Dear Eddert - Chapter 78
Chapter 78
Translator: effe
“Don’t cry… now… now it’s not dangerous…huuh… Cedric….told me not to be afraid.”
It was Ayla’s first meeting with Cedric, whom she had never mentioned to anyone before. To her, who had only received disgusting touches of men that sought her. To her who had deep deep disgust for those humans who carried their manhood between their legs, Cedric was more than human.
“For 15 days without a bath… I was filthy … he held me in his arms… and took me to Sernotti. In a place filled with warm people…. he told me to feel safe. He wanted to know my name, which no one cared to ask before. Uuhh, Instead of hitting and mocking me, he praised me. You’re amazing, Ayla. Haa… You must be a genius, Ayla. I… I am proud of you, Ayla… Haa… I… I didn’t know my name could be called so affectionately… uhhuuh…!”
Hyemi tightly held Ayla’s hand, as she gasped for breath. Her face was a mess of tears. It was heartbreaking that she couldn’t hug the injured Ayla.
“If I could, forever…”
Drop. Ayla’s warm tears fell onto the back of Hyemi’s hand.
“I wanted to live in Sernotti….forever, hiding my identity until I died.”
Ayla was afraid every time the Lord of the castle, Valtri, left once a year. Her family was still held captive by Kaplan.
“It was only after the Lord returned….that I realized the time had come.”
For Ayla, there was nothing more frightening than that.
On a winter night with snow falling, Valtri, summoning all the knights, drew the sword with the Archmage’s jewel embedded in it. And when he proclaimed that Eden was the owner of the sword. It was natural for Ayla to panic.
“I just ran into the forest. I knew I had to go back to Kaplan, but my feet wouldn’t move. Even though my mother and sister kept coming to my mind…”
Hyemi could understand Ayla’s dilemma. There was nothing she could do than to hold her hand a little tighter.
“I thought Mister Cedric would make the right judgment, so I came back, but…”
Ayla bit her lip, remembering the events of that time. When Ayla tried to return to Sernotti, the incident had already occurred.
“Sernotti castle had already been ruined, and the culprit was me.”
“Ayla is removed from the list of ‘Guardian of the Falcon’ Sernotti.”
Ayla looked at Hyemi with wet eyes and trembling lips.
“I only found out later that Kaplan had planted another spy besides me. I really didn’t know it was Peter. I swear.”
“I believe you, Ayla.”
Hyemi nodded. Ayla looked at her with reddened eyes and continued.
“It was then that I made up my mind to go back to Kaplan. I pretended not to know anything and used the excuse of getting lost to return to Kaplan. After I came back, I heard the whole story of the incident. Peter, who often went outside the forest following his father, had told Kaplan about it. And that he… killed Eden.”
When Peter relayed the fact that Eden, whom they thought was dead, had come back to life, Ayla knew the time had come. She slipped back to Sernotti, blending in with the assassins sent by Kaplan.
“I killed seventeen of the hundred assassins on the way. It wasn’t difficult. Every night, I lured them into the woods, stripped them and stabbed them to death.”
Hyemi now seemed to vaguely understand Ayla’s actions.
“I was planning to kill Peter and then all the remaining Kaplan members. I thought it wouldn’t be a bad ending if I died, taking Mister Cedric’s sword…”
“Ayla.”
Hyemi gulped and managed to speak. Her brown eyes, wet with tears, met Ayla’s gaze.
“Why do you have to die?”
Ayla lowered her golden eyebrows as she looked at her, then raised them again. With her disheveled face now flushed red, Ayla whispered softly to Hyemi.
“I am also… Sernotti…”
Failing to protect one’s master is repaid with blood. It was a phrase that always appeared in Valtri’s speeches. Ayla wanted to die as a part of Sernotti.
“So I hoped that Mister Cedric would forgive me. But even that… was impossible.”
Hyemi shook her head as she looked at her.
“No. Instead, you did something even more incredible.”
Ayla’s wet eyes trembled as she gazed at her. Hyemi swallowed dryly. It hurt as if her throat was swelling. No, she didn’t even know if it was her heart that was hurting.
“You took the blow for Cedric… to save him.”
“…That…”
It wasn’t a conscious decision. Her body just moved reflexively. Hyemi struggled to lift her lips, trying to speak to Ayla, who couldn’t continue her words.
“Where on earth is such an extreme confession… You fool.”
Ayla looked at her and smiled sadly, as memories of their past conversations in front of the firepit came to mind. It was probably the last conversation she remembered having with Eden.
“Did Eden… know from the beginning?”
“What. You like Cedric? Isn’t it strange not to know that?”
Ayla’s pale face seemed to flush slightly. With a desperate expression, she muttered softly.
“Maybe… Mister Cedric feels the same way too.”
It was something only she herself knew. As Hyemi hesitated to speak, Ayla whispered quietly.
“That’s why…. I don’t think I can see Mister Cedric anymore.”
When she opened her eyes, feeling a sensation of burning flesh, the first thing that came into her view was the familiar ceiling.
It was the old ceiling covered with oak that never grew in Kaplan.
The place she had desperately longed to return to.
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