The ceremonies organized by the House of Douglas were known for their brevity.
The kingdom's nobility attended more out of obligation than enthusiasm. No one dared decline an invitation from the duchy, yet few could honestly say they enjoyed its company.
The Douglases inspired respect.
And fear.
An hour after the ceremony had concluded, Lusian was saying his farewells to Emily and the Carter family.
Everything had gone according to plan.
No incidents.
No unexpected changes.
Even so, he could feel the weight of the day settling onto his shoulders. The oath, the gazes of the nobles, the constant need to pretend he was the Lusian everyone expected...
There was still one final meeting.
Waiting in a private chamber of the Temple of Sangus were Queen Adelaine Erkhan Stanley, Crown Prince Andrew, and Princess Elizabeth.
The moment Sophia and Lusian entered, the Queen spoke calmly.
"Everyone else may leave."
The servants bowed and withdrew.
The doors closed.
Silence followed.
Lusian straightened instinctively.
He expected a political discussion.
Formal.
Filled with carefully chosen words and smiles that meant nothing.
After all, that was how noble families worked.
That was how the Douglases worked.
But then...
Adelaine walked straight toward Sophia.
And embraced her.
Lusian blinked.
For a moment, he thought he had imagined it.
It wasn't a respectful bow.
It wasn't a greeting between a queen and a duchess.
It was a hug.
A genuine one.
The kind shared only by people who had known each other for many years.
"I was beginning to think that ceremony would never end," Adelaine joked.
Sophia let out a soft laugh.
A real laugh.
Lusian stood frozen.
This wasn't protocol.
This wasn't courtesy between a queen and a duchess.
It was affection.
Real affection.
For several long seconds, he could only watch.
In his memories, the Crown and the Douglases had always stood on opposite sides.
The King.
The heroes.
The Church.
Against...
The House of Douglas.
Then...
Why did these two women look like lifelong friends?
Adelaine and Sophia sat across from one another.
Lusian couldn't look away.
There was no distance between them.
No tension.
None of the cold restraint he had expected from two of the kingdom's most powerful women.
Only familiarity.
As though this scene had happened hundreds of times before.
Andrew and Elizabeth seemed completely accustomed to it.
That was what unsettled him the most.
They weren't surprised.
They weren't cautious.
To them, this was perfectly normal.
An uneasy feeling settled in Lusian's chest.
As though he had walked into a room where everyone knew a truth except him.
"This doesn't make any sense..."
In his memories, the Crown and the Douglases had never been close.
The King kept his distance.
The nobles distrusted the duchy.
And by the end of the story...
he stood against all of them.
The conclusion had always seemed obvious.
The Douglases and the Crown were enemies.
So then...
Why was the Queen looking at Sophia like an old friend?
Adelaine picked up her teacup.
"How is Laurence these days?"
Sophia sighed.
"The same as ever. He still believes he can solve every problem by himself."
The Queen smiled.
"Philip says exactly the same thing about him."
The two women shared a quiet laugh.
Lusian frowned.
This wasn't a conversation between rulers.
It was a conversation between people who had known each other for years.
But that didn't fit with what he knew.
He tried to remember.
The game's story.
The major scenes.
The conversations.
The events that explained the conflict.
But the harder he searched...
the less he found.
The hostility between the Crown and the Douglases simply...
existed.
He couldn't remember ever seeing where it began.
He couldn't remember a single scene where they actually became enemies.
It was as though the game had started after the wound had already been made.
Adelaine set down her teacup.
"It's been many years since what happened with Jeremy..."
The name made Lusian look up.
Jeremy.
He knew it.
Not because the character had been important.
But because he hadn't.
In the game, Jeremy was mentioned only briefly in a few optional documents.
A prince.
A rebellion.
An execution.
Nothing more.
He had never given it much thought.
Until now.
His mind began piecing old memories together.
Jeremy Erkhan Stanley.
The King's younger brother.
The man who had tried to seize the throne.
And among the nobles who supported him...
Ricardo Jones.
Alejandro's father.
A chill ran down Lusian's spine.
In the game, Alejandro had sworn revenge against the Douglases because they executed his father.
For years, Erwin had accepted that story without question.
It was what the game presented.
The Douglases were cruel.
Alejandro had every reason to hate them.
But...
If Ricardo Jones had taken part in a rebellion against the Crown...
then he hadn't died on a whim.
He had been executed for treason.
The silence in the room suddenly felt heavier.
No one had ever told him that.
Not because it had been hidden.
Simply because...
the game had never bothered to explain it.
It only showed the outcome.
A hero who hated the Douglases.
And a player who naturally assumed that hatred was justified.
Lusian slowly lifted his eyes toward Sophia.
She was laughing with the Queen.
Naturally.
Comfortably.
Without pretending.
This wasn't the image of two rival families.
It was the image of two people who had spent years carrying the same burdens.
Then another piece fell into place.
The King never negotiated with the Douglases.
It was always the Queen.
Always.
He had seen it dozens of times.
He had simply never stopped to ask why.
Because the game never explained it.
And he had never felt the need to question it.
His breathing slowed.
He had made the same mistake as millions of players.
He had confused the beginning of the story...
with the beginning of the conflict.
The game began after the relationship between the Crown and the Douglases had already broken down.
But it never revealed who had broken it.
Or how.
Or why.
And that difference...
changed everything.
If the game had omitted something so important...
how many other truths had it reduced to a few lines of text?
Lusian was so lost in thought that he didn't notice someone stopping in front of him.
"Tea?" a gentle voice asked.
He looked up.
A porcelain teacup rested before him.
Before he even thought about it, his hand reached out.
He took it.
"Thank you."
The words came so naturally that he blinked.
Elizabeth smiled.
"You're welcome."
Only then did Erwin truly raise his eyes.
Golden hair.
Blue eyes.
A radiant smile.
Elizabeth Erkhan Stanley.
The air seemed to stop.
The future Demon Queen.
The princess who, years later, would be abducted by a cult and turned into the vessel of an infernal entity.
He had played through her route countless times.
He had seen every ending.
He had spent hours reading hidden lore just to understand her tragedy.
And now...
She stood before him.
Alive.
Smiling.
Holding nothing more than a simple cup of tea.
Elizabeth tilted her head slightly.
"Is something wrong?"
It took Lusian a moment to answer.
"No... Your Highness."
He lowered his gaze to the teacup.
"Wait..."
He didn't remember deciding to take it.
He simply...
had.
As though the gesture had been part of his daily routine for years.
A strange feeling spread through his chest.
It wasn't a memory.
It was something smaller.
Something deeper.
A habit.
From across the room, Andrew smirked.
"Well, look at that."
"He accepted the tea without even looking at you."
Elizabeth giggled.
"He has done that ever since we were children."
Lusian slowly looked up.
"What?"
Andrew walked over with his hands in his pockets.
"He's always been like that."
"My sister would show up with a cup of tea..."
"...and you'd take it before you even realized she was there."
Lusian fell silent.
"Always...?"
He remembered none of it.
Yet...
he had just done exactly that.
"Oh, Lusian..." Elizabeth sighed dramatically. "Were you thinking about your fiancée? Have you really abandoned me for her?"
Before he could answer, Andrew gave him an exaggerated slap on the back.
"So first you make my sister fall in love with you, and now you're ignoring her?"
Lusian opened his mouth to reply.
"Not this again..."
He stopped.
His brow furrowed slightly.
Those words had come out on their own.
Andrew grinned mischievously.
"Lusian Douglas... what a scoundrel. First you get yourself a fiancée, and now you abandon my sister. How irresponsible."
Elizabeth looked away dramatically and sighed.
"You've been ignoring me for days. You used to be the one who always came looking for me... Now you only have eyes for your fiancée."
Andrew laughed even harder.
"You can't run away from your responsibilities, Douglas."
Lusian took a deep breath.
He thought about answering.
He thought about ignoring them.
He thought...
But his foot had already moved.
"—Ack!"
Andrew jumped back, clutching his shin.
The room fell silent.
Lusian slowly lowered his gaze toward his own leg.
"…What did I just do?"
It hadn't been a decision.
He had simply reacted.
As though his body remembered an old habit before he did.
Elizabeth covered her mouth, trying to suppress her laughter.
She failed.
"He did it again!"
Andrew looked up in outrage.
"You always kick me when you're losing an argument!"
Lusian kept staring at his own leg.
His heartbeat quickened.
For the first time since waking up in this world...
he realized that memories were not the only thing he had inherited from Lusian Douglas.
Lusian calmly took a seat beside Sophia, as though he hadn't just kicked the Crown Prince.
Adelaine and Sophia, who had witnessed the entire exchange, shared an amused glance. The Queen let out a soft laugh, while the Duchess gently pinched her son's cheek.
"Behave yourself, Lusian," she whispered, unable to hide a small smile.
A few steps away, Andrew was still rubbing his shin with an offended expression. Elizabeth, meanwhile, had completely given up trying to stop laughing.
"It seems Lusian has changed, Mother."
Adelaine nodded.
"He certainly has. He's no longer the timid little boy the two of you could tease without consequences."
The Queen cast her son an amused glance.
"Isn't that right, Andrew?"
The Crown Prince answered with a grumble that was hardly befitting a future king, earning another burst of laughter from Elizabeth.
For a brief moment, Lusian watched the scene in silence.
There were no protocols.
No masks.
Only a family laughing over the antics of children who had grown up together.
It was an image he never would have imagined at the beginning of the day.
That night, the carriage carrying Sophia and Lusian rolled quietly through the capital's streets.
For the first time since arriving in this world, Lusian spent the journey thinking neither of conspiracies, nor heroes, nor inevitable destinies.
When he reached his room, he collapsed onto his bed without even changing his clothes.
He was exhausted.
He closed his eyes and muttered one last word before sleep claimed him.
"...Insufferable."