Chapter 91
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Chapter 91
The journey had been uneventful until Kieran and Hailon began to quarrel.
Inside the carriage, Chesa played with Hata's front paws, tail, and ears.
Then, at some moment, a strange feeling washed over me.
It was an indescribable sensation.
Too many emotions swirled together and surged up all at once.
My heart clenched and began to race.
Only when I saw my trembling hands did I realize the truth.
I was afraid of something.
This feeling, mixed with sorrow and rage, was not my own emotion.
Unable to bear the intensity, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Thump, thump, thump....
Listening to my heartbeat, I traced the roots of the emotions pressing down upon me.
My eyes snapped open with a sharp, prickling sensation across my skin.
'A fairy?'
The anguished cry of a fairy descending into madness had reached me.
A kindred spirit encountered in a moment I never expected.
For an instant, I was too startled to respond.
"...!"
I felt a tremendous surge of power.
I pushed Hata from my lap and sprang to my feet.
Ishuel, who had been peacefully reading beside me, looked up in alarm.
I knew my actions must have seemed strange.
But this was no time to hesitate and deliberate.
I threw open the carriage window.
Since it was a small opening, I braced my head against the frame instead of my short arms and cried out.
"Everyone, take cover!"
But my warning came just a moment too late.
My vision inverted.
The Fairy's Domain had unfolded.
"...!"
My body, which had been inside the carriage moments before, plummeted through empty air.
As I fell from sky to ground, I surveyed my surroundings.
Meeting another fairy for the first time.
And entering another fairy's Domain for the first time as well.
'What is this....'
I blinked in bewilderment.
My Domain was grotesque.
A chessboard filled with broken and shattered toys, carnivorous flowers and thorn thickets, and more.
Yet my Domain was brimming with vitality.
Everything moved with frenzied vitality, tormenting those trapped within the Illusion Realm with malicious glee.
Yet here, all things lay dead.
Beneath a sky where crimson and obsidian light swirled in dizzying eddies, withered grass sprouted sparsely across blackened earth.
The murky river flowed with no trace of cheerfulness—sluggish, almost torpid.
At first glance, it seemed the water did not flow at all, but stagnated.
The forest visible in the distance consisted only of thorn trees and briar thickets, from which came an unceasing, gloomy sound.
Whether it was wind howling through the branches or someone's anguished moan, the sound was impossible to distinguish.
The Illusion Realm was a realm of the spirit, constructed from the fairy's unconscious mind.
Chesa sensed what state the master of this desolate Illusion Realm must be in.
The fairy was on the verge of madness.
"Chesa!"
As Chesa fell toward the ground, I spotted Kieran.
Having fallen first, he reached out his hand toward me.
I tumbled directly into Kieran's embrace.
Kieran exhaled in relief.
After holding me close for a moment to calm himself, he muttered quietly.
"If you fall one more time, Father's heart will fall right out of his chest, Chesa."
This fall had not been my doing.
I wanted to offer some excuse, but I could not.
I called out to Kieran weakly.
"Father...."
"What is it? Are you hurt somewhere?"
Kieran looked me over in alarm.
I melted limply into Kieran's arms.
All the turbulent emotions the unstable fairy was experiencing flooded into me, causing me anguish.
The emotions I had felt strongly in the Carriage now poured forth far more directly, trapped within the Illusion Realm.
Suffering beneath feelings that were not my own, I murmured softly.
"Please... let's get out of here...."
Kieran's eyes narrowed as he perceived my distressed state.
A warm hand gently covered my back.
He lowered his voice to a soothing murmur so I would not grow anxious.
"Father will get us out soon."
He said this despite not knowing where we were.
Yet Kieran was the sort of man who would move heaven and earth to fulfill his words.
I simply nodded quietly.
He patted me gently while slowly surveying our surroundings.
Taking in the grotesque and gloomy landscape piece by piece, he murmured.
"What manner of place is this...."
"It is the Fairy's Domain."
The answer came from elsewhere.
A flash of white light blazed across the darkness.
The black thorned trees and brambles scattered into fragments, revealing Hailon's form.
Kieran's expression screamed irritation—*of all people, why did I have to be trapped here with him?*
Regardless, Hailon's first concern was checking on Chesa's condition.
Though she bore no visible wounds, her wilting form—like grass withering in drought—made his eyes narrow slightly.
"Something is wrong with Chesa. Illusion Realm or not, we need to escape this place immediately."
"...This doesn't appear to be a normal Illusion Realm. We'll likely need to fulfill the fairy's wishes to leave."
Hailon had traversed Chesa's Illusion Realm countless times before.
He immediately recognized this realm's abnormality and, surveying his surroundings slowly, murmured his thoughts aloud.
"It seems the fairy is asking for our help because she's being pursued."
"Why would she trust us?"
Kieran posed an entirely reasonable question.
Hailon's azure eyes glanced toward Chesa.
The answer was Chesa herself.
*She must have sensed the presence of her own kind.*
Trapped in the Illusion Realm with Chesa were Hailon and Kieran.
Both had maintained prolonged contact with Chesa and spent considerable time in her presence, and among their group, they possessed the strongest power.
The fairy, bearing a potent aura, seemed to have deliberately drawn these powerful individuals into her Illusion Realm.
Hailon, who believed Chesa to be Lichesia's daughter, appeared to have deduced these details.
Yet he chose not to voice his reasoning aloud.
He merely stated the conclusion plainly.
"The fairy has chosen us. If we wish to leave, we must grant her request. That is the fastest and safest way to escape this place."
The fairy had imprisoned people within her Illusion Realm without revealing herself.
She likely remained hidden, transformed into grass or trees.
She would be far too occupied with her own survival.
Kieran's temper, twisted by the fairy's audacity, grew increasingly fierce as his eyes burned with malice.
"A request...."
His crimson eyes flickered with ominous light as he muttered a short, bitter laugh.
Kuuung—the earth trembled with a tremendous shock.
The parched ground cracked with sharp, splintering sounds.
Thorned trees erupted from the fissures.
Men entangled in the thorns retched black liquid, thrashing about noisily.
"Damn it, what rotten luck!"
"We almost had them...!"
Those spewing crude profanities were Slave Hunters.
Not mere rabble, but exceptionally skilled hunters—the very ones who had pursued Chesa in the past.
Their eyes had turned bloodshot with hunger upon encountering the fairy once more.
As they severed the thorned trees with their daggers and attempted escape, they spotted Chesa, Kieran, and Hailon, their expressions shifting to shock.
They had believed themselves to be the only ones trapped in the Illusion Realm.
Upon confronting the Slave Hunters face-to-face, all color drained from Chesa's complexion.
'This hurts....'
It felt as though someone was screaming endlessly inside my mind.
The fairy's hatred, rage, terror, anguish, revulsion—every negative emotion imaginable.
Choked by these suffocating feelings, even I seemed to be losing my grip on sanity.
Since I too held no fond memories of the Slave Hunters, I could not help but be swept away by the fairy's emotions.
'But she isn't wrong.'
My vision blurred.
Warm blood surged from my heart, coursing through my veins in rhythmic pulses.
'I understand her. How terrifying and painful it all is.'
The fairy's descending madness tangled with memories of the past.
Those who mocked as arrows pierced fleeing legs, watching bodies crumple to the ground.
The cruel laughter of those who seized my hair as I crawled desperately away.
The Orphanage burning.
Friends screaming.
A teacher begging for the children's lives to be spared.
A young fairy who could do nothing....
'I wanted to kill them.'
If I had possessed power in that moment, I would have slaughtered them all in the most horrific ways imaginable.
A crimson glimmer flickered across my pink eyes.
The rage was unbearable.
Something began to roil within me.
It rose higher and higher, until it finally breached the threshold.
The erupting emotion consumed me entirely.
"Chesa?"
Someone's voice brushed against my ears, but I could not hear it.
Flowers began to bloom beneath my feet.
The blossoms that unfurled in circles suddenly burst outward like spilled paint.
Magnificent flowers blanketed the land of death, and butterflies woven from light spread in all directions.
The darkness-shrouded earth was consumed by countless flowers and butterflies.
My pink eyes were on the verge of turning completely crimson.
With a soft sigh, a large hand gently covered my eyes.
"Why are you so angry."
Kieran, his hand shielding my eyes, spoke softly.
"Stay still, little one. Babies don't do difficult things."
He whispered in a voice tinged with the faint scent of blood.
"Father will handle this."
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