Episode 111 – Congratulations
by Afuhfuihgs
Episode 111 – Congratulations.
*
Ed hugged Mella tightly.
Mella nestled into Ed’s arms, burying her face in his chest.
As Ed gently stroked Mella’s fluffy hair with his slender, long fingers, a happy smile spread across Mella’s face.
Ed seemed to put a little strength into his hands, then hugged Mella’s body tightly with both arms.
“I missed you so damn much.”
Ed’s voice rang clear.
Mella, also hugging Ed’s back, said,
“You idiot, you couldn’t have waited as much as I did.”
“Did you miss me?”
“So much, incredibly much, I missed you like crazy.”
“…Me too.”
Mella felt Ed’s face touching her head.
Ed rubbed his cheek against the crown of Mella’s head, which was touching his chest, and hugged her even tighter.
It was a little suffocating, but his embrace, fitting perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle piece, felt so good that Mella felt euphoric just from the hug.
“Ed, I love you.”
“…”
“…Ed? …What about you?”
“…I love you. I love you more than words can express, Mella.”
“Then… you know.”
“Yeah?”
“…Kiss me.”
Mella said something quite bold for a Saintess.
She knew full well what she had said.
She knew very well what a kiss was.
She also knew very well that it was something a Saintess shouldn’t do.
However, Mella, blushing, asked Ed for a kiss.
She wanted to kiss Ed right now.
She didn’t know why, but she felt like she had to kiss him right now.
Ed, surprised by Mella’s boldness, was silent for a moment, then swallowed hard and slowly replied.
“…Look up. Mella,”
“…Ed,”
Mella slowly raised her head.
Ed’s face was clearly visible.
How much she had missed that face,
How much she had wanted to see that face.
Ed leaned down and gently grabbed Mella’s chin with his large hand, slowly lifting it.
Mella watched Ed’s face getting closer and slowly closed her eyes.
Tch.
Ed lightly touched his lips to hers and slowly pulled away.
She had asked for a kiss,
Mella, feeling how much he cherished her like a jewel from Ed’s actions of only giving a light peck and pulling away, loved him more than anything.
However, Mella’s desires were even greater than Ed imagined.
Embarrassingly, Mella wanted to have a deep, tongue-entwined, adult kiss with him.
Mella reached out and wrapped her arms around Ed’s neck, pulling his face, which was moving away, closer.
“Me, Mella?”
“Kiss me.”
Slowly, their lips met and parted.
As she felt the soft, moist tongue touch hers, Mella trembled all over with a thrill and pushed her tongue even more boldly into his mouth.
Ed’s tongue, the back of his upper teeth. The front of his lower teeth, and the inside of Ed’s lips were licked in turn, and she breathed her rough breath into his mouth.
“E, Ed,”
“…”
“I wanted to do this all along.”
Mella grabbed Ed’s face, slowly pulled her lips away, and opened her eyes.
“Hello. Mella.”
The man Mella was kissing was Robin.
“Kyaa!”
Mella was startled and screamed, pushing Robin away and distancing herself.
Robin, with a wicked smile, tapped his lips with his thumb as if showing off.
Mella shouted.
“Why you! Where’s Ed?”
“Ed?”
Robin turned his head to the side.
When she shifted her gaze to the direction Robin was looking, Ed was lying there.
No, to be exact, there was Ed’s corpse, dead and decaying.
His entire skin, including his face, was bloodless and pale, turning almost bluish, and flies and maggots swarmed over Ed’s body, wriggling as they ate away at his cheeks and eyelids.
A large Holy Sword was embedded in Ed’s stomach.
Mella trembled all over and called out her lover’s name.
“…E, Ed?”
“No, Mella.”
A chilling finger went over Mella’s shoulder and came forward, hugging Mella as it was.
Robin hugged Mella from behind and whispered in her ear.
“Your husband is me. Isn’t that right? You love me, don’t you?”
“N, no… What are you saying? I love Ed…!”
“Then, what about our kids?”
“…What?”
As soon as Robin finished speaking, Tess and Edward, who had appeared out of nowhere, stood in front of Mella, pointing at Ed’s corpse.
The smiles on the faces of her beloved son and daughter seemed so eerie today.
Robin put his hand inside Mella’s clothes and whispered.
“Tell me, Mella, you love me, right?”
“…N, no, the one I love is… Ugh, mph!”
Mella opened her eyes wide and touched her lips with trembling hands.
For some reason, her mouth wouldn’t open when she tried to call Ed’s name.
Only a bewildered voice, forced out between her twisted lips, leaked out.
It was as if her lips were tightly closed, sewn together with an invisible thread.
“Ugh… Edeu…”
Mella struggled.
She must, she must call him.
She had to call Ed’s name no matter what.
Mella, enduring the pain of her lips tearing, opened her mouth and desperately shouted Ed’s name, then suddenly opened her eyes.
“Ed!”
Mella, who opened her eyes under an unfamiliar ceiling, was soaked all over.
Mella, breathing heavily in a place she had never seen before, jumped up.
She wondered if it was because of the rain that had poured down like needles all night, but judging from the musty smell coming from her clothes, it seemed she had been sweating all night.
Mella looked around with anxious eyes.
It was a space she had never seen before.
The space, filled with a strange medicinal smell and lukewarm air that was neither cold nor hot, felt very unpleasant.
The small bed and pillow she had been lying on were soaked with sweat, and around her were several identical beds with the same pillows and blankets.
Anxious, Mella called out the name of her lover, who would always protect her.
“…Ed?”
But around her, there was no Ed, nor Robin, nor Tess, nor Edward.
“A dream…? Since when?”
Mella began to wonder if everything that had happened last night with Baron Salvie was all a dream.
Of course.
There’s no way Ed could come back to life.
Baron Salvie being Ed.
That’s ridiculous.
The uneasy feelings caused by Robin’s investigation and the discord with Baron Salvie must have caused her to have such a strange dream.
Mella thought so and slowly exhaled.
“Hoo… Haa, haa… Huk, hureuk,”
Strangely, her breathing didn’t calm down at all.
Her body was trembling like an aspen tree.
Goosebumps were popping up on her skin, enough to feel the texture of the air brushing against Mella’s shoulders.
“Why is my body, why is it like this…”
“Oh, you’re awake, Madam.”
“Kyaa!”
Mella was startled and screamed as someone suddenly opened the door and entered.
The person who entered the room was an old man wearing a white gown.
The old man panicked and said to Mella.
“C, calm down. Madam!”
“W, who are you! D, don’t come any closer!”
“Calm down, I’m a doctor!”
“…A doctor?”
The old man slowly began to explain without approaching Mella.
“Late last night, Baron Salvie-nim visited our clinic with you, Madam, after you had fainted.”
“Ah… Aah… Ugh,”
Mella was frustrated by the doctor’s words.
Baron Salvie.
Ed had left her here after she had collapsed.
It wasn’t a dream.
That nightmarish event was not a dream at all.
Mella felt her vision darkening and breathed heavily.
“Madam…?”
“Ah, no… I’m okay… My body is… a bit,”
“I heard you collapsed after being caught in the rain. You didn’t seem to have a fever, but you were sweating a lot. It seems you’re under a lot of stress. You need to calm your mind a little.”
“Yes, thank you for the advice.”
“Still, just in case, I’ll prescribe some medicine for a cold.”
The doctor said that and took out a notebook, starting to write something.
Mella carefully asked him.
“…Excuse me… By any chance, Baron Salvie-nim…”
“He paid the medical bill last night and went back.”
“…I see.”
“I won’t ask what happened, but please take care of yourself. Madam, you’re pregnant at a late age, so you need to be even more careful.”
“…Pardon?”
Mella blankly asked back, not understanding what he had just said.
The doctor, not noticing Mella’s bewildered expression, continued to scribble something in his notebook.
“Pregnancy in your 40s isn’t extremely rare, but the older you are, the more dangerous it is for the mother, so you should…”
“W, what… What are you talking about…?”
“Oh, didn’t you know?”
The doctor raised his head and looked at Mella.
At that moment, Mella desperately wished.
Please, please, someone, shut that old man’s mouth,
“Congratulations. Madam, you’re pregnant.”
“…Ah, ha… Hahaha,”
Mella looked at her abdomen with a ghastly smile.
Inside this, a new life is wriggling like maggots.
Robin and my new child.
“Uwaaak”
Mella couldn’t hold back the sudden nausea and began to vomit on the blanket.
But since she had already thrown up everything last night, only a whitish foam was spewing out.
The flustered doctor came closer with a dry towel, but Mella didn’t care and kept vomiting.
She hoped she could throw up even that terrible seed in her stomach.
“Madam! Are you alright?”
“Kuluk, kek, heue, heeek,”
“Well, that’s strange… Baron-nim showed the same reaction yesterday,”
The doctor said, wiping Mella’s mouth.
At those words, Mella felt her pupils shrink.
Mella, with her eyes narrowed and shaking miserably, looked at the doctor and slowly asked in a trembling voice.
“…What did you say…?”
“Yesterday, Baron Salvie-nim also ran out and vomited after hearing that you were pregnant, Madam.”
“…He, knew…? That I have… Robin’s child…?”
“…Why are you being like this…?”
“Ah… Ahaha, ah, ah… No… No way…”
Mella buried her face in the blanket, which was covered in her vomit, and groaned.
She didn’t feel disgusted.
Even the most disgusting and filthy human excrement, even more than this vomit, would feel cleaner than she did now,
Mella couldn’t even begin to fathom how much her filth and inadequacy had tormented Ed.
There were countless things she wanted to say if she met Ed again, but the three things she wanted to say the most were:
I’m sorry, thank you, and I love you.
However, no matter how much she searched her memory, she had no recollection of saying those three things last night.
The only thing she had said to Ed was a heartless and miserable plea to kill her.
No apology for being sorry,
No gratitude for being thankful,
Without conveying any sincerity of love.
Just to kill her.
Knowing that Ed would never do that.
She repeated those words like an idiot.
Moreover, what did I do to that Ed?
Ed, I made him find out.
This terrible thing of mine that even I didn’t know,
He found out. He ended up finding out.
Disgusting bitch.
A useless and disgusting bitch who couldn’t even heal the pain Ed had suffered so far had once again hurt him with a terrible act.
How much more?
How much more will I hurt him?
How stupid and lacking am I?
Probably… definitely.
I can never be forgiven.
“Eueueueuk, aaaa! Euaaaaaaaa!”
Mella screamed until the walls of her throat tore.
The old man blocked his ears and just looked at Mella with puzzled eyes.
*
Perhaps because of the rain that had poured down all night, the morning was literally boasting a refreshingness filled with a clear sky without a single cloud and fresh air.
That’s why Mella found this sunlight, which completely illuminated her body, even more painful.
She felt so guilty towards the sun shining on her.
She was so ashamed of the light illuminating her.
Mella was moving her feet aimlessly with empty eyes.
But Mella’s gaze wasn’t directed forward.
What she was looking at was a small note in her hand.
It was a note that the old man had given her before she left the clinic, saying that he had been asked by Baron Salvie to give it to her.
A very concise message was written on the note.
‘If you feel sorry for me, never die. That’s your atonement.’
Mella gave a hollow laugh and muttered to herself.
“…This is the punishment.”
The request Ed conveyed in the note was so cruel.
Mella wanted to die right away.
She wanted to disappear from this world right now.
She had wanted to die when Ed died before, but things were very different from then.
Back then, it was because she wanted to see the dead Ed again, but this time it was because she found it so disgusting and repulsive to be alive.
And, more than anything, it was because the fact that Robin’s desire-filled excrement was coiled up in her stomach was so terrible.
“Y, you’re too… too harsh…”
Mella was walking in the middle of the road, as far away from the buildings as possible.
It was because if she walked near the buildings and caught sight of herself in the glass, she couldn’t stand it because it was so disgusting.
Suddenly, Mella remembered Robin’s words.
The way he looked at her and laughed, saying she didn’t know anything.
This was it.
This is what I didn’t know.
Why did I trust him?
It couldn’t be helped, we had already lived together as husband and wife for 17 years.
Then why did you trust him 17 years ago?
Well, he was the leader of our party, and he was also the hero who killed the Demon King…
But it wasn’t, the one he killed was Ed.
Ah, uh, aah…
Mella’s legs gave way and she collapsed on the spot, covering her face and groaning.
The groan turned into tears, the tears into sobs, and the sobs soon turned into wails.
If a stranger saw her, they might have thought she had lost a parent.
But Mella couldn’t hide the tears pouring out like a dam had burst and the wails crawling out through her throat, scraping sharply against her torn vocal cords.
As if she had drunk a lot of strong alcohol and her memory had flown away, Mella suddenly came to her senses and found herself in front of the main gate of the Boldiras Mansion.
She didn’t remember how she got here.
Mella’s eyes were swollen and dark circles were deeply set, and her lips were torn and bloody.
Her disheveled hair was dry and mixed with a lot of gray hair at a glance, and even her skin was a mess with chapped skin and prickly goosebumps.
Even a prostitute with a sexually transmitted disease who was engrossed in soliciting customers on the street would look noble next to Mella now, and no one would think that this woman was a former Saintess and the wife of a Count.
Mella slowly entered the mansion with vacant eyes.
When Mella opened the main gate of the mansion, someone spoke to her.
“Mother!”
Edward rushed to Mella and, startled by her appearance, asked.
“Where were you last night? My God, what happened to you?”
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