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Chapter 93
I was far more emotional than necessary.
The fairy's descending ‌‌‌‌madness had bled into my own mind.
Buried memories clawed their way to the surface, threatening to shatter what remained of my sanity.
Then darkness enveloped me. ‌‌‌‌
The boundless rage that had surged without end was subdued by that gentle darkness, its momentum finally breaking.
The darkness and silence that Kieran had woven around me.
And the warmth radiating from his hand.
That soothing sensation gradually dulled the sharp edges of my jagged emotions.
Cradled in his broad embrace, I watched as Kieran and ‌‌‌‌‌‌‌Hailon tore into each other while dismantling the Slave Hunters.
The two men, standing at opposite poles, despised one another yet moved in perfect unison.
All of it was to protect me.
Watching them, my chest thrummed with an unfamiliar ache.
Where my rage had been, other emotions now bloomed.
At fifteen, ‌my fairy powers awakened, and I fled from the Slave Hunters.
I clawed desperately at survival, nothing ‌‌‌‌else.
By sixteen, that winter, I learned to command the Illusion Realm.
The ‌moment my power fully awakened, I hunted down the Slave Hunters first.
How had I felt then?
The memory blurs, but I remember the exhilaration—the pure, intoxicating joy.
For nearly two years, those hunters had tormented me relentlessly.
I had never dared dream of vengeance for my friends at the Orphanage or the Orphanage Director.
The moment I transformed from prey to predator was electric beyond measure.
The caterpillar that had crawled through dirt in misery became a resplendent butterfly; the fugitive who begged for her life became a merciless slayer.
I had taken my revenge thoroughly enough to forget all the ‌‌‌suffering that came before.
When it was over, drenched in blood, I stood alone before that mountain of corpses and laughed like a madwoman.
I laughed and laughed and laughed, until laughter became tears.
I screamed, I wailed, I purged every emotion from my being.
That day, wiping my tear-stained face with blood-soaked hands, was the last ‌‌‌time I ever truly broke.
Since then, I have never been deeply shaken by anything.
Even after reaching adulthood, little changed.
If I had to name a difference—
It was only that I gained the name Sorceress while searching for my mother's traces over the years, and I acquired Hata as my companion.
But perhaps the fairy's encroaching madness had weakened my resolve.
Watching Kieran and Hailon kill the ‌‌‌Slave Hunters before me stirred something fierce and overwhelming in my chest. ‌‌‌‌
Even I couldn't understand why.
It was ‌‌just... simply...
I wanted to cry.
'How shameful.'
I'm no child, yet here I am, emotionally synchronized with a fairy, dredging up old memories like this.
I was so ashamed of myself for revealing weakness over something so trivial.
Yet knowing I shouldn't expose my vulnerabilities, I found it impossible to hold back.
My eyes grew hot and my nose tingled.
To suppress the tears welling up, I clenched Kieran's clothing with all my strength.
Gripping it as tightly as my small ‌‌hands could manage, I breathed in ragged gasps.
To steady my trembling body, I buried my face against Kieran's chest and simply repeated the act of breathing.
After some time, I felt gentle hands carefully ‌‌‌‌cradling my face.
The large hands lifted my face up softly.
For a moment, I considered brushing away his touch.
But I merely thought it and instead followed where his hands led.
Kieran and Hailon were gazing down at me.
The ‌‌‌same light gleamed in their eyes of opposite hues.
Concern ‌‌and ‌‌‌affection directed toward me. ‌
'I shouldn't have looked up.' ‌‌
I immediately regretted it.
Because when ‌‌our eyes met, truly....
I couldn't hold back anymore.
My ‌vision blurred and wavered.
Finally, tears spilled down my cheeks.
"...."
Silence descended upon the Illusion ‌‌Realm.
Kieran and Hailon froze in place.
The two men stood motionless like wound-up dolls that had suddenly stopped, their eyes fixed solely on me.
Amid their bewildered gazes, I wept alone with hiccupping sobs.
I tried to stop crying, but no matter how hard I struggled, the tears wouldn't cease.
They ‌‌poured out like a broken ‌‌‌‌dam, unstoppable and torrential.
Seeing me cry with my face flushed red, Kieran finally broke ‌‌‌his frozen silence.
"...Chesa, why, why are you crying? Did Father frighten you ‌‌too much?"
He was so startled that his words even stumbled in the middle.
Hailon's tension was equally evident.
I wanted to answer, but the tears wouldn't stop, making it ‌difficult.
I could only shake my ‌‌‌head back ‌‌‌and forth.
At this, the two men became even more helpless.
For their sake, I wiped my tear-soaked face with my small ‌‌‌‌hands.
They were clean hands, unmarred by blood.
Only clear tears clung to my white palms.
No blood or filthy grime mixed in....
"It's not scary."
"Then?"
Kieran immediately asked back, and only after a long moment did I return ‌‌‌an answer.
"I don't know either...."
It was the truth.
I didn't truly understand why I was crying.
After struggling to suppress my sobs, I barely managed to speak the necessary words.
"Father, are you okay?"
"What do you mean?"
"I'm... acting strange."
As soon as I spoke, tears spilled down my cheeks once more.
I had used the fairy's power.
So undeniably, so plainly.
I had always been suspicious.
Though I was pretending to be a baby, I could not help but differ from infants my age.
That was surely why Kieran harbored doubts.
I already knew he had been watching me carefully.
'Will I be ‌cast out this time?'
Even though I had witnessed him standing up for me and sheltering me, that thought came first.
Because I could not ‌believe that anyone would stand up for me.
It felt far more natural for Kieran to reject me as a fairy here.
I was not truly Basilian.
I had no right to receive unconditional love like blood relations.
I continued to shed tears as I looked up at Kieran.
Kieran fell silent for a ‌‌‌‌moment.
That brief instant as he chose his words felt like a thousand years.
After ‌‌‌‌a wait that was but a moment yet felt eternal, Kieran's lips parted.
"...Father loves Chesa no matter what you are."
His thumb pressed gently beneath my eyes.
Then he wiped away my tears with force.
My crimson eyes trembled violently.
He whispered again in a voice grown even softer.
"Chesa will love Father the same way. No matter what I am."
It was a brand seared by flame.
It was also a greedy bargain demanding infinite affection in equal measure.
A painfully ‌‌‌‌‌warm sensation coursed through my thundering heart.
But just before an indelible mark could be branded upon me.
Hailon ‌seized me with chains of condemnation.
Kieran's hands suddenly empty, he stared at Hailon with an expressionless face.
He cast a shadow toward Hailon as he questioned him.
"Will you interrogate my child as a heretic?"
"That's not it."
Hailon, responding curtly, moved the chains to cradle Chesa in his arms as he replied.
"I already knew fairies existed. I simply didn't anticipate their power would manifest so rapidly."
"...."
"Didn't you say she was the daughter of the Fairy Lichesia?"
Kieran's eyes darkened.
He realized that what he'd dismissed as nonsense until now was closer to the truth than he'd believed.
Hailon cut ‌‌‌‌‌him off coldly.
"Stop spouting delusions at the child and ‌‌‌find a way to end the Illusion Realm instead."
"You said it would end ‌‌‌‌if ‌we granted the fairy's wishes. Since killing the Slave Hunter didn't change ‌‌‌anything, should I try killing ‌‌a Holy Knight this time?"
Hailon and Kieran locked eyes, about to begin their second confrontation.
Chesa, whose tears had nearly dried, murmured softly.
"I'm just... so angry about ‌‌‌‌it..."
Chesa gazed at the Illusion Realm through ‌her sniffles.
Had the fairy's condition been normal, this place would ‌‌‌surely have been beautiful. ‌
A fantastical space brimming with an ideal peace incomparable to reality itself.
The flowers the fairy had ‌‌‌bloomed were more lovely than anything in the real world.
I had no way of knowing how to calm a fairy descending into madness.
But I decided to try, guided by instinct alone.
"Let me try something."
I closed ‌‌my eyes and slowly gathered ‌‌‌my power.
I pressed my palms together, then opened my eyes wide as I spread them apart.
From my outstretched hands, countless butterflies of light scattered forth, and the flowers blooming throughout the Illusion Realm transformed into petals all at once.
Thousands of petals drifting from the flowers began to blanket the darkened world. ‌‌‌‌‌
And wherever the ‌petals touched.
The black earth vanished, and fresh grass began to ‌‌‌‌sprout.

---------------
Brought to you by Valir Scans! To ‌‌‌support our team and enjoy the latest releases, please read directly on our official site: valirscans.org
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