Chapter 290

Tara tells Kyle the truth. But will he believe her?

This chapter is dedicated to Jon! Thank you for your support and lovely comment!

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Episode 290. About 5 months (13)

“Anyone who tries to enter this room against my orders will die.”

His low voice dripped with icy coldness as he pushed the door to the parlor wide open and looked at me.

I dragged my heavy feet, one foot in front of the other, as I watched his face; his patience was wearing thin.

I stepped through the open doorway and into the parlor, only to hear the door slam shut behind me.

A faint involuntary shudder ran through me.

He silently invited me to sit down, looking at the report of my mistake first.

The air inside the room was oppressively heavy. The only sound was the rustle of him turning the pages.

After what felt like an eternity, he suddenly closed the report and put it aside, then stared at me as if trying to read my thoughts.

“Tara.”

“.....”

I stared at him wordlessly.

“There must be some mistake, right?”

His voice was soft.

I exhaled slowly and nodded.

“Haaah.... I knew it, you wouldn't do that. Okay. Now explain. What's going on?”

Kyle ran a hand through his hair, relieved.

"Well. There was some misunderstanding. I did copy the map, but I am not a spy."

His brow furrowed.

“...Why did you copy it? How did you know it was there?”

"Hmm. That's a bit complicated to explain..."

“Tell me, even if it's complicated, Tara.”

I swallowed hard at the firmness in his voice. Kyle's gaze was nonchalant, but there was a certain earnestness in them that made me strangely nervous.

"I didn't want to tell you like this, Kyle. I'm actually..."

The words refused to come out easily.

"Actually what...?"

He urged, leaning closer to look me in the eye.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them, then began to spill the secret I'd been hiding all along.

“What I'm about to tell you is something I would never have told you if it weren't for this situation. It's a difficult confession for me to make. I actually don't belong here. No, I'm from here, but I remember a life I lived in another world, I think it was my previous life. That's why I think a little differently...!”

“Stop!”

Startled by the firm voice, I looked up and saw Kyle’s eyes filled with confusion.

“Kyle. I haven’t finished explaining yet.”

“...Tara. What is this?”

His voice was harsh, and his eyes were quickly darkening. Suspicion and anger were slowly building in his gaze.

Just a moment ago, I had been planning on how to explain this to him, running through what I would say and the order in which I'd say it over and over again.

If I told him everything as honestly as possible, he’d believe me. Yes, I was sure of it.

However, after seeing the look in his eyes, my heart swelled with anxiety and my thoughts blurred as if coated with white fog.

Kyle took a deep breath, closed his eyes again, and opened them filled with that familiar impassiveness I knew so well.

Or rather, I thought it was familiar. But the impassive eyes that I had fallen in love with were subtly different from the ones that regarded me now.

Was that why I felt this way? I knew I shouldn’t, but I started explaining more quickly. My words didn't flow out logically, tangled and spilling out incoherently.

“Yes, I know, it's strange. It sounds bizarre, but Kyle, I would never, ever, ever do that. I mean, why would I do something so ridiculous? For what gain? I mean, I really, would never.”

Even as I said it, I knew I was doing this wrong, but I couldn't control it.

“It's not like you.”

“What?”

“You've always been calm and collected when faced with difficult situations, but today you're just spouting nonsense to cover your ass.”

I came to my senses at his calm and composed tone of voice.

Yes. Calm and collected.

“Okay. I didn't think you'd believe me, but it's true. I read a book about this place in a previous life, so I knew about the map in advance, I just didn't know which warehouse it was in.”

Kyle's expression turned cold in an instant.

"...Where did the Tara Elias I knew go?"

“Kyle, please listen to me. In a previous life, I lived in a country in the East, in a different time than now, in a more advanced scientific civilization, and I never knew there was a world like this. I died a violent death in that other world, and when I woke up, I was here as Tara, I was this girl. I thought this Empire was something that only existed in books, something that only existed in stories. But then the same people I read about in books showed up right before my eyes.”

“Oh my God. Do you realize what you’re saying right now?”

“Yes. I realize exactly what I'm saying, and I understand if you don't believe me right now.”

He uncrossed his arms and leaned closer to me, his voice a growl.

“Understand? What? You want me to believe that you can't be a spy because in a previous life you read a story about the Great Ocerian Empire and recognized characters from a book? That's what you're asking me to believe?”

The disbelief in his eyes as they searched my face was so piercing that I couldn't help but look away.

I squeezed my eyes shut and opened them, trying to explain as calmly as I could.

"Last year, before I went to Durban, I sent Josh Lucas to the palace, a researcher who developed an allergy treatment for Dragon Fruit, correct?"

“You keep bringing up other stories to deflect from the point.”

“No. I'm trying to prove that what I'm saying is true, please. Listen.”

Kyle, who'd been studying my expression, nodded slowly, as if considering it.

"...Okay, let's hear it."

“I told you that Josh would come visit in about six or seven months, so I asked you to meet him in advance. I already knew about him from the book. That’s why I already knew he would make the cure. How else could I have ordered Josh Lucas to make such a perfect cure? It was because I knew what would happen in the future.”

“.....”

Kyle said nothing. I continued my explanation.

“Last winter, in the barracks at the Tandra Forest hunting camp, you asked me who I was. You thought I acted as if I knew the arrow was coming, and at the time I used Master Andrei as an excuse, but the truth is, I already knew something was going to happen at the hunting grounds and that someone was going to die. I also knew that it was going to be someone from an important family, though I didn't know exactly which family at the time. So I sent Bernard to look around Tillis Valley, and on the third day of the hunt, Olive, the daughter of one of the great houses, was headed in the direction of where the arrow would be shot, and I had no choice but to stop her. If I hadn't read that story, I would never have been able to save Olive.”

Kyle, who had been listening quietly, asked with a slightly colder expression.

“Is there more?”

Ah. He wasn't going to believe me.

"Yes. The map I copied from the Treasury Department. How could I have known that the map was there? It was Hans Button's map, and it might have information about an upcoming event or trap. To be honest, none of this knowledge is completely accurate. That inaccuracy has always been a problem. Maybe if it wasn't for Tara's good memory, I'd be an entry in that history book by now…"

Kyle's eyebrows arched upward, as if remembering the Dragon Fruit incident. Then his gaze slowly narrowed.

He didn't believe me.

The man who used to tousle his hair just because I liked it was nowhere to be found. His gaze was wholly absent of his feelings for me, to the point where I doubted if such a man had ever even existed.

“You told me something in the interrogation room back then.”

Kyle’s voice echoed through the room, colder than ice.

“...!”

And from that moment on, my heart began to pound faster and faster.

“You said that you read the book [The Fruit That Becomes Medicine] and went to visit Josh Lucas in person, who was studying the wolfbane, and that you told him to go to the Palace if any incidents occurred, because Dragon Fruit is a rare fruit that can only be distributed through the Palace and any issues related to it would come from the Palace. Was that a lie?”

He remembered everything I said to the point of embarrassment. I took a deep breath, took hold of my thoughts before they slipped away, and tried to explain further.

“... That's what I said under the circumstances!"

Kyle raised his hand to stop me.

“In the hunting lodge, you said Andrei gave you information and told you to be careful because there were signs of a potential assassination. You forgot about the information Andrei gave you because you were so distracted, but then you remembered it on the third day of the hunt. That's another lie. Did Andrei agree to help you?”

“Yes. I couldn't bring myself to tell him the truth at the time, so I just said what I had to say. and...”

"That's why you came to find this map, because you knew about it in advance?"

"Yes, that's right. Otherwise, how would I have known? I was told that the map included information about a trap, so I was forced to look for it because it could be dangerous for you, Kyle. To be honest, I wanted to tell you about it. But we had to hide our relationship... As you know. So I had no choice but to go looking for it by myself."

“You think I'm in danger? Why would that map be dangerous to me? What did the history book say about the danger?”

“...Later on, someone tries to kill you, and I think it was related to that map. I only read the book halfway through, so I don't remember the details. In fact, I remembered this map after I dreamt about it...!”

I couldn’t continue. His hands had turned bloodless as he clutched the arms of his chair. His mouth was a frozen line, and his cold eyes regarded me with a chilling expression that resembled contempt.

I was right. It was contempt.

“It's a pity, I was hoping your lies would be a little more plausible...”

“...You don't believe me.”

“Would you believe it? You're saying that a map I made was made by Hans, and that’s why you searched for it. And you're trying to cover up your mistakes by bringing up a past life…  Why should I believe what you have to say?”

“Wait. Who made that map? I was sure Hans made that map.”

“I made the map myself. It's a trap I set to lure in the filthy rats Hans planted in the palace. It was a low-level trap that could have optionally been used in a suppression operation, but it was largely irrelevant if no one fell for it.”

“A trap?”

“Yes. It was a trap. A trap I set in the hope that any rat who came for it would deliver it to Hans.”

“That's impossible. It was a map of Hans's evil deeds. That's why the map had a trap in it...”

“If you look at that map, it shows ambush staging locations around the entrance of the towns. Of course, the actual locations were completely different. In other words, it itself was a trap. It’s called a lure tactic or a deception tactic. It's the art of entrapment from Hamut’s military strategies. Didn’t you know that?”

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Editor's Note -

I'm glad to be back! Even though it's only to bring everyone pain T.T

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