Chapter 120
Chapter 120
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 120
Chapter Title: Drunken Heart-to-Heart - 4
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I asked.
"You were tricked? How?"
"May was going to kill me, they said. Truth be told, they claimed May was jealous of you for stealing her position."
My eyes widened.
"Of course, I didn't believe it at first. But they hid May away completely and whispered in my ear day and night. 'May's going to kill you. If you don't want to die, use the jewel first.'"
"······."
"For a full two years straight."
She took a sip of her drink.
"Now I'd never fall for such a low trick, but after hearing that nonsense for two years, even I started to get confused."
"······."
"I was only twelve back then. I didn't have the ability to sort truth from lies."
She let out a deep sigh.
"But even so, I didn't let go of my trust that easily. That's why I made that headband."
"Hm? Oh, this."
I fiddled with the headband I was wearing.
"Yeah. I was trying to transform myself into May with it. I wondered if maybe they were telling May something different, and if I looked like her, I could uncover the truth."
"Impressive. Thinking that far at twelve."
"Not at all. I was utterly foolish. I finally finished it and then lost the headband."
"You lost it?"
"Yeah. I hid it every way I could think of, but they found it right away."
Neril's voice grew quieter.
"The headband vanished like a lie on the day it was completed. I searched desperately and soon found it."
"No way?"
"Yeah. May was wearing it."
"······."
"After two years apart, May locked eyes with me while wearing that headband. She smiled so brightly, so genuinely······ but that smile terrified me. It felt like she was asking what I planned to do with it."
I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them.
"May came running at me. To me, it looked like she was coming to kill me."
"Why didn't you bind her with restraint magic?"
"I hadn't learned any magic back then. Ever since entering the family as an adopted daughter, all I'd done was experiments to implant the jewel."
She'd created the headband on her own, without any formal magic training.
Just from peeking over shoulders and scraps of knowledge she'd overheard.
Even now, amid all this, I couldn't help but admire her genius.
"All I could do was absorb vitality using the Withering Jewel."
"······."
"I just wanted to drain her energy so she couldn't get closer. That was all."
I could guess the rest without hearing it.
Neril had used the jewel's power for the first time and couldn't control it easily.
In the end, she'd absorbed far more vitality than necessary—excessively so.
May must have died.
Thud.
Neril placed her hand on the diary.
"Defir hid the ugly family scheming from May perfectly. But May must have sensed something was off. She got hold of this diary to uncover the truth."
"······."
"Then a loyal butler secretly stole the diary and handed it to May."
"······."
"He was the only one worried about the rift between May and me. He was so upright that the others shunned him, I remember. That's why the rest of the family didn't let him in on their plots."
That butler's descendant, no way?
Reading my expression, Neril nodded.
"You're right. Doman, killed by Gray, was that butler's last descendant."
"······."
"But unfortunately, May didn't have the skill to open the earlier pages. Defir probably managed it sloppily on purpose, knowing that."
I recalled how, last time in the capital, Neril couldn't open the sealed pages when she first got the book.
It was only after Bion told her how to release the seal that she could access the pages he'd written.
No way could May, who had zero magic talent, open pages written by her father.
"So May never figured out what was going on. But instead, she started writing her own diary in it."
"······."
"She barely wrote a few days' worth before Defir took it back. ······A little while after May died, I secretly got the book with that loyal butler's help."
"Could you open the pages? You hadn't learned magic by then."
"I couldn't. But I could read what May had written. She didn't have the skill to seal her own pages."
Neril's voice grew choked.
"May's short diary was smudged with ink and crawling with wrinkles in the paper. From the tears she shed while writing it."
She bit her lip.
Hot tears streamed down her cheek.
I see.
So that's why she wanted this diary back so badly.
The countless spells in it held no value to Neril.
What she cherished was May's final diary entry at the end.
"This fool······ she was genuinely grieving our growing apart."
"······."
"She wrote, sobbing her heart out, that she wanted to be friends again."
"Neril."
"The moment I read May's diary, I lost my mind. Kill them all. Send every single person in this family who tricked me into making me kill May straight to the afterlife······ that was all I could think."
And so Neril unleashed the Withering power without restraint.
That's how she wiped out the Enerica family.
Most of the massive number in her Blood Letters must date from then.
Wipe.
Neril wiped her tears and said.
"That's why I can live so long······ no, that's not quite right. It's because of that."
"Neril."
"The Martial King just stored vitality in the jewel, but Defir processed it so it would absorb into me. All the family's vitality gathered in me intact."
"······."
"My natural lifespan ended long ago. Now I'm just sustaining myself with that vitality from back then."
In other words.
I swallowed hard and asked.
"You look like you're in your early twenties."
"Yeah. If things had gone normally, I'd have died at twenty-two. Guess that was my allotted time. Short-lived fate."
"What if you released all that accumulated vitality?"
"I'd die on the spot. Like I said, my original lifespan ran out ages ago."
Before regressing, Neril had told Kaild, "I'm going to disappear."
She hadn't said "I'm going to kill myself" for that reason.
It wouldn't fit for Neril, whose natural life had already ended.
"I should have vanished long ago. But I was too scared. I feared what May might say if we met in the afterlife."
"Neril."
"So I lingered awkwardly, neither living nor dying. But in all those long years, I never felt joy anywhere."
"······."
"Just when I thought maybe it was time to die, I heard the butler guarding May's grave had a son. It had been generations······ I don't remember well."
That son must have been Doman Haud.
Seeing my face, Neril nodded.
"Right. I couldn't just abandon the descendant of the man who'd told me the truth."
"So you decided to live a little longer?"
"Yeah. Though I was just existing, really. With no more attachments to the world, I ignored the Enerica heirlooms and treasures."
"That was the 'slump' you mentioned. That's how Dame was able to steal the heirloom."
"Yeah. The moment I realized Dame had stolen it, long-dormant emotions revived. 'Ah······ that heirloom has May's diary in it,' I thought."
Dame had threatened to burn the heirloom.
Neril couldn't bear May's last trace going up in flames.
So she made the shadow contract and earned the title Witch of Atrocities.
Her story connected to the "present."
But one thing still bugged me.
"You said the Withering Jewel was implanted in you."
"I know what you're getting at. Why was it in the Martial King's stomach?"
"Yeah."
"I don't know either. I massacred the family with its power and passed out. When I woke up, the jewel was gone."
"Maybe."
I swallowed.
"Idria took it."
"Yeah. I've thought the same."
"······."
"The Withering Jewel was embedded so thoroughly it couldn't be removed without killing me. I can't imagine anyone but the Demon King pulling that off."
"So you're the first in our party to have met Idria."
"Is that how it is? Doesn't make me happy."
Let me check this.
I said to Trail.
'Show me the secret between Idria and Neril.'
[······.]
'Trail?'
[Whew. Couldn't even breathe listening. Hold on.]
I chuckled.
The oldest hero turns out to be quite the sensitive soul.
[Used Eye of Omniscience.]
[Current Eye of Omniscience level is 4. Can view up to A-rank secrets.]
[Selection condition: 'Secret between Neril Slaine and Idria.']
[No related secrets found. Cannot view.]
Huh?
I blinked.
Neril asked.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh, looks like I can speak freely now. I checked secrets with Trail's power······."
"Impressive ability after all. Wait. If so, couldn't you have just checked May's secret without asking me?"
I shrugged.
"Would you want me peeking into your secrets behind your back?"
"······No. Absolutely not."
"See? Good call then."
"Maide."
She looked at me, her face a bit flushed.
"You're so considerate."
"······."
"Uh, um. That came out wrong. You're so kind."
"Pretty much the same thing."
"Anyway, no secrets between me and Idria? So Idria didn't take the Withering Jewel from my body?"
I nodded.
Neril crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair.
"Then who? No one comes to mind."
"It's fine. Not important."
"No, it's hugely important."
"What matters now is having a drink."
I raised my glass.
Neril said with a blank look.
"Why is having a drink what matters?"
"Because I want to drink with you."
"Pfft. What?"
"Cheers already. My arm's getting tired."
She laughed and raised her glass.
Clink.
The wooden cups met lightly.
I gulped it down.
Neril, with no need to, downed hers matching me.
"Tastes awful. No idea why people drink this."
"You okay? You can't hold your liquor."
"I'm fine. One more."
"You just said you don't get why people drink it."
"Gimme. And you know I know you can't hold yours either?"
Huh?
How'd she know?
Neril smirked.
"Haspil territory. You drank with the locals in your hometown. I was there too."
"I remember knocking back quite a bit."
"Your memory must be shot. You didn't even make three glasses."
"······."
"Pour already."
I refilled her glass.
That night.
We got absolutely plastered.
When I came to, it was morning.
Neril lay nestled in my arms.
······?
What happened?
[It's fine. Stay calm.]
'Huh?'
[Not as big a deal as you think. It was viewable.]
'What?'
[You both passed out amicably at the end. Regrettable or fortunate, I wonder.]
'Speak straight.'
My head was pounding already.
Then Neril's eyes fluttered open blearily.
She stared at me quietly, then noticed my arm wrapped fully around her.
After tilting her head a few times, Neril said.
"What happened?"
I replied.
"It's fine. Stay calm."
That same night Maide and Neril's glasses clinked.
Kaild and Sobiers were staying at an inn in Gavril territory.
Sobiers said.
"Tomorrow we meet the lord."
"Why?"
"If I'm right, Maide's near the Enerica tomb. He'll upgrade the 'headband' there to craft a Hero's Mark."
"······."
"Won't he want to test if it really works once he has the mark? Naturally, he'll go to the lord and flash it."
Kaild, clueless about the context, sighed deeply and spoke.
"Could you explain in detail for once?"
Surprisingly, Sobiers nodded easily.
And slowly began explaining.
Shockingly, Sobiers's account matched perfectly what Neril had told Maide.
Except for one thing.
"That's how Neril wiped out the Enerica family. She absorbed the vitality of everyone except one butler, root and all."
"So that's how she's lived so long."
"Yes. And I recovered the Withering Jewel."
Kaild doubted his ears.
The Enerica massacre was about 200 years ago.
How could he recover the jewel then?
As if reading his doubt, Sobiers chuckled.
"Why the shocked face?"
"No, that was 200 years ago······."
"Lady Idria has lived near eternally. You think she'd make the Fingers of Deceit just from this era's people?"
"······."
"You were too hasty judging from just Ophelia and Hiren. A hero shouldn't think so small."
This guy's belittling is consistent, master or minion.
Kaild, now numb to it, brushed it off.
"Anyway, you're connected to the Enerica family. But something's off?"
"······."
"Your armor and sword scream knight. What would a mage family have to do with a knight?"
"I had ties to House Head Defir."
Kaild recalled Sobiers's earlier story.
Who could it be?
Someone connected to Defir mentioned in the tale?
Then Sobiers said.
"Defir made a deal with me. He'd hand over the Withering Jewel in exchange for fulfilling my request."
"······?"
"So I needed to check if the 'experiment' was progressing. I'd visit the Enerica family periodically to confirm."
"······."
"Defir kept making excuses, begging for time. But last visit, he was full of vigor."
Hold on.
'What are you saying?'
It sounded like he was saying he was 'that person.'
"Neril had cleverly enchanted the headband, he said. Giving it to May would surely snap Neril's last thread of trust."
"······."
"Next time I visited, Neril had just massacred the family with the jewel's power."
"······."
"Realizing the experiment succeeded, I recovered the jewel immediately."
Kaild trembled uncontrollably.
Sobiers continued nonchalantly.
"I considered killing Neril to retrieve it······ but I couldn't do something so cruel to a child. Letting her live and taking just the jewel was quite the hassle."
"······."
"I'm a hero, after all. Couldn't kill a poor test subject."
"You don't mean······."
"Yes."
Slide.
Sobiers removed his helmet.
There was a face Kaild knew all too well—a legendary celebrity.
Kaild nearly screamed.
"Padania Burke!"
Sobiers······ no, the "Fourth Hero" Padania Burke donned his helmet again.
And spoke in a low voice.
"Pleasure working with you, junior."