Episode 20 – The Girl I Loved

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I don’t know why, but

I missed the sea I saw from the bottom of Flavis’s harbor so much.

The morning sunlight shot out by the rising sun, shaking on the shimmering surface of the water, spread out,

Colorful corals and fish with fancy stripes sparkled according to the swaying lights, revealing themselves and disappearing back into the darkness.

The sight was an amazing spectacle.

The stuffy yet comfortable silence created by the seawater that filled both ears without a gap.

I felt like the chaos in my heart was calming down a bit in that cozy silence that embraced me.

I was captivated in an instant.

Because, the land I had lived on all my life was full of buildings with gaudy decorations so hideous that they clearly revealed their grotesque appearance in the unfiltered light,

And beneath it was a place full of nothing but noisy deceptions and laughter, licking their stinky tongues for their own benefit.

As a criminal turned hero’s party member, I was completely fed up with those sights that seemed even clearer to me.

And now, I was making a terrible noise on that land as well.

“Ugh, ueaaack,”

An undead body had as many convenient things as it had inconvenient ones.

One of them is that you don’t have to eat.

In the first place, my organs don’t even move.

Therefore, since I can’t defecate, when food comes into my stomach, I would later take out my stomach, scrub it clean, put it back in my stomach, and heal it with holy power.

There’s no pain, so there’s not much of a problem except that it’s a bit annoying,

But since it looks like a very gruesome act, Lara screamed in horror when she first saw it.

For the sake of Lara and Lily’s mental health, I hardly ever ate unless I really wanted to feel the delicious food.

Today, of course, my stomach was empty.

Every time I vomited, my empty stomach, which didn’t even secrete gastric acid, only spat out dark red jelly-like blood clots, tuk tuk.

“Fucking shit, goddamn it,”

It’s too harsh.

It was so harsh that I couldn’t bear it, so I wanted to give up on revenge and just die.

But my body is not allowed to sleep or die.

Unlike my body, which recovers infinitely without pain, my mind, which cannot take even a little rest, was already exceeding its limit.

So much so that these days, the Demon King’s magic that gave me the opportunity to take revenge by becoming undead feels more like a blessing,

And Mela’s blessing, which forcibly held onto my mind, sometimes felt more like a curse.

I wish I didn’t have reason and ego left like other undead, I would have stopped this bullshit and just bit Robin’s neck.

No, why can’t I do it now?

Why shouldn’t I reveal the truth to Mela, saying ‘I am Edward’?

Why can’t I just kill Robin and Jennifer and kill everyone who gets in my way?

The day Lily almost died from eating poison, I clearly asked myself.

Aren’t I hesitating because I’m an undead with too much human emotion left?

If I’m a monster, shouldn’t I just kill everything I want according to my instincts?

[That’s ‘revenge’.]

No,

It’s obvious.

The reason why I’m doing this troublesome bullshit.

It’s because I don’t want to give Robin just death.

It’s because I don’t want to end it with just that.

I’ve thought about why Robin betrayed me several times.

However, I could only make simple guesses, but after seeing the funeral today, I was somewhat certain of the reason that I couldn’t figure out at all.

Robin wants honor.

I wonder if he had such a big complex about being from a commoner background,

He is the hero who caught the Demon King. It seems like he has even greater ambitions than that.

That’s why he took all the women in the hero party as wives.

And he eliminated me, who was in the way, in the process.

He tried to betroth his son to the princess, and at the same time, he tried to betroth Rose to another royal family member who could aim for the emperor’s position.

Rumor has it that he forcibly kicked out his teacher and took her place.

Robin’s teacher is a female knight who is the commander of the Knights.

She is also my teacher who taught me when I trained to become a thief in the party.

Robin took everything without hesitation for his own purposes.

So my revenge won’t end with just death.

I will also take away.

I will take away, destroy, and burn everything he has built up so far.

Yes, my mind has definitely exceeded its limit by far.

The only thing that makes my mind clear is

Only revenge.

The moment my desire for revenge subsided after meeting Mela, it was so painful and agonizing, probably because my mind was relying solely on revenge to endure.

I need to focus on revenge now.

I only need to think about the plan.

And on the day my revenge is over, I can sink into the sea of Flavis and take eternal rest.

I made sure there was no one around, then carefully took off my mask and wiped the blood that was all over my mouth and mask.

When I flicked my wrist to shake off the sticky blood clots on my fingers, the flying blood clots fell into the red flower garden.

Only then did I raise my head and look around.

“Where… is this.”

I ran away from Mela without thinking, and ended up in a place I didn’t know.

It seems to be somewhere in the garden inside Robin’s mansion, but something was strange for a noble’s garden.

Although it’s a small garden, it was all red salvia flowers.

Huh, what a coincidence.

I don’t know why there are so many salvia flowers blooming among all the flowers in the world.

Looking around again carefully, there was a small gazebo in the middle of the salvia flower garden.

Seeing that there was only a table for one person and one chair in the gazebo, I could tell that this garden was only for one person.

“Ah, shit.”

There is only one person in this mansion who would have memories of salvia flowers.

Why,

Just as I was about to turn around to get away from this place.

“Baron Salvia-nim, are you okay?”

“Oh, shit.”

Probably the owner of this place, she.

Mela followed me, saying in a worried voice.

Oops.

I was taking off my mask right now.

Fortunately, with Mela behind me, I hurriedly covered my face with the mask and said.

“Yes. I’m okay. I wasn’t feeling well to begin with, but it seems like I overdid it today.”

“Oh, are you really okay? I couldn’t see well because you were wearing a mask, but you seemed to be in a very bad state.”

“I’m okay.”

“There are some over-the-counter medicines in the mansion, if you need any…”

“I said I’m okay!”

As she approached me, I shouted.

Mela stopped talking immediately, surprised.

After putting on the mask perfectly, I slowly turned around to face her.

“I’m sorry for suddenly raising my voice.”

“Ah… no, I’m sorry for making you sensitive.”

“Anyway, I’m really okay, but I’ll go first just in case. I’ll see a doctor on the way, so you don’t have to worry too much.”

“… Yes, thank you for coming to our family’s funeral today. May the Goddess watch over you, Baron-nim.”

Even after saying goodbye, Mela seemed to have something she wanted to say.

Well, I have a mountain of things I want to ask and say too.

But not yet.

I passed her and bowed my head lightly.

“Then, it was nice meeting you today, Madam.”

“… Th-there,”

Ah, please.

Just let me go.

“What is it?”

“Well, my husband said he had something he wanted to say to you, Baron-nim…”

“I’m sorry, but please make it another day. I need to rest today.”

“Ah, that’s… just a moment.”

Mela slowly raised her hand and took off the veil covering her face.

“…Huh.”

At that moment, everything seemed to stop.

I couldn’t do anything but stand there like a corpse.

As the piece of cloth covering her face disappeared, her orange hair, which I had missed so much, fell softly onto her clothes.

Her curly hair was straightened and fell straight down, and the shine flowing along her hair was like the Milky Way or the sparkling of a stream reflecting sunlight on a clear day,

And her clear brown eyes, which used to look so big and full of laughter, were carved and deepened by the winds of time, filled with a deep melancholy rather than the cheerfulness of the past.

She was as beautiful as ever, but the faint wrinkles around her eyes and mouth cruelly informed me of the years she had spent.

Mela. The one I loved so much.

The one I loved with all my body and heart

She was my everything.

I realized after seeing her face.

‘She’s changed so much.’

It wasn’t that her face had changed, or that she wasn’t beautiful now.

From the appearance and atmosphere of her entire face and expression, I deeply realized that she was no longer the Mela I knew.

Let’s be honest.

I still love Mela.

But the Mela I loved is no longer in this world.

The moment I died 20 years ago, the her I loved also disappeared forever.

I was familiar with this uncomfortable feeling I was feeling now.

Lara.

I still treated Lara comfortably like a friend, but I felt a slight uneasiness from her.

I hadn’t noticed it until now because of the blessing of longevity that elves have, but she was the same as Mela.

Lara, 20 years later, was not the Lara who was my friend 20 years ago.

Mela is the same.

Unfortunately, I only realized it after seeing Mela’s changed face.

The her in front of me is just a beautiful but different woman with traces of the woman I loved still remaining.

I had no choice but to accept that violently cruel reality.

She looked straight at me with those deep eyes and asked.

“This is my garden. A garden only for me.”

“I see. I’m sorry for entering the garden without permi…”

“So I filled this place with my favorite salvia flowers.”

“…ssion.”

“Baron-nim.”

She took a step closer to me.

I still looked at her without moving.

I looked at her desperately, as if trying to find traces of Mela in her face.

She was silent for a moment, then slowly opened her mouth.

“May I ask why your name is Salvia?”

The reason why I chose the name Salvia as a pseudonym?

Because I like salvia flowers.

The reason why I like salvia flowers?

Because it’s full of memories with you.

I took my eyes off her, passed her, and said.

“It’s just a family name, it has nothing to do with flowers.”

I left the mansion as it was.

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