CHAPTER 61: CHAPTER: 61 TIME REALLY DOES CHANGE A PERSON.

"Vivian, think this through," Charlotte said as she looked at Vivian, who was standing beside her, staring at the entrance of the mid-rank dungeon gate.

Three weeks had passed since they had returned, and during that time, they had spent countless hours discussing what to do next.

Charlotte wanted to tell everyone what had happened to them, but Vivian refused.

He was planning something that would be very difficult to pull off.

"Haa." Vivian sighed and met her eyes. "It’s not that I don’t want to tell anyone, I can’t. Charlotte, I know it’s difficult, but what else is there?"

Charlotte frowned. "Look, Vivian, we don’t need to take that risk. What if...the Vehemoth theory doesn’t work?"

She paused, leaned closer, and looked him straight in the eyes.

Her voice softened. "We don’t have to go through that. We can just tell everyone, kill both Kafrik and the professor. Even if torturing them doesn’t make them talk, at least it’s done."

She held him with a steady gaze.

At that moment she seemed to be thinking of no one but him.

He tried to make her see that if they failed to make the others talk, the consequences would be irreversible.

He would have killed them himself in a heartbeat, but he had a different method, one that could even make the dead speak.

He couldn’t use it yet; he had to awaken his intuition first, because the ability was deeply tied to it.

Taking everything into account, he had to refuse.

"Charlotte," he said quietly, "killing them won’t change anything. And more importantly... I need to cure this curse."

He tried to reason with her, but Charlotte wasn’t in her right mind.

She snapped back, "No! We can just go into hiding and, in time—"

She couldn’t even finish her sentence before Vivian cut her off.

"I’ll die within the next seven years if I don’t cure the curse."

He hadn’t wanted to tell her. He didn’t want to make her worry.

But now, with no other way to convince her, the truth slipped out.

Charlotte froze. Her eyes widened in horror as she stepped back, trembling.

Her gaze wavered as she looked at Vivian’s calm, steady eyes.

Charlotte’s knees gave out, and she sank to the ground.

She had always known the curse was dangerous, that it was slowly eating away at him, but she thought they still had time.

Now that Vivian had said otherwise, she couldn’t believe it.

"H-how do you know? It might..." she began, her voice trembling.

Vivian cut her off gently. "Charlotte, I know my condition better than anyone."

He continued, "During the months I was held captive, the seizures became more frequent. That’s when I realized... I don’t have much time left, either way."

It wasn’t the full truth.

He had lied only about how he knew he would die within seven years, everything else was real.

During the time he was held captive, he had suffered those awful seizures every three or four days, far more often than usual.

"Look, Charlotte," he said quietly, "this Vehemoth theory is our last option. And I’m certain it’ll work."

He lied. He did believe the theory might work, but the odds were closer to sixty-forty.

’What an odd number,’ he thought with a faint chuckle.

It was the same ratio he’d been given before his surgery in his last life.

In his last life, he could afford to die. But in this one, he couldn’t.

His eyes grew serious as he looked at Charlotte’s trembling figure.

"Charlotte, get up," he said softly. "Don’t worry. Once everything is over, we’ll hold our engagement ceremony."

It had been so long, yet the memory felt close.

He remembered her talking with his father about their engagement while he stood nearby, too timid to speak.

He smiled faintly at the thought.

How naive he had been. After everything he’d gone through, he could only laugh at that old version of himself.

’Life really does teach people many things,’ he thought as he reached out his hand toward her.

"Once this is over," he said gently, "let’s get married."

Charlotte finally seemed to regain a bit of composure.

She held his hand tightly and said, "We’re not even old enough to get married... Wait—"

Her words trailed off as a sudden thought struck her.

If she counted all the years she had lived with him...

Her mind flashed back to those dreams in the white void. ’We had children too...’

Her face turned crimson as the memories flooded in.

She didn’t know if those lives had been real or just illusions, but everything she’d felt in them had been painfully real.

Her face grew even redder as more memories surfaced.

She remembered how he used to beg her to marry him, and how, after they did, they took on ordinary jobs, farming, trading, even running a small field together.

In one life, they’d owned a little farm and had a daughter. ’What was her name again...?’

Charlotte tried to recall, but the girl’s face blurred in her mind.

She only remembered the blue eyes and the red hair, just like her own and Vivian’s

She pressed a hand to her head, straining to remember, but no matter how hard she tried, the name refused to come.

"Charlotte?"

Her train of thought broke as Vivian’s voice pulled her back. He was looking at her with a puzzled expression.

"Why is your face so red?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.

"N-nothing," she said quickly, refusing to meet his eyes.

It was hard to even look at him now, not after remembering those things. So she stayed silent.

Vivian, still confused, didn’t press the matter. Instead, he sank into his own thoughts.

They were waiting for the mage who would open the dungeon gate.

It had taken a lot of effort, but they finally found out that there was a dungeon hidden deep within the Forest of Zon.

The boss monster inside was a Vehemoth, a creature feared even among high-rank adventurers.

The dungeon had remained uncleared for years, mostly because the reward was considered too low to risk it.

But when Charlotte heard about it, she immediately bought the rights to it, telling her father it was just for training purposes.

Though her father was reluctant at first, Charlotte’s stubbornness left him with no choice.

After enough fuss and pleading, he finally agreed.

Normally, he wouldn’t have agreed, no matter how much of a fuss Charlotte made.

But he suspected that the black shadows of the Zenithara House were involved.

So, after some thought, he gave his permission, and secretly sent a small force to watch over and protect them both.

"Excuse me, Princess."

A voice called out as they waited for the mage.

Turning around, they saw a man in his fifties with gray hair and a thick beard walking toward them.

His complexion was pale, like someone who hadn’t stepped outside in months.

Dark bags hung under his eyes, and his movements were slow, almost fragile.

Seeing him, Charlotte stepped forward and greeted him. "Sir Alfrod, they sent you?"

Alfrod, a researcher of magic under the Royal Mage Corps, rarely left his laboratory.

But since he was only asked to open a dungeon gate in the Forest of Zon, he had reluctantly agreed to come.

Alfrod bowed deeply. "I greet Her Highness, Princess Charlotte, and Lord Vivian D. Zenithara," he said respectfully.

Charlotte nodded and took a few steps forward. "Are you going to open the gate now?" she asked.

Opening a gate was extremely stressful for mages and completely impossible for warriors below the Swordmaster stage, since the gate would drain their mana dry.

That was why they had to call someone else to handle it.

Though the Black Shadows were present, none among them were mages.

They had to call someone else so that Charlotte could save her strength for battling the Vehemoth.

"If you’re ready, please open the gate," Vivian said. His eyes were calm as he looked at the man named Alfrod.

"Ah... yes," Alfrod replied, a little shaken by the calmness in Vivian’s gaze.

’He’s changed,’ Alfrod thought to himself.

He didn’t leave his laboratory often, but he remembered that whenever this child visited the royal palace, Charlotte would always drag him to see Alfrod’s research.

Back then, Vivian always wore a nervous, timid expression. But now... there was no fear, no hesitation, only quiet steadiness in his eyes.

Back then, Alfrod used to give them candies, and Vivian would accept them with a shy smile, thanking him nervously, his expression soft and childlike.

Remembering those days, Alfrod let out a quiet, bitter sigh.

’Time really does change a person,’ he thought.

With a faint, bitter smile, Alfrod walked up to the gate and placed his hand against its cold surface.

He began to chant softly, his voice steady despite the strain.

As the last words of the spell left his lips, the door started to emit a deep blue light.

The glow pulsed and spread across the surface like ripples on water, and Alfrod continued to pour out his mana, sweat forming on his brow.

After a while, his breathing grew heavy, most of his mana had been drained by the dungeon gate.

Finally, with a dull rumble, the passage opened.

Alfrod turned around, his already pale face even paler now, yet his voice carried a faint trace of excitement. "You may enter now. The gate will stay open for four minutes. Once you defeat the boss monster, it will reopen automatically."