-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: Living in a Nightmare
-----------------------------------------------------------------
It was then. Helena shouted.
“What are you doing! Get out! I said, get out! You have to save Philip first! I’ll finish up here and follow you!”
“What do you mean, finish up…!”
I questioned Helena’s words, but I was already running.
I have to save Philip.
That goal alone drove me.
No, perhaps that was just an excuse.
Maybe I just wanted to leave everything to Helena.
I ran out into the hallway and sprinted in the opposite direction from the approaching mercenaries.
The place where Philip was being held.
Before going to the fighting pits, I knew where the victims who had fallen out of the Lord's favor were kept.
I was gasping for air.
I passed through a dark underground passage and reached the place where Philip was imprisoned.
I saw Philip, limp and trapped in a prison-like cell blocked by iron bars.
“Uh, how do I open this…?”
As I hesitated in front of the lock, Philip’s hand shot out.
I thought he was unconscious.
“I’ll be borrowing this.”
He had gotten up at some point and plucked a hairpin from my hair. Violode was quick to raise his hand to me, but he still treated me as his daughter in his own way, giving me various gifts, so I had plenty of them.
Philip began to pick the lock with surprising skill. But he seemed to be struggling, as there were many parts he couldn't quite reach.
A shout came from the distance.
“Fire! The Lord’s room is on fire!”
As soon as they heard the shout, the sound of mercenaries moving in unison reached me, as if they were all heading to the Lord’s room.
A fire…?
I turned my head and looked outside.
‘Then Helena…? Helena…!’
My vision blurred again. Tears began to stream down my cheeks. Fear enveloped me once more.
It's all your fault.
Can you really live a proper life after this?
Violode’s voice echoed in my ears.
I buried my face between my knees.
I covered my ears and muttered.
“I… I can’t leave… I can’t…”
Then, I heard someone's voice.
‘Are you crazy? Do you really want to die?! Get a grip!’
An arrogant and insolent voice.
The touch of someone who had pulled me up when I was sinking endlessly into the sea.
What was that? When was it? Two years ago… is this a memory from when I was in the sea?
I lifted my head. I reached out to Philip.
“That pin, give it to me.”
Philip asked with surprised eyes.
“You, can you do this?”
“If I can’t, are we just going to die here together?”
I glared at Philip. He handed me the pin with a bewildered expression.
✵ ✵ ✵
“That madman…”
That was the first thing the princess said upon hearing the report about Eric, who had shattered a mithril alloy door with a mere toy—a whip in shape only, useless as a weapon.
Moreover, according to the servants outside the broken door, they had heard only a single strike, meaning he had gathered his aura and shattered the door in one blow.
With just a leather whip like this.
Ella looked down at the whip, which the attendant reporting the incident had referred to as ‘the weapon Eric Orleans used his aura with’.
Unlike mana manipulation, wielding aura requires a ‘weapon’ to channel it. However, if the object lacks sufficient durability to contain the aura, the user must expend additional aura to reinforce the weapon’s durability, leading to extreme exhaustion.
And this thing, no matter how you looked at it, seemed to lack anything resembling durability.
“He said he was sorry for breaking royal property…”
Before the attendant could finish relaying Eric’s apology, the princess waved her hand dismissively and commanded a servant.
“Has the royal physician left for the day? Even if he has, tell him to come back. And bring a healing mage, too.”
“A healing mage, why…?”
“If he pushed himself that hard, wouldn’t he have internal injuries?”
The attendant reported to the princess that Eric had been holding Imeline the entire time and, aside from some bleeding from a hand scratched by door fragments, he appeared fine on the outside.
But the princess scoffed and said.
“Impossible. Do you have any idea how much the barrier magic I placed on that door cost?”
“…You placed barrier magic on it, too?”
“Why are you looking at me like that? I put it there to keep people from opening it from the outside, not to trap anyone inside. In any case, that foolish oaf. I was only going to leave them for an hour.”
“Is that truly so?”
“…Two hours…?”
The attendant gave up on further conversation, left the princess’s room immediately, and went to fetch the royal physician and the mage.
✵ ✵ ✵
Eric was looking down at Imeline, who lay pale and sweating profusely. She was lying on a guest bed Ella had provided.
‘This isn’t the first time.’
Eric furrowed his brow.
‘Huuuhk!’
When he saw Imeline crawling on the floor of the Duke’s office, her face pale, he had been half in doubt. He had even thought it might be a show to escape a difficult situation.
But today…
‘…I… I can’t breathe…’
The moment he saw Imeline gasping before him today, everything became clear.
That day, Imeline hadn’t been putting on a show.
A moment ago in the room, Imeline had been terrified. She had backed away from him as he held the whip, just as she had flinched at Margaret Beaufort’s 60th birthday party the moment he so much as slightly raised his hand.
Eric looked down at his bandaged hand.
He recalled Imeline’s small shoulders tensing up the moment he brandished the whip. Her terrified eyes, too.
With a displeased expression, Eric unconsciously tightened his grip. The hand he was holding, Imeline’s, also turned white.
Imeline let out a small moan. Startled, Eric loosened his grip and looked down at her.
Imeline’s dry lips parted. She muttered.
“…Damn… damn it… why is this so…”
Eric couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at the curse that escaped Imeline’s lips.
“…Why won’t this damn thing open.”
But his expression quickly hardened again.
‘Don’t come any closer!’
He remembered what Imeline had said, as if he were going to do something to her.
In any case, Eric felt it was true that he had been the cause of her trembling.
He shouldn’t have picked up the whip. And to test it, he’d even broken a table.
“…I’m sorry.”
He muttered, holding Imeline’s hand tightly.
Eric’s red eyes began to sink deep with guilt.
He had a memory of letting a woman die alone. A memory he never wanted to experience again.
Eric looked down at Imeline, who was covered in a cold sweat.
This strange woman reminded him of his mother in an uncanny way. Her frightened face. The way she had asked for a hug.
‘But even grown-ups need someone to hold their hand sometimes… sometimes…’
The crucial difference, however, was her sense of morality.
‘One must live a good life.’
In any case.
Eric wanted to find the person who had left Imeline with such memories. He would do everything in his power, if he could.
It wasn’t for Imeline, but for himself.
Absolutely.
It was absolutely not for Imeline.
Just then, the bedroom door creaked open.
Lily was opening the door and coming in.
Lily saw Eric tightly holding Imeline’s hand.
“…I won’t misunderstand.”
She had the face of someone who was clearly misunderstanding.
“She gets anxious if I let go of her hand.”
“Ah… yes…”
Eric explained, but Lily nodded with a face that showed she was far from convinced.
Who was the one who would be anxious if they let go…? The person who was asleep, or the person sitting beside her, refusing even proper treatment to stay by her side?
Lily wanted to ask, but she kept her mouth shut, seeing that Eric would never admit it. After all, this was the man who wouldn’t even acknowledge the bright smile captured in a photograph.
Eric also seemed to know that Lily wasn’t convinced. But, as if giving up on persuading her, he stared intently down at Imeline. Then his expression turned pensive.
Eric asked.
“Have you ever heard those stories? The ones where a stepmother torments her stepchildren, putting the young ones in peril.”
Lily tilted her head. She didn’t understand the reason for the sudden change of topic.
“Aren’t most fairy tales like that?”
Stories where princesses are tormented by their stepmothers until they are rescued by a prince, and villains who dare to covet the throne of the rightful prince are vanquished by him.
Stories that allow the listening child to always empathize with the protagonist princess and prince.
Eric had grown up listening to such stories, too. And for the few months after his mother’s death, before he joined the knighthood, he had nightmares every night. Dreams of strange stepmothers entering the ducal estate to abuse and torment him.
Eric looked down at the beads of sweat on the bridge of Imeline’s nose.
‘Are you, perhaps, having such a dream too.’
Or are you still living in that nightmare.
