33 - Marquis Maron
Episode 33
"Once I take the Mana from you, people will no longer fear and hunt you."
Wow, what is he even saying?
"When the Three Kingdoms were clamoring for your execution, I was the only one who risked my life to persuade the Order. I said execution was out of the question, and that we should just abandon you in the Contaminated Zone instead. Because I knew you wouldn't die even in the Contaminated Zone. If you just stayed alive in there…!"
"Back then, you were going to protect me?"
I burst out laughing.
Hayley, you foolish idiot. You believed in that guy as your only family and cherished him so much?
"Hey, wake up."
"Hayley!"
"Do you know what you did? Hayley only had magic… no lover, no friends, no family. Magic was the only means to protect me, and the only power in this world that was entirely mine."
Eugene took that magic away from Hayley.
"So what if I get called a Demon? It's the power to protect me. Why are you meddling and telling me what to do?"
"You killed people with that power."
"Hey."
"Cyril Vandision, Mikelan Holt. Because you kept killing people with magic, supposedly for those scumbags… there was no other way. Offering that up as a price was the only way to stop the people who were insisting on burning you alive."
Eugene lowered his head. He was still reaching out to me with one hand. His eyes, like those of an abandoned child, were filled with deep regret and self-loathing.
Should I tell him?
That the real Hayley eventually died in Maron Keep. That she was consumed by hatred and betrayal, and ultimately chose death. You know Hayley well, so you might have expected her to survive in the Contaminated Zone, but you didn't know that she couldn't endure that deep loneliness and sorrow.
I didn't take the hand Eugene offered.
"Yeah, good job."
I am not Eugene's family.
"What's the point of arguing over right and wrong now."
I am not Hayley, whom he loves. Nor am I Hayley, who loved him. Hayley, who killed people and committed evil deeds, is dead, and I have become a stranger with no grudges against Eugene.
"It's okay. I don't hate you. I don't really resent you either. So don't worry about it."
I am not the little girl who shared loneliness with him in the cold orphanage.
"What do you mean, don't worry about it?"
Eugene approached me urgently. Reikart's hand, holding the sword, twitched. He looked ready to cut Eugene down if he made even the slightest threatening move.
Yet, Eugene didn't care and came closer, taking my hand.
"I'll apologize until you forgive me. A hundred times, a thousand times. I can wait even if it takes ten years. If you tell me to kneel, I'll kneel, and if you ask for my life, I'll give it to you."
"Hey, I don't need it."
"Hayley, what do you want me to do? Tell me. Should I abandon the Order and come to you? I can kill Cyril Vandision and Mikelan Holt. If you want, I can do anything."
"No, I don't want you to. Let go of me! What terrible things are you saying?"
I shook off his hand and recoiled, stepping back. Then I screamed.
"Get a grip! You're not a kid, why are you being so clingy when you're a grown man! Would the world fall apart without me? Seriously, I didn't know before, but seeing you up close makes me want to puke!"
"Hayley."
"Get some independence! Don't you have any self-reliance or self-esteem? What have you been doing all this time, you idiot! How are you going to survive in this harsh world!"
Reikart cleared his throat. He had stepped between us to prevent Eugene from grabbing me again.
I quickly hid behind Reikart and peeked out, saying,
"Get lost! Dog of the Order!"
I thought that would make him leave.
But Eugene, with tears welling up in his eyes, said,
"Hayley, please don't."
This novel, it makes the male leads unnecessarily beautiful. Tears that looked like they would fall at the slightest touch clung precariously to the corners of his eyes. His voice, filled with anguish, resonated with a trembling that tugged at the heartstrings.
"I'll become a family again."
"No, I don't want to!"
"I won't be greedy anymore. I'll do whatever you tell me to do."
"I said I don't want to, you bastard!"
"Look. I still have it."
On Eugene's finger was an old, dirty wooden ring. I knew what it was from the original story, so I had no choice but to say this.
"I don't."
"You threw it away."
My beginning was that iron cage that resembled a pigsty. I said that I never had that ring from the start.
"No, I never had it from the beginning."
What would Hayley have done?
She probably would have thrown it away.
"I probably threw it away."
So I told him that too.
Eugene said he would stay in Selbon for the time being.
There were limitations to the investigation since the Holy Knight's body was missing, but he would at least prevent those dispatched from the Order's headquarters from conducting another witch hunt against the people of Selbon.
"But those lumberjacks shouldn't stay in the village. Many people know they're tainted. If rumors spread that you're purifying and taking the tainted with you, the Order will weave an even tighter net to hunt you down."
"I don't care about that, but the lumberjack uncles will get dragged away again."
"Probably."
"Then I'll just take them with me."
"Maron Keep… it must be a livable place."
"At least more than outside."
More than livable. It will soon become my own utopia. Paradise, heaven. Call it whatever you want. Who says only God can create such a world? A place where I can live well is my paradise.
I grinned and asked Rango, who had been lying prostrate at my feet, watching my every move,
"Didn't you say we should never meet again?"
"It was a slip of the tongue! Please take me with you too!"
"Why? I'm a terrifying Demon Marquis."
"I'd rather be dragged away by a Demon than by the Order."
"Good to see you're so obedient."
Rango took my hand and stood up. Fatima, who had belatedly jumped out from behind a tree, ran off excitedly to bring the lumberjack uncles.
Eugene said to me,
"Hayley."
"Enough, go back and keep your cronies in line."
"What can I do to be forgiven?"
Eugene was a more pathetic type than I had thought. I stared at him, who couldn't let go of his lingering feelings and kept asking, and recalled how quickly he fell in love with the female lead in the original story.
"Don't worry. You'll soon experience a love of the century."
"What?"
He asked, bewildered.
Reikart was gesturing for me to send Eugene away quickly, probably thinking I was talking nonsense again.
I spoke solemnly, like a prophet.
"Still, you're the least bad of the three bastards who imprisoned me, so I'll tell you this: you'll become the third husband of some woman. You'll be tormented by jealousy, but accept it. That's your destiny."
"Hayley…."
Reikart sighed and tugged at my clothes.
There were too many Omnivores.
Just a few days ago, our plan was for the four of us—me, my fairy, Reikart, and Fatima—to live well, but now a group of humans had gathered in Maron Keep, discussing something with serious faces.
"If we go outside, we'll just be living a life of running away from the Order. We're the first people in the world to be tainted and then purified. We'll be lucky if they don't drag us away and dissect us."
"But I don't want to live trapped inside this Contaminated Zone. There are no houses, no fields, no merchants come here…."
"It's better than dying!"
"Does that mean we should give up living like humans? You might be okay with it, but I'm not!"
"Then what should we do? Go outside? Where, and how are we going to go?"
One of the lumberjacks and his wife were arguing.
The other lumberjacks weren't much different. Those who had brought their families, saying they couldn't be separated, were deeply troubled by the prospect of living trapped inside the Contaminated Zone.
On the other hand, the lumberjack who had come alone, without any baggage, was wandering around Maron Keep with Rango.
"Even if we live in a unique territory, living in the same house as the lord is a bit much. There's quite a bit of purified land outside the keep, so if we clear it and flatten it, then build houses…."
"Look at this guy, as if that's as easy as building a toadstool house."
"Why aren't you leaving and trying to live here?"
"I can't leave! What if I get tainted if I go out alone!"
I, who had been sitting on the second-floor windowsill, watching them with interest, finally burst out laughing.
"Hey."
What are you even saying?
"Who said you could live here as you please?"
I never said I would take you in?
"I'll even take you to Grandis, so get out."
"Lord…."
"Get out of my house."
I don't have enough food for you.
