Ch.91Reunion (4)

*

From a very young age, Silvia’s life had been filled with struggles she never once desired.

The countless competitions and battles that had never disappeared from her life naturally brought devastating storms upon her, and those relentless times of suffering were too much to bear even for her resilient body.

Even before the title of “Hero” was forced upon her, she always appeared calm on the outside, but inside, she was constantly staggering and wavering.

However, she eventually knelt before her own fate and accepted it.

Effort and sacrifice. Sorrow and hardship.

Though she had never wanted it nor permitted it, she accepted the heavy burden that had been placed on her shoulders with something close to resignation, considering it her destiny, and swallowed the rising sense of injustice that threatened to choke her.

Even for a Hero with overwhelming power, battles where her life was at stake were always frightening, and though she wanted to run away countless times, she endured each moment by gritting her teeth until they nearly shattered.

That’s how she embarked on her journey as a Hero to save the world.

But when she lost her precious comrades, even her closest friend, and caused the deaths of villagers who had only tried to show her kindness when she was injured, she no longer wanted to accept her fate.

She wanted to die.

However, just as Silvia had never been given the chance to choose her destiny, this time too, she was robbed of the opportunity to escape.

This thing called fate, which so desperately wanted to torment Silvia, wouldn’t allow her to escape through death.

After dozens, perhaps hundreds of suicide attempts, she let out a hollow laugh and once again accepted her fate.

She accepted, while shuddering with goosebumps that rose like needles, that the effort, sacrifice, sorrow, and hardship she had to pay were not yet over, and might never end.

Because the horrific memories that made her retch just by recalling them and the worst possible future that brought tears to her eyes just by imagining it remained etched in her vision, refusing to disappear,

She wore a miserable smile, nodded like a broken machine, and calmly waited for death in the prison that was the forest.

That was the end that Hero Silvia had reached after her great adventure, and the future that awaited her.

Until Ash came.

“…”

Silvia briefly reflected on her life.

Hell,

Within the words she knew, there was no other way to describe her life.

Yet, throughout her entire life, nothing had ever caused such a precarious sense of anxiety,

Silvia sincerely thought as she watched the woman who had once again come to visit Ash in the deep of night.

Though she was hiding at quite a distance, Silvia’s sensitive ears could detect that the two were conversing.

She couldn’t hear the content of their conversation, but the murmuring sounds continued for quite some time.

What could it be?

What were they talking about?

The desire to go closer and eavesdrop and the feeling that she didn’t want to hear the two of them happily conversing clashed violently in Silvia’s mind.

The clash was so intense that the heat generated by the friction between these two concerns made her face flush bright red.

The heat turned into anger, but that anger didn’t give her courage.

Before she knew it, the sound of their pleasant conversation had ceased.

Silvia strained her ears, her eyes bloodshot.

Would she hear the sounds of a man and woman making love?

If she did, what should she do?

Should she kill?

Who?

Ash?

Silvia shook her head, denying the thought that had appeared in her mind.

It was impossible for her to harm Ash with her own hands.

She had painfully realized during the time without Ash that she could no longer live without him.

Days of endlessly chasing death with an immortal body.

That couldn’t be called living.

It was something that couldn’t even be called hell.

Then, she should kill that woman.

But for the same reason she couldn’t kill Ash, she couldn’t kill the woman in front of Ash’s eyes.

Since it would be disastrous if Ash were to flee in horror, he must not know what she had done.

Silvia slowly took a deep breath.

Like a marble statue carved in human form, she remained fixed in place, waiting for morning to come.

When morning arrived, she heard the sound of conversation once again.

Silvia slowly took a deep breath.

Shortly after, when the woman who had finished talking left the cabin and walked away from the lakeside, Silvia also slowly began to move.

Watching as the woman entered the forest, Silvia carefully followed behind her.

And as soon as she found her, she cut her throat.

*

“I didn’t expect you to smell the blood.”

Silvia muttered to herself as she stroked Ash’s hair with her fingertips while he slept.

She had cut the throat of the lustful woman who had been fawning over Ash before the sun had reached its peak, but it wasn’t until nightfall that Silvia came to the cabin.

Since it had been a while since she’d faced Ash, she wanted to look pretty, so she was late because she had been grooming herself.

Having been covered in monster blood and entrails during Ash’s absence without caring at all, Silvia had come to look like a ghost.

As it happened, the place where she had cut the woman’s throat was Milwood Village, so Silvia walked along the familiar scenery to the river to bathe and thoroughly wash her clothes.

She let the river wash away the stench that had permeated her body and cleaned the bloodstains from her clothes as best she could.

Perhaps because of the cold weather, by the time she waited for her soaked clothes to dry, night had already fallen.

Despite all that preparation, she didn’t expect the smell to linger.

Well, without proper detergent or soap, it was inevitable that some smell would remain.

‘You smell of blood. Are you hurt somewhere?’

Silvia smiled as she recalled Ash’s words.

As soon as he smelled the faint scent of blood on her body, his first reaction was concern.

She found such an Ash incredibly lovable.

He worried about her even though he knew she couldn’t die.

A person who saw her as neither a soldier nor a hero.

The only person in this world who worried about Silvia getting hurt.

A person who loved, who gave love.

He was all the more lovable after the time they had spent apart.

“Chu,”

Silvia lightly kissed Ash’s cheek as he slept.

He had said he spent all day repairing the roof, so he must be tired, and while she understood why he fell asleep, she couldn’t help feeling a little hurt.

If she were to disappear now, would Ash think it was just a dream?

When he wakes up in the morning, would he desperately search for her?

A mischievous thought briefly crossed her mind, but Silvia soon chuckled and shook her head.

She was at her limit for such pranks.

She didn’t want to be separated from Ash.

“My only person, my only possession, my only happiness.”

Silvia gently embraced the sleeping Ash and whispered into his ear, one by one, the things that were precious to her.

“My friend, my man, my lover, my husband, my family.”

She recited one by one what Ash meant to her.

Silvia trembled slightly with emotion as she felt Ash’s warmth in her arms.

For Silvia, Ash was the only precious thing she had left.

No, she never had anything precious from the beginning.

The only value she had ever possessed was Ash Staff.

It was miserable and sad, yet incredibly joyful.

Perhaps her life had been so fucking terrible all this time just so she could have Ash.

She arbitrarily came to that conclusion.

Brilliant solitude, miserable happiness.

“Now, my life is… all Ash.”

Silvia recited in a trembling voice, as if a slave declaring before their master, and slowly closed her eyes as she brought her lips to the sleeping Ash’s mouth.

That’s when it happened.

“…”

Silvia’s eyes flew open.

Her sensitive eardrums detected footsteps heading straight for the lakeside.

No, straight for this cabin.

*

Silvia boldly opened the cabin door and went outside before anyone could call for her.

Footsteps, smell, presence, and aura.

She could immediately tell who had come.

Sure enough, the figure was waiting in front of the cabin, concealed by darkness.

Yesterday, and the day before that,

It was that shameless woman who had visited Ash every night.

Silvia closed the door very carefully, lest Ash wake up.

‘An undead?’

She thought for a moment, but it didn’t seem so.

She had definitely cut off her head, yet it was perfectly attached.

As Silvia pondered briefly to identify the other party, the woman tossed something at Silvia’s feet.

Silvia looked down at the object.

It was the deer hide that Silvia had hunted yesterday.

After killing the woman, she must have forgotten it while being preoccupied with bathing and washing her clothes.

“You left this behind.”

At that moment, the woman spoke.

She could speak,

She definitely wasn’t an undead.

Wary of the unidentifiable opponent, Silvia slowly opened her lips.

“I’m sure I cut your throat,”

“Thanks to you, I got some air in my windpipe. Got some dust in there too.”

A calm yet clearly hostile tone flew toward Silvia.

It sounded like a tiger issuing a low, quiet threat just before pouncing.

However, it wasn’t threatening to Silvia at all.

Mere humans couldn’t instill fear in her.

“I didn’t expect you to be alive.”

Silvia bent down to pick up the hide with a relaxed tone.

It was an action that flaunted her power and the confidence that came from it.

Even as Silvia bent down defenseless, the woman didn’t pounce.

She simply gave a short reply.

“That’s my line.”

“…What?”

“I didn’t expect you to be alive. Silvia.”

The woman called Silvia by name.

.