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

Chapter 97
As expected, I dispelled the dark magic that had ensnared the ‌Fairy.
Yet Chesa could not rejoice.
Glancing sidelong at Kieran, his expression was indeed murderous. ‌‌‌‌‌
"...Ha."
He let out a short, hollow laugh.
The whisper beneath it—*should have killed her*—was barely concealed mockery.
Kieran looked ready to commit murder on the spot, but the moment he sensed Chesa's gaze, his smile bloomed ‌‌‌instantly.
"Chesa."
He drawled her name with a voice dripping like honey as he asked.
"What were you just doing?"
Just as Kieran had done moments before, Chesa answered with brazen ‌‌nonchalance, feigning ignorance.
"She ‌‌‌looked like she was in pain, so I treated her."
"Ah, I ‌‌see."
Kieran's eyes narrowed to slits.
Since attempting mind control again would prove futile, he was deliberating his next move.
His gaze fixed upon the Fairy was as chilling as a serpent's stare.
From his eyes alone, one could already envision the Fairy torn to shreds.
'What is she hiding that ‌‌‌‌she would risk mind control?'
The ‌‌Fairy's condition appeared grave.
As her consciousness sharpened, despair bloomed within her pale green eyes.
The Fairy gazed at Kieran with fear.
And seeing Chesa cradled in his embrace, she despaired.
"How could Your Majesty fall into the hands of such a creature...."
Chesa tilted her head in confusion.
'Did she just call me Your Majesty?'
Bewildered, wondering if she had misheard, the Fairy glared at Kieran and spoke with a voice trembling with anguish.
"Vile wretch. You have blinded Her ‌‌‌Majesty's eyes and stopped her ears."
The Fairy bit her lip, then pleaded with Chesa.
"Please, come with me to the Fairy Kingdom. Everyone has been waiting for Your Majesty with aching hearts."
Her face was on the verge of tears.
"The throne has been empty for far too long."
A queen? A throne?
Chesa's mouth fell open without her realizing it.
In the continent's history, there was but a single official record concerning the Fairy Queen.
Centuries ago, the queen had surrendered her crown to the Holy King of the Holy Empire.
That ‌‌‌‌was all.
Everything else was merely fairy tales, legends, and apocryphal histories that humans had fabricated from their own imaginations.
Thus, Chesa had vaguely assumed that after surrendering her crown to the Holy King, the queen had hidden away with the other Fairies in the Fairy Kingdom they had created within the Illusion Realm.
So being ‌‌suddenly called a queen was utterly bewildering.
Chesa blinked helplessly, unsure what to say in the ‌‌‌‌face of this unexpected turn of events.
"He's spouting nonsense...."
Kieran held Chesa close and whispered, reasoning that he must be speaking this way because he was in so much pain.
"Don't listen ‌to him, ‌‌Chesa."
The Fairy, whose eyes had been glistening since ‌‌‌earlier, finally let tears fall.
"You don't believe me, ‌‌‌‌do you."
"No, that's not it."
At those sorrowful words, Chesa grew even more flustered, her hands fluttering uselessly.
She wept quietly and made her plea.
"Please, I beg you to hear my story."
Kieran let out ‍‌‌a scoffing laugh.
To prevent the ill-tempered man ‌‌from tormenting the Fairy further, Chesa gripped his forearm firmly.
And she listened to the Fairy's tale.

***
Hundreds of years ago, the Fairy Queen was captured by humans.
The Fairies struggled desperately to reclaim their Queen.
In that struggle, countless Fairies were wounded, vanished, captured, and perished.
They abandoned ‌‌‌their desperate efforts ‌‌‌only when they learned of the Queen's ‌‌‌death.
Fairies are beings composed of spirit, and at their center was the Queen.
Because the Queen and the Fairies were connected to one another, they felt her death and wept in sorrow.
There was no time to grieve.
A new Queen had been born.
The Fairies wanted to protect her above all else.
Yet despite clearly sensing the birth of the new Queen, they could find no trace of her.
Unable to find their Queen ‌despite all their efforts, the Fairies hid from humans.
They lived without their Queen within a kingdom created in the Illusion Realm.
As their strength gradually waned in the Queen's absence, strange ‌‌‌things began appearing in the Human World.
The aura of these creatures—neither human nor Fairy—grew steadily stronger, so much so that even the Fairies hiding in the Illusion Realm away from the Human World could sense it.
The disturbance shaking the world had reached a point where it could no longer be ignored.
Thus, the Fairies began venturing out from their kingdom a few years ago, gradually investigating the matter.
She too was one of the Fairies conducting investigations in the Human World.
She had been deeply focused on her investigation when....
Her consciousness suddenly cut off.
When she regained awareness and opened ‌‌her eyes, she found herself on an unfamiliar street.
Bearing wounds on her wrists and ankles as though she had barely escaped from somewhere she'd been bound, she had lost all her memories.
Having lost all her memories, she initially believed herself to be human.
While wandering the Human World, she became the target of wicked people, and when she used her Fairy powers just before something terrible could happen to her, some of her memories returned.
Once ‌‌awakened, the memories came flooding back rapidly. ‌
But ‌‌misfortune was only beginning then.
For some reason, her mind was fractured.
She could feel herself slipping into madness, yet she was utterly powerless to recover.
Her consciousness simply ‌‌‌‌crumbled, bit by bit.
And then, when her nature as a Fairy became known, she found herself hunted in earnest by the Slave Hunters.
By ‌‌‌the time she was fleeing from them, her awareness had grown so muddled that she could barely think.
She had surrendered all reason and moved solely on instinct.
Then, at some moment, she felt a pull—a calling—and chased after Chesa.
Unfurling the Illusion Realm was the last strength she possessed.
"Meeting you, my Queen, was destiny."
The Fairy spoke with ‌‌‌rapture and conviction.
Her eyes gleamed with hope that all that was twisted and broken would be set right.
"Please, return to the Fairy Kingdom with ‌‌‌me."
So much information flooded in at once that my mind felt paralyzed.
Chesa calmly pointed out a flaw to the Fairy, who was rejoicing at this rosy future.
The fact that her mother was supposedly the Fairy Queen didn't quite fit—the previous queen had died centuries ago.
"The Queen's bloodline must have continued somewhere. Once we return to the kingdom, we'll learn the truth...."
The Fairy gazed at Chesa quietly and smiled.
"Logic is unimportant. You felt it too, didn't ‌‌you? The intuition that we are connected."
The Fairy was desperate in her attempts to persuade Chesa.
But Chesa could not ‌‌‌grant her plea.
"Not yet."
"Why not!" ‌
"I still have things I must do."
With that resolute answer, the fortunes of human and Fairy ‌‌diverged.
But a promise was a promise.
I had to give the Fairy Queen's crown to Kieran.
'And even ‌‌‌if I really am a queen, it'd be ridiculous to just ‌‌‌vanish and play monarch in some kingdom overnight.'
I was far removed from such an elegant station.
My true nature ‌‌was the witch Lichesia, after all.
I patted Kieran's forearm with my hand as he grinned happily.
It was time to say something he wouldn't like.
"But I promise I'll go someday."
Once again their fortunes shifted, and this time the Fairy's face shone with unbridled joy.
I would have to go eventually to deal with this body, locked as it was in infancy.
'Of course, even if I ‌‌‌‌‌do find my way there, I won't be staying in the Fairy Kingdom forever.'
I swallowed the words that didn't need saying right now.
The shadow beneath Kieran's feet had been acting strange for a while.
It kept writhing and stretching, as if it might lash out violently at any moment.
Though I still had many questions, it seemed I'd better release the poor Fairy and send her away quickly ‌‌before that shadow got out of hand.
'She said she only started leaving the kingdom a few years ago, so she probably knows nothing ‌‌‌‌about my mother.'
I can ask for the specifics later when I visit the Fairy Kingdom.
Having finished her thoughts, Chesa drew upon her power.
Vines adorned with blossoms erupted from the ground, coiling around the chains of condemnation. ‌‌
The sacred relic imbued with holy power gleamed with white radiance as the flowers wrapped around it.
But with Hailon, its master, so far away, there was no way these chains could withstand Chesa's strength.
With a crystalline ring, the chains shattered into fragments.
As the scattered pieces fell away, Chesa ‌‌‌‌‌gazed steadily into her eyes and swore solemnly.
"I'll definitely come. I promise."
The liberated Fairy's body rose gently into the air.
In a room where not a breath of wind stirred, her hair danced and swayed.
A small flower bloomed beneath the Fairy's feet.
Not as resplendent as Chesa's, but a Flower Field as peaceful as a meadow ‌filled with wildflowers.
She brought her hands together.
Light shimmered within her clasped palms.
The Fairy carefully extended ‌‌the flower she had created.
It was a bright golden sunflower.
"I will wait for you."
Having ‌‌‌‌placed the single sunflower in Chesa's arms, she ‌‌left a ‌‌‌reverent kiss upon the ‌‌‌back of her hand.
Chesa's eyes widened in surprise.
A butterfly mark gleamed upon her hand.
The mark flickered briefly, then vanished without a trace.
As if to ‌‌‌‌ensure no ‌‌one else could touch it.
"It is a token by which you may find your ‌‌‌‌way to the Kingdom."
The Fairy glanced sidelong at Kieran and whispered.
"Whenever you wish. May your time apart be brief, and your reunion eternal."
The Fairy's form was enveloped in small flowers and butterflies.
Just before she vanished completely. ‌
"Be wary of that man."
The ‌‌‌‌Fairy left one final warning.
"He is cunning and vicious as a black viper...."
She concealed herself from view.
Only the fragrance of flowers remained.
Kieran had said nothing all this while.
He licked his parched lips, then grasped Chesa's hand.
And gazed quietly at her small hand.
As if searching for something no longer visible.

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