This Novel is not my Novel

"That is merely your own delusion. He may be acting in front of you while waiting for an opportunity to take revenge."

"That can’t be true. Earlier, when that criminal from House Ofraushi tried to throw an acidic solution at me, you saw Reisir try to protect me."

"And what of it?"

"If he truly still hated me, he wouldn’t have cared whether I was hurt."

"Perhaps he wanted to hurt you with his own hands rather than let someone else do it. Or perhaps he plans to win your trust first, then use it to drag you into a mire from which you can never escape. [N O V E L I G H T] If neither of those is the case.... Then he must intend to use you after all."

Valtraus listed these absurd possibilities with a perfectly serious expression.

His voice brimmed with certainty.

Apparently, the possibility that Reisir sincerely cared about me had never even crossed his mind.

At this point, could Valtraus be suffering from a complete distrust of people?

Come to think of it, like Karvaldr, Valtraus was also a direct descendant of a ducal family.

Perhaps sly, calculating people like Tryggdrik had latched on to him as well.

Once I made that assumption, I could understand why someone who disliked Karvaldr had gone out of his way to offer me "advice."

He isn’t doing this because he’s worried about his younger brother. Something about this must have reminded him of what happened to him in the past.

Had I not meddled in Professor Skati’s affairs in Chapter 12 for a similar reason?

So I understood.

When trauma was triggered, a person could unconsciously project themselves onto someone else and interpret every situation according to their own experiences.

The only difference is that I reached the right answer then, while Valtraus has arrived at the wrong one now.

After following that train of thought, I understood Valtraus’s attitude.

That did not, however, make the substance of what he was saying any more comprehensible.

"Even if you apologized, he held you in his arms and remained that way for quite some time despite your having tormented him in the past. That is no ordinary level of spite. He must be thoroughly determined to do something. If you do not keep your wits about you and remain vigilant, you will truly come to regret it."

It was certainly true that Reisir possessed remarkable tenacity.

Otherwise, he could not have gritted his teeth and honed his combat abilities for the past ten years.

That was even more obvious when I remembered how he had somehow continued to survive in the pre-remake original work despite repeatedly losing the people around him.

But currying favor with someone he resented, putting on a smiling face while preparing to stab them in the back....

He would never resort to anything so cowardly.

The words How can you possibly interpret his character that badly? scratched at my throat, clamoring to be let out.

"Reisir is not the kind of person who could ever betray someone! You don’t even know how generous and warmhearted he is, or how determined he is to live without shame!! Don’t speak about him so carelessly!"

"Myaa meow, myaa meow!!"

My clever and wise baby dragon nodded, expressing her agreement with me.

Even so, Valtraus showed no sign of discarding his prejudice.

"Do you not also lack confidence that he sincerely considers you a friend?"

"What... do you mean...?"

Could he somehow know that I had been insisting Reisir and I had never become friends?

The thought flashed through my mind, making me flinch before I could stop myself.

One corner of Valtraus’s mouth rose, his expression practically saying, I knew it.

"If you truly trusted him, you would have frankly confessed that your relationship with your family, myself included, is poor and that even if the two of you grew close, you would be unable to help him by borrowing your family’s power. Yet he seemed entirely unaware of that fact."

So that was what he meant.

I had startled myself for nothing.

"Why would I tell him something like that? Reisir and the Bitnir father and daughter share not a drop of blood, yet they consider each other family and live together happily. How do you think he would feel if he learned that I had spent my life being disregarded by my own blood relatives? Naturally, he would pity me. And whenever the subject of family came up, he would watch my expression and worry about how I felt."

"That is why you did not tell him?"

"Yes. Not because I don’t trust Reisir, but because I don’t want him to worry."

"Huh...."

Valtraus let out a disbelieving laugh, making it clear that he could not relate to a single word I had said.

Between the distrust of others he had displayed earlier and what he had just said, one thing had become certain.

"You don’t have any friends, do you?"

"How could that possibly be true? Even if you have lost your memories, you should at least know that I have attended His Highness the First Prince as his childhood companion ever since we were young. Did no one provide you with information about that?"

The moment he described the relationship as "attending" the prince, I doubted it could be called friendship.

But Valtraus himself did not seem to realize that, and I was hardly in a position to comment on anyone else’s friendships.

So I decided to pretend I had not noticed.

"Ah, I forgot about that. You were acting so much like someone without any friends."

"Wh-What...?!"

"You must be growing tired. Why don’t you return to the family estate and get some rest?"

If Valtraus had seen how brightly and cheerfully Reisir laughed whenever he spoke with me, he would no longer have doubted Reisir’s sincerity.

But I had no desire to take him to Reisir’s room and show him Reisir teasing me.

So I told him, in essence, to go home, wash his feet, and sleep....

"Are you trying to drive me out?"

"I no longer wish to hear you speak so carelessly about the people around me."

"If that is truly what you want, then let us discuss something else."

"No, I’m telling you to leave my room...!!"

The overbearing Valtraus ignored me yet again and continued saying whatever he pleased.

"You are hardly in a position to claim that what happened in the past does not matter."

He had even dragged back something I had said ages ago just to criticize it.

I was beginning to suspect that his true purpose in coming here had been to start an argument with me.

Should I accept the inconvenience of cleaning up and throw my coffee at him?

I toyed with the cup, its contents now lukewarm, as I considered the angle, but that would be the very definition of asking for trouble.

There was no chance Valtraus would walk outside drenched in coffee.

He would obviously rummage through my wardrobe without permission, choose a change of clothes, and disappear into the bathroom.

I was struggling to think of another way to deal with him when he spoke again.

"Despite remembering nothing of the past, you are desperate to invoke that period whenever possible and make our sister and me feel guilty."

So much for discussing something else.

Even you, who remember nothing of being ostracized by your family, remain full of resentment. Why, then, are you so certain that someone who remembers being tormented by you has forgiven everything?

That was what he meant.

"I have no intention of apologizing to you, so that is one thing. But should you truly behave this way toward our sister when she apologized to you in tears?"

His shameless attitude left me speechless.

He still had no intention of apologizing to his own younger brother, yet somehow believed he had the right to interfere.

He seems to think my words and actions are contradictory....

But the circumstances were different.

I was not Karvaldr, so I could not forgive them on his behalf. That was why I had been unable to accept her apology.

I could not reveal that, however, so I proposed a situation Valtraus might be able to understand.

"What if I accepted our sister’s apology and got along with her without fully understanding the weight of the sorrow and loneliness accumulated over eighteen years, only for my memories to return? What if I was then so devastated that I could not possibly forgive her, but she had already received forgiveness for her past wrongdoing, buried it, and even cast off her guilt? What if she treated me as though nothing had happened? How do you think I would feel watching her do that?"

Even I, a complete stranger merely borrowing Karvaldr’s body....

If I were forced to bear his memories, I might find the sight of her so abhorrent that I could not endure it.

No—in truth, I already felt something like that even now.

So how much worse would it be if Karvaldr himself returned?

I did not currently believe that would happen, but if I tried to imagine the emotions he might feel....

"The unresolved sorrow and loneliness might be compounded by such a profound sense of injustice that I could lose my mind."

"......!"

Valtraus flinched, his shoulders jerking.

Had he realized that what I described was entirely possible? Or had he simply found the idea shocking?

If he had ever tried to understand how his younger brother might feel after losing his memories, he could easily have imagined this much. His reaction was rather belated.

"Come to think of it, I never realized how much you cherished and worried about our sister. The two of you must have built quite a close bond from childhood onward, with only me excluded. Ah! So that is why you are forcing me to accept her apology, isn’t it? If I alone make the sacrifice and endure everything, all your problems will disappear. You hate seeing our sister weighed down by grief, but you couldn’t care less if I choke and struggle beneath my own suffering."

"It is not... quite like that...."

"You dress forgiveness up as though it were the victim’s best choice and obligation, then demand that I behave obediently, yet you say that? You openly hated me for an irrational reason, and you still do, yet you toss around words like that so casually. How the hell am I supposed to believe you when you say that isn’t true? Find yourself a conscience."

Was it because I had always addressed him politely, only to suddenly speak to him so bluntly?

His face rapidly filled with bewilderment.

"That manner of speaking... What exactly...?"

"Why? Did I say something I had no right to say?"

"You... uh... that...."

Perhaps he had finally decided that he ought to find at least the bare minimum of a conscience.

Or perhaps his confusion simply refused to abate, leaving him unable to speak.

Either way, Valtraus only stammered without managing a response, so rather than wait for one, I decided to finish what I had been saying.

"My lack of memories does not make it easy for me to forgive and move on. On the contrary, that is precisely why I cannot carelessly speak of forgiveness. It is rather absurd that I, the victim, should have to explain even this."

"......"

"And I would appreciate it if you stopped finding fault with Reisir as well. I believe he would never do such a thing, but even if, as you claim, he still resented me and eventually caused me harm, that would not mean he was dangerous or evil. It would merely be the consequences of my own wrongdoing returning to me."

"......"

"Please refrain from slandering someone who was only ever my victim based on groundless speculation."

"......"

I had explained everything in this much detail and with such kindness.

Surely he would not come back later to force forgiveness upon me again or insist that I needed to be wary of Reisir.

"It seems you have nothing more to say, so please leave now."

"Y-Yes...."

Unlike before, Valtraus did not ignore my order to leave. He immediately rose from his seat, collected his spirit beast, and took him away.

He looked almost as though he were fleeing.

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