RTTFW CH 2.8

‘Why on earth?’

Why? What possible reason could Ent Harbilta – possessed by Park Jaeyoon’s soul – have had for doing that? Why on earth did he do such a thing?

Ent couldn’t even begin to grasp where to start rethinking it all. His head was spinning.

‘This kind of thing wasn’t even in the book.’

So that book wasn’t actually the future? No, even if it was, was there any reason Ent Harbilta had to develop bulimia? Why?

‘Ah, I feel like throwing up.’

His stomach churned. His head felt light and dizzy from the swirling thoughts. He’d never even considered something like this.

“Lord Ent. May I ask you a question?”
“… What is it.”

Only then did Ent lift his head at Izel’s words and look at him. A cold expression. His face was usually as stony as if you could stab him with a knife and not draw a single drop of blood, but today it was slightly different.

“Why have you started acting like a different person since you drank the poison and woke up?”

Ent felt his heart drop at the question. Izel’s gaze, which seemed to pierce right through him, made cold sweat break out, and the indescribable tension made it difficult to keep his body steady.

“Why did your gaze toward me and the Count change? Why did your tone change? Why did your behavior change?”

Faced with the relentless questions, Ent wanted to avoid Izel’s gaze. But he couldn’t. Avoid? Where could he possibly go? There was nowhere for Ent Harbilta to run.

“You swallowed food you used to vomit up, read books you never touched before, and studied. So I simply thought… perhaps you were changing. That’s what I thought.”

“…”

“You even volunteered to dine with your family.”

Izel glanced sideways at the remains Ent had vomited up. Ent bit down hard on his lip.

“But now it seems you don’t even know why you refuse food yourself.”
“Th-that.”
“Your body remembers the bulimia, but your mind doesn’t? How am I supposed to accept this?”

‘What should I do?’

Ent shut his eyes tightly. What on earth could he say to explain this?

Think. Think!

Ent kept urging himself, but no clear solution came to his mind, already muddled by the sudden, inexplicable bulimia.

It was only natural to be suspicious.

Ent knew it too – that stupidly asking questions about himself was like he’d completely forgotten who he was. On top of that, his mind couldn’t remember, yet his body refused food.

It was as if another soul had entered the body that was originally his.

Ent’s mind blurred and cleared repeatedly. The overwhelming tension brought back the feeling of wanting to vomit. Ent had no mental capacity left to regret his own foolish past.

‘Damn it, it couldn’t be helped.’

Yes, Ent Harbilta couldn’t help it. What was he supposed to do, returning to this world with no information? Thrown into this vast world and told to continue his original life?

How was he supposed to act like the original Ent Harbilta?

“… Who exactly was the original Ent Harbilta?”

That was a laughable question. The original Ent? Who was he supposed to imitate, whose life was he supposed to live? Ent’s mind felt like it was sinking, submerged in water.

At that moment, Izel grabbed Ent’s shoulder firmly.

“… You. You’re Ent Harbilta, right?”
“What…?”

Izel and Ent’s eyes met, and in that instant, Ent felt as if the fog before his eyes had cleared. The heart that had been pounding anxiously, the tension that had gripped his entire body, suddenly relaxed completely.

He had acted in a way that was certainly suspicious enough. Ent acknowledged his own mistake. Yet, with just one question from Izel, he felt everything was okay.

If that was the extent of the suspicion against him, he could deny it all he wanted.

“… Izel.”

Ent grasped the hand Izel had placed on his shoulder. He was Ent Harbilta.

“I am Ent Harbilta.”

He was the second son of the Harbilta family – a shadowy, influential house that had long held the position of leader of Moffit, the secretive dark organization carrying out the orders of the Alcont Imperial Royal Family.

“I… I simply decided to become the kind of person befitting my family.”

Once he had lost his own name and lived another’s life, and within that existence, he had fallen into endless despair.

“If I am not Ent Harbilta, then who is Ent Harbilta?”

There was no such thing as the ‘original Ent Harbilta’. He was Ent himself. He had merely reclaimed his own life.

Ent’s eyes, once trembling with anxiety, now brimmed with genuine resolve.

The two of them locked eyes for a long moment in the dark space. Izel found his thoughts drifting. Moonlight would never reach this corner of the bathroom, but had this man’s eyes always shone like this?

The image of Ent, always with those empty eyes, slowly faded from Izel’s memory. The person before him was the young master he served, Ent Harbilta.

His eyes shone with an unusual brilliance.

“Wow…”

Ent couldn’t stop his admiration, even though he knew it made him look like some country bumpkin. Izel stared at his master with a bored expression. Ent couldn’t close his gaping mouth as he gazed out the carriage window.

“Lord Ent, what is it?”
“Oh. Trees and forests.”
“… What exactly about that do you find so fascinating?”

Ent paid no mind to Izel’s insolent attitude. Did people in this world not find such vast nature remarkable? Then again, who else but someone like him, who’d come from living amidst city buildings, would find this fascinating?

‘Wow, the smell of trees.’

He opened the window slightly and took a deep breath. The cold air was filled with the scent of damp earth and wood.

‘Feels like natural therapy.’

It was the height of winter. Trees stripped bare of leaves alternated with those still lush and green, forming a dense forest.

Grass that had broken through the frozen earth remained bright green. They say seeing lots of green is good for your eyes, prevents motion sickness, and benefits mental health. Ent didn’t know if the knowledge he’d gained in Jaeyoon’s world applied here, but seeing this forest path lined with trees and earth certainly seemed to be doing wonders for his own mental health.

“It hasn’t even been half a day since we started, but if you exhaust yourself already, you’ll struggle.”
“I understand.”

Finally heeding Izel’s warning, Ent closed the window and sat up straight.

Ent had finally set out on the journey to the capital to meet Omb.

Traveling were Ent, Izel, and the coachman, Paladin. It hadn’t been such a small party from the start.

Bernil had wanted to assign a knight to Ent’s journey, but Ent, horrified, had refused. Even Bernil’s argument that it was only natural for a noble family’s young master to have such protection on a long journey didn’t sway Ent.

‘What kind of burden are they expecting me to shoulder?’

Make the family’s knights trek through the mountains for days just for this useless Ent Harbilta? He wanted to avoid provoking the knights’ anger at all costs.

“What’s the problem with escorting you, the second young master of the Harbilta family?”
”That’s exactly why no one would think that.”

What kind of second young master of the Harbilta family was this Ent Harbilta? Wasn’t he just a puppet figurehead wearing the ‘Harbilta’ title? Ent had no idea how much effort he’d put into persuading Bernil, who was so clueless about his own situation.

“Still, just one coachman and one attendant is far too few.”
”… That really is sufficient.”

These were servants of the Harbilta family, no less. That number alone would surely get them through most dangers. For reference, Ent had initially insisted on going with only Izel, but Izel had persuaded him to add a coachman, making it three people.

“Too many people can be scary too….”

Ent blurted out whatever came to mind, thinking his persuasion had failed. Strangely, Bernil’s attitude shifted afterward, and he eventually nodded in agreement.

And so, with the coachman Paladin, the attendant Izel, and Ent, an unbelievably sparse party for a noble heir’s journey was finalized.

After that conversation with Izel, he no longer gave Ent suspicious looks. Whenever Ent seemed unaware of himself, as usual, Izel answered him diligently. Though Ent didn’t know what he was thinking, he now found Izel quite comfortable.

‘I hope we arrive safely at the capital like this.’

Ent gazed out the small window at the peaceful-looking forest. It wasn’t that the mansion was uncomfortable, but being outside felt much freer and more relaxing. Feeling optimistic that this journey to the capital would go smoothly, Ent smiled slightly.

Of course, Ent’s hopes for a peaceful journey were shattered within days.