TLed by NolepGuy
Chapter 40
[Episode 40 includes additional illustrations and effects. We recommend deactivating dark mode and switching to vertical view.]
“Thank you.”
Bianca struggled to part her lips as she expressed her gratitude.
Three years had passed since she regained her emotions.
Through her emotions, Bianca came to understand suffering and pain.
At the same time, she finally realized that her past was nothing but a series of endless pain.
A cursed child, born by killing her mother.
Because of that, Bianca was alienated in Hardenhartz and was eventually used for a political marriage.
The things she experienced at a young age were all stained with pain.
“I didn’t realize it when I had no emotions, but those events were truly agonizing. That’s why I actually didn’t care about my family. Even if the family that only brought me pain were to collapse, I wouldn’t have minded.”
At that moment, a faint smile slowly crept onto her lips.
“But the words my sister said to me while hiding me that day held me back.”
Suddenly, blood gushed from Bianca’s mouth.
Kraush froze for a moment, but Bianca continued speaking despite the blood dripping down.
As if there was no one else who could hear her story.
“…That day, I couldn’t understand the words my sister said. That she hated me yet didn’t hate me. That what she hated was the version of herself that hated me. That I was not someone to be hated.”
An inexplicable expression of emotion.
Just as a person cannot be defined by one thing, neither can emotions be defined by one.
Emotions are always filled with contradictions.
Like hating someone endlessly, yet somewhere deep down embracing them.
Emotions were things that could not be expressed in a single word.
“Until I gained emotions, I couldn’t grasp the meaning of her words. Nor how difficult it is to compartmentalize emotions. My sister must have felt the same.”
Jenica hated Bianca.
But she also hated herself for hating Bianca.
Having lost her mother at a young age, the only outlet for Jenica’s emotional anguish was Bianca.
Even though she knew Bianca was not to blame, Jenica couldn’t erase her unfounded hatred.
Thus, she despised herself intensely.
And so, in the end, she confessed this truth to Bianca.
“I hate you, yet I don’t hate you.
What I hate is the me who hated you.
You are not someone who deserves to be hated.”
And amidst such contradictions, she hid Bianca that day and died in her place.
“To me, emotions have always been painful.”
A world filled with nothing but pain.
However, that world was no longer the ashen gray she had seen when she was devoid of emotions.
Though it was a world full of pain, for the first time, it became the driving force pushing her forward in life.
Perhaps it was even the fuel for the fire of revenge.
“Yet, even greater than that pain was the curse.”
Tears streamed down her face, trailing down the corners of her lips.
“Mr. Kraush.”
Kraush looked at Bianca.
“I feel freer now than I ever did under the curse.”
Kraush couldn’t fully comprehend Bianca’s words.
After all, he had not lived a life like hers.
Bianca’s Doll’s Eye curse had long been consumed and nullified by another curse from Kraush.
Thus, Kraush couldn’t truly understand what it meant to be without emotions.
“So I wonder. If I had known emotions just a little earlier, would I have talked more with my sister? Would I have grieved with my brother and father for the mother I never got to see, and tried to move forward from that sorrow?”
Bianca didn’t know what emotions were.
So she had reduced the emotions Jenica showed her to nothing but hatred.
“Who knows? Truly, I have no idea. Back then, I was nothing more than a doll with emotions suppressed. Yet, the fact that I even wonder now… it must be because I have emotions now.”
Amid a crumbling smile.
“But still, if nothing else.”
She slowly closed her eyes.
“Perhaps, as your fiancée, I could have… done better… with you…”
With those words, Bianca’s voice came to an end.
Along with her falling tears, Bianca’s eyes gently closed shut.
Seeing this, Kraush spoke.
“…Bianca.”
No response came.
That was Bianca’s final moment.
Tears that had trailed down her closed eyes froze as they touched her lifeless legs.
Kraush slowly stepped forward.
Then, he pulled a dagger from his pocket.
Crunch, crack—
Kraush began breaking the ice that encased her body with the dagger.
The frostbitten pain in his hands didn’t deter him.
After breaking the ice for some time, Bianca collapsed into Kraush’s arms.
Kraush lifted Bianca’s lifeless body and placed her on the bed in the room.
Only silence filled the room.
Kraush knelt down before her and quietly closed his eyes.
“…Damn it.”
Realizing once again just how wretched this cursed world was.
The Bianca from his memories no longer existed.
Instead, the Bianca of the present stood before him.
The Bianca from that day, who still had a chance to achieve the life she had once spoken of.
The Bianca who had said those words.
That was why Kraush kept her by his side.
He owed her his life once.
So he gave her what he couldn’t before.
Just as she had said in her final words, as her fiancé, Kraush stayed by Bianca’s side and tried to do better.
And their relationship now was undoubtedly different.
As she had said, Kraush thought he had done well with Bianca.
“At home, I never needed emotions.”
Bianca’s voice echoed softly.
Though still young and naive, her voice sounded different compared to back then.
“But when I’m beside you, Mr. Kraush, it’s different.”
By Kraush’s side, Bianca gradually changed.
Being with him, Bianca began to feel curious about emotions, even finding peace in his presence.
There was someone who neither hated her nor treated her coldly but instead treated her warmly.
That was what home was.
A place where you could sleep peacefully without fearing tomorrow.
For Bianca, that place was by Kraush’s side.
“When I’m beside you, Mr. Kraush, it’s so painful that my face and heart won’t move.”
When he smiled, she wanted to smile with him.
When he was sad, she wanted to cry with him.
When he was angry, she wanted to be angry with him.
But she couldn’t.
Her curse had denied her the ability to feel emotions.
“When I was with others, I thought it was fine not to have emotions.”
Emotions that would only bring pain—it was better not to have them at all.
“But in front of Mr. Kraush, I want to feel emotions.”
However, just one person.
It was different when she was in front of him.
“I want to get angry, cry, and laugh for Mr. Kraush.”
Even so, she desperately shook her head.
“But I don’t want Mr. Kraush to lose his emotions. I don’t want to see you become like me. If you don’t smile, I don’t want to smile either.”
A bundle of contradictions.
But Bianca couldn’t express it any other way.
Thus, Bianca slowly bowed her head while holding Kraush’s hand.
Because she knew all too well that her contradictions were an unsolvable problem.
“Don’t worry.”
At that moment, Kraush’s voice startled Bianca’s shoulders.
“The curse weakens when it’s not directed at the target. Even if I take on your curse, my emotions won’t disappear. When it comes to curses, I’m an expert. You can trust me.”
From the beginning, there was no way a mere curse like the Doll’s Eye could affect him.
He had endured and even mastered countless curses far worse than this one.
As Kraush spoke, Bianca slowly lifted her head.
Her usually expressionless face now struggled to contain the overwhelming emotions threatening to burst forth.
It was fine to be selfish.
Kraush was the kind of person who even accepted her selfishness.
If that was the case.
“Mr. Kraush, please.”
In this moment.
At least in this moment.
She wanted her expressionless face to disappear.
To smile and thank him for saving her.
To get angry and ask how he could get hurt because of her.
To cry and apologize for causing all this.
The Doll’s Eye.
Undoubtedly, it was a curse that erased emotions.
However, in truth, the Doll’s Eye curse was closer to suppressing emotions rather than erasing them.
It was a curse that suppressed emotions to the point where they were almost imperceptible.
Thus, people believed Bianca had no emotions.
But in this moment, her emotions.
Overflowed beyond what the Doll’s Eye could suppress.
“Please help me regain my emotions.”
Bianca finished speaking.
Kraush, having heard every word, lifted the hand Bianca had clasped.
“You don’t even need to ask.”
Bianca’s reflection appeared before Kraush’s eyes.
A girl with white hair and an ever-expressionless face.
Despite her young age, her stunning beauty only made her emotionless face stand out more.
Memories of his childhood surfaced.
The day he first met Bianca, even the twisted Kraush thought that she would look beautiful if she smiled.
But until the end, Kraush never saw Bianca smile.
He only witnessed her meet her end in profound sorrow.
[Then how about this? If I gain emotions and experience it myself, wouldn’t I understand which is more painful?]
He remembered Bianca, who sought emotions to understand suffering.
But that Bianca was no longer here.
Now.
Now there was only Bianca, who sought emotions to understand happiness.
That was the future he had altered through regression.
The future Kraush could give her, as she came to understand the contradictions of emotions.
Kraush’s Black Hood revealed Bianca’s Dial.
“This was my intention from the start.”
[To become Bianca’s ‘most precious person.’]
The final Dial.
[Condition Target]
[‘Kraush Balheim’]
Click—
The Dial had already been unlocked.
Drip— Drop—
At that moment, tears began streaming down Bianca’s eyes.
Tears not caused by something in her eyes, but tears born of sorrow.
Those tears flowed endlessly, like a faucet bursting open.
Bianca’s face gradually transformed into one of crying.
Having lived her whole life expressionless, it was awkward for her, and she couldn’t do it properly, but one thing was clear.
“Hic, hic, Mr. Kraush, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. What about your arm? What do we do?”
So that in the distant future, she would no longer need to cry.
So that today, she could shed all the tears she had held back her entire life.
“Cry all the tears you couldn’t cry in your entire life here.”
Bianca buried her face into Kraush’s small embrace.
Kraush quietly wrapped his arms around Bianca’s head.
That warmth was the most comforting thing Bianca had ever felt.
On that day, for the first time, the girl cried out as if she had just been born into the world.
The cry that should have been a blessing to all.
Resounded solely within the warmth of one person.