episode_0090

Ratri blankly stared at the place where Raoul had left.

I didn’t leave that place because I couldn’t stop wondering why he left.

Although he rarely showed his emotions, he was a child who always obeyed his parents’ orders. As if he had done it himself. He said that because he thought they were the same as him, but it didn’t work.

“… I.”

She couldn’t bring herself to say that to herself. It felt like she would lose everything the moment she did it. It felt like she was defining all the painful experiences she had gone through so far as misfortune.

“I don’t know.”

She vaguely knew the answer, but she tried to look away. It seemed like the only way she could endure it.

“You don’t know what you don’t know, you damn woman.”

“…”

Latri quietly turned his head in the direction where the voice came from. There was a crow glaring at him with a disgruntled expression.

Latri swung his sword without hesitation.

And the sword strike turned not only the tree the crow was sitting on, but also other trees and rocks around it into dust.

“… A monster that can speak. It’s not rare, but this is the first time I’ve seen a bird-type one.”

“I’ve never seen such a huge bitch like you before.”

“The words I hear today are so sharp. But they are only sharp. They can’t leave any traces in my heart. The words that can leave traces in my heart are…”

Latri swallowed her words. The person she was trying to talk to was not someone who could be talked to by a mere monster.

“I know the story of a heartbreaking love story, but what would that great person say if he saw you now?”

“… Don’t mention that guy. He’s not a person that a dirty monster should mention. ”

“You must be foolish. If you were such a precious husband, you should have taken better care of him.”

Ratri, who was overcome with emotion by the story, tried to swing his sword again, but was startled when a crow landed on his shoulder, leaving him open-minded.

But before the blade could make contact, a black wind blew.

“Illusion…?”

As the surrounding scenery changed, Ratri, like a seasoned knight, took out his dagger and stabbed my left hand.

“… It seems like it must be some kind of illusion with limitations, since it doesn’t wake up even with pain. It must be an illusion with a time limit or a specific condition that can be broken. ”

Due to the nature of illusions that shake the senses, the time in reality and the time within the illusion are clearly different. And illusions that cannot be lifted with pain usually have special conditions attached.

“What a shallow waterway.”

At best, it was clear that she would be showing a hallucination of her husband being murdered.

But what was in front of me was my childhood self.

There was a time when he was treated like Raoul in his childhood, or even worse. He couldn’t even wash properly, and the only thing he could eat was hard, crusty bread.

“Hey, you idiot, wake up. We have to keep sparring.”

“…”

“I’m really not funny because I’m afraid someone will call me a dumb bitch.”

Her father had many governments and nearly 30 children.

Among them, Latri, who was unusually small in size, was a target of frequent bullying, and lived a life of daily abuse due to her innocence being shattered in the name of family tradition.

It was a repetitive cycle of being beaten by brothers who were bigger and stronger than him, having his food stolen by brothers who looked good to them, and sleeping alone in a warehouse.

Those were days that were extremely difficult for a child to endure, but Ratri was able to endure them by brainwashing himself.

I brainwashed myself into thinking that this was natural, that this pain was something I had to go through, that I was not experiencing anything unreasonable.

And in the end, he forced his rationality on them by slaughtering all of his brothers and turning them into cripples.

“… You bring up such boring memories. It’s so boring that I’m about to yawn.”

Even though Ratri was crying, the crow glared at Ratri without changing its gaze.

“It was a pretty dry hell. I definitely thought it would be a story filled with a bit more tears and anger.”

“I don’t know what the problem is. I was weak and had to live like a crushed piece of trash because of that. Later, I became strong and just forced the family’s rationality on me like they did to me.”

“Yeah, that’s not my problem to say, but…”

“The same goes for my son. What he went through was not much different from what I went through. Reasonable suffering is necessary for the weak to become strong…”

“This really makes me want to swear.”

In that moment, the blades of the Sabok swords flew in from somewhere and pierced Ratri’s abdomen.

You won’t die under the illusion, but the pain won’t go away.

Latri asked this question with a questioning tone, but did not groan.

“…… Since you’re so shallow, you probably won’t hesitate to use violence.”

“Can I just give that back to you?”

“…… Yeah.”

“From now on, every time you swear at me, I’m going to stab you in the body with a sword. I’m in a really bad mood because of the mess some slut has been causing lately.”

His expression crumpled as if he had eaten something sour, and soon he created a black wind, trapping Ratri in a new illusion.

“It’s obvious what you’re going to show me next…”

Ratri thought it would definitely show the time when he was captured by the barbarians.

It would certainly be a painful and humiliating hallucination, but I was confident I could endure it.

Because if I had overcome times in reality, there was no way I wouldn’t be able to overcome them now.

But the crow was not foolish enough to show something obvious.

“Latri Youngae!!!”

“Sigh…”

There was a sickly man running from afar with his arms outstretched.

And there was also a knight who looked at the man with pity.

The two men had contrasting appearances. Unlike Ratri, who was healthy and had hair like the night sky and eyes like stars, Arthur Bergé was a sickly young man with platinum hair.

“If you’re going to put something weird on my armor again, I’ll cut you down.”

“Tsk…”

He said to Ratri, hiding behind him the cicada he had caught in the grass.

“I heard you’re going on another expedition.”

“I don’t think it’s your concern where I go.”

“No matter what, shouldn’t I at least be concerned about my fiancée’s whereabouts?”

“It’s just an engagement that the family decided on their own. So, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“In this world, even if you just brush against someone’s collar, it’s fate. A relationship like this can’t be an ordinary one, right?”

“No, it’s just a regular year. No, it’s not even that good.”

Even though it was an illusion that could not be interfered with, Ratri tried to strangle his past self.

She remembered all the content of the conversation that was about to unfold, and she wanted to shut that mouth even if it meant breaking her own neck.

“Your fiancé keeps saying things that will make him sad. I almost shed tears just now.”

“I’m not a idiot who only says nice things to you. If you want that kind of woman, go to a bar.”

“Is there a bar that has a woman as beautiful as you? It must be packed.”

“It’s so obvious.”

At that time, Ratri’s speech was not much different from Raul’s. It was stiff, self-centered, and did not consider the feelings of the listener.

“Oh my, you’re embarrassing~!”

Ratri found him disgusting, as he deliberately hugged his own body and acted exaggeratedly.

Even though he was the head of the Berger family, he was a man without the dignity or authority appropriate for his position.

He was a man who was just flashy on the outside, like an empty shell.

“If you have nothing to say, I will leave now.”

“I have more than ten thousand words to say, but I only have one thing to say, Youngae.”

“… I think that’s a line that only appears in cheap romance novels.”

“Wow, you got that right.”

Then Arthur Berger said, grumbling:

“But how does Youngae know that?”

“…!”

“That’s a line from the end of volume 3 of ‘Young-ae Wants to Be Loved by the Master’ that I wrote. Are you a regular reader…?”

Then, Ratri swung his fist without realizing it, but there was no way his fist, which he was swinging recklessly, would hit anyone.

Arthur Bergé still smiled brightly at her.

“That’s a novel we wrote because we both wanted it to be like this.”

“… I don’t really care though.”

“I want you to live like the main character in that novel. I want you to live in a life of love, not a bloody battlefield.”

Although his expression seemed quite serious, Ratri took it lightly.

He thought that love, spoken of by someone who had never held a knife, was worthless.

That’s why she ended up saying something she would regret for the rest of her life.

“I don’t need the love of a frivolous man like you.”

“… Indeed.”

“Novels are just novels. They have value as stories because they are impossible to achieve.”

Ratri knelt down as if pleading with the crow to stop this vivid illusion.

But the illusion never ended because that pain was exactly what the crow wanted to bring.

She had to suffer even one-hundredth of what Raoul had suffered.

“I will never love a man like you.”

She could never recall those words from that moment for the rest of her life.

And Ratri, who knew that fact better than anyone else, knelt down on the ground and begged the crow to stop, but the crow was cruel.

“Don’t you think it’s ugly that you’re doing this because of the verbal abuse you’ve given? Are there only a few people who have been hurt by that damn mouth of yours?”

“Please stop…”

“It’s too late to regret and you can’t turn back. And the real highlight isn’t just this level”

For the first time, Ratri almost shed tears at the pain that squeezed his chest.

“My class… no, your son’s pain wasn’t that much. Well, everyone’s pain is the greatest. Even if someone gets stabbed in front of you, the thorn in my hand hurts more. But you know, no matter how much your finger hurts…”

“…..”

“You shouldn’t have stabbed the knife deeper into someone else’s body.”