The Jealousy She Could No Longer Suppress
One misjudgment was enough to poison everything about a person. From the smallest detail to the largest, every single action looked repulsive. Even the most reasonable excuses felt like deliberate manipulation. They might have been dismissed as laziness, an attempt to win sympathy, or a desperate effort to escape a burden. The Seeker and her entire party had fallen into exactly that trap. And they still did.
The horned race was nothing but filth. Edgar watched the prejudice in Megus’s eyes and covered it with a casual shrug. He had no desire to drag out every ugly detail.
“There was a reason.”
“So what was the reason?”
“Do I really have to explain it?”
Megus’s voice grew colder, and she stumbled backward.
The Seeker who had slain the Dark King was terrified of a single laborer.
Pure, honest confusion.
Guilt crushed her. For a moment.
Then her eyes cleared, calm as a battlefield. She had faced death too many times.
“…I must know.”
She clicked her tongue. Edgar took one step forward.
He knew Megus was stubborn. It was time to tie up the loose end.
“It’s fine. I’ll explain.”
He had already noticed the growing disgust in her eyes. Freesia thought it was the perfect moment and pulled him back.
She stepped forward herself and faced Megus head-on.
Freesia’s presence was every bit as fierce as the Seeker’s had been on the field of battle.
“You. I have business with him. Stay out of it.”
Megus spoke in the blunt dialect only a lower race could demand, terrified of revealing her horned blood and her interference.
Freesia answered her with the same dismissive tone she would use to a servant.
“Why do you keep asking me?”
“You don’t want to hear it from someone like me?”
Someone like me.
The moment the word left Freesia’s lips, the last spark of affection she had felt for the Seeker vanished.
She would treat her exactly like any other ordinary human she disliked.
The sharpness in her gaze was only part of it.
“Why? I pitied the man you all threw away because he was useless and annoying.”
“…What?”
Freesia’s mocking laughter dulled Megus’s blade-sharp eyes.
She had just touched the raw wounds of the entire party.
“I pitied him. I picked him up from the roadside where he was dying. If I hadn’t found him, he would have died on the street like a stray dog. Do you understand now?”
“That’s…!”
The decision to abandon Edgar had come from Megus and her party.
It had nearly killed him.
Megus refused to accept it and tried to argue, but Edgar spoke calmly.
“Yes. Thanks to this man, I crossed death’s door. He even lifted my curse. Satisfied?”
Megus’s gaze wavered again.
Freesia seized the moment and stepped back, placing a hand on Edgar’s shoulder.
“That’s right. I picked him up. I treated him. So now he belongs to me. Whatever you call me—filthy, whatever. It means nothing.”
The horned race they had all despised had saved their lives and healed the curse.
They had abandoned the laborer they threw away.
That heavy truth left Megus and her party stunned.
So stunned they could not even voice the apologies they should have.
“But such a filthy horned race… and…”
“Horned races are filthy. That’s what people say. But why are horned races filthy?”
Edgar’s question left Megus speechless.
It was human common sense that horned races were filthy, but no one had ever known the true reason.
It had simply passed mouth to mouth for generations and hardened into twisted truth.
Only Edgar knew why they were treated that way.
Edgar let out a long sigh toward the silent Megus.
He had never wanted to answer in the first place.
“For the first time, you came to me with genuine care. You treated me and even gave me a place to stay. If anything, you seem more disgusting for abandoning me because you were annoyed.”
“I… filthy?”
Megus’s trembling voice gained a dangerous edge.
Whether from overwhelming shock or because nowhere else to run, it did not matter.
What mattered was that she was losing control.
The word “filthy” was an insult to almost every human.
Edgar nodded beside Freesia.
“Yes. It’s disgusting. If you had simply learned what you wanted and left, I wouldn’t have had to say it.”
He had once felt affection so deep it burned. Megus had been the character he played.
Every time Megus grew stronger, Edgar had felt like he was raising a child he had never actually born.
Now she simply felt like any other man with no connection to him.
Edgar’s feelings toward Megus and her party had bottomed out.
His voice was therefore heavy with nothing but irritation.
He bit his lip and watched Megus tremble.
“You’re probably here to cover up that arrogant reputation. Just go. I don’t care if your honor takes a hit. If you come back because you’re angry at me, it will only be more bothersome.”
Edgar turned his back on Megus, treating her as if she were a heartless human whose honor alone mattered.
His cold voice made his indifference perfectly clear.
My indifference is the only truth.
“…Wait… just a moment!”
But.
Lora’s voice rose.
She had been silent until now.
She stepped to Megus’s side and watched Edgar’s back.
“You still have something to say?”
Edgar did not turn around, only sighing.
Lora answered with a desperate, tear-filled voice.
“That… we… actually came to apologize…”
“Apologize?”
“Yes. We only realized too late. Please… just one more look…”
“Consider it forgiven.”
Edgar cut her off and walked toward the place the horned races were waiting.
Freesia watched Lora collapse to her knees, then turned to follow.
They walked shoulder to shoulder.
Why are they so disgusting?
They were saved once and now this?
While Edgar and Freesia walked away, Megus, head bowed, felt an irrational resentment sprout in her heart.
The sprout swelled into a trunk in a single breath and grew into a towering, unyielding tree.
“Stop… there.”
Once.
Even though Megus murmured it, Edgar and Freesia heard nothing.
It was not that they were pretending not to hear. They truly could not.
But.
“Stop right there!”
Twice.
The moment Megus’s voice cracked under rage, a man’s and a woman’s gaze turned backward.
The pride that had been crushed so thoroughly it might as well have been dust.
Rage.
And an envy the woman herself had not yet understood pushed her forward.
The feeling that had once sprouted when she received Edgar’s help and comfort, back when he was still somewhat all right, and which she had long since forgotten.
Jealousy born of that envy.
The steps she took carried both rage and envy, yet they were lightning fast.
As desperate as the day she confronted the King of the Dark Withered Tree.
Not because she could not forgive Freesia for standing beside Edgar.
Insane woman.
Edgar watched Megus lunge at him like a predator and bared his teeth.
He had a short temper, but never this extreme.
Freesia was the first character to appear in the DLC no one had played.
In the story and dialogue she appeared, but no one knew how strong she really was.
She had only been described as the one who stopped rebels and seized territory.
It was no wonder they worried.
“You really are disgusting.”
Freesia sighed and stepped forward.
Even as Megus’s sharp eyes and fierce hand approached, she only frowned in irritation.
No panic.
She simply flicked her sleeve and swung her arm in a light, dancing motion, loosening her body.
At first glance it looked like she was dancing.
But the result of that light movement was never light.
“Ugh…!”
Bang!
The sound of a balloon exploding echoed everywhere.
Megus, who had been charging, sat down hard on the ground, forehead wrinkled in pain.
Her entire body shook. She even vomited from the shock.
“How… how…?”
Megus muttered in confusion.
Freesia laughed.
The rest of the party rushed over to surround Megus only after she had already begun. Freesia’s lips finally opened.
“Don’t be jealous and go. It’s too late now.”
Freesia pointed out the jealousy Megus herself had not realized.
Even in the middle of the fight, the remaining party members braced for Freesia’s attack.
But Freesia turned her back as if the fight meant nothing.
Go ahead if you want.
That casual attitude flowed from every movement.
It was nothing like fighting against the dead.
The party only watched with wary eyes. They did not actively strike.
But every one of them carried the weight of defeat.
Lora, who had rushed over on her knees.
Riel, staring ahead with a complicated expression.
Olivia, thick with sorrow.
And Megus herself, eyes empty from shock she could not escape.
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