I’m Stuck on a Remote Island With the Male Leads - Side Story 21

***

When I came to, I was in an unfamiliar place. Blinking in confusion, I saw Eunji in front of me, tears streaming down like raindrops as he massaged my shoulder with his tiny hands. Beside him, Enoch watched me with a worried expression.

‘What’s going on?’

I found myself in an unknown bedroom. Seeing my bewilderment, Enoch briefly explained the situation.

“We borrowed a guest room at the Magic Tower.”

…The explanation was so brief that it left much to be desired, prompting me to ask a flurry of questions.

“So, why did all this happen suddenly? I could have sworn that at the end, Enoch was proposing to me on the top floor of the Magic Tower….”

Before I could finish, Enoch cleared his throat, looking flustered. Embarrassed, I fell silent as well.

“…Do you remember anything after that?”

“Isn’t that now? Right after the proposal. I woke up here.”

“I meant the part about visiting Kayden’s subconscious.”

“What?”

“Actually, I’m at a loss because I don’t remember anything either.”

“Eunji remembers! Eunji told you!” Eunji shouted excitedly, patting the bed with both hands.

What in the world is he talking about?

“I visited Kayden’s subconscious? I have no memory of that. I’m curious about what happened.”

“Unnie and Enoch will never remember. Only Eunji remembers.”

“…What do you mean?”

“Eunji tore everything up and left!”

I still didn’t understand what she was saying. Eunji’s cryptic responses made me give up on further questioning.

“Okay, so we visited Kayden’s subconscious, but what do you mean you borrowed a guest room in the Magic Tower? From whom? I’m the one who manages the tower.”

Eunji looked quite flustered, an unusual reaction for her.

“S-sorry, Unnie. Eunji mixed up the time.”

Enoch added to her statement, “It seems we’ve traveled back to the past.”

“What?”

***

It seemed like we had traveled roughly 12 years into the past. To find a way back to the present, we decided to look around the tower. The tower was bustling with activity, filled with wizards moving about busily. It had been a long time since I had seen the tower so lively.

That’s when I noticed a child standing in front of Jenas’ eagle statue.

“Huh?”

I realized that the back of the child looked familiar.

“The past Margaret, it seems,” Enoch said, intrigued.

Indeed, the child was my younger self.

About eleven years old? Young Margaret was standing idly in front of the eagle statue of Jenas.

That’s when I remembered why I had felt a strange sense of déjà vu in front of Jenas’ eagle statue.

Ah, that’s why. It turns out I had seen this statue in the past.

I must have erased it from my memory because it wasn’t very impressive.

Then, young Margaret turned around and met my eyes. Huh? Is this okay?

“What? What are you looking at?” Young Margaret picked a fight with me.

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen that cheeky attitude,” Enoch commented with mild interest.

Hey, excuse me. I glared at Enoch, but he just shrugged his shoulders.

“Did you just call me cheeky?” Young Margaret puffed her cheeks and glared at Enoch in anger.

“Wow! Unnie is so tiny!” Eunji exclaimed, looking back and forth between me and young Margaret in shock. Meanwhile, young Margaret seemed fixated on Enoch’s comment about being cheeky.

“Ugh. Why does everyone say I’m cheeky?”

She looked like she was about to cry.

Then, I vaguely remembered the struggles I had during that time.

Everyone called me a weirdo. So I tried to conform to society’s standards as much as possible.

Naturally, it wasn’t easy, and it caused my self-esteem to drop significantly.

I hesitated for a moment.

‘How did I overcome that?’

Even when I tried to remember, nothing came to mind.

Should I say something or not?

Young Margaret was sniffling in front of me. Then, she finally whimpered, her nose turning red. “What gives you the right to call me cheeky?”

“Well… I didn’t mean it like that, so I apologize.” Enoch looked at young Margaret, somewhat embarrassed. He didn’t show much expression, but he was clearly unsure of what to do.

In the end, I decided to give young Margaret some advice. “What’s so bad about being cheeky?”

“Huh?”

“Don’t let what others say sway you, Margaret.”

“Auntie, what do you know to say that?”

“What do you mean, ‘aunty’? I’m only 23!”

I ended up getting dissed by myself. What are the odds of this? Young me was definitely cheeky. Not to mention very rude.

“But how do you know my name?”

Young Margaret asked me when…

“Oh my, isn’t that Lady Floné over there?”

“She’s wearing another weird dress today.”

Whisper, whisper.

Ladies who had come to the tower for requests began whispering as they noticed young Margaret.

Young Margaret seemed to shrink back a bit, smoothing her skirt with a downcast face.

I looked at her quietly, then tore a piece of my dress. I heard Enoch sigh beside me, but I ignored it.

Everyone in the lobby stared at me in shock. Young Margaret, who looked just as surprised, met my eyes.

“What on earth are you doing…?”

“Life is all about crappy timing, so things won’t go the way you want. It’s not that you’re weird; life itself is just crappy.”

“…What does that mean?”

“So don’t be swayed. You have to love yourself for life to be beautiful.”

Young Margaret looked at me, speechless. Enoch was also staring at me intently; I could feel his gaze burning into the side of my face.

“Y-You’re spouting nonsense! It doesn’t make any sense!”

“Margaret Rose Floné.”

“Yes?”

“That’s my name. Your future self.”

“What? What kind of crazy talk is that?”

“So trust me and have confidence. Whether you believe it or not, that’s up to you.”

I snapped back to my senses only after seeing the shocked expression on young Margaret’s face. When I belatedly turned to Enoch, our eyes met as expected.

“…I just made a mess, didn’t I?”

Enoch looked at me with a face full of things he wanted to say.

He kept staring at me in silence for a while.

It was as if he was swallowing a realization and an overwhelming emotion that was hard to put into words.

“Well done,” he finally said. “Because you said that, I’m here now.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“Don’t worry, Unnie. It’ll all be like a dream anyway,” Eunji said before Enoch could respond.

“We’re foreign substances right now! Like dream-like existences!”

Young Margaret seemed utterly shocked and frozen in place, not even hearing what Eunji was saying.

I glanced around and decided to slip away before young Margaret regained her composure.

Once I had distanced myself a bit, I turned to Enoch and asked, “Can we really go back home?”

“We can do it since we’ve left the unconscious!” It was Eunji who answered.

“How?”

“Let’s wait for Prince Biscuit to help us!”

“How will Prince Arthdal help?”

It was a question asked out of genuine curiosity. How did Eunji know all this? It was impressive. He was getting smarter by the day.

“The Magic Eye!”

“The Magic Eye? He can’t use it anymore.”

“Even if he can’t use magic, he has the sense! He also has a medium!”

He even knew the word ‘medium.’ Eunji’s vocabulary was improving by leaps and bounds.

Eunji hastily pointed to Jenas’ eagle statue and said, “The eagle! It’s this! There’s an eagle in our time too!”

***

Arthdal looked up. The towering magic tower came into view. There was no way the power of the Magic Eye could still be present, but the pain continued to be felt. Unbelievably, the source of the pain was the tower itself.

Arthdal entered the tower with Ruzef. An empty lobby greeted them.

“It seems like no one is here,” Ruzef said as he carefully looked around the lobby.

“I feel something around here,” Arthdal replied as he walked toward a corner of the garden, where an eagle statue stood.

The magic tower’s beloved wizard,

The father of wizards,

<Jenas Igran>

Go to hell, demon!

Curse you!

Shame of the wizards!

Arthdal and Ruzef silently stared at the words engraved beneath the eagle statue. Silence lingered between them for a moment.

“I didn’t know things like this were still here,” Ruzef said, just as the pain in Arthdal’s eyes flared up again. He pressed his eye with the back of his hand.

“It seems this statue is the problem,” Arthdal said.

“What?”

“I mean, the source of the Magic Eye’s pain. I sense something strange coming from this eagle statue.”

Arthdal slowly reached out his hand toward the statue, but Ruzef quickly grabbed it.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, I just felt like I had to touch it.”

“That’s a temptation. Don’t be swayed,” Ruzef spoke firmly.

Arthdal looked at the statue and then at Ruzef, confused.

“No, I mean…”

“It’s dangerous. The energy doesn’t feel right.”

Somehow, coming from the Pope, the words sounded plausible and trustworthy, but Arthdal was still feeling uneasy.

“How about we check all the floors?” Ruzef suggested.

Agreeing, the two men climbed up to the door where Kayden was sealed.

“Huh? There’s something on the floor.”

They picked up a ring lying in front of the door.

“A ring? Was the Crown Prince planning to propose to Lady Floné? Haha, where have they disappeared to?”

Despite looking around for quite some time, they still found no one.

“Wow, this must be an engagement ring, right? No way a valuable diamond ring like this would be lying around,” Arthdal said.

“That’s true. Knowing His Highness’s personality, he wouldn’t have dropped such an important ring…” Ruzef mused.

While fiddling with the ring, Arthdal playfully slipped it onto his pinky finger as he descended the stairs.

“Why are you putting that on?” Ruzef asked.

“Oh, just for fun. Don’t worry. My fingers are more graceful and beautiful than most women’s, you know, like a pianist’s fingers.”

Jokingly trying to remove the ring, Arthdal suddenly stopped. The ring wouldn’t come off his pinky.

Arthdal showed Ruzef his pinky with the ring still on it and said, “Do I have to marry the Crown Prince now?”

Ruzef gave him an exasperated look. Arthdal continued joking regardless.

“The future King of Hestia wearing the engagement ring of the future Emperor of Langridge. This complicates the lineage quite a bit.”

“Please refrain from making such odd and useless jokes.”

“Useless? That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”

“And how can you be so sure that’s the Crown Prince’s engagement ring?”

“Just look at it. Isn’t it exactly his style? A diamond for an engagement ring is classic.”

The two men bantered as they descended the stairs and stood before the eagle statue again.

“It’s certain the cause of my pain started here,” Arthdal said, resting his chin on his hand in thought.

“Is Jenas’ magic lingering? It’s ominous. We should definitely remove it…”

As he touched the eagle statue, suddenly, electricity surged, and Arthdal quickly withdrew his hand.

“What’s this…?” He winced as tremendous pain shot through his eyes.

The space around them began to warp. The ground beneath them crumpled like paper. By the time he realized what was happening, someone was already at their feet.

“Lady Floné!”

There lay Enoch, holding Margaret and Eunji in his arms.