Limited Extra Time - Chapter 33

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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—— Page 1 ——

Abelia was someone who needed to be protected. I had believed that all older and younger sibling relationships were like that. I thought it was natural for an older sister to sacrifice for her younger brother.

But once I stepped out into the world and came to understand it, cracks formed in what had once seemed inevitable.

“It’s my life… it was my life, and yet I came all this way to the Physician, trying not to dredge up my past circumstances. Looking back now, I realize there was no ‘me’ in my own life.”

Carina Leopold exhaled a long breath.

“Miss.”

“Yes.”

“There’s nothing strange about it. You are a person. And people are always the ones who inflict wounds upon people.”

At his calm voice, Carina Leopold’s eyes widened. Gentle ripples stirred across her crystalline blue irises.

“Whether it’s tearing open someone’s heart with words or forging weapons to take a life—it’s all done by people.”

—— Page 2 ——

Winston reached out from where he had been caressing his teacup and grasped both of Carina Leopold’s hands firmly.

His palms were rough, covered entirely in calluses, yet the warmth radiating from them was far more comforting than standing before a fireplace on a winter’s day.

“It’s a difficult thing, remaining beside those who have wounded you. You’ve endured for such a long time. It must have been terribly hard.”

At Winston’s voice, seasoned with years of experience, Carina Leopold’s eyes widened suddenly. His calloused hand awkwardly caressed the back of her hand.

stroked it awkwardly.

In that warmth, her eyes—which had held such delicate emotion—began to tremble finely, like a ship caught in a tempest.

With a soft sound, Carina Leopold’s head drooped downward.

“There was once a time when my Younger Brother stole my purse. That day, I was feeling melancholy, so I asked Mother if I could sleep beside her for just one night.”

Carina Leopold spoke softly.

“Mother was furious, saying I was thoughtless, and I wished my Younger Brother didn’t exist. That day, I was struck by Mother for the first time.”

“I said I wished I didn’t have a younger sibling, and that day was the first time Mother ever hit me.”

Carina Leopold’s eyes grew heavy and distant.

They sank as if plummeting into the deepest abyss, and her once-transparent gaze became clouded, all vitality draining from them in an instant.

Even now, when I closed my eyes, the memory surfaced with crystalline clarity.

No matter how deeply I buried it, this recollection would return in the dead of night as a nightmare, sending shivers down my spine.

Beneath my eyelids, I saw a pale hand raised high, trembling with fury.

It descended in a graceful arc toward where my gaze was fixed.

“How could you be so thoughtless! How could you harbor such a terrible wish about your Younger Brother! And you call yourself his older sister! What kind of grown woman are you, throwing such childish tantrums!

—— Page 3 ——

Be grateful you were born healthy, and treat your Younger Brother better!”

“But Mother, I’m running a fever…”

“Are you going to keep making excuses? I told you not to lie.”

Mother’s voice, sharp with horror as if shrieking, struck me like a blow.

Carina, compared to those poor children out there, you live a very fortunate life. If you say such things again, you’ll be cast out to the Slums. There, you won’t have delicious meals, pretty clothes, or a clean room. Do you understand?

…Yes.

Then what should you say?

…I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.

Trembling with fear that even crying would earn me a scolding, I simply begged for forgiveness.

Though I didn’t fully understand what the Slums were or what happened there, the threat of being cast out terrified me.

Yes. Sigh, I wish Lia had been as healthy as you are.

More than the sharp sting of the slap or the heat rising across my cheek, it was Mother’s expression as she struck me and turned away with fury etched across her face that burned itself into my memory.

What chilled me most was that final look in her eyes, the tone of her voice—as if she were blaming me for being born healthy.

Miss, I too have known times of great sorrow.

Winston’s voice emerged through the quiet, heavy air.

Carina Leopold lifted her gaze to meet his eyes instead of answering.

—— Page 4 ——

His eyes, as if recalling a faded memory, grew clouded and heavy, sinking endlessly like into the deep, dark abyss of the sea.

“You know I suffered from a wasting illness, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I loved embroidery dearly. When I was embroidering, I didn’t have to think about anything at all.”

Carina Leopold nodded absently, and Winston smiled gently.

“That’s what happened to you as well, wasn’t it? There were times when you didn’t want to think about anything?”

It was something I had hidden away so carefully, never telling a soul, never even admitting it to myself.

Hearing it spoken aloud by another felt strangely peculiar. She reflexively shook her head.

“I loved embroidery, but… a man doing embroidery is not viewed favorably by society.”

“But your work was…!”

“You’re right, Miss. Art knows no gender, no hierarchy.”

He smiled with gentle kindness. Watching that warm smile, Carina Leopold could not bring herself to smile in return.

“But it seems that as one grows older, the mind hardens and calcifies.”

Winston let out a bitter laugh.

Carina Leopold blinked blankly, witnessing a different facet of the man who had appeared so benevolent until now.

“My parents wanted me to become a Knight and receive a title, but truthfully, I was utterly hopeless at any form of physical training.”

Winston whispered as though sharing a secret, his voice hushed.

“But I didn’t want to kill people. Others condemned me as a weak man.”

Carina gazed at him with a serene expression, sensing the profound depth of experience beneath his bitter smile.

“The more I was criticized, the deeper I immersed myself in embroidery, until one day I experienced something extraordinary.”

—— Page 5 ——

A profound smile settled across Winston’s lips.

“I lost something precious. No matter how much I searched, I simply couldn’t find it, so I eventually decided to let it go.”

Winston’s gaze grew distant.

Opening the old memory box again, dusting away the accumulated years, was something he hadn’t done in a very long time.

“I embroidered that object and burned it in the flames, just as one would after a funeral, sending the deceased’s belongings to accompany them.”

“Just like when we burn the deceased’s belongings to send them along.”

Whenever I tried to recall what happened back then, it remained vividly etched in my mind even now.

It was the first miracle Winston had ever seen.

He could never forget that sight. The beautiful glow of light that began to burn again from the extinguished flames.

“That was literally a name called a miracle.”

Suddenly, it was as if a golden gleam flickered and vanished in his pupils.

A cluster of light rose gently from the sky that had turned to ash and vanished.

Winston averted his gaze slightly from Carina as he spoke.

“It seemed to beckon me forward, spinning in place before beginning to move in some direction with purpose.”

He demonstrated by twirling his fingers through the air a few times.

“When I came to my senses, I found myself following that luminous aura as if enchanted.”

“….”

“…And then I discovered it. The precious thing I thought I had lost. A miracle allowed me to reclaim it.”

Carina listened to his words in silence. This was the first time she had ever heard someone speak of their own miracle.

“From that moment on, I began to experiment with my ability in various ways.”

A smile played at the corners of Winston’s mouth.

—— Page 6 ——

“My ability could find anything. The activation condition was simple—embroider a name and burn it in flame.”

Carina’s eyes widened considerably.

‘So that’s how he knew where I was….’

He had found me precisely, even though I never told him.

Seeing Carina’s astonished expression, Winston smiled knowingly.

Then he spoke again.

“With that as the price, I could find anything.

And I eventually realized that I didn’t even need to

embroider a name for the target I wished to find.”

“That’s remarkable.”

“It was quite remarkable. The preparation for it was simple enough—I merely had to think of what I wanted to find while embroidering the pattern.”

Winston chuckled softly, speaking with evident delight.

“After that, I opened a small Consultation Office. I found criminals, provided clues about perpetrators, located missing children and lost pets, and so forth….”

Winston’s face was brighter than one might have expected.

He appeared genuinely happy, as though recalling the glory of his past.

“I felt like a hero.”

Through his words, I glimpsed fragments of Winston’s joyful past.

“In a life where I had always been scorned, the world began to revolve around me as the protagonist. My parents no longer objected to my embroidery work.

ji.”

“….”

This was another version of my own story.

Had Carina Leopold chosen to reveal everything, this might have been another path I could have walked.

“With everyone’s encouragement, I embroidered ceaselessly. I earned a considerable amount of money as well.

“wasn’t it.”

“Yes….”

“Nearly twenty years passed that way. I thought my eyes were simply growing tired, but the days when my vision grew blurry became increasingly frequent.”

—— Page 7 ——

“Yes. I thought my vision was just getting blurry, but lately there are more and more days when it gets progressively blurry.”

Winston’s voice grew quieter. The eyes that had once gleamed with vitality became slightly clouded.

“I continued embroidering through touch alone, but it was no longer satisfying.”

Winston shook his head.

“And when I thought I wasn’t satisfied, the miracle never came.”

“I see….”

“Then at thirty-five, at a late age, I went to the hospital. I was diagnosed with art disease.”

Carina Leopold drew in a sharp breath.

“If things continued as they were, I would go blind. The only way to prevent it was to put down the needle and thread—to stop painting.”

At his words, her body went rigid. She had never even dreamed of abandoning art.

“I had prepared nothing else, having believed in this alone.”

Winston laughed hollowly. But Carina Leopold could not bring herself to laugh with him.

Though he could speak of it now as a memory, she could scarcely fathom how much suffering he must have endured to reach that point.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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