Episode 113 – The Lost Coin
by Afuhfuihgs
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Mela, huddled under her blanket in her dark room, looked utterly miserable, there was no other way to describe it.
,Ugh, ugh,
It’s a cliché, but Mela was literally writhing in pain.
The warmth had completely vanished from her hands and feet, leaving them icy cold, and the world around her was distorted and wavering, filling Mela’s heart with a heavy mix of confusion and dizziness.
What’s more, even with her feet on the ground, she felt like she was falling; even lying in bed, she felt like she was flailing in mid-air. No matter how much she threw up, the churning in her stomach wouldn’t subside.
But despite her body and mind being a mess of pain and chaos, Ed’s face appearing like a miracle and their reunion at his grave on a rainy night replayed vividly in Mela’s mind, without a single second of gap or a hint of blur.
Ironically, that was the greatest pain for Mela right now.
Mela slowly threw off the blanket and sat up.
The room was pitch black.
Of course, the door, which Mela had firmly locked as soon as she stumbled into her room, hadn’t been opened once, and the thick curtains had been covering all the windows, so her room was dark even in broad daylight. But seeing it as dark as it was now, it seemed like it was night.
After hours, maybe even days, without a drop of water, a rough, hoarse voice escaped Mela’s cracked lips.
,What day is it today…?
Mela couldn’t even guess how many days had passed since her vivid reunion with Ed.
Mela, who was too ashamed of the sunlight shining on her, had been hiding in her room, cutting off all light sources like a mold.
As a result, she seemed to have lost track of time.
After a moment of contemplation, Mela shook her head wildly, deciding not to bother remembering.
Time didn’t matter anyway.
Mela locked herself in her small room, just like when she lost Ed in the distant past.
To be precise, it wasn’t that she was locking herself in, but rather that she didn’t want anyone to come near her.
Mela spent most of her time sleeping, and when she woke up, she cried.
The only difference from the past was that, unlike before when she spent happy times with Ed in her dreams, now even in her dreams, Ed no longer loved her.
And he shouldn’t.
Showing Ed the worst betrayal-sharing love with the man who killed him-was even more terrible than losing the Ed who loved me.
It was ironic.
The Ed she had missed so much, the Ed she had wanted to meet again even just once, had appeared, but as a result, Mela’s heart was in tatters.
But Ed’s heart, seeing me smiling happily next to Robin like an idiot, must have been torn even more terribly than I am now.
Mela couldn’t even dare to approach Ed, weighed down by the guilt that was beating her up.
Now that she knew he was Baron Salvier, Mela could have tried to contact him if she had the courage, or even visited his mansion directly if she was reckless, but she simply didn’t have the face to do so.
How could she even think of meeting Ed?
I’m the one who offered my body and soul, which belonged to Ed, to the man who took everything from him.
I’m the one who spent the future with the man who stole Ed’s future.
I’m the one who faced an unjust death, was resurrected as a terrible being beyond human, lost my human body, and yet created a child with the very culprit.
What’s more, one of them is now in my womb, clinging to my flesh, sucking my blood and nutrients, and growing bigger every day.
And Ed had to hear that directly.
She showed him the worst possible version of herself, out of all the imaginable possibilities.
Mela raised her hand and squeezed her own neck tightly.
If I tear the heart that barely clings to this vile life into small pieces and paint Ed’s face with its blood and flesh, will I be able to convey my longing for him?
If I strip naked and reveal my dirty body-once a saintess, now a slut-in the streets and hang myself in front of the citizens, will I be able to atone?
If I cut out my uterus and peel off all the skin touched by Robin’s wicked hands and breath, and make a pouch with that skin and my entrails, filling it with my tears, will I be able to tell him how much I regret it?
Mela couldn’t think of anything other than her own life that could soothe his loss, any way to convey the magnitude of her grief.
If he wanted, or if he just said a word in passing,
Mela wanted to offer her life to him to be used as his little amusement.
But cruelly, Ed showed me mercy.
Mela choked herself until her already dark vision completely disappeared behind her eyelids, then let go.
Her lungs quickly inhaled deeply to rush oxygen to her dizzy brain.
As the dusty air scratched her dry, cracked throat with a stinging pain, Mela coughed and coughed.
Mela tapped her neck, which had a tightly pressed handprint that she could feel just by touching it, and mocked her coughing throat.
It was ridiculous that the body of a whore who would have cowardly run away to death if it weren’t for Ed’s request was trying so hard to live.
Mela scorned herself to the fullest, then suddenly thought of Edward.
My son, named after Ed.
Even with her son’s name, she hurt Ed.
Ha, amazing, so amazing, Mela.
To think that the thing she’s been most skilled at in her 40 years of life is tormenting Ed!
Mela bit down on her teeth until her gums were about to break, letting out an animalistic groan.
Great job, Robin. You’re worthy of being the husband of trash like me.
Robin’s shamelessness in readily agreeing to her suggestion to name their son after Ed was so disgusting.
,Ed, I’m sorry… Please, forgive me… Please, let me die.
Mela buried her head in the blanket and squeezed out a plea that no one was listening to.
If you’re sorry, don’t die,
It must be his consideration, anticipating that she wouldn’t be able to overcome her guilt, but it was too cruel a consideration.
Mela was sick of her own weakness.
Of course, she felt terribly sorry for Ed.
Terribly, really terribly.
But Mela didn’t have the confidence to live the rest of her life in this emotion.
How much lifespan does she have left?
She only hoped it would be short.
The fact that she would have to live like this for the next 10 or 20 years was very frightening.
If she were to die of natural causes tomorrow, Mela would have nothing more to wish for.
Even though she was deceived by Robin, the more she thought about it, the more she couldn’t forgive herself.
Tears of blood must have flowed from his eyes as he watched Robin and Mela’s happy 모습.
Despite all the evil deeds and betrayals, Mela tore at her hair in disgust, thinking about how he must have felt seeing Robin, who hadn’t paid any price for that disgusting desire that had taken everything away, and herself, who had become a trophy mocking Ed, who had lost everything.
She hoped that he would forget his lover and forgive this whore who had discussed love with his enemy, or rather, never forgive her, and until that feeling was resolved, if it wasn’t resolved, to eternally despise, humiliate, curse, and insult her.
Mela clasped her hands together and prayed earnestly.
Of course, the form and content of her prayer were a mess, unlike what you’d expect from a former saintess of the Goddess Church.
At that moment, Mela suddenly opened her eyes wide.
No.
There was just one thing that wasn’t.
All that betrayal, all that stupidity and patheticness, disgust and terrible incompetence.
It was all true that she had been fooled like an idiot and spread her legs to Ed’s enemy like a slut, but she could say this much.
Mela had never forgotten Ed for a single moment.
She had always missed him,
That one thing was a truth without a single lie in Mela’s conscience.
But how would Ed know that?
How could she convey that to him?
And why was she shining her eyes like this as if that little thing was so great?
Mela tried to lower her head again, but raised it sharply, shining her eyes.
No,
Even if Ed doesn’t know, I know.
That was the only positive thing left for Mela.
Even though I’m a pathetic person who didn’t even realize that everything that has built up around me for the past 20 years is built on lies, I clearly know that the longing for Ed in my heart, which Robin couldn’t do anything about, has always existed.
,…Where was that…?
Mela muttered and at the same time kicked off the blanket and roughly threw open the locked door.
Mela, wearing a thin nightgown and barefoot, didn’t care at all and ran out of the room, running down the hallway of the mansion and down the stairs.
Even though she stumbled and fell down the stairs, rolling down several times, Mela didn’t care and got up and started running again.
She felt a dull pain in her side and knees where she had hit them while falling, but she didn’t have time to pay attention to such pain.
,I have to find it! I have to find it!
Mela had something to prove that she had longed for Ed for that long time.
Something she would take out and look at whenever she missed him, cherishing it and constantly wiping it with her palm so that not even a speck of dust would touch it.
The gold coin that Ed had given Mela on the day they parted.
The coin with Ed’s face engraved on it, one of the commemorative coins made to support the hero party.
Blood flowed from Mela’s nose.
It seemed like she was getting a nosebleed from the impact of falling earlier.
Mela roughly wiped the flowing blood with her sleeve and ran towards her garden full of salvias.
The coin, which had been hit by Robin’s arm when he was enraged by the news of Jennifer’s arrest a few months ago and had flown away somewhere, must still be somewhere in that garden.
Of course, nothing would change by finding that coin.
What good would that little coin do now?
Would all the things that had happened to Ed and herself disappear if she held out that coin, which she had taken out and wiped countless times, so much so that Ed’s face engraved in relief had worn away and now only reflected Mela’s face like a mirror, and said that she had missed him so much, that she had cherished and thought of him every day until this coin was worn out?
Mela knew very well that that wouldn’t happen.
But even so, Mela ran barefoot on the dirt towards her garden like a madwoman.
That thing that would prove that she had loved Ed, had always missed him, had always thought of him, and had never forgotten him for a single moment.
That proof was desperately needed by Mela herself, not Ed.
Mela, who felt like her heart would break if she didn’t hold that coin right away, that proof that she hadn’t buried Ed in the back of her mind because she was in love with Robin, reached her gazebo in the middle of the garden.
Gasping for breath that had reached her chin from running without rest, Mela began to dig up the soil in the salvia field with her bare hands in the dark night where she couldn’t see an inch ahead.
Gasping and digging blindly without knowing how much soil she would have to dig up, starting from around the gazebo, was certainly not an easy task, but just being difficult was not an excuse for Mela to give up.
,Where is it… Where is it! Please, please…!
Mela crawled around, digging through the dirt, pleading desperately in a voice that sounded like a child throwing a tantrum.
One hour, then two hours,
As time passed, she crawled around a fairly large area, but Ed’s coin was nowhere to be seen.
She couldn’t help but resent herself for only glancing at it with her eyes and stopping on the day she lost the coin.
,Ugh, keueut,
Her fingertips tingled and then throbbed.
The pain, as if pricked by needles, turned into a terrible pain that madly heated up her fingertips.
It seemed that all the fingernails on her fingers had been peeled off and broken from digging in the dirt with her bare hands.
Because it was a dark night, her fingers were hit by stones in the soil that she hadn’t been able to check, or her knees were hit, and blood flowed.
But Mela only flinched at the pain and didn’t stop.
Anyway, it’s a salvia flower field that’s all red, even if some blood splatters, so what does it matter?
About four hours had passed since the sound of gasping and painful groans echoed in the darkness.
Far away, at the end of the sky, the sun began to rise.
As the surroundings gradually turned bluish and she could see in front of her, Mela finally sat down on the dirt and stopped.
As soon as the surroundings came into her view, Mela looked around at the dirt field she had messed up and concentrated on whether there was a shiny coin.
But Ed’s coin could not be found anywhere.
,No… No!… Nooo… Please, please, ple, please…
Mela, overwhelmed by deep despair, tried to dig through the dirt again, but her sitting body didn’t move.
Only then did Mela slowly look at her body.
All the fingernails on her ten fingers had been pulled out, and the exposed, vulnerable flesh was densely packed with soil and small pebbles, and the index and middle fingers of her right hand and the little finger of her left hand were bent in strange directions, as if they had been broken by hitting something.
The skin on her knees and shins was peeled off by being hit and scraped by stones and sand, and a lot of blood was flowing out at a glance.
Mela tried to get up with all her might, but Mela’s fingers and legs didn’t move anymore.
,Please, please move… I have to find it…
Mela pleaded, looking at her hands.
,No, no, no! Move, I said move! Please move, move!
Mela shouted, looking down at her legs.
But now, even her own body didn’t listen to her wishes.
Mela, who had collapsed and lay down, covered in dirt and blood, finally burst into tears and let out an indescribable sound that was a mixture of animalistic cries and screams.
The salvia flowers only shook their bodies shallowly in that place and looked at her.
.
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