YMA – 166

The guards escorting the Empress looked a bit despondent because they didn’t notice the unusual situation in her tent. The knights who joined the escort late were also dismal. They felt foolish for immersing themselves in the game without noticing that their master was in danger.

Normally, Medea would have comforted them all, but now she didn’t have the mental strength to do so.

She never thought the day would come when someone would recognize her being a fake and point it out.

She never deliberately pretended to be Medea, but… … Even when she was accused of cheating, she had nothing to say.

Moreover, even her exclusive attendants who were supposed to monitor Medea’s mood and wait on her had all withdrawn. It was unknown what kind of spell was cast on them, so at the moment, three or four maids from the ducal family were waiting on Medea.

“Your Majesty!”

Seeing Lyle enter the tent, the guards and maids bowed in unison. Sitting in her prepared chair, Medea rose from her seat with a vague impression.

“… … Go back to the imperial palace.”

The clean-up was left to another servant. Lyle and Medea had many things unsolved between them.

After saying that, he turned around. Seira was worried that Medea looked completely different from usual and watched her complexion anxiously. Medea’s face had turned even paler as if it had been drained of blood.

The tent where Medea was resting was prepared for the imperial family. The imperial carriage was already waiting in front of her.

‘Are we going together… …?’

An attendant opened the carriage door and was waiting. Medea flinched when she realized Lyle was standing beside her. He approached.

“Oh.”

He strode forward, took Medea in his arms, and climbed into the carriage.

The courtiers, nervous about the Emperor’s unusual behavior, exhaled. They didn’t know what happened between the two of them but concluded it would eventually be resolved.

As Lyle put her down and sat beside her, the attendant quietly closed the carriage door. When he got into the carriage with Medea, no one else accompanied them.

The carriage set off quietly.

In fact, Medea, the Empress, should have vacated this camp before any other aristocrat. However, she waited without leaving the hunting ground because she knew being by Lyle’s side was the safest place.

“I… … .”

The fist on his lap turned white.

“Is what I heard true?”

Lyle knew himself even now, feeling betrayed. When Medea apologized and pleaded in tears, he would have no choice but to move on. Now he was so deeply in love with her that he could not help but forgive her no matter what she did.

Medea agonized: Will you tell the truth or deny it?

It was the first time she heard from the owner of the Dark Tower that she was a wandering soul. In the first place, since she came to this world after she died, she never thought it was possible to go back to her original world. So she didn’t even try or consider it. Because she thought it was unattainable.

The Lord of the Dark Tower also only said so, but it seemed that he had no intention of sending her to the original world. Didn’t he say that he would make her a new body?

“… … What are you thinking?”

His outstretched hand wrapped around Medea’s cheek. He turned her head to make her look at him.

Medea blinked her eyes and looked at Lyle.

The man she decided to spend half her life with. Although she had been pushed by circumstances, the nights spent with him was more ecstatic than she thought.

He was still looking this way with a desperate look on his overly handsome face.

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t say that to hear that.”

Lyle’s face contorted miserably.

He may have been tricked, but it was entirely his choice that he gave his heart to her in the first place. She dwells in Medea’s body. It was only her.

“I want to know what happened. You… … Who are you?”

That word made her heart ache as if a wound was tearing open. She was afraid that she couldn’t answer ‘Medea.’

“Oh Suyeon.”

Her dark watery eyes were wet.

Lyle felt his heart break. Because Medea acknowledged it.

She was not Medea.

“Oh Soo-yeon… … .”

Lyle muttered slowly as if his strength was being depleted, and Medea added an explanation:

“‘Oh’ my last name… … My name is Suyeon.”

“Can you get out of that body?”

Lyle’s eyes that had looked subdued, suddenly looked sharp and cold as he asked Suyeon. Suyeon shook her head.

“I-I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

Suyeon hurriedly responded to Lyle’s sharpened voice.

“I don’t even know why I came into this body! I died in another world, but when I came to my senses, I became this person… … .”

“Dead, you say?”

A different fear, that of Medea’s death, came over Lyle.

No, she’s alive, he reassured himself. He felt the warmth of the skin he held now, so she was not dead.

In any case, the present Suyeon was alive in Medea’s body.

“Yes, in my world… … .”

She was ashamed to say that she had died from overdrinking. Although she had been forced to drink too much… … it was a bit… … .

Suddenly, an impatient hand pulled Suyeon.

Suyeon was suddenly in Lyle’s arms, dazed and confused about this bizarre situation: Aren’t you mad at me? You were angry.

Lyle, too, was very bewildered and confused. About Everything. Even though it wasn’t easy… … he wanted to be like this.

While the two were silent, the carriage quickly returned to the imperial palace.