Chapter 98
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 98
Sensing a presence, Canna stirred and rubbed her eyes. At first, she seemed caught between dream and reality, but when I called her name, her eyes shot wide open. Tears welled up as she rushed toward me.
“My Lady, I missed you so, so much…”
Canna was shorter than me, and I stroked her trembling head as she buried her face in my embrace. It really had been a long time. The affection, once as natural as breathing, had been severed for a time. Now that it was restored, a sense of peace settled over my heart.
“Are you out for good now?”
“No, I just slipped out for a bit. We have a patient we need to get into bed. Can you help?”
“A patient? Oh… Sir Gabriel.”
Only then did Canna notice I had company. After giving Gabriel a brief nod, she saw Jeremia’s critical condition and hurried to tidy the bed in surprise.
“Pardon me,” Gabriel said, laying Jeremia down on the mattress. The white sheets quickly stained red with the blood pouring from her wounds.
“Her injuries are severe. She has a high fever, too… My Lady, who is this?”
“She is Princess Jeremia.”
There was no reason to hide it from Canna, so I told her the truth.
“The Princess…? Why is she so badly hurt…?”
Canna trailed off. She looked as if she wanted to ask why we’d brought the injured princess to the Rohanson Mansion, but instead of prying, she focused on tending to Jeremia. Ah, our Canna is so considerate.
Once Canna left to fetch a wet towel, only the unconscious Jeremia, Gabriel, and I remained. Gabriel’s gaze fell on my hand, still clasped in Jeremia’s, and his brow furrowed.
“You’re hurt.”
Gabriel had noticed my wound. Honestly, I was making a fuss over nothing; it wasn’t a big deal. Who was he worried about when someone was dying right in front of him?
“You’ve been holding her hand with an injured hand all this time?”
Jeremia had been the one to grab my hand; I had simply let her. Gabriel gently pried her fingers from mine and placed her hand on the bed. Then, his gaze fixed on my now-empty hand, as if he meant to dissect it with his eyes alone.
“May I… examine your hand?”
Ever since I had rejected him, Gabriel had not touched me without permission. A sudden pang of guilt washed over me, and I quietly offered him my hand. He looked as devastated as if I had suffered a fatal wound like Jeremia’s.
But he couldn’t lick the wound clean like Pudding did. His trembling fingers carefully caressed my own, staying far away from the cut so as not to irritate it. His worry was so tangible it made my skin tingle.
“I did not want to learn you were alive… like this.”
A shadow fell over Gabriel’s face.
I wondered what he meant. He must have been saddened that he couldn’t visit me in prison or get any news of my fate, only for me to appear before him injured. He was probably glad to see me alive, but sad that I was hurt.
“Still, aren’t you relieved to know I’m alive?”
“I…” Gabriel hesitated before continuing, as if steeling himself. “I have made up my mind. Even if you, Evangeline, were a cold corpse, I would never let go of your hand.”
Uh… Did I just hear what I think I heard? Was he planning to live with my corpse if I died? It was as if he’d swapped his ‘indifferent male lead’ tag for ‘angsty male lead who clings to a corpse.’ I guess my suspicion of his obsessive tendencies wasn’t just my imagination. Where did the devout paladin go?
Surely my cold treatment hadn’t had some terrible influence on him, right? No, of course not. What kind of influence could I possibly have? This was the genre’s fault.
“We must treat you quickly.”
“…After we deal with Lady Jeremia’s situation.”
Since it was just a cut, calling a doctor would be enough even without holy water. Then, a strange thought occurred to me. Despite how much Pudding and Jelly doted on me, they had never once suggested treating my wounds. Why wouldn’t they, when they worried so much? Their concern seemed genuine…
Before I could ponder it further, Canna returned. Gabriel had apparently taken the opportunity to tell her about my injury, because Canna, who had just managed to stop crying, burst into tears all over again. Why were they both so weepy?
While I was calming Canna down, insisting it wasn’t a major wound, Jelly returned with Melek in tow. Perhaps mindful of Gabriel’s presence, Melek was in his original form with his eyes covered, not Ryder’s body.
“Lady Evangeline, I heard you called… Ugh.”
Melek gagged before he could finish his sentence.
“I’m sorry… The smell of blood…”
“Deal with it.”
Jelly forced the retching Melek to stand upright. He was tough on him. It was no wonder that Melek, who had once spoken to Jelly and Pudding informally, now bowed his head and deferred to them without question.
“Melek, do you remember what happened when you first entered another body?”
“The moment I entered this body…?”
Melek glanced at Gabriel, hesitating as if to ask if it was alright to speak. Since Gabriel already knew I was a possessor, it didn’t matter. I intended for Jeremia to possess another body, just as Melek had. Jelly had said her body was beyond saving, so we just had to find a new one.
“Um… As I’ve said, it was so long ago, and my memories are so faint that I can’t recall it clearly.”
Melek replied reluctantly. To put it nicely, it was possession, but in reality, I was asking him to recount the moment of his death. It must be a horrific memory. I felt a pang of sympathy for him, but I had simply opened my eyes to find myself already in a body; I hadn’t chosen one and possessed it myself. Melek’s experience was all I had to go on.
The way to motivate him was obvious.
“A girl is dying. It’s impossible for her to recover in this body, so I want to save her by any other means.”
“Like me?”
“Yes. So tell me everything you remember—the environment, the situation, how you died, and how you were able to wake up again.”
Melek was too soft-hearted to refuse to dredge up his old wounds if it meant helping someone else. He recounted his past once more: how a demonic man and the director had locked the orphanage children in the basement and abused them; how one day the director simply stopped coming; and how Melek became the last survivor as the others starved to death.
Hearing the story again, I finally understood why Melek hated blood and avoided meat, beyond the fact that he was a beastkin. They say in times of severe famine, people sometimes feed on the dead. Even while starving, Melek had refused to see the other children as food. It was no surprise that even after possessing a beastkin, he would shun blood and meat.
His story was so miserable that I felt like trash for making him speak of it. I suppose that’s what it means to be a villainess—even when I act with good intentions, I end up tormenting others. The only comfort was that we seemed to be getting somewhere. If I hadn’t gotten a hint from his story, I would have felt even worse.
“I see what happened,” Jelly said, and Gabriel’s eyes lit up.
“Mr. Jelly. Please tell us. What should we do?”
“And why should I tell you?”
It wouldn’t be like Jelly to explain things so obediently. I was about to scold him for playing games at a time like this, but Gabriel beat me to it.
“Because Lady Evangeline wishes it.”
“Cunning bastard.”
Jelly clicked his tongue and sneered at Gabriel, but honestly, I felt much the same. Where did the honest and faithful knight go? I prayed his transformation wasn’t my fault.
Jelly opened his mouth as if to explain, then glared at Gabriel. Jeremia was on the verge of death, and they were having a war of nerves?
“Before I speak, I need a firm promise from you. Will you stay by Master’s side no matter what happens? I can’t trust children raised in the light of the Sun Goddess. Who knows? Next time, you might try to burn our Master at the stake.”
Was he taking a jab at Gabriel for being a paladin? I could understand Jelly’s sharpness. If Gabriel ever stopped defending me and confessed everything, I really could be branded a witch and burned alive.
Gabriel smiled faintly at Jelly’s words, his gaze directed not at Jelly, but at me.
“The light of the sun has never once reached me.”
My eyes met his blue ones. If his eyes were not the sky but the deep sea, then his claim that sunlight had never reached him would be true.
Before Jelly could find another fault, I stepped in.
“Stop it and hurry up. Jelly, can you explain?”
Though thoroughly sulking that I had taken Gabriel’s side, he shared his deductions.
“The orphanage’s basement was where the original Melek’s sacrificial victims were gathered.”
“Me?” Melek asked.
“Not you, the original Melek,” Jelly snapped, and Melek immediately wilted. “Unlike this gentle one, the original Melek was a disgusting bastard. Then again, it’s rare to find one of our kind who isn’t.”
Jelly shrugged.
“The original Melek enjoyed playing with humans. Especially children. He played with the orphanage kids in exchange for favors from the director. But then the director stopped visiting, so you can imagine how anxious he must have been.”
Gabriel chimed in, understanding dawning on his face.
“There was a record of the director of the Ainoa Orphanage being executed as a heretic.”
He was likely referring to the pagan massacre from twenty years ago. Jelly continued in a nonchalant tone.
“Yeah, he probably stopped visiting for that reason. The human who provided him with toys was dead, so the original Melek must have returned to the orphanage to check on the situation, only to find everyone dead except for one last child.”