14 - Marquis Maron
Episode 14
"Why there?"
"I need to make a road."
"......"
"If there's a purified road, I can go to Selbon and get horses or donkeys to buy flour, meat, and spices. If I commission a merchant, I can get a Magic Brazier, and we can have everything we need to live here."
Reikart looked down at me as if asking something obvious. He said that as time passed, he might be driving a large wagon instead of a donkey, and that he would go to Selbon as soon as the road was purified.
Come to think of it, my freeloader doesn't know yet.
I said as nonchalantly as possible.
"I'm not going to make a road."
"What?"
"I'm not going to make a road from Maron Keep to the outside of the Contaminated Zone. Especially a wide road that a wagon can travel on. Absolutely not."
"What? What... why?"
"I don't want to meet anyone."
I don't want anyone coming to see me, and I don't want to go out to meet anyone. I especially don't want anyone from this novel appearing in my perfect nest.
Especially not the other three male leads who made the real Hayley like this.
A road would make that possible.
"I'll have to go out when I need something, but I'm not going to make a road that anyone can come and go on. The only thing I'm aiming to purify is the Dark Lake."
"Why?"
"Do you even need to ask? If people outside find out I'm alive, I'll be back on the gallows this time. I might even be burned alive."
Reikart looked down at me with a distorted face. I don't know what he's thinking, but I don't particularly want to know.
"Reikart, remember this."
I'll say it three times, my goal is to live a long and quiet life.
"I'm a dead person."
And an enemy of the three kingdoms.
It rained again.
I thought it was a summer rain, but it was still cold at night in the mountain keep. Reikart approached me as I boiled water and warmed the room with firewood.
"I want to ask you something."
"I don't really want to answer."
"Why did you do it?"
I know what he wants to ask. He wants to ask the real Hayley why she did so many bad things.
She had no grudge against the Winter Dukedom, yet she killed them miserably, and just before she was caught, she poisoned the king of the Holt Kingdom.
During the trial, her hidden misdeeds were revealed, shocking many people.
Reikart asked again.
"Why did you do it?"
It would be nice if the real Hayley were here as a ghost to answer his question. All I can do is convey her feelings from the side story.
I said as plainly as possible.
"Because the Vandision Marquisate's mortal enemy happened to be your family."
"Vandision?"
"The man I love, or rather, loved, is Cyril Vandision."
"Love?"
"Yes, love."
In the original story, it was described as a distorted possessiveness accompanied by obsession. But after reading the side story, I no longer thought so.
Hayley was so crazy about Cyril that she would have died for him.
"Cyril Vandision wanted to become the heir to the family. But he was looked down upon by the head of the family and his vassals because he was born out of wedlock. I decided to help him achieve something that no one else could, in order to make him the heir."
"That is..."
"To destroy the Winter Dukedom, who were his sworn enemies."
I thought I had killed them all back then, but one survived. It was Reikart, the heir.
Cyril became the heir to Vandision because of that.
"Is it boring?"
It must be boring. Just love. To drive so many people to their deaths with just that short, selfish emotion.
I couldn't help it if Reikart got angry. I couldn't help it if he went wild, trying to get revenge again.
I can't change what already happened to suit my taste, and since the real Hayley loved that bastard Cyril Vandision so much, what can I, the reader, say?
Reikart leaned against the door and muttered in a low voice.
"Cyril Vandision, huh..."
"Do you know him?"
"Of course."
Well, he would.
If you're done, can you go to your room now? According to my primitive lifestyle, it's good to go to bed early when the sun goes down.
But Reikart seemed to have more questions.
"Then what about Eugene Widemark and Mikelan Holt?"
I straightened up, having been bending over to adjust the position of the firewood.
Eugene Widemark and Mikelan Holt.
It was the first time I had heard those names in a long time. It wasn't that I heard them, but that I read them, but still, it was strange to hear those names come out of Reikart's mouth.
I said as it was written in the novel.
"Eugene was an orphanage friend whom I considered my only family in the world, and Mikelan was a true friend with one soul in two bodies."
"Haha..."
Reikart burst out laughing.
"Family? Friends? What... love? Even though those guys caught you, put you on trial, sentenced you to death, and threw you into the Contaminated Zone?"
"I know that, so you don't have to remind me."
"Hayley."
"What can I do? That's my past."
"You're so stupid. It's a waste to call you a genius."
"Hey!"
Seriously.
When I glared at Reikart with the firewood in my hand, he asked in a seemingly light tone.
"You remember all that, but why did you pretend not to know anything? I thought you really had amnesia."
"Because I wanted to live."
Because of someone who declared that they came to kill Hayley Maron as soon as they jumped out of the trees, I wanted to live. I grumbled like that and asked him the same question in return.
"Then why did you pretend to have amnesia? You came to kill me, but suddenly you're acting nice. And you don't listen when I tell you to leave."
"To live."
"What?"
"I did it to live."
He's serious.
Even I, who am not perceptive, could tell. That those words were Reikart's true feelings. He was really saying that he came here to live. It also meant that living hadn't been living until now.
While chasing Hayley for revenge, he was also being chased as a wanted man. Death was in front of him and behind him.
No one will kill you here.
I was about to say that, but I just shut my mouth. When I thought about what the real Hayley had done to Reikart, I felt like I, who had possessed that body, didn't deserve to make such a promise.
"Hayley."
"If you've asked all your questions, go to your room."
"Do you still love them?"
"......"
Because it was an unexpected question, I stared straight at Reikart with my mouth shut. The firelight from the fireplace flickered in his water-colored eyes.
Do I still love them?
Who, Cyril? Or all three of them?
I didn't know what to say. Should I say that Hayley cursed them until she died because she loved them so much, or should I say that now that I'm the owner of this body, they're all just characters made of text?
I've never seen them, and I've never even exchanged a word with them. I've just possessed the body of a villain with such a past.
Who cares. Just like I don't feel guilty towards Reikart, I have no interest in them either. I'm not that Hayley.
How do I explain this?
But Reikart, having come to some conclusion, nodded to himself and said as he left my room.
"How pathetic."
"What? Hey!"
"Don't pretend to be pathetic and just keep being an evil sorceress. It suits you much better."
"Seriously."
I'm not the real Hayley, but I felt very bad.
