Chapter 822
Chapter 822
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 822
Chapter Title: Purple Rose (2)
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1.
"This is fucking difficult."
He'd never properly learned how to paint.
The only instruction he'd received was a bit of guidance from Amelia back when he'd regressed to his boyhood days and she'd taken on the role of his guardian.
As a result, while Rafi's landscape painting was good enough to hang in a gallery right away, Siu's work felt awkward in every way.
Especially those lavender petals.
They were so tiny that dabbing each one individually with the tip of his brush demanded an insane amount of patience.
"Hoo..."
A sigh escaped him unbidden.
Deep down, he knew it.
The aimless frustration and impatience weren't just because the lavender petals required such precise fine motor control.
He had no idea where to even begin with this situation or how to approach it.
It was an extension of the worries from when he'd entered Amelia's dream, but even heavier.
A lump of lead had settled on his chest.
Before he knew it, Eloa had approached and gently clasped his hand over his.
"Stroke from top to bottom against the grain. Use the bounce of the brush tip."
"Ah, Master. Thank you."
"You've improved a lot, though."
The petals painted with her guidance came out far more beautiful than what he'd been managing.
He turned around to find his master beaming at him.
"Where's Rafi?"
"Siu, I think she noticed."
"Noticed what?"
"That you and I are lovers."
"Ah."
"She's sharp, isn't she? Such a clever girl."
"Yeah, my junior sister is a bit... I figured she couldn't hide it anyway."
She twisted her body shyly and squatted down beside him.
Siu leaned in and pressed his lips to hers for the moment.
"She said all these cute things about cheering us on and then left us alone."
"Man... I'm grateful, but it's kinda embarrassing."
"Same here."
His master was still his master.
Even if her appearance had changed and her aura had shifted a little, the way she chattered on about this and that from the side was the master he knew.
"She was always the one looking after us, but now she's thinking of her master too. When did she grow up so fast...?"
"......"
Eloa's fond smile aside, Siu's heart grew heavier.
Should he do like with Amelia—create happy memories and comfort her when the pain came later?
Or reveal the truth now, with Rafi gone?
Siu had grown strong.
Mentally, physically, magically.
The days when he'd been frustrated by his lack of power were long gone.
But even with greater strength, some problems couldn't be solved cleanly.
"Siu."
At that moment, his master's hand reached out.
It stroked his cheek, then held his head steady.
Her lips overlapped his softly.
Her plush tongue tapped at the seam of his lips, as if asking to be let in.
He didn't have the mental leeway for a kiss right now, but since this worry was his alone, he had no choice.
"Chuu..."
The sweet saliva, laced with the lingering aftertaste of bitter black tea, flowed into his mouth.
Her sly tongue wriggled playfully inside, tying itself in knots.
When the long kiss finally ended, his master let out a sweet sigh.
Then, as if making excuses, she added,
"Haa... R-Rafi told me to stamp your lips like this."
A kiss from a beloved lover had a remarkable calming effect.
Siu managed a small smile.
"I guess I'm a greedy one."
"You are."
Her fidgeting fingertips and slightly drooping eyes.
It might not be obvious at a glance, but it was his master's way of signaling she wanted to share love.
Her attempt at being as obvious as possible, no doubt.
"Three hours a day, every day. Didn't we promise? You always make me say it out loud—you're so teasing."
Three hours a day, every day?
He had no idea about any such promise.
But as far as he knew, his master wasn't the type to pursue physical intimacy aggressively.
She'd subtly ask for it maybe once a month, that was all.
Was it different in this world?
Her lingering hand reached the collar of his shirt.
A motion to unbutton it.
"Here?"
"Isn't the weather nice? Rafi will be in her room for a while..."
Eloa's hands, which had been undressing him, suddenly froze.
What had caught her eye was the black brooch hanging on his chest.
In that instant, Siu felt a chill run down his spine.
The gentle spring breeze between them turned icy.
"Siu, what is this?"
His master's playful atmosphere flipped in an instant.
Her bloodshot eyes swam with confusion, dripping with a refined ferocity.
"Ah..."
Siu panicked.
This brooch was a safety device Gretel had given him in case he got trapped in a dream.
He hadn't planned to mention it yet, since he hadn't clarified his actions in the dream.
Besides, his master had no reason to recognize it without explanation.
"Answer me. Where did you get it?"
Yet Eloa's piercing gaze held an eerie obsession and revulsion as she pressed him.
Even as Siu stammered some half-baked excuse, her pupils reflected the brooch's shape like clear glass beads.
"Ah, this?"
"......"
His mouth went dry.
He couldn't know the full details, but instinct told him.
Eloa's immersion—her aspiration toward her ideal world—was perceiving even his touch as a threat, triggering Autonomous Defense.
Siu's presence was indispensable in that ideal world of hers.
So she was instinctively rejecting the device that could pull him out of the dream.
If he'd known it'd be this bad, he should've hidden it sooner...
"I got it by chance. I-I'm planning to give it to Sharon later."
"......"
She stared blankly for a long moment before slowly asking back.
She seemed somehow forlorn.
"To Miss Sharon?"
"Yes."
The tension between them eased.
The halted spring breeze tickled his ears once more.
"I see. I got greedy again. You can give it to her someday."
Eloa gave a wry smile and hugged him again.
2.
Eloa dusted off her skills for the first time in a while.
After the picnic, she dove straight into preparing dinner and served up a magnificent feast.
It was a meal in a mansion as grand as a palace, but the table rang with the warm laughter of a happy family home.
Siu, Rafi, and Eloa all laughed and chatted as they ate and drank heavily.
By the time the meal ended, their cheeks ached from smiling so much.
Eloa stepped into the study.
Sleet fell outside the window, ill-suited to the warm spring.
The fireplace's warmth pushed back the cold, damp chill.
Rafi was a heaven-sent genius with the sword, but she loved reading too.
Naturally, master and disciple spent a lot of time together in the study.
A curtain of light from the candelabras.
In its shadows, he saw Rafi's back as she gazed out the window.
"What are you looking at, Rafi?"
The moment Rafi turned to her, Eloa felt her heart drop.
Her face was deathly pale.
Purple veins stood out on her wrists.
The waist of her white dress was stained dark red.
"Master!"
But it was just a fleeting illusion.
As Rafi spun around like she was dancing, the hallucination vanished like a mirage.
She came running with her skirts fluttering and threw herself into Eloa's arms.
Eloa hugged her as if she might shatter.
"Piyaat! M-Master... Rafi's arms are gonna break...!"
"Sorry, dear."
Eloa unwittingly smiled and released her, and Rafi grumbled while rubbing her arms.
"Master, seriously. That's old news. I'm fine now. See? I'm right here."
The memory clung to Eloa's mind like an unending nightmare.
The arrogance and complacency that had cost her the most precious person.
"I'm sorry, Rafi. I was truly awful to you."
"Master, it's okay. Really."
Rafi gently stroked her back.
Eloa had stolen the lotus from the Coward Witch.
The lotus, which held tens of thousands of lives, once again devoured innocent human souls and bloomed its crimson petals.
It was karma.
An unshakable sin.
To save Rafi, Eloa had betrayed Gehenna—and Siu had followed her.
This peaceful daily life was built on the foundation of her betrayal.
"I'll never lose you again. Absolutely."
Happy Pig guided people to the most ideal world they dreamed of.
However.
Some wounds in the world couldn't be covered even by daydreams.
Eloa couldn't forgive herself.
No.
She'd never forgiven herself, not even once.
3.
Siu quietly wandered the mansion's corridors.
There was something suspicious about it all.
He'd come here to pull Eloa out.
He could understand her wariness of the brooch.
But he remembered how her expression had darkened the instant he'd mentioned Sharon's name.
And what she'd said next.
"You can give it someday..."
As if he couldn't give it now.
Extending that logic, there were no traces of any other lovers anywhere in the mansion.
From the way she'd spoken of Sharon, it wasn't that the other lovers had been erased.
Maybe they were temporarily sidelined, like the key characters in Amelia's dream.
But there was a fundamental distortion.
Siu could sense it. He was certain.
This wasn't just any dream.
Like the cabin where Amelia had stayed after sending Malika away and choosing to remain with him—a symbol—this mansion held some kind of symbolism too.
It was leaving hints about the current situation and the world.
As he walked the corridors, Siu headed upward, upward.
It was his first time entering the mansion, yet oddly, its internal layout was mapped out in his head like a blueprint.
Up the winding spiral stairs, at the very top, was his master's workshop.
He'd never heard it directly, but her admonition lingered: "There are dangerous things in there—please don't go in."
-Creak
The wooden door turned roughly.
The moment he opened the workshop door, he saw it: a crystalline lotus that seemed steeped in fresh blood.
The Coward Witch's wicked relic from the past, bloomed to revive her disciple.
Siu swallowed hard and gazed at the landscape beyond the window, bathed in pale moonlight.
It was very high up, offering a clear panoramic view.
"This is..."
Not Gehenna.
Purple lavender fields swayed under the sleet, stretching endlessly to the horizon.