CH 110

Igdrasil spoke kindly and brushed off my clothes.

“Black magic is a unique power. Even if you are a monster, if you are not careful, you will be eaten.”

The emperor casually put my identity in her mouth.

I nodded weakly. There was no strength left to be surprised.

“I didn’t expect to see your past.”

Igdrasil looked at the dazzling World Tree with distant eyes. Apparently, she also witnessed the memories of the past.

“It must be hard to accept.”

She patted my cheek. A voice of unknown origin resounded in my head.

“Your body is an empty shell, long since dead… The fact that you are a parasite that clings to a corpse.”

The heavy truth struck like hail.

I recalled the thoughts that had come to my mind countless times.

‘What if I was the real Lilietta?’

Being part of Alan’s family was a delight, but more than anyone else, I desperately rejected the idea.

Because such a miracle was impossible in the first place. Because I had been reincarnated.

The memories of my previous life, dying in the dark, were still vivid. If I wasn’t Lily in my previous life, even if I was in the same body, I was a completely different being from the dead child.

I covered my face with both hands.

It would have been better for me and Alan to be complete strangers. It was more comfortable for this body to be a beggar girl. If I believed that, I could have escaped from the Duke’s Castle. 

‘But now?’

Hide Lilietta’s body, which he’s been looking for for 10 years, in a place where no one can find it?

You want me to take the body of his dead daughter from Alan? Like Thomas’ bandits did?

‘If I run away like this, Alan won’t even know that Lily’s body is there…’

Alan was stuck in the past. He denied Lily’s death even after hearing the testimonies of the kidnappers. If left like that, he will live like that for the rest of his life.

He would bury himself in nostalgia, and heal the unquenchable sadness with an illusion.

There was only one way for Alan to live in the present. Obtain Lily’s body.

It would be terrifying and painful, but even after facing the death of his daughter, he would not be able to turn away from reality.

The existence of me was the only opportunity for Alan, who had gone crazy, to return to reality.

And it was entirely up to me whether I gave him the opportunity or not.

“…Ugh”

I groaned and clenched my forearms. Blood was flowing intact in the body which had already died once.

That fact was appalling. I felt like a monster. I pressed my nails into my skin.

Then a fair hand rested on my shoulder.

“Let’s go now, Lilietta.”

Igdrasil smiled sweetly and held out her hand. A pretty wooden ring was attached to the middle finger, which was long like a branch.

Again, I did not hold the Emperor’s hand, and I stood in the same place.

“Do you not want to wake up from your dream?”

Igdrasil let out a troubled sigh.

She walked towards the World Tree as if asking me to follow her. A huge footprint was made in the wilderness where not even a single blade of grass grew.

“Are you afraid to go back to reality?”

The voice that resounded like a bell was as calm as to appease a deaf child.

“However, you can’t help it, yet you remain in despair. Even now, there is someone waiting for you outside of your dream.”

“…No.”

I shook my head recklessly. My eyes were wet with fear and despair, and my vision was blurred.

“I, I don’t want to go.”

“You are stubborn.”

“Tha, that’s not…”

Because of the shock, my voice kept trembling.

I clenched my teeth to avoid stuttering.

“That’s not it.”

Igdrasil’s words were undeniable.

After I opened the box of truth, I couldn’t be the same anymore. It was terrifying to go back to reality and face Alan.

But there were other reasons for refusing to follow.

“I can’t follow someone who’s not trustworthy.”

Igdrasil, who was ahead, looked back at me with a surprised look. She tilted her back and burst out laughing.

“Hey, Lilietta. You must have a big misunderstanding.”

The emperor brushed her shiny hair back and spoke softly.

“Of course, these days, the Imperial House and the Bauner family have a bad relationship. However, we are still allies. As the Emperor of the Empire, saving at least one of you is something I can do for you.”

“…It’s not that I don’t believe in Her Majesty.”

My shoulders were heavy as if a lump of lead was placed on it. It looked as if my droopy body was about to fall forward at any moment.

But I shook my head desperately.

I could not collapse in front of an unknown opponent.

“I can’t trust a strange person who pretends to be Her Majesty.”

I didn’t hold her hand not because I didn’t want to return to reality, but because I wanted to return to reality.

“The Emperor calls me ‘Baby’. Not ‘Lilietta’.”

The smile on Igdrasil’s lips, who had been relaxed all along, disappeared.

Silence fell in the wilderness. The sound of an evil spirit’s cry from afar occasionally irritated my ears.

“……Oh, my.”

‘Igdrasil’ touched her face with her fingertips. The corners of her lips were cunningly torn.

The next moment, her pure white cheeks cracked.

The emperor’s skin shattered like porcelain.

No, to be precise, the emperor’s shell was broken. Deep skin was revealed through the small fragments.

“You got me.”

Faced with the boy who took off the cover of the emperor, I lost my words.

As if my expression was funny, Crown Prince Garou smiled slyly.

The pieces of the shell of Igdrasil that were scattered in all directions turned into hundreds of petals and fluttered. A bunch of pure white flowers twirled along Garou’s legs, forming a long line, and entering the wooden ring.

The scene overlapped with the rose that had been placed on baby Lily’s chest.

It felt like lightning struck my head. Thoughts scattered like puzzle pieces gathered and inflated into one piece of doubt.

White magic was the power of the spirit, and black magic was the power of the demon.

Crown Prince Garou cannot cast black magic. Because he’s a spirit. I had seen him perform white magic before.

Until now, I thought so.

“Once you enter my body, you will be able to perform a white magic with this. After all, I have the blood of the imperial family.”

Natalia’s words that I had just heard shook up my complacent assumptions.

A spirit could not enter a demon’s body, but the reverse was possible. The demons were able to re-flow the blood of the spirit which had stopped for a while.

What if magic remained on the corpse of a spirit, and what if high-ranking magic tools could be reacted with that magic?

‘Maybe this kid…?’

I looked up at Garou, who had come closer. He held my hand slowly, making eye contact.

“Don’t do that too much. You wouldn’t believe me, so I came to save you in the form of mother.”

“…….”

I squeezed Garou’s hand tightly. As a sign of consent, he smiled and took a step forward.

The moment Garou looked away from me, I pushed him with my whole body.

Perhaps he was careless, Garou’s solid body fell into the wild wilderness. Without giving him a break, I climbed onto him and punched his handsome face.

Bugh!

The sound was dull.

“Ouch.”

Instead of getting angry when he was given pain, he patted his red cheeks and smiled.

“Are you hitting the Crown Prince right now?”

“It’s you, right?”

Bugh!

This time, I punched with the other hand. Garou did not resist throughout the two hits.

“Four years ago. The person who sent sweets from the Imperial Palace.”

I grabbed him by the neck with my skinny hand and shook it.

On the day I returned from meeting the emperor for the first time, cookies made with magic were delivered from the Imperial Palace. I thought it was a gift from Emperor Igdrasil.

“The one who manipulated the cookies.”

I ate half of the delicious magical cookies with Michael.

Now I understand what Michael was saying.

“The person who put poison, it’s me.”

“During the debutante, instead of me, on which black magic doesn’t work, you brainwashed Michael…”

Garou once said it himself. His magic didn’t work well on me.

I understand now. The magic he was talking about wasn’t white magic.

“The one who put poison in the potion.”

I touched Garou’s hand, which was spread out on the sand. A white wooden ring was attached to his middle finger as usual.

I took the ring off and gripped it in my hand.

“It’s you, right?”

Perhaps because it was in a dream, the ring broke easily with just a little force.

Garou widened his golden eyes. He pursed his lips as if he had a lot to say, then twisted the corners of his mouth.

“Hahaha! Hahahahaha!”

A roar of laughter shook the wilderness.

Garou laughed like a madman. I couldn’t figure out why he was so happy.

“Ahh, Lilietta. You really…”

After a while, the boy stopped laughing and wiped the tears that were dripping from his eyes.

Shaaa, swahhh. The sound of sand being dragged mixed with the remnant voice.

Garou’s body disappeared from underneath me in the blink of an eye. I raised my hands and looked at the black sand left on my palms.

‘Benny is a muddy liquid, and the demon that occupied Natalia’s body is a cloudy smoke…’

In my mind, I looked back on the forms of the demons I had met so far.

I knew it after meeting three other people of my own kind. Like the spirits and the beasts, the demons also had specific species differences. And Garou was able to transform his body into fine sand.

“Cute kid.”

Garou’s body touched my back.

He hugged me, placing his chin on my shoulder. The whites of his eyes that were out of my field of vision were black.

It was the reverse of the demons.