Episode 68 – I Won’t Eat Salvia Flowers Anymore
by Afuhfuihgs
Episode 68 – I Won’t Eat Salvia Flowers Anymore.
*
A late afternoon in Sioland, with rain falling.
Mella was sitting in a small gazebo in the salvia flower garden of the Boldiras mansion, watching the rain and drinking tea.
Despite the clamor of the rain pattering on the gazebo’s roof, a heavy, quiet silence hung over the mansion, creating an atmosphere like an old ruin.
Of course, the mansion was full of maids and servants busily working, but to shake off this emptiness she felt for some reason, Mella held the warm tea in her mouth, savoring the warmth, and closed her eyes.
Nevertheless, still overwhelmed by a vivid loneliness that felt almost chilling, Mella shuddered and clutched the warm teacup with both hands.
It had already been five days since the soldiers had ransacked the mansion as if they were going to turn it upside down.
Edward had burst into Mella’s room without knocking, his face as if he’d seen a ghost, and confessed about Jennifer’s secret laboratory.
Mella was shocked by her son’s testimony and horrified by the gruesome and vivid descriptions that came from his mouth, but she hesitated for a moment whether to accuse Jennifer, her colleague, friend, and her husband’s first wife.
However, Robin’s rebuke to Mella during the clash with Robin, who was caught raping the maid Miemu a few days ago, moved Mella.
‘You’re kind, but you only know yourself.’
Certainly, as he said, Mella might have been turning a blind eye to her surroundings until now.
Trapped in the past, blinded by sorrow and longing, she might have been missing what was happening right in front of her eyes.
Mella decided not to ignore what was happening in front of her anymore.
And without delay, she reported Jennifer to the soldiers near the mansion.
After that, the mansion turned into a battlefield, and then into ruins.
Metal shoes, without even shaking off the dirt, clattered through the mansion, and Jennifer attacked the soldiers before fleeing, only to be caught and imprisoned by former Knight Commander Deborah.
Robin, who was summoned to the Imperial Palace due to the various pieces of evidence found in the mansion, became busy with testimonies and lobbying, and had only returned to the mansion once since that day.
It was even revealed that Daniel had been resurrected as an undead by the soldiers, adding the suspicion that the Hero had hidden an undead in the mansion, which soon led to the suspicion that Robin had condoned Jennifer’s research.
Robin had returned to get the Holy Sword to submit it as evidence, but the Holy Sword, which had been stored in the warehouse after he slashed Daniel, had disappeared somewhere.
After Robin, enraged, strangled the servant who managed the warehouse to death, the servants and maids are watching their every move, which is one of the reasons why this mansion has become so quiet.
Mella’s son, Edward, also left the mansion.
He returned to the Vatican to report on his awakening to divine power and the unidentified research Jennifer had conducted.
Edward even took Dena with him, fearing that Robin might harm her.
Only then did Mella hear for the first time that Dena was Jennifer’s daughter from an affair.
“… Look at us. Ed.”
Mella carefully put down her teacup and looked at the salvia flowers laid out on the table.
If Ed were alive, what would he say if he saw this mess?
What would he say if he saw that the friends he had saved at the cost of his life had become such a mess?
Would he be dumbfounded? Or would he laugh out loud?
Probably the latter.
Ed had a knack for turning serious atmospheres into laughter.
Mella smiled as she thought of Ed.
Sadly, Ed’s face in her memory was still blurry.
“Ed. I think I’m seeing the end of our party. I never thought it would be such a foolish sight…”
Mella muttered to herself, with no one listening, and looked up at the ceiling.
A corner of the gazebo’s ceiling. A rain-soaked spider web hung pathetically, looking as if it would break at any moment.
A colorful spider with thin, long legs trembled, not knowing what to do, and fiddled with the end of the web to avoid the rain.
Ttok.
Just then, the rainwater that had been pooling on the roof flowed down, and the spider web was swept away by the rainwater and collapsed in an instant.
It felt as if this mansion, like that spider web, was collapsing.
“…”
Mella took out a small pouch from her bosom and opened it.
Inside, she took out a commemorative coin she had received from Ed, which was now very worn, but in the past, his face was clearly engraved on it.
Mella carefully held the coin, which was so polished that her face was reflected in it, brought it to her lips, gently breathed on it, and then carefully wiped it with a clean cloth.
Mella carefully placed the coin, which sparkled like raindrops on the salvia flowers, on the table and stared at the coin for a long time.
After looking at the coin for a few minutes, Mella opened her mouth with a faint smile.
“Now, I can’t see Ed’s face at all.”
A voice filled with moisture, like the rainwater filling the air, scattered among the raindrops.
“Now, I won’t eat the honey of the salvia flowers.”
The moisture that gradually filled her voice eventually spread to Mella’s eyes.
“I’m completely old now, and I don’t have any strength, so I can’t even stop my friends from collapsing… I’ve even completely forgotten your face.”
Clear, jewel-like tears fell drop by drop onto Ed’s commemorative coin, which was completely flat and barely had any traces of what had been engraved on it.
“Ed, Lara that you know, Jennifer, Robin, they’re all gone. Even me. Even I have become someone so different from what you knew.”
Mella covered her completely broken expression with both hands and buried her head on the table and cried.
“I’m sorry Ed, for letting you die, for not following you, for disappointing you, for forgetting you.”
Mella cried for a long time, apologizing as if confessing each of her faults.
In fact, she didn’t know how many times she had apologized to him, who couldn’t even hear these apologies.
Back then, not long after he died, she apologized to him every day, no, every hour, every minute.
Of course, Mella was no longer the same as she was then.
Mella, who was already in her 40s, was old enough to know that these apologies were meaningless.
Because no matter how much she apologized,
No matter how much she reminisced about him.
“You won’t be here. You can’t come to my side anymore.”
Even until she was in her 40s, perhaps Mella still had the pure faith from her days as a Saintess.
Maybe.
Really, really maybe,
A miracle might happen, and Ed might come back.
But, now that everything around her was collapsing, Mella realized.
That would never happen.
“Why didn’t you take me with you? Why… No.”
Mella stopped her thoughts, which were naturally turning to resentment.
Of course. She had repeated this hundreds, no, thousands of times.
Mella pursed her lips and raised her head to wipe away her tears.
“So now, I won’t eat salvia flowers anymore.”
Because I can no longer remember the face that I used to reminisce about you.
No matter how much I reminisce about you, you won’t come back.
Mella emptied the cold teacup on the floor and picked up the teapot to refill the teacup.
It was then.
Jeobeok jeobeok.
She heard the sound of someone stepping on the grass and approaching.
Mella pressed her sleeve to her eyes to wipe away any remaining tear marks and turned to face the direction of the sound.
“Yeah, I knew you’d be here.”
Robin was walking towards her, getting rained on without an umbrella or hat.
Robin, who had walked straight from the entrance of the garden, approached Mella, trampling on the salvia flowers without regard.
Mella didn’t bother to mention that point after seeing Robin’s expression.
Robin was very angry.
Mella asked slowly.
“…Did you come today?”
“… Ha,”
Robin didn’t answer Mella’s question and scoffed as if he was dumbfounded.
Robin pointed to the commemorative coin sparkling on the table with his finger and said.
“Were you crying while looking at that just now?”
“…”
“You’re doing all sorts of things.”
“… What’s wrong.”
“What’s wrong? Are you asking me what’s wrong now?”
Robin growled and swept the table with his arm roughly.
The teacup, teapot, saucer, and snack plate fell to the floor and shattered with a crash.
Only a few salvia flowers remained on the floor, and the commemorative coin had also flown out of the gazebo and was nowhere to be seen.
“You reported it, right?”
“…”
“Why aren’t you saying anything? Am I wrong?”
Robin seemed very angry that Mella had reported Jennifer.
Well, he must have been very annoyed since he had been staying in the Imperial Palace until today because of that.
But Mella stiffly raised her head and looked at Robin and said.
“That’s right. I did.”
“Are you crazy?”
“The crazy one isn’t me, it’s Jennifer. How could she do such a thing? More than that, did you know?”
“How the fuck would I know that, you crazy bitch, ha-“
Robin was panting as if he couldn’t contain his anger.
At least he seemed to have really nothing to do with the terrible things Jennifer had done.
Robin took another step closer to Mella and looked down at her threateningly and said.
“Even so, you sell out Jennifer, who has been a colleague since the Hero party days? Are you even my wife and her friend?”
“… Wife… Friend?… I want to ask you instead. Are you even my husband? And is Jennifer, who kidnapped people and experimented on them to make them undead while they were still alive, really my friend?”
“Yeah, again, again, only you’re kind.”
“… What the hell happened to everyone? Is this, is this what the Hero party, who gathered to defeat the evil of the world, looks like? Robin,”
“Then, are you normal, who is only thinking about her old lover while having a husband?”
“… How can you say that? Ed was your friend too! And you know very well what he gave up for us!”
“Keuk keuk, more than you.”
“… Robin,”
Robin spat on the table as if he had nothing more to say and turned around and walked back into the rain.
In the middle of doing so, he suddenly stopped and turned around to look at Mella and asked.
“Let me ask you just one thing.”
“…”
“If your husband was Ed, would you have backstabbed him like this?”
“… What?”
“If your husband was Ed instead of me, would you have reported him?”
Robin’s eyes were filled with anger and a faint jealousy.
Mella felt like crying because Robin’s question was so childish and pathetic.
Robin, when he saved her from the darkness, clearly understood her sadness and respected her friend Ed,
Mella wasn’t sure anymore whether power had changed him like this or whether he was really like this from the beginning.
Mella looked straight at Robin.
Rather, after getting older, he seemed to have become more childish.
Maybe he was like that from the beginning.
Maybe she had just been turning a blind eye, as he said.
The belief that his nature was at least good, that too might just be a childish wish.
Just like the belief that Ed would come back.
But Mella vowed that she would no longer turn a blind eye.
Mella, who had entered the Goddess Church and devoted herself since she was young, completely gave up the optimistic belief in goodness, which might have been absurd, 17 years after quitting being a Saintess.
Mella opened her mouth in a firm voice.
“If it was Ed, this problem would never have happened. Robin.”
“What?”
“Of course, Ed only loved me, unlike you.”
Robin, taken aback by Mella’s unexpectedly sharp response, clicked his tongue with an absurd expression and turned around and left the garden.
As Robin disappeared from view, Mella sighed and looked around the ruined gazebo.
“It’s gone.”
Just as she could no longer find his face in Mella’s memory, Ed’s coin was nowhere to be seen either.
.
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