Chapter 74

Sep 05, 2023

Cassis didn’t answer right away and just stared at me for a moment. I was uncertain of the meaning behind the look on his face, but if I had to guess what it meant, it would be something like, “You’re only curious about that now?” or “What’s the use in asking about that now?”

After a long pause, he finally answered. “Well... in a nutshell... He was taken care of like you wanted.”

Without warning, I laughed without making a sound. “So he’s dead.”

A ghastly image of the Agrece castle going up in flames seemed to be hovering over the campfire. Before I knew it, all the smaller details from that day were rushing back to me. After Deon had left me in our father’s office, he must have gone down to the dungeon to finish what we had started.

I had been wondering who had actually killed Lante though, and how. But a moment later, I found myself thinking, Who cares about who or how? All those conflicting emotions had been swirling around inside me.

“Isidore said he saw your mother leave the mansion safely.” Cassis had been watching me and seemed to think I needed to hear that particular bit of information. I slowly lowered my gaze as I dwelled on his words.

“I see.”

“Is there... anything else you’re curious about?” He sounded almost expectant as he asked, but rather than answer him, I merely stared into his face while the fire continued to crackle between us. I honestly can’t say how long we sat looking at each other like that, but it was Cassis who finally opened his mouth to speak again.

“Everything was carried out as you desired.”

Then he fell quiet again seemingly watching for my reaction.

“I see,” I said. There really wasn’t anything else I wanted to say.

Crackle, crackle.

Sparks leapt up from the burning logs as we continued to sit and stare at the flames.

“You don’t seem all that happy about it,” Cassis muttered.

“Well, what about you?” I asked dryly as I really hadn’t felt any major jolt of happiness at the news. “Are you happy now that you’ve taken your revenge? Do you feel elated that the Agreces have finally met their downfall?”

Almost as soon as I finished asking the question, a cool breeze tickled the back of my neck. With the sun completely set, the air had become much colder. My body was slowly going numb, but I pretended not to feel the cold and even refused to gather the blanket more tightly around myself. Cassis appeared equally unfazed.

“Hard to say...” He opened his eyes after what seemed to be rather lengthy contemplation. “I don’t feel particularly overjoyed or anything. It’s more like the feeling one gets once a job that needed to get done is done.”

I had to admit that I didn’t feel much differently. “It’s about the same for me.”

“You mean to tell me you feel the same way?” He had a sour smile as he asked for confirmation. His golden eyes, which were reflecting the campfire’s brilliant blaze, seemed even more intense as he weighed my response.

“I don’t think you realize what your expression looks like right now.”

Upon saying that, he jumped up from his seat, then took a few steps to come stand over me. Cassis’ boot kicked the side of the bowl of soup I had placed on the ground and sent it rolling off to the side, but he seemed oblivious to the mess he had just caused.

From where I was sitting, his figure seemed to loom over me even with even greater presence than it had before. And with the fire at his back, his silhouette created an even more formidable presence. As he leaned down toward me, coming uncomfortably close, I could see that his expression was akin to a sheet of ice. The dim light bouncing off his eyes from the distant fires behind me made him look even colder. It was the sort of look I had never seen before.

“Tell me the truth. Were you going to kill yourself?”

Such a quietly delivered accusation made me scrutinize him more closely. Since his face appeared much darker while cast in shadow, his eyes gave the impression that they would swallow me if they could.

I hid my borderline dread and replied calmly, “What are you talking about? Why would I ever do that?”

But despite my resistance, his eyes continued to bore into me seemingly trying to reach the depths of my soul. “If I hadn’t brought you along with us, what were you planning to do?”

“Leave, of course.”

“Where to?” he asked.

“Anywhere... that isn’t connected to my clan.”

“Do you have any idea what sort of expression you had on your face when I found you outside of the castle that day? You looked like someone in search of their final resting place.”

His eyes had become even more somber than I had ever seen them look before. A memory I seemed to have locked away deep inside myself suddenly began to rush toward the forefront of my thoughts.

“W-What’s going on?”

“Sis... tell me where you’re heading.”

“Why are you just standing there and looking at me like that? You’re acting as if this is the last...”

“Sis, are you... abandoning me now, too?”

The memory of Jeremy pleading with me while making that pitiful gaze of his, tore away at me from the inside. I shut my eyes in an attempt to push away the specter of that final day, then decided to confess to Cassis what I had yet to confide to anyone else.

“I don’t know about anyone else, but I think you are aware... that I don’t have much longer to live.”

That’s right. It was just as Cassis had feared three years ago. I wasn’t certain how long, but I doubted I had more than a year left to live. I had done too much damage to my body, so as a result...

Honestly, just thinking about how hard I worked still makes me feel bitter and angry. Despite my struggle to overcome my fate to die young like Roxana’s character in the novel, I was still getting cut down early. However, such feelings eventually gave way to resignation. And all things considered, I didn’t really have a desire to go on for much longer anyway.

I had only been alive for 20 years in this world but judging from how little regret or loss I felt, I’d say I might have been living my second life in overdrive without noticing. That’s why I seemed to find myself thinking that was enough. And no matter where I decided to let my life end, there wouldn’t be anything left of me since my butterflies would certainly consume every last bit of me—down to my last drop of blood.

“So that’s it? You were simply going to wait for your final day? You don’t have any regrets? Any dreams?” Cassis’ eyes gleamed down at me coolly as he quietly studied my slightly defeated posture. Then to my surprise, the corners of his mouth curled up slightly to form a rather awkward smile. “Well, since you were going to toss your life away anyway, I guess you won’t mind if I claim it.”

If that hadn’t thrown me for a big enough loop, what he said next only forced me into a greater state of confusion.

“I propose that you relinquish the rest of your time in this world to me.”

As there wasn’t a hint of doubt or hesitation in his voice, it took me longer than it should have to fully comprehend what he was implying.

“If you don’t care about where you’re going or where you’ll end up, then stay by my side until you die.”

By then my head was spinning wildly. Before I could utter a single word of protest, he pushed on.

“Perhaps you don’t have any regrets about dying right now, but that isn’t the case for me,” he said.

“Cassis...”

“If you believe the remainder of your life is meaningless, and you don’t care what becomes of all the hours from now until you’re lying in your deathbed...” I felt a sudden heat around my wrist as Cassis leaned over to whisper softly into my ear. “...then I will gladly claim ownership of it and take responsibility for it.”

As he finished speaking, his eyes seemed to glow like the burning embers in the campfire behind him. He then bent down halfway to bring my hand to his lips. My hand, in turn, seemed to throb as if it had been branded with a searing hot iron where his lips brushed the skin. It was on that night as the stars glittered from up above in the heavens that the rest of my life began.