Chapter 77
It seemed the story had been longer than I thought.
Ethel had been hugging me for a long time, and when we finally separated and looked outside, the sky had already turned dark.
We hadn't run into the Count and his wife, but Ethel told me to stay with Theo.
"Um, I guess we should sleep in separate rooms, right, Theo?"
"…I’ll stay by Ellen’s side, as always."
His enthusiasm was almost burdensome.
Ethel glanced at Theo with half-lidded eyes, sighed, and then nodded.
"I hope nothing I’m imagining actually happens."
"Even when I was changing or bathing, he just watched without doing anything, so you don’t need to worry."
You have no idea how fucking annoying it was, haha.
Once again, an awkward silence fell.
A slight sense of satisfaction crept up within me, knowing that, for once, I wasn’t the cause of it.
"……."
Theo didn’t respond. After a while, he grabbed my wrist, guiding me to the room Ethel had mentioned.
"Why do you keep saying unnecessary things like that?"
"Well, I think it’s because I’m annoyed."
I couldn’t give a definitive answer.
I didn’t really understand my own feelings or emotions.
For a moment, I saw a vision of myself chasing after a young demon on the stairs. I shook my head to dismiss it, relying on Theo’s hand to lead me forward.
I only hoped he couldn’t see my trembling fingertips.
Thankfully, the room had two beds, not just one. Two teacups, a teapot, and tea leaves were prepared on the table.
"Can you make some hot water?"
I opened the teapot lid, placed the tea leaves inside, and asked Theo.
At my request, Theo conjured hot water from thin air and poured it into the teapot.
The tea leaves didn’t have a particularly fragrant smell, but it was still better than plain water.
I sipped the tea to moisten my lips, then pulled out the bloodstained cigar with bite marks on it. I lit it up.
Taking a drag, I spoke to Theo.
Ethel had cried, told me not to die, and said she accepted my apology.
But I didn’t understand either Theo or Ethel at all.
Honestly, seeing how I couldn’t understand others made me wonder if I was the abnormal one and everyone else was normal.
If a normal person were dropped among cannibals, they’d seem abnormal, right?
"I don’t think this really counts as an apology.
She should’ve pulled the trigger back there. If she didn’t want to use my hand, she could’ve just burned me to death with magic."
"…Ethel said it was okay."
"I’m not okay. Honestly, if it were me, I wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. I’d have slowly sliced you up before killing you."
When you think about it, they dragged in those men to beat Alicia and threaten Julian.
They probably shot Marco or that old butler right in front of me, after putting multiple holes in my stomach.
As for the parents, well, they deserved to be beaten to death anyway.
Theo sipped the tea I had brewed, glanced at me, and spoke.
He looked unbelievably irritating.
"You seem like you’re not from here but from some medieval place."
"You don’t have to be so roundabout to say I’m barbaric.
A few weeks ago, I literally came back from skinning demons alive."
"…How am I supposed to respond when you say that with a smile?"
I shrugged.
It was the truth.
That demon probably killed two of my subordinates.
It had chopped them up alive, hung them on hooks in its house, and tried to kill me when I showed up.
Unfortunately for it, it wasn’t of a species sturdy enough to survive a bullet.
Rather than anger, I had just felt tired, wondering how long I’d have to keep dealing with monsters like that.
Even when I repeated time over and over, I couldn’t figure out why their hiding places kept changing.
With the other demons, it was enough to target villages or hideouts, but the ones who had always lived as bandits, like that one, were always the same.
As I mentioned before, once I started skinning them, they weren’t exactly loyal to each other, so they talked pretty quickly.
But there was no need to share this.
Hearing it would only make someone uncomfortable, not entertained.
"Shall I tell you an old story before bed?"
"What kind of story?"
"Just about how we grew up.
I’ve never really told you before, have I?"
"I did hear a bit when you were screaming at me."
"Yeah, but those were just angry words filled with hatred. I’m talking about just having a normal chat."
"…So you want me to start?"
"If you don’t want to, I’ll go first."
The cigar had almost burned down.
It was so close to my fingers that I could feel the heat.
"Do you have another cigar?"
Theo sighed, pulled a box from his coat, and handed it to me.
It was the same box I’d kept in my drawer before. How did it end up here?
When I looked at him suspiciously, he explained.
"I brought it because I thought this might happen. You could at least say thank you."
"Hmm, thank you."
I accepted the box, took a cigar, bit down on it, and, after lighting it, inhaled the slightly damp smoke. Then, almost muttering, I began to speak.
"Anyway, you must’ve grown up loved.
I grew up exchanging love with Alicia.
With Julian, it was different. We lived with knives in each other’s sides, so things were a bit awkward between us."
"I’ve heard that before."
Isn’t it better to listen again in times like this?
I hadn’t said it. It was the old me who had.
I hid my thoughts and just smiled.
"You said I’d spat out all sorts of hateful things before.
You’ve heard about my parents, so I won’t bother explaining again."
I’d probably been so full of inferiority that I blurted out anything and everything, whether appropriate or not.
If it were me, I’d definitely do that.
Because I was a filthy, disgusting person.
"Maybe that’s why the only genuine feelings I have seem to be tied to Alicia. Yeah, it’s an excuse.
As you said earlier, the only thoughts in my head are things like 'let’s slowly skin them alive,' nothing but crazy ideas.
Yeah, I grew up like that."
"…What about Ethel?"
Sincerity. To Ethel, I must not have been sincere enough—enough for her to point at me and say I had deceived her.
In the end, I had worn a mask just to get through the academy without trouble.
"She was just someone I could talk to. But now, she means a bit more than that."
A bit more? No, that wasn’t true.
When she said she’d bring me back to life even if I died, a shiver ran down my spine.
Her eyes weren’t clouded by emotion—she meant it.
I once read a report.
Marco had brought it to me, laughing at how absurd it was.
A few nobles who had lost their children had gathered and sacrificed their own serfs to unknown beings, hoping to bring their children back to life.
Maybe if it were in the distant past, when magic was incredibly advanced, but not now.
The thought that Ethel might do something like that gave me a chill.
"Anyway, living in that shithole of a life, spending time with Alicia, and being like sisters in a normal family—it made me realize how blessed I was."
That’s why she was precious to me.
Because she made me realize that the place I was born into wasn’t normal—it was a sick, horrible place.
Sure, sometimes it made me feel miserable, but it also allowed me to experience what normalcy was like.
Alicia had given me so much.
All I could give in return were a few words of affection and some trivial gifts or books.
"What did you think of me when you first met me at the academy?"
Theo’s expression turned as if he was trying to recall a distant memory.
With a slightly dampened voice, he spoke softly, almost lamenting.
"…You were just a quiet, pretty girl."
"Even if I’m showing you this side of me now, until I died to the demons, the only person who truly knew me was Alicia.
I always wanted to kill my parents, but I’d smile and do as I was told, groveling as hard as I could. With Julian… Well, I already mentioned that, didn’t I?"
Not that this was my true self, either. It was just a pathetic, worn-out version of me.
"I thought things would change if I made up with Ethel.
But I’m still the same. Nothing has changed."
I did something, thinking it would help, and there was a result, but if I couldn’t accept it...
Maybe I was just living too wearily.
Living was all about this, and that’s why I kept wanting to die.
It was simpler that way.
I just couldn’t die, and that was the painful part.
I trailed off mid-sentence and just flopped onto the bed.
"Am I trapped by Alicia?"
"…I’d rather not say anything, or you might pull a knife on me."
"How did you know?"
"It’s not like this is the first time."
"Then, will you tell me?
I think that without Alicia, I’m nothing. But you and Ethel don’t seem to think that.
It’s not some deep philosophical question, just... What am I, really?
If only I had been born into the Speyer family without any memory of a normal world, maybe it would’ve been easier."
Of course, it wasn’t as if I did all these things because of those people.
Just look at Julian—he went through the same horrors, but he didn’t kill demons the way I did.
I was the weird one.
I couldn’t live without having a specific target to hate.
I thought that by killing all the demons, there would be no one left to hate.
But in the end, the object of my hatred just shifted—from the demons to myself.
I liked Ethel.
I probably liked Isabel too, and Theo as well.
Though he was a bit annoying.
If that were the case, wouldn’t it be okay to start liking myself, too?
As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a horned girl with a hole in her head grinned and mocked me.
As if to say, "You? Now? After all this?"