Chapter 115
Chapter 115
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 115
Chapter Title: From the Past
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"I'm okay now."
I couldn't not sleep, but what was I supposed to do...?
As I got out of bed to close the window, Yudit moved first.
-Click.
"Thanks."
"For now... try to go back to sleep."
"With you right here?"
"With me right here."
Well, was that even possible?
I'd just woken up from a horrific nightmare.
Staying awake like this felt more comforting than trying to sleep again.
"In the early hours, every single time we've talked, we've ended up drawing some extreme conclusion out of a hundred possibilities."
Yudit spoke with her back to the window.
The shadows on her face nicely concealed the various emotions she was trying to hide.
"Was I like this all the time? Enough for you to come running?"
"Sometimes. But it wasn't that bad. The reason I could come today was simply because some kid sneaking snacks passed by your door. They told him to go check on the Executor."
"That's a relief, at least."
Somehow, it didn't feel like it was as simple as Yudit was making it out to be, but this was right after that nightmare.
No matter what I did, there was no way I'd fall asleep easily.
Despite Yudit's urging, I propped up my pillow, sat up, and patted the bed beside me.
"Sleep's out of the question. Let's just talk."
"..."
It was hardly proper attire, but Yudit and I weren't the type to stand on ceremony with each other.
After watching me for a moment with her arms crossed, Yudit let out a light sigh, blew her fallen side hair back, pulled up a chair, and sat by my bed.
Like me, Yudit was dressed casually in a light shirt and pants, not intending to go out.
I draped the cashmere robe hanging on the bedpost over her shoulders.
"In case you're wondering, Logan was a boy who came to the sanatorium as a nurse when I was twelve. He died in an accident at the sanatorium."
"May I ask what kind of accident?"
"Well... human experimentation, I suppose."
Defining Logan's death precisely was incredibly difficult.
It was an incident triggered by me, the people involved in his death were irresponsible, and even my mother, who learned the truth, had no real excuse.
No one was innocent.
That's what happened.
"...I see."
That was all Yudit said.
We'd shared quite deep stories before, but I'd never laid out my past so unsparingly like this.
It was my shame, and the event that had drastically changed something inside me afterward.
"What happened after? How did it turn out?"
"Logan died, but since there was no intent, the sanatorium director got a light sentence. At the time, I'd just had a lot of blood drawn, so I fell into a critical state and was transferred to another sanatorium. The next year, I transferred into Aegis Academy."
"What a tumultuous life. Now I understand why you've been trying so hard not to stand out."
"..."
Well... hearing it like this, it did sound pretty hollow.
No matter how hard I'd tried, my efforts hadn't mattered—I'd ended up as the odd one out anyway.
And that was just the start.
Playboy, demon spawn treatment, and now the embarrassing nickname of Aegis's Executor...
I couldn't even imagine what it would take to go back to the past now.
"So that's how it was..."
Yudit murmured, as if piecing together everything she'd heard so far.
I hoped this incident wouldn't be revealed because no one had received proper punishment.
I could never be free of this event.
"You're spilling so much that it feels cowardly not to share my own secrets."
"You don't have to say anything."
"Hahaha."
I hadn't shared this just to make Yudit worry or to demand something in return—I'd only told her this much because she kept creating situations to fret over me.
Honestly, I wasn't so oblivious that I didn't sense she was hiding some big secret too.
At my words, Yudit flashed a bright smile that bared her canines and slipped her arms into the robe I'd draped over her shoulders.
"Arma, you seem hung up on something that's already passed... but honestly, that's not something I should say. I've got something I'm incredibly hung up on too."
By now, time was heading toward dawn.
Unlike when she'd entered through the window, Yudit walked slowly toward the door and added,
"Your eyes look like you could sleep if you tried a little harder. Once the Full Moon Festival ends, you can rest easy until spring semester starts. Just hang in there a bit longer."
"...Yeah."
Right now, it felt like nothing would change whether the festival ended or not, but I nodded anyway.
Yudit looked satisfied with my response, waved, and disappeared.
***
As she closed the door and headed to the annex of her dormitory, Wooden Cross House, Yudit harbored one question in her mind.
-You! I'll never forget what happened today!! No matter who you are! This time, for sure!!
It stemmed from a single sentence Arma Cruise had uttered while tormented by nightmares.
'The target clearly exists.'
Something she could converse with, something specific and wielding absolute power—a malevolent being.
It wasn't clear if it was something that had always existed at Aegis Academy, a figment Arma had created, or something else entirely.
The most shocking thing upon coming to the Holy Kingdom of Aegis, a place so intimately tied to mystery and divinity, was this.
The Holy Kingdom was a nation closer to gods than any other, yet its culture was perilously close to the profane and the wicked.
'I can't tell if the country is like this because of that, or if it's like that because the country is like this.'
Yudit folded up the excessively large sleeves of the robe, straightened her clothes, and slowly exited the dormitory building.
About three hours earlier, she'd stepped out just for a walk, only to receive an emergency summons from a cadet on the same floor as Arma.
She'd considered bringing Cheryl along but decided against it, remembering how Cheryl had fretted over Arma excessively before, spending the whole day making silly jokes to vent her anxiety.
"Cadet Taylor."
It was the moment Yudit was about to exit the entrance.
The equestrian major cadet who'd summoned her earlier (Hazel Runner, if she recalled) called out to her.
"Ah, Cadet Hazel Runner."
"Um— is the Executor alright?"
"More than alright. She switched meds for a chronic condition, and it seems to be affecting her sleep quality."
"Oh dear, that chronic condition must give the Executor quite a hard time..."
Hazel, with her chestnut hair and eyes both lightly tinged with yellow, spoke with her brows deeply furrowed.
When Yudit reassured her that Arma had just fallen asleep and there was no need to worry, Hazel's expression brightened considerably. She bowed her head and headed to her room.
"The title of Executor is laughable..."
The Arma Cruise that Yudit had observed over the past ten years had been one of profound solitude and malice, not the sort whose reputation could be easily overturned.
But now?
Arma was being revered as "Aegis's Executor" by a few fanatic followers.
To the point where it felt like those ten years were being erased.
-Slide.
Arriving swiftly at the annex, Yudit folded the robe Arma had given her and hung it haphazardly on a hanger before preparing to turn in again.
"Whew."
Even for a strong swordmaster like Yudit, there was no weathering a string of such incidents.
The accumulating fatigue had snowballed, and lately, it wouldn't fully lift unless she deliberately took time to rest.
"A being whose name cannot be spoken, something without form, something that corrupts and devours souls..."
Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling, Yudit's mind kept drifting back to the past.
-Baron... no, Mother!!
-Get out of here right now, Yudit. Right now!
-I don't want to! Why me alone...
-Because it can't see you! Run. You'll be fine...
After receiving the ring from the baron, Yudit was hurled out of the mansion by a powerful force.
The burning mansion.
The rumors among the servants that had seemed groundless, and the process of those rumors taking form.
The sinister, horrific incident in the Kirza Federation, Yudit's homeland, ended up incinerating everything in Cannon Valley.
There, Yudit lost it all.
Family, the Taylor House's secret arts, her brilliant glory, and her happy future.
"Whew."
Letting out a long sigh, Yudit sat up in bed.
She then retrieved a small iron key from the hidden compartment in her drawer.
This key could open another drawer hiding yet another key.
Unlike the previous one, this key had a sparkling crystal keychain attached. Holding it, Yudit approached the console table.
She then pulled out a safe about two handspans wide and tall from beneath the console.
-Clack, clack.
This safe wouldn't open unless specific motions were repeated beforehand.
Yudit twisted the key at precise angles a couple of times, then fully unlocked the safe.
-Click.
Inside was a small jewelry box.
Yudit opened it and peered at the contents.
It was a large-sized ring adorned with platinum.
A ring that fit perfectly only on the thumb and index finger, requiring one to clench a fist to wear it on others.
"..."
Gleaming in the moonlight, the ring held many things.
Engraved with a vow not to deceive oneself for an honorable life, it was the ring worn by successive heads of the Taylor House.
Since the day she'd lost her real finger while traversing a forest teeming with demonic beasts in a half-demented state, Yudit had never once worn this ring.
She had sworn to wear it again only when she reclaimed the Taylor House's secrets and could face herself without shame.
"Mother..."
But this wouldn't do.
Wasn't she utterly useless even to the one and only friend she'd opened her heart to?
'Glory, power, faith... am I to lose it all again...?'
With a self-mocking murmur, she meticulously polished the ring as its light began to fade.
A moment later, Yudit gazed quietly at the restored gleam.
"Since that day, I've accomplished nothing. I'll keep my promise, no matter what. But for now—for now, I'll forget you all. I'm sorry."
Her resolve to return home and uncover the truth of that tragedy remained unchanged.
However, she couldn't ignore the crisis of the one and only friend—Arma Cruise—who had enabled her to live in the present rather than the past.
Losing and gaining are all my choices.
That was the sole precept passed down in the Taylor House, which had nothing left.
Yudit placed the past, now in ring form, back into the safe and locked it.