Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 66 - 66 55 Declining and Fortune Telling 6500 words grand

66: Chapter 55: Declining and Fortune Telling (6500 words grand chapter) 66: Chapter 55: Declining and Fortune Telling (6500 words grand chapter) “I don’t think ‘stupid’ is the right word,” Aske said softly.

“You just lack experience in this area.”

“Why do you have experience, then?” Nora moved closer to him, slowly wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her cheek on her knees as she gazed intently at him.

“Aske, you’ve never talked about yourself.”

“Do you want to listen?” Aske glanced at her.

“Mm,” Nora hummed through her nose.

“I’m actually not a native of Constantinople.” Aske looked into the distance.

“I come from a very distant plane.

You could say it’s somewhat similar to the Dragon Country, only it is extremely far and nearly impossible to reach by any means of transport—it’s another world altogether.”

“Oh,” Nora smiled.

“I often see such plots in novels, where the protagonist inexplicably travels to another world and then starts to thrive, sort of like you…”

She suddenly stopped awkwardly because there was no smile on Aske’s face, just a serene look at her.

“Where was I?” Aske paused in silence before continuing, “Right, my family.

My father died when I was very young, and I was raised solely by my mother.”

“I’m sorry,” Nora said.

“I didn’t know…”

“No need to apologize; it has nothing to do with you,” Aske shook his head.

“My father…

He led a reclusive life, completely out of touch with society, surviving by submitting drawings to comic websites.”

“My mother was a traditional rural woman.

It seems they met through a matchmaking arrangement.

I’m still not sure if love ever existed between them.”

“Speaking of affection, my father’s true passion was for the second dimension, a bizarre and intense emotion I still can’t understand.”

“He was obsessed with a virtual singer from a music game; I remember its name was Orange.”

“My father often pointed at Orange on the screen and said, ‘This is my true wife.'”

“Every time he said this, my mother would just show an indulgent, helpless smile, probably treating my father as an un-grown child and taking care of him.”

Aske picked up a stone and threw it into the river ahead, creating ripples: “Later, when I was six, that music game was shut down.”

“My father couldn’t accept the disappearance of Orange; he tried to redraw Orange on paper, yet Orange was a 3D model, not a two-dimensional character.”

“So, he started learning MMD, begging netizens for character models.

But the copyright for Orange was still held by the game company, and random online distribution would provoke legal action, so no one responded to his requests…”

“Eventually, he couldn’t handle it and took his own life.”

“Are you saying your father committed suicide over a fictional animated character?” Nora asked in shock.

“Yes, it’s ridiculous, isn’t it?” Aske picked up another stone, weighing it in his hand.

“It’s just the story of a coward who wouldn’t take on familial responsibilities, immersing himself in his false world, and eventually opting to end his life when that world collapsed.”

“He may have left carefree, but he never considered the impact it would have on me and my mother.”

“Since then, our situation at home just went downhill.

This dishonorable suicide brought us great mental pressure from the surrounding neighbors, so my mother decided to move.”

“Because someone had died in it, our original house couldn’t be sold or rented out.

Later, my mother took me to rent another place on the other side of the city.”

“To support me, she gave up too much.

Under the most severe financial strain, she would work three jobs a day, leaving the house at 6 a.m.

and not returning until 2 a.m., sometimes so exhausted that she would fall asleep against the doorframe as soon as she entered, and I would help her back to bed.”

Aske let out a long sigh, saying, “She really, truly did everything a mother should do.”

Nora didn’t speak, her eyes slightly red, her gaze cast down.

“That’s why I can’t be like those protagonists in novels, who after traversing to the other plane just stay there completely, making a clean break from their original world’s family with a clear conscience, do you understand?” Aske looked across the river at the mountain range, earnestly saying, “If I did that, how would I be any different from my father?”

“A mother, who has painstakingly raised her son into adulthood, then to have her son never return, leaving her alone in the world…

That shouldn’t be her fate.”

“I must go back,” he declared firmly.

“Back to that world.”

“Aske,” Nora’s voice trembled.

“You mean…”

“There is a coastal city named Kavala, 100 kilometers south of here,” Aske stated calmly.

“There resides a fortune-teller from the Dragon Country, whom you might understand as a prophet.

He is capable of breaking the fourth wall, and perhaps he’ll know how I can return to my original plane.”

“Nora, we are not from the same world.” He sighed deeply, speaking earnestly.

“What if I also go to your plane…” Nora blurted out excitedly; however, her voice halted abruptly in her throat.

She remembered her father and mother, and her brothers and sisters.

Just as Aske couldn’t abandon his mother in that world, how could she leave her family in this world?

“If…

I mean if,” Nora fell silent for a moment, clinging to her last hope as she asked, “What if the prophet doesn’t know how to get you back?

Or if he tells you there is no way to return?”