Chapter 134
“Uncle and brother? Did they go to relieve themselves?”
Linda’s eyes welled up with tears as she looked at the small, pale hands examining her blood-stained, aged ones.
Reality hit her like a hammer, bringing an intense headache. It was the same pain she had felt every single day since the day she had buried her husband and daughter.
“…Aunt Linda?”
Rafaella, looking around nervously, saw Linda clutching her own hand tightly, her behavior strange, and instinctively stepped back.
But because Linda didn’t let go, Rafaella ended up with one hand trapped, sliding her hips backward as far as she could. Her fingertips stung from the force of Linda’s grip.
“It hurts.”
“Y-you… you want to go too…?”
“Please… let go…”
“Do you want to… go with us too?”
Seeing Linda’s vacant eyes endlessly streaming tears, Rafaella was struck with fear.
Linda’s face was contorted beyond what seemed humanly possible. Her mouth stretched into a wide grin as if delighted, while tears streamed down her face—pure madness. Rafaella thought it resembled the look of a neighbor’s child who had gone insane after eating poisonous mushrooms.
Was this a nightmare? Aunt Linda, who had always been gentle, couldn’t possibly make such a terrifying face. Was this a dream?
“It really hurts.”
“Ah, it hurts?”
“It hurts! I said it hurts!”
Rafaella cried and screamed, struggling desperately to pull her arm free.
Seeing Rafaella’s tear-streaked face, Linda suddenly released her grip. Rafaella fell backward, collapsing from the momentum.
When she awoke, the woman who had been kind to her had turned terrifyingly mad, and neither Gilly nor Uncle were in sight. The iron-like stench rising from the pool of blood was overwhelming.
Finally, Rafaella began to cry her heart out.
“Sniff… waahhh.”
To the disoriented Linda, it sounded like her own daughter crying.
‘Did my daughter cry like this when she was looking for me…? She must have been in pain… scared…’
Slowly, Linda removed her thick coat.
Rafaella shivered, still crying, as Linda approached. But Linda simply draped the coat over Rafaella’s shoulders and turned away.
Linda took a few steps, then turned her head just to glance at Rafaella.
“…I’m sorry.”
“…”
Rafaella, unaware of the full situation, assumed Linda was apologizing for hurting her hand. But because Linda was acting strangely, Rafaella was too frightened to respond.
Linda hesitated as if she wanted to say something else, then turned and walked away silently. She clutched her scarf tightly in her hand.
Rafaella could only watch as Linda trudged off into the forest like an empty shell.
As Linda disappeared among the dense trees, the surroundings began to take on a bluish evening hue. Rafaella, left alone on the darkening path, was seized by a new wave of fear.
“B-brother!!!”
Rafaella got up from the cold ground, brushing herself off, and shouted. But only a weak echo returned.
“Uncle! Uncle Bill!”
No matter how loudly she called, there was no answer. The night darkness thickened rapidly, more than young Rafaella could handle alone.
“Where are you! Leaving me behind! Brother!!!”
As she looked around, Rafaella spotted a distant light. She must have walked closer to the village while sleeping on Bill’s back. The night was frightening, but the darkness made the village lights stand out clearly.
Rafaella began walking in the opposite direction of where Linda had gone.
Little did she know, by moving from her spot, she would lose the chance to reunite with Gilly for a long time. She only wanted to get out of the dark mountain path, quickening her pace.
Bill, having taken Gilly to the doctor and finished the emergency treatment, hurried back to the scene.
“!”
But no one was there. Neither Linda, collapsed in madness, nor Rafaella, asleep and vulnerable.
“N-no… could it be that Linda…!”
He quickly examined the footprints left in the ground with his lantern. Strangely, the two sets of tracks were heading in completely opposite directions.
“Ella!!!”
Bill shouted, but only the startled flutter of birds in the dark forest answered.
He followed Linda’s footprints first. It wasn’t easy to trace her in the forest darkness, but Bill was an experienced knight. He followed the trail with the same careful precision as during hunting training.
Soon, he found her.
Linda, hanging from a tree like a rag doll, in the quiet mountain woods.
The short Linda, apparently unable to climb properly, had tied her neck with her scarf on a low branch just within Bill’s reach.
Bill gently lowered her cold body to the ground. He wanted to build a stone mound to keep wild animals away, but finding Rafaella, who had vanished alone, took precedence.
Returning to the earlier path, Bill began tracing Rafaella’s small footprints with his lantern. Fortunately, they led toward the village, and he breathed a small sigh of relief—at least she hadn’t gone back into the dangerous mountains.
However, just short of the border outpost, Rafaella’s tracks disappeared, buried under others’.
“…Damn it.”
It seemed a caravan had passed; the footprints of a dozen or so people and wagon tracks were jumbled together. Among them, Rafaella’s tiny child-sized footprints were impossible to distinguish.
Even asking the guards at the border outpost yielded no useful information. Moreover, Bill, using a forged enemy civilian ID, couldn’t leverage his authority as he would in his homeland.
In the end, Bill lost Rafaella.
A few days later, Gilly, regaining consciousness, went into a rage upon hearing that Rafaella was missing and fainted again.
Gilly, already frail, took more than three months to fully recover.
While Gilly was hospitalized, the Liberation Army crossed via a shortcut and quickly attacked the enemy’s royal palace. All royal descendants were executed, even infants under one year old—no exceptions.
As the enemy had done before.
In Bill’s homeland’s history books, the Liberation Army’s massacre was recorded as successful revenge and the reclaiming of the nation.
In the enemy’s history books, it was documented as a painful loss of a precious colony and near extinction of the royal line.
Though the Liberation Army thought they had wiped everyone out, some royal family members had escaped through secret passages, beginning preparations to reclaim their palace.
Reading newspapers detailing this, Gilly smiled bitterly. Bill had brought her papers from both countries.
Seeing humans endlessly perpetuate cycles of revenge, Bill began to understand why God might leave humanity to their own devices—perhaps it was too ugly to even intervene.
Fortunately, the village where Gilly stayed had been spared from bombings and invasions. The small number of Liberation Army troops focused on striking the enemy’s capital, leaving other towns and cities untouched. Bill had also informed her of this.
Meanwhile, amidst countless battles between the capitals, Bill confessed his identity and mission to Gilly, apologizing sincerely.
Gilly’s response was cold. She neither shouted nor erupted in anger—she simply shut her lips tight and turned away.
Bill did not give up, apologizing every day until her discharge.
“…I have no excuse. No matter how much I apologize, the wounds and memories of betrayal won’t fade. I understand that. But please, don’t reject my intention to make it right, to care for you.”
During the day, Bill searched the village for Rafaella; at night, he tended to Gilly, seeking atonement. He also made his intentions clear:
“…Become my adopted son. I’ll provide property, status, and education. If you want, I’ll teach you swordsmanship. Everything I can give, I will give.”
Bill, not a man of many words, spoke little, but every day he did his best.
Finally, on the day of her discharge, Gilly, having made some decision, said she would follow Bill. Whether he registered her officially or not, she didn’t care—her expression was icy.
“But you must teach me swordsmanship. And the search for Ella must continue until I say to stop. Keep sending people relentlessly. I don’t care how much money it costs; handle it as you see fit.”
Bill agreed. Even if she hadn’t requested it, he planned to do so anyway.
Having survived the landslides, her father’s death, war, and betrayal between two nations, Gilly’s worldview had drastically changed. It wasn’t a temporary teenage rebellion.
Gilly was deeply twisted.
Humans were more untrustworthy than beasts, and only force could maintain peace.
She resolved that she had to become strong.
She vowed to be the taker, not the one taken from, to find and protect Rafaella.
If she ever found her, she would never lose her again, guarding her with the utmost care.
To Gilly, Rafaella was more than a sister—she was the only person in his memory who was pure, sincere, and genuine.
Gilly drew a line, labeling everyone else, except Ella, as “vile humans.” An unbreakable line. Everyone else was treated like wild beasts.
Twelve years later.
“Perhaps betrayal is human nature? Ah, you have no right to feel wronged. You’re only repaying the betrayal you once received. Endure the slight pain of the accumulated interest.”
At twenty-eight, Gilly still smiled as he struck Bill’s neck.
