The Male Lead Is Trying To Tame Me With Money - Chapter 105

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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105.

Even though it was full spring, it was still cool in the middle of the night.

When I came out lightly dressed and coughed softly, Casian wrapped the shawl he had brought around me as if he had expected this.

“…I wondered why you brought that.”

“Rose, you relax too much once work is finished.”

At his pointed words, I silently pulled the shawl tightly around myself.

Around the Winter Palace, there were hardly any tall buildings, so the view was completely open.

Even though it was a scene I had faced countless times over the past two and a half years, I had rarely walked leisurely like this, so it felt strangely new.

“Didn’t you have something to say?”

As we walked slowly, enjoying the tranquility, I suddenly asked Casian, who had been unusually quiet, and he answered with a low laugh.

“No, I really just wanted to spend a little time with Rose.”

He had been escorting me as usual, but then as if remembering something, he intertwined his fingers with mine.

“The busier we get, the less time we have to talk with each other.”

It doesn’t seem like we’re talking much now either.

I was about to make that retort but just smiled quietly instead.

I figured he wanted to spend some leisure time together.

As we continued walking quietly like this, it became even more real.

How accustomed we had become to each other.

Without a single conversation, just feeling each other’s warmth through our clasped hands, I didn’t feel awkward or bored at all – just comfortable.

My nerves, which had been on edge from having so many things to worry about, gradually began to settle.

‘…Now that my head has cooled down a bit, there are some things that concern me though.’

It’s only for one day, so wouldn’t it be okay to focus on myself for today?

With that thought, I cherished this rare moment of leisure and looked around.

Even though the Winter Palace garden was only maintained to a moderate degree, spring itself was like a jewel, making it satisfyingly beautiful.

‘…Huh?’

As I was walking slowly hand in hand with Casian, I felt something off.

It wasn’t like before when the atmosphere or season had changed, but.

‘Was the finishing on that wall always so sloppy…?’

While traces of time were inevitable in such an old palace, this wasn’t a place that had been carelessly maintained.

This palace should bear traces of Casian’s meticulousness that had changed after meeting me.

Along with this realization, I suddenly felt something off about the texture of the hand I was holding.

The moment I quickly turned my head to look beside me, Casian had a puzzled expression.

“What’s wrong?”

I wanted to believe it was just an illusion from fatigue, but his next words made me stiffen.

“Are you worried about tomorrow’s banquet?”

“Banquet?”

Tomorrow I’m supposed to be practically confined to the Winter Palace with a packed schedule of creating problems, checking them, and doing other work?

Casian Artez wouldn’t have failed to tell me about such an important matter.

No, in the current situation where Winter Palace personnel were being controlled, there was no one in the Empire tactless enough to send banquet invitations.

When I reflexively let go of Casian’s hand, he frowned.

That too was different.

The Casian I knew, when faced with such a situation, would either comfort me asking what was wrong, or try to charm me by acting hurt.

“-Yes, even your way of speaking – are you already practicing? You don’t need to be so nervous.”

Casian Artez smiled.

It wasn’t the pretty smile he used to entice me, but an expression mixed with slight dignity and naturalness.

A face I didn’t know.

A chill swept over me as if the cold night air had seeped into my body.

Because work was busy, because immediate reality was urgent.

My complacent wish to relax just briefly after all the hardships began to torment me instead.

And that fear.

“I’ll protect you.”

Words that the one I knew wouldn’t say, and

“Rosie.”

A different form of address hit me like a blow to the head.

“…Rosie?”

To Casian before my eyes who looked puzzled.

To the ‘original Casian.’

I couldn’t give any answer.

As I stepped back hesitantly, he spoke again.

“Really, what’s wrong, Rosie. Just trust me like usual, okay?”

A much more familiar tone than now, gestures that showed we’d been together for a long time.

The way he tried to comfort me was similar, but the method was too different.

‘This isn’t real.’

I forcefully denied him in my heart.

*

As I stood there as if nailed in place, he said he’d bring some water and tried to escort me to a nearby bench.

Rather than a polite escort, he tried to grab me roughly, making me feel even more out of place as I shook my head at him.

Thanks to him leaving, my mind became clearer instead.

‘It’s okay, if I wait a little, things will return to normal.’

Because that’s how it had been before.

I tried to comfort myself, wanting to deny reality.

But a question suddenly arose in one corner of my mind.

‘Really?’

This wasn’t something written on the scroll, but an episode from the original work?

I felt my hands and feet grow cold at the original content that came to mind unbidden.

One of the crises where Rozelita nearly died, located in the middle-to-late part of the work.

The kidnapping episode at the banquet.

The day before, just like now, the two had walked around the Winter Palace worrying about the banquet.

‘Did the worlds mix because of the similar situation?’

That would be fortunate, rather.

But somehow I felt that wasn’t it.

The one who had given me answers separately had clearly said.

That the worlds were mixing, faster than they had expected.

And to prevent that, I needed to fulfill the trial content and the unreleased prophecy book they had delivered.

But I had temporarily forgotten due to all the various incidents recently.

Sighing and looking down, I saw the scroll wrapped around my wrist even though this wasn’t the world I knew.

Along with relief, I felt an impulse to open it.

I felt that if I opened it and found changes in any part of the unreleased prophecy book, I could feel reassured.

Because then I could really return.

But I couldn’t touch it.

My intuition, which couldn’t be explained logically, was crying out.

That this wasn’t a trial or unreleased prophecy book, but ‘mixing.’

Moreover, the fact that I might have brought this upon myself somewhat painfully pierced my heart.

‘I’ve intentionally prevented situations where trials might occur.’

The Imperial Palace had been too chaotic, and experiencing trials in that situation would have been too overwhelming to handle.

If it were just a problem between me and Casian, it might be different, but other people could get involved too.

So I postponed it.

It was for everyone’s sake.

It wasn’t just fulfilling my own selfishness.

I quietly looked around while barely managing to organize my thoughts.

It didn’t have the comfortable feeling compared to the existing Winter Palace.

Even though it was a similar space, I could feel that Casian here had paid almost no attention to maintaining the palace.

Even achieving this level of appearance was thanks to Rozelita here taking care of it.

The original Casian should have been truly grateful to her.

Not to me.

To her, who had to willingly endure all kinds of pain and harden her soft heart.

Not to me, who was just wearing a shell pretending to be her.

‘Honestly, I’m not confident.’

If I couldn’t return and had to act like the original Rozelita as my reality, I would choose to just abandon everything and run away.

It would be better for me to just give up on Casian here.

Everything I cherished and built together with Casian wasn’t here.

No matter how much he had the same name, the same face, and even similar martial arts, he wasn’t the Casian Artez I knew.

This was a world I had no responsibility for.

‘So please send me back.’

To Casian who was demon-like, cunning, and tried to look even a little prettier to me, whom I knew well.

Suppressing the urge to cry, I looked up at the sky.

I could see the edges of the sky subtly scattering.

And like some kind of hint, ‘his’ voice knocked at my ears.

‘The way you address me.’

Those words he had obsessed over, as if sulking.

The fear that had been binding me like chains lifted in an instant, and my head filled with his voice.

So I opened my mouth toward the empty air.

“I, an.”

I felt like something was being lifted away above the sky.

*

Several seconds passed after calling him.

Even though he wasn’t immediately visible before my eyes, I could strangely feel at ease.

‘…The walls are neat.’

Unlike the neglected Winter Palace garden from before, the cleanliness of properly pruned branches and weeded grounds reassured me.

Soon he approached me with urgent steps.

I wanted to get up and run to him too.

But for some reason, I couldn’t put strength in my legs, so I unconsciously spread my arms wide.

“…Rose?”

At the familiar tone and way of addressing me that followed, I could finally smile properly.

“Yes, Ian.”

When I answered quietly like a murmur, he smiled with relief and strode over to embrace me tightly.

“…I thought I had lost you.”

At his choked voice and that desperation, I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight.

“No, you guided me properly.”

From a place that wasn’t mine at all, to this place where I had something to face and protect.

The moment I thought that, a notification sounded from the scroll wrapped around my arm.

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