Chapter Fourty: The End of the Dream 2 (Lyos’s POV)
“Lyos, let’s break up.”
“Wh-what’s this all of a sudden?”
As he led her to the garden at dusk, illuminated only by the glow of the lamps, Marian suddenly spoke.
“Because you couldn’t keep a straight face, I stepped in to keep that brat from calling you out! And this is how you repay me?!”
“I never asked for your help. You decided to help me on your own!”
Something about Marian’s argument felt eerily familiar to Lyos, making him shudder. Marian was the one at fault, yet she raised her voice in anger, shouting at him.
“I’ve decided the disadvantages of marrying you outweigh any benefits! Did you see how Lord Sieg looked at you? He knew who you were! He hated you!”
“It’s just a misunderstanding! He calls himself a noble, yet he can’t even tell he’s been deceived. I can explain! I can prove that Karen doesn’t have any power to heal the Bloodline Blessing!”
“How?”
“I recovered on my own! I never needed Karen’s help!”
“Are you sure you recovered on your own?”
“Wh-what…!?”
“I believed you when you said you recovered on your own, and that’s why I dismissed Karen—but if Karen was the one who healed you, that changes everything.”
Marian bit her nails—her unseemly habit.
Usually, he would point out this unpleasant behavior, but now he couldn’t find the words.
“If you were saved by Karen and still turned your back on her like an ungrateful fool, then marrying you would only make my family an enemy of the Ehlertt Earldom!”
Enraged by Marian trying to push all responsibility onto him, Lyos shouted:
“You stole Karen’s soap recipe too!”
“I was around ten years old. Just a child. I can easily make excuses for that.”
“Th-that’s not all—you’ve always looked down on Karen!”
“I’m different from you, who abandoned Karen right after becoming an adult and a knight.”
“But that kid said they would reclaim Karen’s rightful claims!”
“I’ll beg for forgiveness.”
Marian stated flatly.
The words were so unlike her that for a moment, Lyos couldn’t understand what she’d said.
“Even if I’m not forgiven, they only need to cut me loose. My father and brothers, the company—they’re not involved. If I just break up with you, the Gubert Company won’t be harmed! And if that’s not enough, I have other ideas.”
Lyos faltered, intimidated by Marian’s words that accounted even for sacrificing herself.
“Our company works for adventurers, for the royal capital, for this country! The Gubert Company protects this town! I won’t let it fall!”
“Marian—!”
“If you resist breaking off the engagement, I’ll tell the entire Royal Knights that you’re the one who abandoned Karen.”
It was a blessing in disguise that Gerluf hadn’t noticed. But what would happen if this got out to the Royal Knights?
Knights are expected to be noble.
If rumors spread that Karen was the one who suppressed Lyos’s Bloodline Blessing and kept him alive—if people believed he had betrayed such a debt of gratitude—Lyos could be branded unfit to be a knight. He might be forced to give up being a knight, which had been his emotional support since childhood.
As everything went dark before Lyos’s eyes, Marian spat out:
“If Karen saved your life, and you knowingly behaved like this all this time—I utterly despise you.”
At Marian’s ice-cold gaze, Lyos felt his vision turn red with rage. He grabbed Marian’s arm and pulled her close. He didn’t know what he was doing or what he wanted to say. He was simply consumed by intense anger.
“You—!”
“Ngh—stop it! Let me go!”
“Don’t screw with me, don’t screw with me, don’t screw with me!!”
“Someone—”
He covered Marian’s mouth before she could scream.
His only thought was that he had to silence the struggling Marian.
Otherwise, Lyos would lose everything.
Just as he was about to reach for her throat, something struck the back of his head.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing!?”
He caught his breath and looked toward the voice, meeting Karen’s eyes on the terrace. Karen had been looking down at them from there. She had apparently thrown her shoe at Lyos. One of her feet was bare.
The height difference seemed to represent their current positions in life, making Lyos dizzy.
In that moment, his grip must have loosened, as Marian broke free and ran away. For a split second, he thought about chasing her, but Lyos had something he needed to say to Karen. Fighting back his shame, Lyos looked up at Karen and barked:
“I was never saved by you!”
“…I see.”
Karen looked down at Lyos with an unreadable expression. Convinced she must be mocking him, Lyos trembled with rage.
“I didn’t overcome the Bloodline Blessing because of someone like you! I! Healed! Myself! I got here through my own efforts! I climbed to the position of knight by my own power! It wasn’t thanks to someone like you!!”
“That’s fine then.”
“…What did you say?”
Always before, Karen had affirmed whatever Lyos said. She accepted it with that stupid and carefree smile. She didn’t mind the kind of humiliation that Lyos would never accept. That’s the kind of person she was. But now, though Karen seemed to be affirming him as always, something was different.
Karen was looking down at him. Maybe it was the fairy lights in the garden, but her blue eyes seemed to shine with intense light.
I so love this story
ReplyDeleteAlso, the way you can clearly see by colors who is saying what is such a blessing I didn't know I needed
At first I was like: give me back the plain format, but after seeing the difference
I was a fool
The person, who thought about it is a genious
I'm glad you enjoyed it. As for the colors... well, I wanted something that would set me apart from the myriads of other translators. Also, since the system highlights all names automatically, it helps me find typos :). But there is one drawback, since pronouns cannot be automatically highlighted, I sometimes make a mistake and assign the wrong character to a pronoun.
DeleteThank you for this, really
DeleteThere were mistakes in assigning phrases to the wrong people in the very beginning once or twice (I remember one assigned to the maid when it should have been the kid), but it's only in the beginning, so no biggie.