Chapter 294
How long had she been hiding like that?
Inside the tree, the sounds weren’t clear, but she could still hear muffled voices of people shouting. She could even faintly make out the sound of blades clashing, like what she had heard when Uncle protected her.
“Hiiik.”
Overwhelmed by suffocating fear, Nova clutched her head and curled up. She heard people shouting near where she was hiding.
And then…
The sunlight that had been shining through the knothole was suddenly blocked by a large figure.
It was the scary man who had stood next to the white devil.
“Found you.”
“Ah…!”
“Tch. This rat-b***h really thought she could hide?”
Nova screamed and tried to crawl deeper inside. But the space was already too small, and the man seized her by the scruff of her neck.
“It hurts! Mama, Mama!”
“Tch, good timing.”
Canopus’s subordinate roughly dragged the struggling Nova out and clicked his tongue. He figured he could just cleanly take care of her here with a dagger and be done with it.
But before he could even draw his blade, a chilling pain pierced him from behind, and without a sound, he collapsed.
Nova trembled and whimpered by the gnarled roots of the old tree.
“Hrk, uuh…”
“Nova…!”
Izar gasped hoarsely as he spotted his daughter.
At his feet lay Canopus’s fallen subordinate, but Izar kicked the unmoving body away so Nova wouldn’t see it clearly.
After breaking through to the surface, he had cut down the endless stream of monsters without hesitation. Canopus had to be at the end of the path from which they poured out.
〈Your Grace… My cousin and Nova…〉
Riegel, having barely stopped the bleeding, had told him that both had been captured. The imperial prince was near death. What condition were the other two in?
Eventually, a forked path appeared before his eyes.
One above the bank, one below.
Their party had split, and Izar had been searching the lower path. When he saw a small article of clothing drifting along the stream, his heart nearly stopped…
Especially since it was a child’s garment, soaked in blood.
But this time, the child was alive.
“P-Papa…”
Only then did Nova burst into sobbing hiccups.
〈Be good to your father.〉
She remembered Mama gently scolding her. She had been amazed by the big grown-up man who seemed to tiptoe around every word she said, and she’d acted out a little, half-annoyed that he’d tried to wake Mama up on his own.
She should’ve called him Papa earlier.
While Mama was watching, while the three of them still had time together…
“Papa, Papa…”
Nova pressed her tear-streaked face into Izar’s chest as he held her close.
“Mama, she…!”
* * *
Freesia had lived her entire life with physical pain as a constant companion.
From childhood, she had been struck countless times by her mother’s fury, and had endured horrific beatings from both Electra and Lady Antares.
The most agonizing pain had been the death of her first life, with her head and body shattered. Compared to that, the pain from this fall… was still bearable. Even when the man’s rough hand had yanked out her hair.
‘At least I was lucky enough to fall where the bushes were thick…’
But with bones broken all over her body, she could no longer stand. Even as Canopus approached her bedside, she had no way to avoid him.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
“Ugh…”
Was her attempt to buy time a failure? She couldn’t even tell if Nova had managed to hide well.
How far could a child that young possibly go on her own…
“Freesia, why did you do it?”
“……”
“There was no need to throw yourself like that. Not for some vermin like that kid.”
Canopus lifted her trembling body into his arms. When he touched a broken bone, her breath caught painfully in her throat.
“I’ll heal you soon. But not the legs.”
“Ugh… ngh…”
“You keep thinking about running away.”
Running? Even as her mind blurred, Freesia was overcome with fury.
There were only four days left, barely any life remaining in her. She should’ve been able to spend that precious time with Izar and Nova. Why was that one simple wish so impossible?
‘Maybe after death, we’ll meet again as souls…’
But that wasn’t enough. Compared to living and breathing together under the brilliant sunlight of this world, it felt unbearably lacking.
To be reunited in death, without having shared the beautiful moments of life, how unfair was that?
‘It’s unfair.’
She hated the person ruining her final moments so much she wanted to kill him. Even knowing it was foolish, she wanted to provoke him, to wound him with words.
Freesia struggled to move her numb lips.
“You… You’re no apostle of God.”
“Freesia—”
“Monsters aren’t some divine punishment sent by the divine…”
It was just a few years ago, but it felt like a lifetime now.
Viela Alpheratz had once explained something at the academy.
〈The Temple interprets monsters as a warning from the divine to mankind. But the academy holds a slightly different view!〉
〈How is it different?〉
〈Some believe monsters are the manifestation of human malice…!〉
In other words, monsters were nothing more than byproducts of human evil.
So, at the end of winter, when starving people’s hostility surged, monsters would rise up with the spring.
Freesia, her vision growing more and more unfocused, glared at Canopus.
She had once acknowledged him as her peer, gifted with dazzling talent and intellect. Maybe… Maybe it was because of that, that she had managed to hide her contempt for him so long while living on Fortress Island.
‘Because in some ways, I felt a kind of kinship…’
Canopus had lost his parents in an instant, and had lived ever since on the run with mercenaries.
Just as she had suffered for years from what happened at the ducal estate, he, too, had been scarred and left lonely by what the former Duke and Duchess had done.
But even if he cried out that his anger was justified, there was no reason for Nova to be the object of his wrath.
“So you’re just someone who manipulates evil while calling yourself an agent of divine punishment.”
“……”
“Hypocrite.”
At Freesia’s venomous whisper, Canopus’s face twisted for the very first time.
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