While Others Became Female Leads In Romantic Fantasy Novels, I Became A Closet Monster
Chapter 39
After Jacob left, Delaney was very pleased.
I let her enjoy it to her heart’s content for now.
I was looking forward to seeing her face twist in shock on the day Jacob finally returned, having manifested his Aura.
I was smiling gloomily to myself when Dedrick returned from the library.
He flinched upon seeing my sinister expression. I quickly composed my face and asked him,
“What fairy tale are we reading today?”
Instead of answering, Dedrick held out a book. The cover depicted a fairy with four thin wings and a princess in a voluminous dress.
The title was written below, and I could now read it without much trouble.
“The Journey of the Fairy and the Princess!”
When I looked at Dedrick with a proud face, he naturally stroked my head and praised me.
“Let’s read it right away!”
After we finished the book, Dedrick glanced at me and, as always, spoke up tentatively.
“The fairy and the princess became happy, even though the time they lived was different.”
Of course they did. The end of a fairy tale is always a happy ending.
However, this time I thought about it from a different perspective. Although the aftermath wasn’t written, I felt a bit sorry for the fairy who would be left behind.
In fairy tales with vampires, they bite the person they love so the two can live happily ever after together, but that wasn’t the case here.
“But once her life ends, the princess will die and only the fairy will have to live a long time alone. That’s a bit sad.”
At my unexpected opinion, Dedrick’s pupils shook.
“……Do you think the fairy would be sad?”
“Yeah. Because they’d have to miss the princess until they die. Don’t you think so, Didi?”
After appearing to think for a moment, Dedrick looked at me with a shocked expression.
Before I could even be flustered by that look, Dedrick stood up abruptly from his seat, clutching the book.
“I’m going to throw this book away.”
“Huh? Why?”
“I don’t like it.”
I grabbed him as he looked ready to toss the book out this instant.
“Why don’t you like it?”
“……The time.”
He stopped mid-sentence, clamped his mouth shut, and then asked me a question in return.
“How long do you live? Do you live for a long, long time?”
“Hmm……. I don’t know for sure, but I think I’ll live much longer than you, Didi.”
I didn’t feel like I would die according to a human lifespan.
If it was a Closet Monster’s intuition, then it was intuition. I called it a hunch, but usually, things like this were certain.
It was information about myself that felt only natural.
“Then…… a way for me to extend my lifespan…….”
Dedrick sat back down, muttering to himself. I asked him about something I’d been curious about the whole time we’d been reading fairy tales.
“By the way, about this tree.”
I took the book back from Dedrick and flipped to the very last page.
There, the happy fairy and princess were depicted. And behind them stood a single, massive tree. It was a tree that had appeared in every fairy tale I’d read so far.
It looked different in quality from a common tree.
Even in the cute illustrations, that specific tree felt grand, as if extra effort had been poured into it.
Every fairy tale was like that.
Even though it was a simple drawing, it showed signs of having been drawn with extreme care, as if pouring a wish into it.
“What is this tree? Looking at these fairy tales, it’s drawn with more intensity than the protagonists.”
“It’s a tree that symbolizes happiness, peace, luck, and wealth.”
“There’s a tree like that? It symbolizes a lot of things. What kind of tree is it exactly?”
“The World Tree.”
“……The World Tree?”
“The tree that is the source of this world. The primordial living being. Because it’s a symbol of happiness, an illustration of the World Tree appears in the endings. Actually, over there—Mother said the tree roots embroidered on your wardrobe are a representation of the World Tree’s roots.”
I shifted my gaze to where his fingertip pointed.
I looked anew at the wardrobe where thick roots were depicted.
I had thought it was just a common pattern…….
So it was the World Tree.
Once I recognized that, my heart somehow felt like it was beating faster.
I asked, unable to take my eyes off the wardrobe.
“Then is that wardrobe incredibly expensive?”
“I don’t know. It’s something Mother left behind, so perhaps its value can’t be measured in money…….”
“Your mother left it?”
My eyes widened at this new fact.
Dedrick gave a small nod.
“That wardrobe was the only keepsake I had from my mother. Perhaps because it was so large, Father delivered it to me personally. That’s why even the Grand Duchess couldn’t take it away.”
Wait, I hadn’t heard that before.
I had no memory of it, as if the time before that had been completely gouged out.
‘Is that why he couldn’t throw the wardrobe away in the novel, even after being bullied so much?’
Seeing me look confused, Dedrick smiled shyly.
“Ah, it’s not the only keepsake left now. Since you found them all for me.”
“Didi, did your parents never say anything to you about this wardrobe?”
“Father, as always, said nothing, and Mother didn’t say anything about it either.”
Right, that makes sense.
There was no need to waste words on a mere wardrobe.
‘……But why does it feel like I’m on the verge of remembering something?’
The World Tree.
I’ve definitely heard of it somewhere…….
It was different from the word I knew in my past life. I definitely heard that word, World Tree, from someone’s mouth…….
Throb!
“Ugh.”
At that moment, along with a small headache, the minor noises of the surroundings drifted far away.
And a blurry afterimage appeared over the wardrobe.
The floor was covered in blood, and I could see the figures of two people whose faces were obscured.
Then, a woman’s voice reached my ears.
‘I want to save this child.’
There was also the voice of a man stopping her.
‘It is a life that is already dying.’
I knit my brows tightly to see the two faint figures who looked ready to vanish.
My vision grew clearer and clearer. I could even smell the metallic scent of blood brushing the tip of my nose, but the faces of the two people remained elusive.
Still, I could see what was placed upon their hands. It was a very tiny baby that looked as if it had just been born.
That baby was soaked in blood. The two adorable horns rising from its head were also stained a deep crimson. The baby breathed shallowly, as if its life might flicker out at any moment.
And I could tell.
That the dying baby was none other than me.
Is this the past I’ve forgotten?
Since I was a newborn, it was natural that I wouldn’t remember.
‘It has already absorbed all the surrounding blood through its horns. Since such a child was born on a battlefield of all places, it is only natural it was abandoned. This is this child’s fate…….’
The woman hurriedly cut off the man’s words.
‘Even so…… it’s a newborn child. Wouldn’t it be possible with a piece of the World Tree?’
‘That place is…….’
‘A sanctuary where only God’s Representative can enter. Please. I cannot just stand by and watch it die. This child…….’
The words after that were inaudible. However, I could feel the earnestness of her plea.
At the woman’s request, the man finally sighed as if he had no choice.
Then the afterimage scattered as if it had never been there, and this time, only the woman’s voice rang clearly in my ears.
‘Since I went through such trouble for you, make sure to say hello when we meet next time.’
The voice, smiling softly and kindly, soon vanished quickly like sand in a hand.
“……Wake up! Wake up!”
I snapped my eyes open.
Dedrick’s face was covered in tears. When I flinched and stepped back, he hurriedly grabbed my hand.
“……Why, why…….”
Dedrick couldn’t even ask properly as he sobbed. I wiped his wet cheeks and smiled awkwardly.
“Didi, why are you crying? What did I do?”
“……I, I thought you were disappearing. You, you won’t do that, right?”
“Where would I go, leaving you behind?”
Dedrick couldn’t stop crying easily. I gently pulled him into a tight hug and patted his back.
He sobbed, clinging to me desperately.
“You, you weren’t moving……. Blood, blood came out of your horns and soaked you.”
Startled, I checked my body, but there was no sign of such a thing. He burrowed back into my arms as I fumbled about.
“Your eyes turned red…….”
Was it because I found a lost memory?
I calmed him down and explained step by step what had just happened.
“I remembered something from when I was very young. I think that’s why.”
“It’s fine to just remember, but why, why did you have to put on a performance like that?”
That wasn’t my performance…….
“I don’t really know by what principle it happened either. So, stop crying!”
I gently caressed his sore eyes as he wept piteously.
