Episode 112 – I’m Really Okay
by Afuhfuihgs
Episode 112 – I’m Really Okay.
*
I was sitting blankly by the window when I suddenly felt the glare, and when I looked up at the sky, it was already morning with sunlight pouring down.
I didn’t quite remember how I returned to the mansion last night and ended up sitting in front of this window.
It wasn’t like I was deeply engrossed in thought, and I certainly didn’t fall asleep, but time just flowed by blankly.
I felt strange.
I was definitely shocked to hear about Mella’s pregnancy, but now I didn’t feel particularly bad.
Of course, that didn’t mean I felt good either.
How should I put it?
It’s hard to explain, but it felt like my head was literally empty.
Only a heavy emptiness, devoid of any feelings or thoughts, filled me completely.
I thought I was already used to being numb from the time I spent as an undead, but now even that familiarity or strangeness felt too stimulating; I literally couldn’t feel anything.
It was as if not only my body but even my heart had become undead.
Thanks to the rain all night, the sunlight freely crossing the cloudless, clear sky was blinding, and except for that slight unpleasantness, I was blankly watching people pass by outside the window, killing time.
Ttokttok.
I heard someone knocking on the door.
“Ed, can I come in?”
Lara didn’t wait for my answer and turned the doorknob, letting herself in.
She was pretty much the only one who could enter my room so freely.
Without turning around, I stared blankly out the window, my gaze unfocused.
“What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“…Did something happen to you yesterday?”
“Nothing happened.”
“…What is it? What’s wrong?”
“I said, nothing really happened?”
I wasn’t trying to hide my wounded heart.
Nothing really happened.
Mella being pregnant, well, I was very surprised when I heard it, but now I didn’t care anymore.
Rather, I felt relieved, as if I had come up with a solution to a problem that had been bothering me for a long time.
Mella stopped being my lover 20 years ago.
I can’t go back, and I can’t start over.
She belongs to Robin.
In the first place, who would wait for a lover who died 20 years ago?
The fact that I couldn’t achieve my love with her is just luck, or fate, or if not that, just a result of Robin’s evil deeds.
There was nothing to be sad about or angry about.
Of course, my anger and hatred towards Robin are burning brightly, so I just need to take revenge on him for the terrible things I’ve experienced.
And Mella, she’s just a past relationship and now a stranger with no connection to me.
I was almost saddened by my own stupidity for only now realizing that simple truth.
Of course, it’s true that we loved each other sincerely.
It was clear that she loved me with all her heart, just as I did.
Mella’s appearance last night, seemingly in great shock after learning the truth, proved it.
I remember her begging me to kill her.
But even recalling that image, I no longer felt anything.
Just a vague wish that she wouldn’t.
Still, as she was once the woman I loved with all my heart, I hoped she wouldn’t be too sad or try to die because of it.
She’s not single anymore, and what fault does the child in her womb have?
The only one at fault is that bastard Robin.
So, I left her a note.
Telling her not to die.
Then that’s it.
That’s probably the end of the story between me and Mella.
I looked at Lara, hoping so.
Lara was looking down at me with a worried expression.
“What’s wrong?”
“…Tell me what happened yesterday. Now.”
“?”
“Do you know what kind of face you’re making right now?”
“…No?”
I said that and reflected my face in the window.
Because the outside was brighter than my room, my face reflected in the window’s glass was blurry and hard to see.
I tilted my head this way and that, trying to examine that faint face, and answered.
“Is there something strange about my expression?”
“It’s strange. It’s strange.”
“What’s strange about it?”
“…You’re expressionless to the point of being scary.”
At Lara’s absurd words, I chuckled and said.
“No, well, I’m usually expressionless when nothing’s really going on.”
“No.”
Lara shook her head and said.
“Ed, your face usually always has a subtle anger, or a look of disbelief and ridicule, or a playful look excited about messing with someone; those three were the basics. Not this… bland, expressionless look.”
“Hey, I’m expressionless when I’m alone too.”
“I know because I’ve always been watching you.”
“…That’s a little scary.”
“You’ve never had this face when you’re alone. So tell me right now. What the hell happened?”
*
Ed’s explanation was flowing out of his mouth, a bland description without any detailed depiction or vivid expression of his emotions.
Even though Ed was clearly speaking calmly with an expressionless face, the content was so terrible to hear that Lara frowned and listened to Ed’s story in silence.
Lara wanted to ask why he had taken such a dangerous action as revealing the truth to Mella without consulting them, but she closed her mouth at the sense of unease she felt from Ed’s strangely unemotional appearance.
From Ed’s rock-like face, the lips that repeatedly opened and closed were speaking as casually about how Mella was going crazy last night as if reciting a breakfast menu.
The intense sense of incongruity created a contrast that made Lara get goosebumps without realizing it.
Even though she wasn’t at the scene last night, Lara felt like she could clearly see what Mella must have looked like.
Mella’s appearance in Ed’s story reminded her of the day of the funeral 20 years ago when Ed’s empty coffin was buried.
Seeing the empty coffin being put into the ground that day and covered with dirt, Mella had struggled to shake off Robin’s arm as he held her, screaming madly for them to kill her, to let her go into that coffin instead, that she would rather go in alive, before finally fainting.
Lara also had terrible memories of Ed’s funeral that still made her dizzy whenever she thought about it, but Mella’s desperate roar, crying out with a sharply torn voice, had left a big scar on Lara’s heart as well, filled with an indescribable, painful despair, so she clearly remembered it.
Of course, Lara was relatively more sane than Mella at the time, but if Lara herself had been the lover who shared her heart with Ed, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have acted like Mella.
No, as Lara was the next strongest in the hero party after Robin in terms of combat ability, no one might have been able to stop Lara from killing herself.
It was so tragic and ironic that only Mella and Lara, who both had feelings for Ed, happened to be absent from the scene of Ed’s death.
Therefore, Lara could deeply empathize with Mella’s sadness, powerlessness, and the heavy guilt that suffocated her.
She had married Robin without much thought because she was worried about leaving Mella behind.
As an elf, she needed a reason to continue living in the human empire’s capital, so she accepted Robin’s favor.
But recalling that all of that was ultimately Robin’s scheme, Lara unknowingly gritted her teeth.
Lara suddenly wondered if she had done the right thing by not telling Mella the truth about Robin’s evil deeds when she left.
She had thought it was the right decision to hide the truth about Ed’s death at the point when Mella, who had been abusing her body every day for three years, just wanting to die, had barely recovered, but thinking about what would happen to Mella, who eventually learned everything late, it was just a late beating after all.
And as it was a whopping 20 years late, it must have been a painful beating.
Of course, it was a truth too painful for Lara to bear alone, even though she had learned it relatively early.
At the time, Lara had been so mentally driven that she even harmed herself, just like Mella had.
In addition, after learning the terrible truth, her daughter, Lily, no longer wanted to be with Robin, so she ended up leaving that mansion as if running away.
But even at that moment, Lara sincerely hoped that Mella would no longer be in pain.
She was the annoying woman who had stolen Ed’s heart from the beginning, but at the same time, she was a colleague and friend who had adventured together for over three years.
“Are you listening?”
Ed looked at Lara, who had fallen into thought and become quiet, and asked.
Lara was startled by Ed’s question and slowly nodded.
“Ah, yeah, sorry, I was worried about Mella.”
“It’s okay, she won’t die. Mella has a reason to live.”
“…What does that mean?”
“Where was I… Ah, up to where Mella collapsed, right?”
“…”
“I couldn’t leave her in the rain, so I left her at a nearby clinic, but the doctor said Mella was pregnant.”
“…What?”
Ed’s expression, after finally uttering the words that he had learned that Mella was pregnant, was utterly nonchalant.
Lara’s face was filled with shock.
Mella is pregnant? Now? Whose child?
Isn’t it obvious?
It’s Robin’s.
Lara finally realized the reason for Ed’s chilling composure.
The word “pregnancy,” which vividly reminded him of what Robin had done to Mella, had broken Ed’s mind.
Lara grabbed Ed’s shoulders.
“Ed… you,”
“What’s wrong? I’m okay, really. I was surprised, but,”
“Surprised? That’s all you felt?”
“What else can I do? Mella is Robin’s wife.”
Mella is Robin’s wife.
Lara gasped and trembled at Ed’s nonchalant utterance of those words.
She couldn’t even imagine that Ed, the same Ed who writhed in agony at the mere sight of Mella, would say that.
Of course, as Lara had resented and pleaded with Ed for being so fixated on Mella even after 20 years, she might have said that his current state was better.
But Lara didn’t find Ed’s appearance pleasing; instead, she felt terribly afraid.
She was afraid, bizarre, unfamiliar, and scared.
Lara was finally able to realize the reason.
Ed’s mind had finally broken down.
I’m better than Mella.
I will comfort Ed’s heart and heal his wounds instead of Mella.
It was like a bolt from the blue for Lara, who had been thinking that way.
The current Ed will probably never be able to love someone again.
That also meant that she would never have another chance.
Lara hugged Ed with trembling hands.
“Lara? I told you I’m okay?”
At Ed’s voice, as empty as his expression, Lara buried her face in Ed’s shoulder and cried.
Ed was flustered by Lara’s sudden action but silently patted her back.
Lara felt like Ed’s actions were like throwing spare change left in his pocket to a begging beggar, and she cried even more sadly.
“Oh, Ed…”
[Oh, Ed… I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry.]
.
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