Chapter 110: Forgive egoism.

When he opened his eyes, the first thing that filled his vision was his own knees.

The black of his clothes blended with the darkness of the room until, for a moment, he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

The room was pitch black—no trace of light anywhere.

Apparently he had fallen asleep while lost in thought.

“……Again, huh.”

How many times had this happened?

So many that the opposite—waking up without seeing this—was the rare exception.

He dreamed of those days.

Of the past.

Of the nightmares.

“Ah…… my neck hurts.”

He must have slept in an absurd position; his neck and shoulders had stiffened into solid knots.

He pressed a hand to his neck and stretched it side to side.

It eased slightly.

But thanks to chronic shoulder stiffness, nothing really changed beyond his mood.

It was probably the middle of the night.

Not only his room but the view outside the window—every other room—was dark.

The entire house had fallen silent.

His parents, the servants—almost everyone must be asleep by now.

He had woken at the most awkward hour.

He no longer suffered from all-nighters or hunger pangs the way he once had.

Yet somehow the feeling was the same as back then—probably because of the nightmare he had just seen.

A nightmare…… exactly that: a truly bad dream.

How wonderful it would have been if it were only a dream.

But unfortunately, what Yuran had seen was not illusion.

It was a fragment of memory.

A past that had once happened and then vanished—a past he could never forget.

（It feels like such a long time ago.）

In reality, not even a full year had passed.

Not since time rewound—since that dream-like event within a dream had befallen him.

The moment he shattered the Holy Mother in the grand cathedral and gave up on everything.

Death or execution—either would have been fine.

There was simply no way he could have gone on living in that world.

Having lost the person he wanted to save even if it meant sacrificing every citizen, if he had stayed there, Yuran’s end would have been either wasting away or the gallows.

He had no interest in either.

When he opened his eyes to a familiar ceiling, the date was one year earlier.

He had thought—this time he really had broken beyond repair.

Surely the usual Yuran would have proceeded with caution, full of suspicion.

Is this a dream?

Was that entire hell just a nightmare?

Or has a new hell begun?

To someone who had lost the ability to hope in reality or project wishes onto dreams, time turning backward was simply “impossible.”

——And yet he thought: That’s fine.

Dream, illusion, new hell—it didn’t matter where this was.

Who he was.

What had happened to him.

None of it concerned him.

He only wanted to see her—wanted it so badly he ran straight toward her.

And she greeted him with a troubled smile.

——Yuran, your voice is too loud. You’ll startle everyone, you know?

This was the voice he had longed to hear.

This was the sight he had longed for.

Violet—alive, blood flowing through her, standing in the light right before him.

If he reached out, he could touch her.

If he called her name, she would answer.

She would call his name in return.

He had been so happy he wanted to cry.

Even if this were hell, even if he died right here, he wouldn’t mind.

Happiness soaked him from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes—stronger than anything else.

Nothing else could compare.

Nothing else mattered.

Anyone who would steal this happiness—he didn’t need any of them.

Something clicked into place inside his head.

The scattered fragments reassembled.

The missing pieces were filled by something new.

From that moment, his actions had been—by his own estimation—remarkably swift.

Looking back, there were rough spots, moments when hindsight stung.

But overall, things had progressed more or less as planned.

He hated that caution sometimes forced Violet to wait.

Even so—if things continued smoothly like this, he would obtain the future he desired.

Complacency or carelessness could be fatal, so he built in every worst-case scenario, layering precaution upon precaution.

（In the end, I never figured this part out.）

He turned his gaze toward the stack of books piled in front of the bookshelf—books he planned to discard soon.

Apart from everything concerning Violet, he had also researched—as thoroughly as possible—the phenomenon that had happened to him.

He had no intention of returning to the original time.

No intention of rewinding again if he failed.

He had no interest in the reason or the logic.

Whether it was a miracle of God or a contract with the devil—either was fine.

He had simply wanted proof that this “now” was not a dream.

He had only wanted to understand the principle behind what had happened to him.

In the end, he ran out of places to search without finding either proof or explanation.

（Soon…… soon, everything will be decided.）

In the darkness his eyes had grown accustomed to, he slowly approached the double-pedestal desk.

Unlike in the nightmare—where papers and ink had been scattered everywhere—the surface here was impeccably tidy, not a speck of dust or stain in sight.

In the center of the dark brown tabletop floated a single white spot.

In the gloom it seemed to glow faintly.

The letter sealed with red wax bearing the family crest—this was the culmination of everything Yuran had done so far, and the decisive blow that would lead to the ending.

If this failed, almost every path available to him would be exhausted.

At the same time—if this succeeded, Violet’s fate would be set in stone.

Her future would be decided by Yuran’s hand.

“Violet-chan……”

Just a little more.

Just a little longer.

This time, he would absolutely not make a mistake.

He would stake his entire life on making her happy.

Please—forgive this ego that seeks to bind your life to mine.