Episode 151 – Relax!
by Afuhfuihgs
*
Ellie’s steps were heavy as she took a brief breather in the garden and re-entered the castle.
Ellie’s stress had already reached its limit, and a short break of less than 3 minutes was not enough to help.
Ellie sat at her desk, with piles of documents stacked like mountains on both sides, and groaned, tearing at her hair.
“Ha, Ed… you’ve given me too much to bear.”
Ellie vowed that when Ed returned, she would make him sit next to her and use him as her royal secretary for the rest of her life.
Looking at the piles of documents that she couldn’t even bring herself to open, Ellie steeled her resolve.
At least she was still physically intact.
Teacher, Deborah lost an arm.
She didn’t seem to mind, but the sight of her empty sleeve flapping was even more shocking to Ellie.
It was practically certain that Deborah would retire.
She had always thought that her teacher, who had taken care of her since she was a child, would be by her side forever because she was an elf, but it seemed she was mistaken.
Ed is gone, and now Deborah is gone too.
For the first time in her life, Ellie felt a sense of darkness closing in.
Ellie slowly got up from her desk.
She was thinking of visiting Deborah’s hospital room to check on her condition before she started working in earnest.
“Ha… I wish I had lost an arm instead,”
Ellie had been desperately protecting Deborah, who was receiving aggressive gazes from many people because she was Robin’s teacher.
That was also the reason why she had prepared a hospital room in the Imperial Castle, even though there wasn’t one originally.
Right now, the streets were filled with angry citizens marching.
The festival was canceled, but the number of people on the streets was no different from the previous festival season.
Ellie walked down the hallway of the Imperial Castle, cracked her knuckles, stretched, and took a deep breath.
“Hoo, hoo-“
I have to pull myself together.
The Imperial Family’s capabilities are tested in times of chaos.
Arriving in front of Deborah’s hospital room door, Ellie pressed her face hard with both hands.
I can’t show my teacher a worried face.
Ellie practiced smiling as brightly as possible until she found a good expression and fixed it in place.
“Okay.”
Ellie opened the door.
“Teacher- how are you feeling…”
“Kyaa! No! No way!”
“Stay still!”
“…yo?”
A scene that was hard to describe unfolded before Ellie’s eyes.
I don’t understand, but if I were to describe what I saw with my own eyes, it was a scene where Deborah, shirtless, was attacking Ed, who was screaming like a girl.
…What?
Ellie’s fixed smiling expression began to shake like crazy.
*
Thanks to Ellie’s appearance, I was able to overcome the crisis of my chastity.
Of course, even if Ellie hadn’t appeared, there was a way to turn into an undead by pulling the Holy Sword out of my body, making sexual intercourse impossible, but I wasn’t sure if that would stop my excited teacher.
The real Deborah put on her clothes, squeezed her newly grown arm once, and then punched me in the head.
I grabbed my head at the heavy pain.
“You damn brat.”
“Eugh,”
“My arm has grown back, how am I supposed to explain this to people?”
“If the Empire’s medical skills are excellent…”
“Do you think that makes sense?”
“…No.”
I looked at Deborah and lowered my head in apology.
Deborah sighed and said.
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“…”
“You don’t want me to feel guilty. Not about your death, or the Demon King’s revival.”
“Because neither is your responsibility, Teacher.”
“…I am someone who protects this Empire. Ed. Even if I step down from my position, that won’t change.”
“Then don’t think about retiring and work harder to protect the Empire.”
“…Ha, this cheeky brat.”
Deborah stared at me and then chuckled.
It was her unique mischievous smile that reminded me of the time 20 years ago when she trained me relentlessly.
“Responsibility… responsibility, huh.”
“Yes…?”
“Then, how are you going to take responsibility?”
“…”
At Deborah’s question, I hardened my expression and said.
“I will get the price for the betrayal I suffered from Robin forever. And… releasing the Demon King into the world also had some of my resentment towards this world that had passed me by. But…”
“…”
I raised my head.
The small cabin in my hometown village that I used to see just by closing my eyes.
The cozy and warm little wooden building that I naturally thought of whenever I dreamed of a future with Mela was now so faint that I couldn’t even remember what it looked like.
I struggled to recall my hometown, which remained only a blurry shape even in my memory, and said.
“My responsibility is to make sure that no one loses their hometown to monsters.”
“…Ed,”
“Well, it’s a relief in a way. If I have something to do, I can postpone my desire to die. Maybe all of this has happened so far to find a reason for me to live even in this monstrous state.”
“…”
Deborah stared at me silently for a long time.
I smiled weakly and lowered my head, avoiding Deborah’s eyes.
Deborah slowly raised her hand,
“Not that!”
And punched me in the head again.
“Ugh?”
“How are you going to take responsibility for defiling me, you idiot?”
“Huh? Defiling! That was only for treatment…”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“I’m sorry. Please don’t glare at me.”
Then Ellie interrupted with a clearing of her throat.
“Ahem, Teacher. I also have something to say to Ed.”
“…Is that so.”
Ellie glared at me sharply.
I had a feeling that I would be scolded by two women all day today.
Ellie frowned and said.
“First of all, I’m very angry, Ed.”
“No, I mean, why don’t you two believe me? It was only to heal her arm,”
“Not that!”
“…Okay,”
“Why didn’t you contact me for the past week? You had the music box!”
“Ah…”
I sighed briefly at Ellie’s words.
She put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest as if inflating her upper body, and spoke angrily.
I felt a slight cuteness in her pose, like a child bluffing, but at least her face was truly filled with anger.
It seemed that tears were even welling up in her eyes, she was so upset.
“Do you know how worried I was? I blamed myself so much, wondering if you had planned to take Robin down with you from the beginning!”
At Ellie’s outburst, I could only offer words of apology.
“…Sorry,”
“Hoo,”
Deborah asked instead of Ellie.
“Yes, Ed. I need to hear what you’ve been doing for the past week.”
“I was very busy with this and that.”
“Doing what?”
I couldn’t answer easily.
That’s because there were really only two things I had done in the past week.
One was extracting Robin’s soul, imprisoning it, and torturing it,
The other was talking to the divine power, or rather, the past Mela, and preparing for the upcoming farewell.
Of course, in addition to that, I also spent time joking around with Ulgaros, lamenting the fact that my body was gradually developing with the magic of the Demon King’s Castle, and doing odd jobs such as cleaning up the old cabin of Lara and Lily, which I hadn’t had time to tidy up because I had come out in a hurry.
It was difficult to say that I didn’t have time to contact Ellie, but I certainly didn’t have the余裕.
It was because I was too busy trying to protect myself from the emptiness that rushed in after the revenge was over.
The postponed death looked so tempting.
The underwater scenery of Flavis was sure to be waiting for me in its peaceful and tranquil state.
How wonderful it would be if I could melt into that tranquility forever.
From the moment I saw Robin’s last moments, screaming in the vessel prepared by Ulgaros to torture souls, my will to live had completely bottomed out.
In short, I was exhausted.
The evil plot created by trivial desires and my death born on top of it.
And I was completely exhausted by the terrible nightmare-like reality created by those damn 20 years and the struggles of my former comrades who had been swimming in that nightmare 20 years ahead of me.
In fact, it wasn’t really a secret.
Everyone around me knew that I was gradually losing my will to live and becoming exhausted as time diluted my anger.
Ellie, Deborah, and even Banata and Lily were all aware of my condition and were trying to give me other reasons to live besides revenge.
Perhaps I was unknowingly influenced by these guys.
I had been working hard to help others and avoid creating innocent victims while carrying out my revenge, and of course, to increase the credibility of the statements I would make as Baron Salvie in order to add persuasiveness to my accusations against Robin.
But perhaps, in a corner of my heart, I wanted to create a place for myself after the revenge.
My thoughts reached that point and gradually drifted away from Ellie’s question.
Then, suddenly snapping out of it, I smiled and glossed over it to Ellie.
“I was really busy, because of this and that.”
“…Well, I was very busy because of you, so you must have been even more so.”
“Ah… Sorry.”
“You know, right? A huge chaos has come to Sioland… no, to the Empire itself.”
“Yeah.”
“What are you going to do?”
I shook my head at Ellie’s question.
“I’m not going to do anything.”
“…What?”
Ellie looked at me with a dumbfounded expression.
“I’ll do whatever I can to prevent the monsters that Ulgaros controls from attacking and burning down small villages. The Demon King won’t appear directly in the city and massacre citizens, but just deal with the chaos that has spread among the people on your own.”
“…Ed”
“…”
Ellie was surprised by my attitude, which was different from what she had expected, and looked at me with wide eyes.
Deborah also seemed to have not expected me to say this.
But this time, I didn’t shrink back and looked straight at Ellie.
Ellie looked at me, tapped her head, and said.
“Okay.”
“…Huh,”
“Why? Didn’t you think I’d accept it?”
“…I didn’t. The Empire’s princess just accepts the words of the person who caused the Empire’s crisis.”
When I sneered, Ellie nodded and replied.
“It’s only possible because it’s something that only the three of us know about in this Imperial Castle.”
“…”
“Ed, listen carefully to what I’m about to say. It’s something that I should never say as a princess, but I’m saying it because it’s my true feelings.”
“…What is it?”
Ellie took my hand and said.
“It’s a country built on your sacrifice. So it’s okay.”
“…Wow.”
I looked at Ellie with my mouth open.
It was a more daring statement than I had expected.
The chaos caused by the Demon King’s revival may not directly kill citizens, but who knows what impact this aftermath will have on politics, economy, and public order, and the princess of this empire is directly saying that it’s okay!
It was truly amazing.
But Ellie’s expression was quite serious.
Deborah also nodded slightly as if agreeing.
Well, these two were the only two people who had bowed their heads and expressed their gratitude for my achievements and efforts.
I slowly closed my mouth and turned my head away for a moment.
I felt like I was about to burst into tears for some reason.
Ellie gripped my hand even tighter.
“After you disappeared, I was busy with various things, but I still thought about it.”
“…”
“Thinking about it, I thought it would have been better to reveal your identity proudly in front of everyone.”
“…At that time, the Inquisit…”
“Of course, the Inquisitors might have tried to capture you, an undead, but they wouldn’t have been able to touch you easily because you were a hero with the Holy Sword. There would have been confusion about how to accept the unprecedented situation of a monster being a hero, but at least it would have been an easier and simpler way to pressure Robin. I don’t understand why you didn’t reveal that you were Edward until the end.”
“…”
“After thinking and thinking, the conclusion I came to was… that you were tired.”
“…Yeah,”
“You weren’t sure if you were going to find a way to die or live a different life with a new identity… but at least you didn’t want to live as Edward of the Hero Party anymore. That’s what I thought.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Because I would have felt the same way… If I had no friends, no lover, no family, no hometown, and only meaningless fame after the revenge was over, I would have wanted to live a new life too. Am I wrong?”
Ellie looked up at me and said.
Deborah also slowly approached and took my remaining hand.
I remembered the day of the social gathering held at the Imperial Castle, when the two of them encouraged me when I was trembling when I saw Mela.
“…Well… I’m not as sharp as you, Ellie, so I don’t know… Maybe that’s it.”
“Why are you asking me? It’s your heart.”
“…Haha”
Feeling their warm grip, I was barely calming my heart when Ellie asked in a slightly louder voice to change the atmosphere.
“By the way, Ed?”
“…Why?”
“So what are you going to do?”
“What do you mean, what am I going to do?”
“You said you’d think about my confession when everything was over.”
“…”
“…Confession? From Her Highness?”
“…Ah,”
“Is it me? Or Deborah?”
The grip from each of the hands holding my hands was gradually getting stronger.
.
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