With a mild headache, Olivia’s eyes closed.

[10 minutes until reading starts.]

She gently opened her tightly shut eyes.

A familiar ceiling greeted her.

Sighing, she let out a meaningless laugh.

Checking to see if she had indeed lost her sanity.

A room, all too familiar, adorned with adorable stuffed animals on the bed and pink curtains fluttered, reminiscent of a young noble lady’s room.

This was her room from the past.

Everything was the same.

Even the photos of Michail covering the ceiling matched her memory.

The teddy bear with a photograph of Michail stuck on its head was identical to the one she had a year ago.

A befuddled whisper naturally flowed from her lips.

“Is this real…?”

She carefully reached out, picking up the teddy bear lying next to her.

It was the bear she was fond of, the one Ricardo had discarded. Its familiar soft, fluffy scent filled her senses. Finding her hallucination to be this realistic, she thought her mental disorder must be severe. Meaningless laughter slipped out, yet she couldn’t mask the strange excitement swelling within her heart.

She was already enthralled by the future she was about to witness.

So what if she was mentally ill?

She was already deemed mad.

Even if diagnosed as crazy, it was a welcome diagnosis if it meant she could experience the sensation of walking again, even for a fleeting moment.

An inexplicable satisfaction seeped into her every fiber.

Olivia started to confirm her situation.

What lay ahead wasn’t a nightmare. How overjoyed must her past self have been without her servant’s intervention?

She convincing herself she wasn’t wrong.

– Tick tock, tick tock.

The rhythmic movement of the clock sound filled the silent room.

Olivia shifted her gaze to confirm the time.

11:59 PM.

She was well acquainted with this date and time.

“It must have been at the stroke of midnight, right?”

The day she indulged in black magic.

The time she entered her room.

To be true, Olivia didn’t perfectly recall the events of that day.

Her memory was clear up until the moment she entered the room.

The rest was a blur.

The only detail seared into her memory was that something hurt, hurt severely, and she passed out.

She clearly remembered that she entered her room at midnight, and Ricardo had interrupted her black magic ritual. Other than that, everything was hazy.

Perhaps she was overflowing with anticipation.

Or were these memory gaps a side effect of her failed black magic?

“I’ll find out in a moment.”

Time ticked away, upon the strike of 12.

[Reading will now start.]

After the blue letters appeared.

A familiar voice echoed from behind the door.

“All I need, is this.”

An exhilarated voice.

The voice of a young girl on the verge of receiving a promised toy from her parents resonated in the room as the door opened.

“I was more attractive back then.”

Her 20-year-old self, radiating confidence and grace, sporting black hair and a vibrant smile, was a stark contrast to her current disheveled white-haired self.

Such a time existed.

She wistfully revisited the past memory.

Time rapidly flowed forward.

Watching herself sprawled on the floor, following instructions from a black magic book bought from the black market, and inscribing magic circles on the floor and her body, she felt as though she was being infected by the incessant elation and chatter of her past self.

It was captivating.

She found herself involuntarily smiling throughout.

Only for precisely an hour.

An hour after completing the magic circle,

Olivia felt a shiver travel down her spine.

– With the blood of my beloved mixed with my own blood…

– It’s almost over. It’s nearly done.

– Hehehe…

“Was I wearing a look like that?”

She found it chilling.

Her past self, carving the magic circle, portrayed an evident face of madness, reminiscent of a religious zealot.

“Was that really me?”

She wished she could deny it.

She couldn’t possibly believe that she wore such a grotesque expression; she was far from being obsessive.

She just considered herself an ordinary girl suffering from a one-sided love.

But the person she was watching was too extraordinary.

And yet, she couldn’t deny it wasn’t her.

Because the name she heard from that mouth was too familiar.

At 4:30 AM, before dawn.

The room was shrouded in darkness.

Her past self, having completed the magic circle, was illuminating the room with magic.

That was as much as Olivia could recollect about that day.

She remembered pouring magic into it while thinking of Michail, experiencing unbearable pain and seeing Ricardo burst through the door; beyond that, her memory failed her.

Olivia tightly grasped her hands.

Regardless of how everything transpired, the moment had arrived to confirm whether her actions that day were right.

“In the end, only the result matters.”

It’s not the image of her detested servant’s interference she wanted to see.

But the scene after the fleeting pain had passed,

Where the black magic had worked and she had a blissful future with Michail.

A scene where they affectionately call each other’s names, share hugs, and go on dates. She found her heart fluttering in anticipation of this upcoming scene.

“Indeed, only the result matters.”

Olivia tightened her grip.

She witnessed her past self standing in the center of the completed magic circle.

– Alright, perfect.

The flowing magical energy.

The magic circle rapidly started absorbing her past self’s magic.

– Kikik…. Kikikikik.

A spine-chilling sound echoed.

The sound of the floor cracking.

The magic circle on the floor began to radiate a black glow, and the inscriptions on her body started turning red, tracing her blood vessels.

“What’s happening?”

In that instant, she sensed something wasn’t right.

– What’s this? Why is it so?

It seemed her past self also had an intuition that something was amiss.

Within the unexpected situation, with widened eyes and incapable of taking action, Olivia screamed out.

However, her scream was futile, unable to reach her past self.

Olivia was left to merely observe.

– What’s this? Why is it so? The book clearly said it would glow pink!

Her past self frantically rifled through the pages.

She was scanning the magic book containing methods of mind manipulation, desperately seeking answers.

– I didn’t do anything wrong. Nothing! I followed the instructions perfectly…. I even prepared both Michail’s blood and my blood!

Her voice quickened.
The confident expression was long gone, replaced by complete confusion.

– The magic circle was drawn perfectly…!
– I even collected the blood Michail shed at the training ground! What went wrong?!

– Argh… Argh…

Her frantic page-flipping sped up.

– Argh…

– Argh…!

As the illusion of Olivia flipped to the last page, her voice gradually grew fainter.

– Huh?

The words on those pages made even the real Olivia, standing behind the illusory version of herself, hold her breath.

– That can’t be true…?

(The magic will only work if there is at least some mutual affection.)

– There’s no way Michail would feel that way about me. I’m  Olivia, society’s belle.

However, contrary to her brave words, her head slowly lowered.

Olivia’s voice grew weaker.

Eventually, her past self buried her face in the black magic manual, clutching her fist until her knuckles turned white, denying the words she just read while crying.

-Sob… No, no!

– There’s no way! No way!

An exasperated Olivia was at a loss.

Everything was strange, from her failed magic to the inability to fulfill the activation conditions.

Everything was beyond comprehension.

‘Was that really me?’

Her body wouldn’t stop shaking.

Her mind was filled with denial, repeated “no”.

Gradually, dark energy began to envelop her past self. Her pale skin darkened, and blood started trickling from her nose.

These were signs of failed black magic.

– Kyaa─!

A shriek tore through the silent room.
Olivia’s hair stood on end as she remembered the excruciating pain from that day.

‘Stop.’

Quivering, Olivia made an attempt to move.
Desperate to drag her past self out of the magic circle, she frantically reached out.
But she couldn’t touch her.

[You’re just an observer. You cannot interfere with the subject.]

After receiving the chilling reminder, her hand no more than a shadow, passed through her body.

“Wake up, you fool. Get up! Get out of there! Are you suicidal?!”

Contrary to Olivia’s wish,
her past self remained motionless.

– No, my magic couldn’t have failed. It must have worked!

– It is flawless.

– Perfect! There’s no way I, the top student at the Academy, could have messed up.

She bit down on her teeth, persistent.

– It must be because there wasn’t enough activation time. If I bear it a little longer, it’ll activate.

Olivia was terrified.
Her past self, like a moth to a flame, was a frightful sight.

“Please, just come out.”

The sight of her past self, tenaciously enduring while her flesh decomposed under the effects of black magic, was horribly agonizing and frightening.

She covered her ears and eyes.

*

Time seemed to have lapsed.

A hoarse voice pried her hands away from her ears.

– Kyaa─! It’s painful… so painful… Mom.. Mom!

Her past self was writhing in agony.
The pain seemed unbearable.
The sight was so dreadful; it shot a wave of pain through Olivia herself.

Olivia clutched her chest tightly and uttered.

“Someone help her.”

But none would hear her plea.

Because her past self had cast a silence spell outside the room, desiring total concentration on her black magic.

With her voice gradually fading, her past self expressed her pain.

– Kyaa─! It’s hurting.. It’s too painful..! Mom..!

“She’s in so much pain… can’t someone save her…”

Observing her past self crying whilst clawing her own head was too agonizing for the current Olivia.

“No, this can’t be happening.”

The decaying flesh.
Blackening skin.
Her past self’s harrowing state was unbearable.

What was she thinking, fully believing her black magic would succeed?
She couldn’t fathom where she had gone wrong to begin with.
At that moment, her only wish was for someone to save her past self.

Olivia called out.

“Isn’t there anyone who can hear her? She’s in unbearable pain! She feels like she’s going to die! Can’t anyone rush to her aid!”

And so did her past self.

– Save me! Please save me!

Screaming, scratching at the floor.
She looked pitiful.
The room filled with smoke from the burning flesh.

Covering her nose with her sleeve, Olivia coughed.

“Cough, cough…”

– Please save me…!

The fading pleas.

Until the very end, her past self implored.

– Michail.. help me…
– Michail, please save me. I made a mistake, so please help me.

Almost out of instinct, Olivia rebuked her past self.

“Pull yourself together, you madwoman!”

Yet, the pleas continued.

– Help me, Michail.

As her past self was at death’s door.

A familiar name was called out.

– Ricardo. Save me.

[Changing perspective.]

She was once again facing the familiar ceiling.

Time seemed to have lapsed, the once neat room and walls covered with photos of Michail were no more.

Half unconscious, Olivia strained to lift her head.

A single framed photo lay on the bed.

A wry smile crept up on Olivia’s face.

“Ricardo was right.”

The smile in the familiar picture,
It belonged to her.

Seems like she didn’t make it.
The foolish girl who thought she would have been happier if Ricardo hadn’t intervened was no more.

‘…’

A man sat on the bed, dusting off a picture frame.

A humble chrysanthemum was placed beside it.

This back view was familiar to Olivia.
The man with red hair, the one she teased daily for being shabby, possessed rather fairer skin than her own.

He was her servant.

Ricardo, in a white shirt, revealing his arms, kept his head lowered, diligently hiding his face.

His voice was barely audible.

“Why did you do exactly what I asked you not to?”

Ricardo’s voice trembled slightly.

“Do you know how hard I tried?”

Ricardo anticipated a sudden break of tears any moment.
Like a child struggling to hold back their sobs.
The slightest nudge and it felt like he would succumb to his tears.

Olivia firmly sealed her lips and stood behind Ricardo.

Ricardo stayed by the bedside.

Until the break of dawn.

[Reading is now over.]

***

Her forehead felt cold.

“Young Lady, what are you doing?”

An all too familiar voice sounded.

The red-haired servant was pressing a wet towel to her forehead.

He looked clueless, as though he wasn’t the one her frantic past self had been fervently calling out to in her dreams.

“Did you have a nightmare?”
“…”
“Why aren’t you speaking? You’re making me worry.”
“A dream?”
“Yes, you’ve been asleep all day, haven’t you?”

He moved to feel her temperature, bringing the back of his hand to her forehead.

Olivia tried to move her legs.

The legs that refused to cooperate.
She had returned to reality.

Relief washed over her.
Whether it was her mental disorder or it was real, it had been the worst dream ever.

One she never ever wanted to experience again.

Olivia looked towards Ricardo.

Ricardo, as always, dressed in full sleeves and pants, was donning his usual kind smile.

“Are you hungry?”
“Shut up.”

Her servant.
He was Ricardo.