No way…….

Her heart sank.

“Eleanor…….”

She staggered over to Eleanor and shook her shoulder, but she didn’t stir, except for a few colorful exhalations.

Erina’s breath caught in her throat at the sight of her.

“D, Doctor.”

Finally, she summoned a maid and carried Eleanor to the bed, but the doctor who arrived late, only shook his head.

“We can only wait until she wakes up.”

Erina nodded, dumbfounded.

As soon as she saw the white powder at the corner of Eleanor’s mouth, she knew it was out of her hands.

It was so fine that it must have escaped the doctor’s notice, but Erina knew at once what it was.

There was no one in the Empire more familiar with poisons than Eleanor, and she’d shaken the white powder into her mouth with a clear purpose.

Perhaps Eleanor would never wake up again.

At this realization, Erina’s hysterical laughter escaped her.

The doctor looked at her in disbelief, then spoke again.

“I have sent someone to deliver the news to His Highness, so he should be here shortly. I realize you are shaken, but perhaps you should return to your home and collect yourself.”

Funnily enough, the mere mention of Cardan’s arrival sharpened my mind.

All the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together in my mind.

She envisioned the perfect plan to restrain the enraged Cardan and claim the duchy.

When she finished, Erina let out a small gasp.

Cecilia was right.

“I was a demon.”

She pointed to the powder at the corner of Eleanor’s mouth, feigning discovery.

“What is this?”

“Uh……?”

Erina pretended to examine the powder while the doctor was baffled by the microscopic smudge around her lips.

“It’s a powder made from morning glory root.”

The senator’s eyes widened, wondering if she’d ever heard of morning glory.

“I’ve only heard of it by rumor, but isn’t it a plant used as a poison?”

Erina nodded.

“Apparently, the concubine ate it and collapsed, so we’ll need an antidote.”

“An antidote!”

A glimmer of hope appeared in the doctor’s eyes, then quickly vanished.

“Ha, but where do we get the morning glory antidote?”

“In the duchy.”

Seeing the doctor’s urgency, Erina began to pour out her words in a confident voice.

She must take advantage of the confusion and push on. She must get this done before Cardan arrives.

“I collect rare plants, and among them is the harpre, which is used as an antidote.”

It wasn’t a lie.

It was true that the leaves of the harpre is an antidote for the morning glory. But only the poison in the petals and stems of the morning glory. No antidote could work on the roots, where all the poison was concentrated.

Fortunately, the doctor didn’t seem to realize that.

“Then I’ll send someone to the duchy right away to get the harpre!”

Erina shook her head at the councilor’s insistence.

“You can’t just send someone. The harpre is a very delicate plant, and if it’s moved wrong, it could wither and die.”

Erina concluded in a firm voice.

“We’ll have to take her to the duchy ourselves.”

The councilor nodded hesitantly.

“We’ll be on our way as soon as His Highness the Prince arrives.”

Erina frowned.

This would all be for naught once Cardan arrived.

Luckily, just then, a maid came panting into the bedroom.

“The crown prince is out riding, and it will take him a while to hear the news.”

Erina seized the opportunity.

“We’re in a hurry. It’s not too late to move the concubine first, and then inform His Highness.”

***

And so it was done.

Eleanor, moved to the ducal castle, made a great hostage, and Cardan, captured, made a great tyrant.

And most of all, Erina became a great Duke of Baloa.

The scene in the dream changed.

Erina was now standing in Eleanor’s bedroom in the ducal castle.

“Do you blame me?”

Naturally, there was no answer.

Eleanor was still in a deep sleep, and her candle, stolen from the shrine, was still dead except for a faint wisp of smoke.

Still, Erina continued to mutter.

“It’s no use blaming me, for unlike you, I know no remorse.”

Erina clutched her shrine candle. Unlike Eleanor’s, her candle danced with life.

“Even if I destroy everything with my hands. I will never regret it.”

She repeated it over and over again.

“I will never regret.”

She couldn’t regret it.

The little girl who’d fought her way up through the ranks of the ducal family was now at the top of the duchy, nay, the empire.

The aristocratic society she had run so hard to be recognized by now hinged on her words.

“With the world at my feet, why should I regret it?”

The corner of Erina’s mouth twisted upward.

She wondered what she was doing with a sleeping person, but it was hard to stop a conversation once it had begun.

“Everyone is afraid of me.”

Shrugging her shoulders proudly, Erina let out a small laugh.

“And your son hates me.”

At that moment, the flame of the candle in her hand flickered as if swept away by the wind, along with a pain that squeezed her heart.

Often, as now, the pain would come for no reason, leaving only a strange sense of emptiness.

“I don’t regret it.”

Erina recited again, staring into the candle.

“I have no regrets.”

If she’s honest, she’s had her share of silly thoughts.

Like, if she could turn back time, when would she do it?

Before Eleanor overheard her threatening Cardan?

Shouldn’t she have not threatened Cardan in the first place?

Even if she hadn’t treated Cecilia so badly in the ballroom before that…….

No, if the Harris family had been properly compensated instead of Cecilia coming to the duchy broke and crying.

If only she had refused her father’s orders to steal the technology from Harris Pharmaceuticals in the first place.

Should she have stayed the Duke’s spoiled brat forever.

Erina shook her head.

No matter how many times she thought about it, the conclusion was the same.

If she could turn back time, she would have made the same choice.

She would have approached Cecilia to help pay for her mother’s medicines, and she would have kept the family’s wealthy Cecilia Harris to herself so as not to offend her father.

She would have been more vicious in her attempts to stay with the duke, and she would have pushed Cecilia harder that night in the ballroom, conscious of the eyes of others.

She would have been equally hurt by the disgust in Cardan’s eyes and equally obsessed with the duchy, as if to compensate.

As a result, she would have been unable to bear Cardan’s disgust and, in her despair, would have bought his hatred.

“If I could turn back time…….”

Even though she knew she couldn’t change anything, the thought kept running through her head.

There was no way to turn back time.

No, there wasn’t even a good reason to turn back time.

It’s a terrible idea, isn’t it, to leave the present and go back to the past?

But why does she keep thinking about it?

“Ahaha, haha…….”

Laughing at her own stupidity, Erina let out a shrill laugh.

“Haha……. Ugh…….”

A single drop of water fell onto the flickering candle and evaporated.

“If there really is a God.”

Again, and again, and again, and again.

But she couldn’t stop herself.

“If there really is one. Give me back my time.”

Her hand tightened around the candle.

“If only I could turn back time…….”

She didn’t care about the superstitions of the shrine as she lit the candle to bind Cardan to her once and for all.

“I swear I’ll make everything right.”

She had clearly had too much to drink.

She’d had too much to drink.

Still, Erina stared at the candle for a while, unmoving.

She didn’t know what she was hoping for.

Waiting for a miracle, waiting to hear the voice of God.

No, anything would do, anything would change.

But the candle only glowed in silence.

Time passed in silence.

“So it is.”

Erina laughed in vain and set the candle down on the table.

There was no point in wasting any more time on useless thoughts.

She left Eleanor’s chambers, deciding it would be more productive to prepare for tomorrow’s Council of State.

It was imperative that she attend tomorrow’s cabinet meeting to ensure that Cardan was handling Lord Ethan properly.

***

“Ah…….”

With a terrible headache, ‘I’ slowly awoke.

The real ‘me’, not the possessed one.

Erina Balboa.

Duke of Baloa.

The true owner of this body.

Slowly, everything began to make sense.

How I’ve never remembered my name before I ‘transmigrated’.

I couldn’t remember the title of the novel I was ‘transmigrated’ to.

The fragmented memories of the Duke of Baloa.

All because I was really Erina Baloa.

It was as if I had lost all my memories since that day when I had asked the gods to give me a chance at anything.

I had never been Erina Baloa, except for the memories of my previous life as a call center worker that seeped into that empty space.

Even the original novel I thought I was possessing was not really a novel I had read in a previous life, but a product of my own subconscious fears.

Cardan had truly become a tyrant because of my misdeeds.

An empire corrupted beyond repair.

The threat of Esland. The machinations of the Empress Dowager.

The sight of Cardan blindly loving a woman other than me.

Maybe I was fighting a future created by my own fears.

“Erina, are you awake?”

At that moment, the voice I wanted to hear sounded urgent.

But I couldn’t bring myself to answer.

My eyelids fluttered, but I didn’t have the courage to open my eyes.

I wanted to see.

As much as I wanted to, I was afraid to.

When I lost my memory, I often grumbled.

What’s all this trouble for a sin I didn’t commit?

Why do I have to carry the karma of others?

I didn’t realize then that it was the only time I’d ever been free.

I was guilty, but not guilty. I had karma, but I didn’t have to clear it.

But now it was different.

Erina Baloa was a sinner.

She was a sinner through and through.

Perhaps I had tried to rewind time to escape that horrible truth.

I knew I’d do the same thing if I went back in time.

Maybe that’s why I didn’t open my eyes when a hand gently brushed my forehead.

“You must have fallen asleep again……. I thought you were really awake this time.”

Cardan muttered, and the doctor next to him replied in a hushed voice.

“You’d better not get your hopes up. The poison the Duke ingested is so strong……. She’ll be like this forever—.”

“Enough.”

Cardan cut the doctor off harshly.

“I do not need to hear any more than that.”