white. His hand then reached out for my neck.

It was still as painful but since I got to endure it when he rubbed my hand, I could endure this one too.

“… I don’t believe everything you said.”

He then murmured quietly.

“I’ll keep an eye on you after you go. From now on, I’ll be watching every single one of your moves.”

“Yes. I can tell you can do that… But why are you telling me all this?”

“So that you won’t feel wronged that I know everything about you.”

The wind shook his sky-blue hair that had been extended to his shoulders gently.

“Everyone has secrets.”

After healing my neck, Amor stepped back before leaning closer to my face.

“Careful, little sister.”

I was watching you so your guard must remain up. His gaze remained stiff even whilst he was seeing me off. I nodded as I looked at Amor who had locked onto me firmly. It was time for me to go. With Amor’s calm salutations, I left the room.

***

–The night of the 9th day of the month Habermia.

I leaned against my bed’s headboard before looking up at the starry sky.

The endlessly black sky that I saw everytime I left work was nothing compared to the star-filled sky I was looking at now. Looking at the sky studded with stars, I thought of the man who looked like the night.

Crazy people did not announce that they were crazy by having ‘I’m crazy’ tattooed on their faces.

But everyone knew that Castor was crazy.

Even when he first appeared in the novel, <The Light of Rusbella>, did all the readers support the friendly and older sub-main character? Well, he was very normal.

‘He might be a genius at acting for a long time.’

While it might mean that he was good at acting as if he was normal, it also meant that the reversal of his character in later parts of the novel was emphasised. During the scene in which the friendly Emperor was actually a crazy tyrant, it felt as if the friendly young next-door neighbour turned into an actual psychopath. It had shocked all the readers’ six senses[1]. Now that I thought about it, it really was amazing.

This meant he was very smart.

Then, did he know his love would fail?

No.

Then, what did he see in Rusbella to make the Empire fall to its ruin?

“Amor too.”

What could love be if it had the power to melt a tough adolescent boy like snow and turn a madman into an even more insane madman?

Hannah brought in water for me to wash up.

“My lady[2], it’s time to wash up.”

I splashed water onto my face. After washing my face, I untied my hair.

“You’re tucking in pretty late tonight.”

“Really? Sorry about that.”

I apologised to the maids who were forced to go to bed later for nothing.

“No, no. Don’t apologise to us. We were just worried you weren’t able to sleep. You’re not hurt anywhere, are you?”

“Hannah’s right. Do you happen to have insomnia?”

I smiled.

“Yeah, I think you’re right. Insomnia.”

Will I be able to fall asleep if I knew I was going to die tomorrow? People find it hard to sleep when they’re too happy. They also could not sleep when they were too unhappy.

“Do you all like working here?”

“We like working here. We also like you too, my lady. It’s not easy for a woman to be treated this well when they’re working.”

After discussing their working environment, the maids began to say goodbye one by one before leaving the room. Now left alone, instead of lying down, I looked up at the sky.

Who knew what I would be doing two days from now? No one knew.

“Surviving is the most important. I have to, two days from now, on the 10th day of Habermia.”

I opened the drawer, changed my clothes before picking up the brush I placed on the chair. After grabbing the diary as well as the seeds that Amor gave me, I ran out of the room.

This whole week I had been stressed. Even when trapped on an uninhabited island for a long period of time with no signs of rescue workers, people could still manage to escape. By the way, it seemed like I was not the only one who felt stressed and trapped by time.

[The Year 821, the 9th day of the month of Habermia.

It was an unusually noisy morning. I had heard some shocking news.

Last night, my brother, the 4th Prince, passed away.]

The diary entry for the 8th day of the month of Habermia remained unchanged. The problem emerged when I flipped to another page just as I was about to fall asleep a night ago.

[My brother, the 4th prince… was poisoned…?!

I had goosebumps. I can’t believe he was just found cold in the morning. ]

When I opened my diary earlier that night, the contents of the diary had completely changed from what it had been. This was different from what I knew.

[A servant who has been a servant of the Teret Palace for a long time was said to be the culprit. I then decided to visit the Palace with my brother, the 7th Prince.]

The contents of the diary had changed. Now, all that was left was for the last entry to change. But when I came back from meeting Amor, the diary changed again. Now, the future that had not been changing finally was.

But what nonsense was this? Amor died?

He was one of the most important characters in <The Light of Rusbella> so why?

Storms were hitting me continuously.

After escaping from my gloomy future, I believed I could live a peaceful life again under the sun. I had believed that one day when I became an adult, I could leave the Palace. Thinking about my status, who knew what country I would be sold off to?

Though that was in the distant future, anything could happen tomorrow. I was actually a very selfish person. When I told my loved ones I loved them in my previous life, I did not even believe in love. My life had been too busy to believe in it. I heard that having a first love was like the blooming of a beautiful flower.

Hearing that love was as sweet as honey, I could only work to pay for gas than pay for self-care and my twenties faded just like that. In order not to get swept away by the unfairness of not getting recognised even if I was a successful office worker, I gave up achieving a sweet romance.

All my life, I had continued my dream of romance by reading novels. My romance only existed on screens.

My life, which I had lived for a long time, passed like the wind without giving me time to believe in the happiness that love could potentially bring me.

I did not believe in love at first sight. I did not believe in a perfect love. ‘Fate’ was a promise that could never be upheld. But the pained and sad main characters of the novels I read continued to love like that because it was all a ‘fantasy’.

I wondered how it felt to love someone. As soon as Rusbella appeared in front of Amor, did it feel like his Cinderella had arrived in her pumpkin carriage?

I was fine with anything.

Until then, Amor and I had to stay alive. That was why I had to protect this future that the diary predicted.

There was so much trash[3] in the world that we could not dispose of properly. A good person would always be taken advantage of and extorted whilst someone else reaps all the benefits. The shameless bastards who did not care about the pain and suffering of the ones they stepped on.

These victims would continue to be stepped on by the feet of these trash-like bastards as they were crushed, beaten, trampled on and exploited before disappearing.

[The 4th Prince’s poisoning. A servant who has been a servant of the Teret Palace for a long time was said to be the culprit. I then decided to visit the Palace with my brother, the 7th Prince.

Dane had muttered, “If anyone else had checked in on him at dawn, he wouldn’t have died.”]

The first time I read <The Light of Rusbella> I had thought Amor was a pushover.

After reading it the second, third and many times after, I still thought he was pitiful.

Boom. Crash!

But even when I had been curled up on my bed, holding a cup of tea and reading the diary, as selfish as it sounded, all I cared about was my own survival.

All I could think about was how my future was going to change after he died.

Pant pant.

I raised my head as I panted heavily.

“… Cough. What are you doing?”

Perhaps because the night had been chilly, hence making him cough more frequently, Amor’s voice sounded hoarse. He smacked my hand away roughly and when I reached out to him, he restrained me from approaching.

“Don’t come any closer.”

T/N:

Yayyy the plot is finally picking up pace!!!

[1]: Not a type or anything. Raws said six.

[2]: I realised that since she’s the 8th princess and not even closed to the throne in terms of succession, it makes more sense to call her a lady instead of addressing her as ‘Your Highness’.

[3]: Referring to human trash