TVGS 122

Chapter 122

In Etias’s arms, I felt a desperate trembling.

Even though his voice proved the depth of his feelings for me, I sensed something strange.

So I tapped lightly on his shoulder, asking him to let go.

Reluctantly, as if it pained him deeply, he slowly released me.

I reached out and cupped his cheek.

His eyes, clouded with despair, looked at me like a lost puppy begging for its master.

“What’s wrong?”

I furrowed my brows and asked him.

“Tell me, Your Majesty.”

I couldn’t stand needless misunderstandings anymore. I had to know why he was suffering so much.

“Heros… said that?”

At Etias’s confession, I sat in shock, my mind blank.

Why I, the duke’s daughter, could shoot a bow so well.

Why I had become bound to share Etias’s fate.

There must have been countless questions he could have asked me, but Heros never pressed.

That’s why I had assumed he must have realized something on his own.

But for him to know so clearly — even that I came from another world…

I pressed my hand to my aching chest.

Heros had known I wasn’t the real Katrin Elemore, and yet he still chose to follow me.

No matter who I was, no matter what I wanted.

Silently, all he ever wished for was my happiness.

—I’ll stay by your side.

The thought of his devotion made my fists tremble as tears threatened to fall.

I had received such undeserved love from him.

After a moment of silence, Etias’s lips moved.

“When you were five, at Cambute Palace, you once said something strange to me.”

His words made me flinch.

“You said someone named Manager Kim was bullying you.”

“…!”

I covered my mouth with my hand.

“And… you told me I had to endure, even when winter came.”

“….”

“You said I would definitely become emperor.”

His deep blue eyes fixed entirely on me.

A dream I had half-forgotten suddenly came back, the dream where I met Etias.

So I really had said those words then.

“From that moment, I kept watching you for a while. But after that… you never showed me that same warmth again, as if you’d become a different person. So eventually, I forgot.”

Etias’s gaze on me was immeasurably deep.

“As if I’d dreamed a fleeting dream. Because the girl I saw after that was no longer the same as before.”

Of course. After that moment, the original arrogant Katrin Elemore must have returned.

It was the same soul, but before I entered, she was not the same as I am now.

“But now I know. The one I fell in love with was a hero who came from another world to save me.”

The word “hero” felt far too grand when all I had done was support him, but his eyes were filled with nothing but sincerity.

“You gave me the world. But I cannot give you yours. If… if that’s what you wish…”

His throat moved as he swallowed.

As if forcing out words he didn’t want to say, the veins stood out on his clenched fists.

“I… have to let you go…”

But the words broke off.

Pain consumed him, head to toe.

Then, with a deep breath, he looked at me with burning eyes.

“No.”

I blinked, startled, as his gaze threatened to spill over with tears.

“I can’t. Never.”

His voice was heavy with possession, guilt, despair, and longing all at once.

The Etias of the novel was a boy who, since childhood, had never once thrown a tantrum demanding something — not even from his parents.

No matter how much he suffered, he never abandoned his pride.

But now, in a rough, broken voice, he spoke to me:

“Don’t go back. No… if you must, then take me with you. Even if the world you live in is hell, I’ll follow.”

My heart lurched at the raw truth carried in his voice.

“Even if I burn in agony every day, it doesn’t matter. Even if I die daily — as long as I’m with you, it’s worth it.”

This was how Etias loved.

Asking me to take him with me, to live in my world.

Looking at him, my heart aching, I finally spoke.

“I can’t take you with me.”

His brows furrowed, and he grabbed my shoulders.

“Katrin!”

Suddenly, despair darkened his eyes.

“Because…”

But I smiled — that same wicked smile I had once shown him before — and continued firmly:

“Because I’m not going back.”

Yes. I had already decided.

“What did you just say…”

Etias’s eyes widened, his blue irises trembling.

The shadow of despair that had been covering him slowly began to lift.

“I already made my choice. In front of the writer who brought me here.”

I no longer wore the watch that had been on my wrist since the day I arrived in this world.

That writer — Etias’s ancestor — had once told me:

Three years from now, the watch would open a path to return home.

Because it was crafted from his most powerful relic, it could link worlds together.

But there was one other thing it could do.

“Instead of sending me home…”

—It can tear out the cursed shadow power from the Clyde bloodline.

“I asked him to make it painless. For you.”

If I returned the watch, he said he would pour the rest of his soul into creating a special substance.

A substance that could erase the “shadow” — his prize from the Rift — that had seeped into the Clyde bloodline.

The shadow was the power that gave Etias his immense strength, but at the cost of his body’s constant suffering.

But in a peaceful empire, that power would no longer be necessary. Etias, after all, was already the strongest in the world with just his swordsmanship.

“So I asked him, Etias von Clyde… to take away your shadow.”

Hearing his name from my lips, his eyes shook violently.

“When the war is over.”

I smiled softly at him, who stared at me, speechless.

“For the record, my world isn’t hell. But… it’s not filled with good memories either.”

It had been a harsh life.

“So I have no regrets. You don’t need to feel guilty…”

But I couldn’t finish.

Because he pulled me into his arms and kissed me.

“…!”

His soft lips pressed against mine, his rough breath flooding into me, catching my tongue.

My back went rigid with tension, my mind flashing white as dizziness overtook me.

“Mm…”

Even the small moan that escaped me, he swallowed hungrily.

His strong hands gripped my waist tightly, as if I were something sweet to devour, and he tasted every breath of mine like it was air itself.

After a long while of devouring my lips and breath, Etias finally pulled back.

Panting without realizing it, I looked at him with trembling eyes.

His dark gaze devoured me whole.

With ragged breaths, his desperate, burning voice spilled out:

“Stay by my side forever, Katrin.”

The unexpected words made me flinch.

But with feverish eyes and pleading breaths, he pressed me again:

“When the war ends, marry me.”

Like a drowning man clinging to a piece of straw, his desperate plea sent shivers through my entire body.