[Valentin Wiche. You should be ashamed of yourself. To think that my fiancé and his family committed such a national crime… I really can’t hold my head up. If you have any sense, you should lock yourself up in the mansion and reflect. How could you come to see me like this? Is there really no thought in that head of yours?]

Even his fiancé coldly rejected Valentin.

[Then… then what should I…]

[Well. If you want to preserve your integrity and honor with that wicked mind of yours, there’s only one choice, isn’t there?]

The 3rd Prince’s face, implying suicide, looked like that of a demon.

He had grown up under a doctrine that considered taking one’s own life the greatest sin. No matter how low he fell, it was something he couldn’t even think about.

But when his father and Dalton’s executions were decided, and his mother died from shock upon hearing the news, those dark and gloomy things began to dominate Valentin’s mind. The engagement was naturally broken off. As punishment for damaging the prince’s honor, all compensation for damages was paid with the remaining company and assets. No, it was forcibly taken.

There was no more hope. No future either.

On the day the unjustly fired employees and workers from the company set fire to the mansion, Valentin hung a rope on the bedpost in his room. The tough string on the white and slender neck… Amidst the strange, struggling convulsions, two streams of tears flowed and fell to the floor. As the windpipe gradually tightened, the vision turned white, and the body convulsed violently…

“…?”

“Valentin!”

A hand vigorously shaking his body.

“Valentin, Valentin!”

The one who had been ringing the bell and calling his name shouted.

“Quickly, call the royal physician!”

Ah… whose voice was this? Did I die and go to heaven…?

“Get a hold of yourself, Valentin!”

The eyes that had been consumed by a nightmare barely opened. But he wasn’t in his right mind.

Even though nothing was strangling his neck, Reynard embraced Valentin, who was losing his breath as if a rope was really wrapped around his neck. And he quickly brought a paper bag to Valentin’s mouth. It was a clear symptom of hyperventilation.

It was a symptom he often encountered in the military as well. Soldiers who forgot how to breathe due to fear and stress and suffered as if they were dying… Reynard knew exactly how to handle such situations.

As Valentin gradually regained stability by inhaling the carbon dioxide he had exhaled, which had accumulated in the paper bag, a little bit of life finally returned to his eyes.

“Valentin… Are you okay? Do you recognize me?”

Valentin, who had been having a nightmare or suddenly letting out groans of screaming in his sleep and showing symptoms of hyperventilation, couldn’t properly identify Reynard until a moment ago despite opening his eyes. No, as if he didn’t see Reynard in front of him, he was only consumed by his own delusions and fears.

But now, the usual light was finally contained in those eyes.

“Reynard…”

“Yes, Valentin. It’s me. Your husband…”

“Reynard… my neck… my neck…”

“Shh… It’s okay, Valentin. It was all a dream. Your neck is fine.”

Reynard held Valentin’s chilled body and kept rubbing it.

Valentin couldn’t come to his senses.

A dream…? Was that just a dream?

Could the sensation of a mere dream be so vivid…?

Still feeling a strange sensation as if he hadn’t completely returned to reality, Valentin retraced what had happened in his mind until now.

This wasn’t just a dream.

‘I’ve never been aware of the future of the original work like this before…’

The content of the original novel that Valentin had seen in his previous life was simply ‘text.’ It was a feeling of completely becoming a third party and observing his future as if watching a movie on a screen, but it was the first time he had vividly experienced it as if he were actually the Valentin of the original work. As if he had directly gone through that incident…

‘Everything so far was to absolutely avoid a future that leads to death, but…’

Such a vivid dream. To directly experience that ‘death’ like this. Is it the fate of the original villain? To suffer from fear for a lifetime?

The rough texture of the rope that had been strangling his neck still couldn’t be forgotten. Valentin felt as if that sensation was still touching him. Unable to endure this creepy and strange sensation, he kept scratching his neck with his nails.

“No, Valentin. Don’t. You’re getting hurt!”

“My neck… my neck…”

“It was all a dream. There’s nothing on your neck. Give me your hand, hurry.”

Reynard kept grabbing Valentin’s hand with an urgent voice. And he kept rubbing it to infuse warmth into the ice-cold hand.

“You’re hurt… What kind of dream did you have, no. Don’t say anything. Just don’t think about it, Valentin.”

“I…”

Cold streams of tears poured down his pale, frightened cheeks without ceasing.

Reynard’s large hands kept wiping them away so they wouldn’t wet his face. As if to extinguish all that fear and sadness. As if not leaving even a trace of tears on his husband’s cheeks. His hands moved busily.

“That’s right. You’re fine. I’m here. Shh… don’t cry.”

The embrace he was held in was wide and warm.

Yeah. If I’m in this embrace, I’ll be safe. It was all a dream.

‘It’s not reality…’

Valentin suppressed his heart that was still pounding as if it would burst and comforted himself in Reynard’s embrace.

Even after the royal physician came and knew that Reynard had taken appropriate measures for Valentin’s hyperventilation symptoms. Even after receiving a prescription for a simple sedative that even pregnant women could take.

That night, Valentin couldn’t fall asleep again.

* * *

When something unbelievable happens to a person, and when they experience a terrible anxiety about it.

At that time, they usually seek the Absolute.

Especially if they had believed in the Absolute in heaven throughout their life.

“I really want to attend the thanksgiving communion this Sunday.”

Early in the morning, while watching Reynard put on his naval uniform for work, Valentin carefully spoke beside him. It was when the valet had just been sent out of the dressing room to have a private conversation.

Valentin was suffering from guilt and anxiety for missing the Sunday Mass, which he had never missed in his entire life.

‘The dream is too ominous… It’s because I skipped Mass…’

He was desperately searching for the cause of the ominous and gloomy energy that seemed to be creeping in from an absurd place.

‘What on earth is the reason I had such a vivid dream about the ending of the original work…?’

He couldn’t understand it at all. He had a strong desire to go and bury his head in the missal, even immerse it completely, kneel down, and pray for a long time. That’s how much the dream felt real and creepy. He wanted to go and prostrate himself at the feet of the Savior and beg for mercy for peace of mind.

And the reason he wanted to go to Mass wasn’t just that.

‘No matter how I think about it, complete seclusion won’t do.’

He knew that Reynard had cut off the roots of things that would torment and burden his heart for his sake. But even if he gave up social activities, he had made up his mind to maintain daily activities.

At first, he was prickly and holed up in the grand ducal palace as if his body was really not well, but he no longer wanted to do that. That would be the correct thing to say. A daily life of meeting no one, drinking tea and burning incense in the room, and walking on the palace promenade when he felt like it.

By doing so, as Reynard ordered, he put off all the duties of the Grand Duchess and did nothing, so naturally, there was nothing to get hurt by. But then this nightmare.

‘Maybe I had this dream because I was too alone.’

He longed for his original lifestyle of going around various places, watching people, meeting them, conversing with them, and gaining vitality in life from those things.

“I thought you had a hard time facing people in high society?”

Reynard asked calmly while attaching his rank insignia.

That was understandable since Sunday Mass was not simply a religious activity. It was practically a social activity where people gathered regularly once a week.

“I don’t necessarily want to engage in social activities, but I should attend the communion. I feel uncomfortable neglecting my duty as a believer.”

Moreover, the Anglican Church, the state religion of Heston, had a strict view on attending Sunday Mass as a member of the church community.

‘If I miss it again this time, they’ll surely look at me like some pagan.’

Valentin hid the real reason he desperately wanted to attend the service.

The trauma didn’t easily disappear after all. Worries about people’s gazes and rumors began to stimulate Valentin’s anxiety again. Even more so after directly experiencing the gossip that had led to death in the dream.

Valentin repeated with a determined expression.

“I just really want to attend the Sunday Mass.”

To calm his anxious heart caused by the ominous dream, and to rectify his reputation in high society. For those two reasons, Valentin asked his husband to attend Mass.

“If you say so, I have no choice but to follow.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll just finish the communion, exchange appropriate greetings, and quickly slip out.”

* * *

And so, he came to attend the service.