"If I untie you completely, what if you run away, darling?"
As if he lacked the ability to catch . How annoying.
Not that it mattered—right now, I wouldn’t even be able to outrun a cat.
What could I possibly do when I had collapsed just from trying to use divine power on Minuet?
It would take at least a week for my soul to properly settle into my body again, leaving in this pathetic state until then.
With a sigh, I gave up.
"Then why are you here, Cruello? Did you co just to gawk at the ss I’m in?"
"I wanted to see you."
"The Elders are all dead. Isn’t it about ti you stopped joking like that?"
"I'm not joking."
Ah.
Right. Cruello had confessed before.
It took a mont to rember, but when I did, my shoulders tensed.
There had been so much going on that, for a brief mont—a very brief one—I had forgotten.
Now that I thought about it, he confessed back when I was Viga, too.
Was he fated to like no matter what?
The absurdity of the thought had scrambling for an excuse.
"You... you did say that if we ever t again, it should be as friends. So I thought you'd already moved on."
"...Darling, have you ever actually liked soone before?"
"What’s that supposed to an?"
"If you'd ever felt romantic attraction to soone, you wouldn’t be talking about ‘moving on in a few days’ like it’s nothing...."
Cruello trailed off, rubbing his face with both hands.
"Forget it. If you had, that’d probably annoy too."
"Hey, I’d like the friend version of this conversation, please."
"As a friend, I’d advise you to live alone forever."
What kind of friend says things like that?
"I just ca here because there was sothing I forgot to ask yesterday."
Sothing he forgot to ask?
I had plenty of things I wanted to ask, too.
Though, thanks to the situation, I couldn't voice most of them.
Cruello was silent for a mont, staring at the floor before raising his eyes to et ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) mine.
His gaze wavered slightly, shadowed and uncertain.
"At the funeral hall... why did you collapse?"
"I guess my exhaustion finally caught up with ."
I had anticipated the question, so I answered imdiately.
"Even after seeing a priest, they couldn’t find anything wrong. Though, to be fair, I am a priest, but I don’t know much about illnesses."
"..."
"Minuet and Gavotte must have been pretty shaken. That’s probably why I ended up like this."
"...That’s all?"
His voice was low, hoarse.
I swallowed dryly and returned the question.
"What else would it be?"
What are you thinking?
Cruello locked eyes with , studying my expression intently.
I didn’t look away.
A long silence settled between us.
And then—
The tense atmosphere was shattered by the sound of a horse neighing, followed by the rumble of carriage wheels.
I could hear the Bonetti servants greeting soone outside.
Had Minuet already returned?
I instinctively turned my gaze toward the window.
At the sa ti, Cruello stood up and approached it.
"...Who is it?" I asked.
"Want to see for yourself?"
He turned back to the bed—and then lifted up blankets and all.
If he was going to go through all this trouble, he might as well have just untied .
I was exasperated, but I obediently peered out the window.
A massive carriage stood outside.
There was no family crest visible, but just a slight turn of my head confird who had arrived.
A tall woman with hair the color of wood—Daedire.
And standing right in front of her, with unmistakable silver hair, was Gavotte.
What was Daedire doing here?
I was still puzzling over it when her attendant handed her sothing huge.
Sothing so massive it covered her entire upper body.
A bouquet.
"Hm. I lost in terms of size," Cruello muttered, feigning disappointnt.
I ignored him, too absorbed in watching what was unfolding below.
Then, in full view of everyone, Daedire knelt and presented the bouquet to Gavotte.
Anyone could see what this was.
A proposal.
Oh dear.
"Looks like Julian’s been abandoned," I murmured.
"Of course. No matter how close they were as childhood friends, who would stay with a criminal like him?"
"Then, if I beca a criminal, would you be able to forget just as easily?"
"It wouldn’t be so simple. You’d have to beco a bigger criminal than first."
"Don’t tempt , Cruello."
I turned my attention back to Gavotte, eager to see how he would react.
If I had so cookies, I’d be munching on them right now.
Even from this distance, I could see the color drain from Gavotte’s face.
He was completely frozen, unable to move a muscle.
His hands hovered hesitantly in front of the bouquet, trembling.
Then, all of a sudden, he lifted his head.
Just before our eyes t—
Swish!
Using what had to be the fastest reflexes of my life, I yanked the curtains shut.
"...You don’t think he saw , right?"
Cruello just laughed in silence.
***
He saw.
Gavotte definitely saw watching.
As a result, I had finally been freed from my blanket cocoon.
But in exchange, I had been dragged down to the parlor for a very awkward face-to-face conversation.
Gavotte had been trying to explain himself for so long that my ears felt like they were going to bleed.
I spoke chanically.
For what had to be the thirtieth ti.
"I see. So it wasn’t a proposal."
"It wasn’t! Daedire just ca to apologize!"
What kind of criminal kneels down and hands over a giant bouquet to apologize?
Actually, wait—I had read about that once.
Sothing about a criminal who fell in love and—
Yeah. Gavotte would definitely get mad if I said that out loud.
"Sir Gavotte is right," Daedire added calmly. "I only ca here to atone for the wrongs I committed back in the Academy."
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
"Gavotte, what exactly did Da Daedire do to you back in the Academy?"
"I have no idea. I don’t rember her ever saying a single bad word to ."
"I heard that Julian spread so nasty rumors about you. Turning a blind eye to it was a great enough wrongdoing on my part that I can't claim innocence."
That was true.
She had only pretended to be oblivious so she could continue working smoothly as a secret investigator, but Daedire had probably grasped the general situation all along.
At this point, I was starting to doubt whether her act of being dense had ever been an act at all.
Gavotte, looking like he was barely keeping himself together, turned to her with a thoroughly uncomfortable expression.
"Regardless. You’ve apologized, so let’s not have any more kneeling or bouquet-giving, Daedire. And take back the gold bars you brought."
"You brought gold bars?"
"Don’t get any ideas. They’re not yours, Siora."
"Oh, they’re not?!"
Daedire had already promised full compensation!
But Gavotte, unaware of our little deal, simply saw as a shaless money-grubber.
He made Daedire swear to take back all the gold bars before abruptly standing up.
Sothing about another appointnt.
Just as he was about to leave the drawing room, he threw a pointed remark toward Cruello, who had been silently observing the entire exchange.
"Your Grace. Siora is still a patient. I trust you understand what that ans. Not that I actually trust you."
He delivered the entire statent in a single breath, barely taking three seconds to say all three sentences.
Then, without waiting for a reply, he bolted from the room.
That was definitely an escape.
Anyone in the drawing room would have thought the sa.
Cruello murmured with feigned innocence, "I have no idea why he’s acting like that."
I shot him a brief glare.
Oh, I could think of a few reasons. Confessing and kissing probably counted as doing sothing.
Now that Gavotte had fled, the atmosphere in the room changed entirely.
I finally voiced the question that had been bothering .
"Da Daedire, you’re not pretending to be oblivious, are you? That’s just how you really are."
"I had no choice. If I had acted seriously, exaggerated rumors about Gavotte’s ti at the Academy would have spread even further."
Now that she ntioned it, that did make sense. But still...
"Surely you don’t think an apology alone is enough to make up for that?"
"Don’t worry. Today, I only intended to et with Lady Siora without raising suspicion."
With that, she placed two envelopes on the table.
So these were the interesting docunts she had ntioned before?
The ones she uncovered while investigating Marchioness Somon?
I wasted no ti opening the first envelope and skimming through its contents.
A list of nas. And the common factor among them...
"A hereditary disease?"
"Yes. A peculiar genetic condition that has never been recorded outside of White Desert."
Why was she bringing this up?
"After discovering that Nigelia and Elin were the sa person, I conducted a thorough investigation of White Desert’s personnel. It was a necessary step in tracing her past movents."
"And sohow, that led you to this?"
"Because I found sothing even more subtle and strange connecting them."
She spread out the docunts on the table as she spoke.
"Unlike Marchioness Somon, where one person had to die before the next one could appear in public, these cases don’t have such an obvious connection."
"Then?"
"But this disease has only ever appeared once per generation. And that’s strange—genetic disorders don’t choose their timing."
I followed Daedire’s lead and scanned the docunts carefully.
One case per generation. Or at most, one case every two generations.
But in every single instance, a new patient only appeared after the previous one had died.
And the last na listed at the end of the docunt was none other than Eden White Desert.
"Eden’s illness is inherited from his paternal grandfather."
I had always assud he was just faking it—putting on an act.
But was that not the case?
Was there sothing hidden in Eden’s condition?
Frowning, I examined the docunt in greater detail.
"The symptoms progress like this. There are no warning signs during the incubation period, but once it manifests, the patient’s body progressively weakens. Neither divine power nor dicine has any effect. Eventually, they die."
Wait a minute.
A strange sense of familiarity crept up my spine.
Cold sweat trickled down my back.
"The later the generation, the more delayed the onset," I muttered.
"Exactly, Your Highness. There’s been no dical breakthrough, no discovered cure, yet sohow, it’s as if the patients themselves adapted and delayed the onset over ti."
"..."
"And this might just be a coincidence, but..."
Daedire opened the second envelope and placed a docunt on top.
The mont I saw it, the vague sense of familiarity that had been nagging at solidified into sothing undeniable.
"There were cases outside of White Desert with similar symptoms."
「Amy Royalsand. 442.03~454.11」
"Your first fiancée, Lady Amy Royalsand."
That was all the confirmation I needed.
This wasn’t just a coincidence.
Questions rushed through my mind in rapid succession.
Why would a family designed with purpose allow a genetic flaw to remain?
Why did the disease only appear in one person per generation?
Why did Eden, soone so overwhelmingly powerful, suffer from the sa affliction?
And why were my own symptoms exactly the sa?
One after another, the pieces clicked into place.
The truth settled heavily in my mind.
Eden White Desert is the sa as .
He, too, has been living by borrowing soone else’s body.
Reviews
All reviews (0)