Madness from the Past
An enemy was nearby.
Her heart began to pound wildly. The hairs on her body stood on end. Her sharpened hearing picked up the wet footsteps woven between the sounds of rain. They moved with agonizing slowness, yet they were steadily drawing closer.
Odeliana had already inhaled a considerable amount of the incense. Distracted by scattered thoughts, she had failed to detect the poisonous scent hidden among the smoke. That oversight had been fatal.
Whether from imagination or the toxin taking hold, she felt her body growing rigid. In that time, the footsteps closed the final distance and stopped right beside her.
She sensed the door opening, and the uninvited guest burst inside. The intruder was clearly no trained assassin; she had made no effort to conceal her footsteps or presence whatsoever.
Perhaps she simply saw no need for caution against a crippled woman. Yet her ragged breathing carried clear signs of agitation, making that explanation unlikely.
Whoever she was, one thing was certain: she was in a state of extreme excitement.
“……The bitch who ruined me.”
The muttered voice was painfully familiar.
Upon recognizing her attacker, Odeliana’s tensed body loosened. A woman drenched in rainwater stood before her. Her hair hung in long, seaweed-like strands, water dripping steadily from the ends. Between the slimy locks plastered to her face, a jagged, uneven scar covered her mouth.
The grotesque sight was so absurd that a laugh escaped Odeliana’s lips.
“……How dare you set foot here without permission, Adela?”
She felt relief that the intruder was no trained spy, yet irritation flared at the unwelcome invasion.
Odeliana fixed the half-mad woman with a disapproving stare. The water-ghost-like figure immediately rolled her eyes back and began to laugh.
“Hahaha, hahahahahahahahaha!”
It was a sound more grotesque than the cry of a beast that lured children with imitation wails before devouring them.
Odeliana realized then that Adela was no longer sane.
“You destroyed my life! You! This is what I’ve become because of you!”
As expected, the scar around her mouth was horrific. Had the original wound been clean, the scar might have faded somewhat, but Adela’s was a mass of lumpy, irregular flesh. It was ugly enough to make one wonder if she had become a monster.
“……You ruined everything. You ruined it all. So I’ll ruin you too! I have to ruin you to keep living. I can’t go on like this.”
“You should get your story straight. I didn’t ruin you—you ruined me. As I told you before, you cannot destroy someone else’s life and expect to live happily afterward.”
“Shut up! What did I ever do? What did I do to deserve…… to end up like this? What terrible sin did I commit? It was nothing more than a harmless prank!”
“A harmless prank?”
This woman still refused to see reason.
Odeliana stared at her with frigid eyes.
“You ended a person’s entire life. What I ruined was your face. What you ruined was a woman’s youth. You trampled on someone’s existence and dare to call it a prank?”
“What did I ruin? Your life was already ruined from the moment you were born! Why blame me?”
“……”
“Who told you to be born a cripple? You were a parasite that only caused trouble for everyone since the day you drew breath! Did I make your legs useless? You were disabled from the start! Just like that incurable body of yours, your life was beyond saving from the very beginning!”
She poured out her resentment at having to serve a disabled mistress, her words laced with pure venom. Even the meager food, bedding, and clothing should have been received with gratitude, she claimed. How could a mere worm that only knew how to consume understand the suffering of those beneath her? She even lamented that tending to the sick was no task fit for a human being.
How could anyone remain so unchanged? The old saying that people never truly change felt painfully true in that moment.
“You really haven’t changed at all. I thought you might have spent these years reflecting, yet here you are, still blaming me to the end?”
“It’s because you were born cursed! That curse spread to us as well! It’s all your fault! You were born with a wretched fate, yet you didn’t know your place and ran wild! That’s why!”
Tears streamed down her face as she screamed. Not a trace of her former vitality remained. Her eyes were cloudy like a dead fish, her deeply wrinkled face making her appear ten years older than she was. The years of mental torment had left heavy bags under her eyes, the surrounding skin dark and hollow. She had lost a drastic amount of weight; her sunken cheeks evoked the image of a skull.
The woman whose whereabouts had been a mystery had clearly endured a life so miserable that death would have been a mercy.
“I was born with this scar. Now do you understand how I feel? Can you finally feel the weight I have carried?”
A chilling light flickered in those dead eyes.
Just as expected. When the hand suddenly seized her collar, Odeliana let out a soft laugh and looked down at her.
“Ripping only your mouth was an act of mercy. I should have torn every limb from your body.”
“You should have! You should have torn my limbs apart! Haha—ha—ha! You should have killed me! How could you destroy a person’s face like this! You vicious bitch! You filthy bitch! You cruel bitch! You demonic bitch!”
“If that was your self-introduction, I believe we’re done.”
Odeliana had no desire to continue the foolish conversation. She pressed the tip of her dagger against the hand gripping her collar.
“If you don’t want to lose both hands as well, release me. My patience has run dry, and I will tolerate no further insolence.”
The cold, gleaming blade touched Adela’s skin. She convulsed, body trembling violently, then rolled her eyes back and began to foam at the mouth.
Odeliana shook the small bell beside her bed. Connected to the servants’ annex, it would bring someone running.
Yet Adela only sneered at the sound.
“No one’s coming, miss. They’re all fast asleep!”
“……What?”
“Hahaha!”
Adela staggered with laughter. The sound cracked and split like tearing flesh—an eerie, chilling noise.
“You too! You, you, you, you! You have to become even more miserable!”
Adela threw herself onto Odeliana. Though she was neither large nor particularly heavy, the sudden weight crushed the air from Odeliana’s lungs. This damned frail body was too weak, and the poison had already crippled her physical strength.
Odeliana fought with everything she had to shove the woman off, but the half-crazed Adela pinned her down with inhuman force. She laughed like a lunatic, then sank her teeth into Odeliana’s nape with all her might.
Ugh.
Flesh tore away. Blood began to flow. Adela grinned, lips smeared crimson.
“Does it hurt? Is it agonizing?”
She had truly lost her mind. The Adela before her was a full-blown madwoman.
Adela focused her assault on Odeliana’s face, desperate to destroy it just as her own had been destroyed.
Odeliana shielded her face with both arms, defending as best she could. At this rate she might be torn apart alive. The only mercy was that Adela was not professionally trained—her attacks were crude and disorganized.
Odeliana knew precisely where to strike for an instant kill. She waited for her moment.
The instant she saw an opening and drove the dagger toward Adela’s throat with all her strength, Adela snatched the weapon away. In her extreme frenzy, the woman possessed terrifying power.
The realization struck Odeliana in an entirely different way.
No matter how untrained her body, no matter how dulled by poison, to be overpowered by a mere maid who was neither mercenary nor knight… They had both inhaled the same toxic incense, so why was Adela completely unaffected?
“You need to suffer it too. You need to become far more miserable than me. Understand?”
The moment Odeliana tried to reclaim the dagger—
Thud.
Adela’s eyes flashed as she drove the blade into Odeliana’s thigh.
“If your last good leg becomes crippled too, you’ll be much more miserable, won’t you?”
When she yanked the dagger free, blood erupted like a bursting dam, soaking them both. Yet Adela was still not satisfied. She raised the blade again, aiming for the calf.
At that exact moment the door burst open. A figure surged inside, hurling Adela’s body across the room to slam against the wall.
“……Miss!”
It was Malena.