episode_0016

She was silent for a while.

When she shut her mouth tightly, I too was speechless. I had already exhausted all I could say.

The inn was thus plunged into silence. The only thing that remained were the flickering lights of the lamps, indicating the passing of time.

“······.”

The lamplight illuminated her face. Her expression was surprisingly calm. What was unusual was that her eyes were closed. As if she was slowly savoring the words I had thrown at her.

Time passed.

Just as I was starting to feel impatient with the prolonged silence, she opened her eyes.

I was frozen.

Because I met the creepy red eyes that were hiding behind her eyelids. Bright red eyes…. Long, vertically slit pupils that resembled those of a reptile. I met them.

My body shrinks on its own, like a mouse facing a snake.

And then I realize, she’s been lying to me all this time. I don’t know how, but she’s been hiding the fact that she’s awakened from me all this time.

My mind went blank.

Why did you deceive me? Because you didn’t want to break up with me? Did you know that red eyes were proof of royalty? No, more than that…

Why is the content different from the first time?

The first time, I definitely woke up without a problem. Of course, I didn’t hide it. I still vividly remember taking care of her while she was sick. Even her face, which was blank because she didn’t know what it meant after she woke up… When I made a serious expression, she made a serious expression too.

They say fear comes from the unknown. I felt a strange feeling from her completely incomprehensible behavior. It was eerie.

Was the being in front of me really her? I felt like an unknown monster wearing her skin. I thought my understanding of her had improved as I raised her again… but it was arrogance. She was still an unknown being that I couldn’t know.

She opened her mouth.

The muscles in my entire body began to contract violently. I was terrified of what would come out of her mouth. If she had been normal like in the previous episodes, I wouldn’t have been this anxious. But now, she was unpredictable. She was so calm, as if she had foreseen this situation. This was also something I had never seen before. I couldn’t even guess what she would say. Could she suddenly try to kill me with that cold face?

But fortunately, my worries were unfounded.

“Why?”

She asked why. Her voice was not excited. Her demeanor was very calm. She was speaking politely, and her questions were within the expected range. She probably asked why I abandoned her.

Only then could I relax and breathe a sigh of relief. It was the girl I knew. I was really nervous, but it wasn’t a big deal. I feel relieved. Maybe my education wasn’t all that useless. She was just a kid who could do anything, right?

When I regained my composure, I answered her questions. I had already expected her to ask questions like this.

“Ahem···! Why, why? If you don’t have a family, then maybe it makes sense. If you have a place to go back to, then you should go back there. That’s a given.”

“Why are those people my family? They are people I have never seen since I was born···. Even if I went there, they wouldn’t be welcomed. They would be busy securing their own power.”

“Your blood is mixed. You’ll have a lot of red-eyed friends there.”

“Do you have to be related by blood to be family? My only family is my master. I have only one place to return to. It’s only by my master’s side.”

Huh… why is this guy so logical and persistent?

She was responding to my answers in a calm voice. It was the first time I saw her like that. Usually, when we had these kinds of conversations, she would kneel down and beg for mercy. As expected, this time around, she was no ordinary person.

I explained additional reasons.

“If I go to the palace, I will be able to live in a better environment. I will be a hundred times happier than the wandering life I am living now.”

She argues.

“I can’t judge my happiness by a future that hasn’t even happened yet. The happiest thing for me is being with you, Master.”

The expression on her face as she spoke was very determined. Her mouth was tightly shut. Her eyes were unwavering. It seemed as if she would not bend even if a knife was put to her throat.

She continued.

“Do you by any chance dislike me, Master···?”

A question that cuts to the heart of the matter.

The question caught me off guard. Do you hate it? Of course I should say yes, but I can’t say it clearly. Why is that?

It seems that after raising her for the past ten years, the affection for her has been reborn in my heart. It is true that I am still afraid of her, but there is also a part of me that feels sympathy for her.

Although I had been ignoring her all along, I actually knew why she was obsessed and angry with me.

You must have felt betrayed by your parents.

Yes. Now I admit it. My mistake the first time. That I did something terrible to her.

To make an excuse, I was also confused at the time. It wasn’t easy to accept that the child I had raised as my daughter for 10 years turned out to be the child of my enemy. So I couldn’t respond rationally.

The thought that I would have been more warm to her back then has been bothering me all my life. Now that I am a little more comfortable, my perspective has changed. Now that I think about it, it has been a long time since I have lived without anxiety.

Anyway, for that reason, it was now difficult for me to just say to her, ‘I hate you.’ Not because I was afraid of her retaliation, but for a serious reason.

Ha… But even so, when I thought about raising her until the end, that was also daunting.

It would be best if she just quietly went into the palace. If she went in now, I would be willing to write her a letter. I would also be willing to visit the palace sometimes and share the latest news.

I asked her if she would go in obediently.

“If I say no···Will you quietly enter the palace···?”

“······.”

She didn’t answer.

Is this how it turns out···

I sighed and left the place.

“Haa··· Let’s stop here for today and talk about the rest tomorrow.”

I don’t think there’s any point in talking any more today. If we continue like this, we’ll just keep going at parallel lines. Since I was planning to stay a few days and slowly persuade her, if the conversation doesn’t go well, taking a break for a while might be a good idea.

I stood up, leaving her with an incomprehensible expression on her face.

I opened the door and tried to go out.

however···

The moment I grabbed the handle to open the door…

With a crunching, unpleasant sound, someone’s hand shot out from my chest.

A slender hand. In that slender hand, which I could hardly believe had pierced my chest, was a throbbing, unidentifiable lump of blood. It was my heart.

The pain is coming.

‘Why on earth…?’

Leaving only a brief question,

I regressed···

***

“Customer? Are you okay? Suddenly, you grabbed your chest.”

“Ugh···!!! Ugh···!!!”

I could hear someone talking over my head, but I didn’t have time to pay attention to it.

There’s only one thing that dominates my mind right now: the mysterious death that just happened.

Someone stabbed me in the chest from behind.

There can be only one culprit.

She ripped my heart out.

Why on earth···?

I don’t understand it at all.

We… weren’t we having a rational conversation? We definitely were. If my memory is not wrong, we were having a conversation like intellectuals. The content wasn’t particularly special. We just threw it away and argued. We ended it by saying, “Let’s talk tomorrow.” Was that a conversation worth dying for?

And from the beginning···

Why did you kill him already…?

It’s the first time I’ve ever been murdered before I could throw something away.

It was clearly an unexpected move.

Come to think of it, she was so weird in the previous episodes.

An unexpected reaction.

Unexpected behavior.

It was like a puppet that moved on its own, outside of the established framework. It was like a character in a novel talking to a human being outside the novel.

Weirdness.

That inexplicable feeling made me feel nauseous.

“Woweeek!!!”

It’s been a while since I’ve vomited.

“Eww!”

Someone’s voice. It was the voice of the man who had asked me earlier if I was okay.

“AC··· Dirty···! Hey, customer. So are you going to buy it or not? You were talking like you were going to buy it any minute, but what is this all of a sudden? I’m also busy, so tell me quickly.”

There was annoyance in the man’s voice. Only then did I raise my head to check the man’s face.

It feels familiar somehow.

Where did I see it? It must have been a long time ago…

Oh, I remembered. The slave trader. The slave trader who was trying to dispose of her.

As my thoughts reached that point, I was startled and my eyes turned to the iron chain in the man’s hand.

The gaze moves along the chain.

And at the end of it…

She was there.

She’s covered in burns.

She was looking at me, looking exactly the same as she did ten years ago.

With empty eyes that seemed to have been drained of all emotion.

“Aaah···”

Something hot ran down my thigh.

“Huh? You’re even peeing now? Are you sick, sir?”

The man, now with a tone of contempt, asked me as if he was informing me.

“Ha··· You’re not going to buy it, are you? From now on, don’t tease busy people.”

The man dragged her away without even listening to her answer. I didn’t stop him.

As she was being dragged away, she stared at me until the very end.

I ran away from that place.