Prince, I Don’t Want To Be Killed by You This Time! -The Poor Lady Who Was Framed by the Saint, Avoids Being Skewered the Second Time! ~ - Chapter 39

　The crown prince rolled on the wet grass and said in a gravelly voice.

“Liei ……sel?　Why?”

　I reached out my hand and helped the Crown prince raise himself up.

　His twin brown eyes, which had been making eye contact with mine, quickly drifted downward at an angle and looked down at my hair, which had been slashed by the sword.

“Liesel, how did your hair get like that?”

　His eyes reached the sword that had fallen beside him. He touched the scabbard at his waist, keeping his focus on the sword with a look of disbelief. The empty scabbard.

　The crown prince’s eyes widened.

‘You don’t mean …… me?’

　The crown prince looked around at the rain hazed surroundings and asked, holding his temples.

“What’s going on?　This place…”

“What color was the amulet I gave you?”

　I asked, interrupting him, and he blinked furiously at my abrupt question.

　Please, I beg you, answer me. The color of the amulet, which only he who went to war should have known.

“Liesel, this is…”

“Answer me! It’s about the amulet I gave you before you left for Mikunov….!”

　My voice becomes sharp with impatience. His hair is wet from the rain and continues to drip water, brushing his bangs in a depressed manner, he answered 

“There was no color. It was a transparent water flower.”

(Oh, God!!!)

　I was so moved that my eyes were burning.

　–It was him.

　My Ulysses is really back.

　Too happy to put any energy into it, I plop to my knees on the ground.

　I look up at the crown prince with an awkward smile on my face.

“Welcome back, Your Highness.”

“Your—Highness?”

　The crown prince immediately looked down at his clothes.

　He touched his luxuriously embroidered sleeves, looked down at his hands and was rigid for a few seconds. Then he huffed and touched his own face with both hands.

　Probably trying to check his face.

　His brown eyes widened in shock, and his hands trembled slightly.

“No way ……. No, it can’t be ……!”

　The crown prince is completely flustered by this sudden turn of events.

　I shoved my hand into my pocket and held out to him the round hand mirror I was carrying.

　He took it silently and looked at himself in the mirror.

　He rubbed his hand repeatedly to remove the spray from the rain-soaked, hard-to-see surface.

“This is…I can’t believe it.”

　He ran his hand over his face again and again, checking the mirror. He couldn’t immediately believe that he had returned to his true form – to the crown prince. 

“What in the world ……?”

　He turned to me, still clutching the mirror. He turned his eyes, which were trembling with agitation, to me desperately and appealed in a gravelly voice.

“Liesel, it’s me. Gideon Lanca…no. I don’t know where to start.”

“It’s okay. I know everything. Maybe more than you.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. That we’re in our second life now. That we loved each other in our first life. That you were in Gideon just a few minutes ago when you rewound.”

“Since when?”

“Since the moment I came back. It’s been a long time”

　The crown prince reached out a trembling hand toward me, but dropped it in mid-sentence.

“You remember? Everything….?”

“Yes. That’s why I changed the future with Mac and Cynthia.”

“Liesel, you never said a word about it.”

“It was only recently that I discovered you had been replaced.”

　The crown prince held out his hands and peered into his palms.

“I have no idea how I was able to get back again.”

“Gideon that was inside you a moment ago was trying to prevent the replacement from dissolving when the time came. But I’m sure he has regained his true body by now.”

　The crown prince raised his gaze again and looked at me.

“We’re back? Back in our own bodies……”

“Yes. The initiator and the initiated have regained their true form, Ulysses. –Let’s go somewhere with a roof for now.”

　My whole body is soaking wet from the rain and I wobble as I try to stand up on cold feet.

　He extends his arm to support me, but his gaze is fixed on my neck.

“We must go to the infirmary at once! You’re bleeding.”

　He stands up unsteadily and puts his hand on my back. The moment his rain-soaked hand touched my back, I unconsciously flinched away.

　Not only that, I swatted it away lightly with my right hand.

　The crown prince’s eyes glazed over as if hurt.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

　I can’t adjust quickly enough to the fact that inside is the real Ulysses, that Gideon I studied with. When I regain my composure and take his hand, I’m surprised at how hot it is.

　We had to go straight to the infirmary.

　I supported him and tried to get him to walk.

　Then I realized.

“Speaking of which, where has Gideon been all this time?”

“I was sleeping in an abandoned house on the border until yesterday. I’ve been on the lookout because my superiors were acting suspiciously. So when the remnants of the sabers broke into the tent, I set one of them up with me and got away just in time. If I returned to my unit, they would try to kill me again, so I went into hiding. I was on my way to King’s Landing now and I’ve been camping out.”

“Camping out?”

” –I was bitten by mosquitoes and thanks to that,  my face swelled up to hide my physiognomy.”

“That must have been hard. I guess Gideon’s back to his old self by now, huh?”

“Yes, he is. I was just about out of food.”

　I felt a little sorry for him, imagining that he would have woken up in his real body by now.

　Ulysses then caught a cold, developed a high fever and was bedridden for five days.

　I, as a magician in the Kingsguard, took a leave of absence during that time and Cynthia, Mac and I celebrated the safe arrival of “that day” in a grand manner at a tavern in the royal capital.

　The tavern was abuzz with the scandal of a certain noble family. The Duke of Lancaster.

　Gideon Lancaster, who had been thought to be dead, had miraculously returned to life and the duke was overjoyed. However, when he escaped from his tent in the fire, he had lost all his magic, and the shock had changed him completely, leaving the duke and his family in a state of bewilderment. The royal court magician will have to quit.

　It can’t be helped because he has really changed inside. Instead, perhaps, the magic had returned to the bedraggled Ulysses. Magic is attached to the soul.

　It was the first day of work since the crown prince had recovered from his cold.

　I was as nervous as if it were my first visit to the royal palace as a Kingsguard magician.

　My heart was beating oddly until the moment I stood in front of the large door of the crown prince’s office and knocked.

　After clearing my throat, I knocked on the door with a thump.

I heard the familiar voice of the crown prince saying, “Come in. The voice itself was the same as until just the other day.

　However, I sense a difference in the subtle softness of his voice and the way he says it.

　I close the door behind me and enter.

　He leaves his desk in his office and walks toward me on the marble floor with a smile on his face.

　It looks familiar, but It’s the real crown prince, whom I have not seen in thirteen years.

　The crown prince, Ulysses had some difficulty performing his official duties after recovering from a high fever. He had suffered a partial memory loss after the fever (or so it was thought).

　After all, it had been thirteen years. Although he had done the same thing in his first life, it wasn’t so easy. I, who had been accompanying the crown prince for the past year, taught him the details and managed to help him get back on his feet.

　The attendants were puzzled at first, but they were more pleased with the change in Ulysses’ personality, which had rounded out and made him calmer.

　Within a month, Ulysses, who was a quick learner, was able to perform his duties without checking with me or others.

　He often turned to me with a wistful look on his face.

“Liesel, I’m so sorry about your hair.”

　Ulysses touched my shoulder-length black hair with his fingertips. He seemed to think it was his fault that I had to cut it short.

　Being a sensible man, he kept a certain distance from me during his office hours and the first thing he needed to work on now was to pick up the pace of his official duties. That is where he had to put all his energy, both physically and mentally.

　So we sealed off our feelings since that rainy day and continued to be just the Kingsguard Magician and the crown prince.

　Above all, my feelings were complicated.

　We needed time to sort out our feelings.