<Chapter 99>
…Why is this happening all of a sudden?
I frowned, gripping my spear more firmly in preparation for any unforeseen situation, and slowly stood up.
“Have you lost your mind…? Aaargh!”
At that moment, one of the men, who had been staring down at his comrade as if looking at a lunatic, glanced behind him.
The next instant, he let out the same horrifying scream as the colleague he had been criticizing and began convulsing violently.
“What the…”
“Call the captain!”
“What’s wrong with everyone?!”
Was this some kind of signal?
Soon after, all of the group began staring into empty space as if something invisible was there.
Then they screamed, muttered incomprehensible gibberish, and writhed on the floor in terror. Some wailed, others shouted in rage.
There were those vomiting so violently it was horrifying to watch, others laughing maniacally as though consumed by fear.
‘Could it be…?!’
As I gazed at the scene, a strange sense of familiarity crept into my thoughts.
Suddenly, a memory from the past flashed through my mind.
The blackened skies of Litera, densely filled with summoned dark spirits. The spirit summoners, lost in a madness akin to paralysis, their sanity overridden by hallucinations incomprehensible to others…
Finally, I grasped the truth behind this bizarre occurrence.
The strange atmosphere I had felt since first entering this cabin, the young men scattered about with an air of innate authority and arrogance characteristic of the highborn—I quickly turned my gaze.
“Who… who are you people?!”
As expected, the men who had been sitting quietly, their presence subdued amidst the commotion, stood simultaneously.
With eerie expressions devoid of emotion, they stared at the people convulsing madly beyond them.
One group was seemingly consumed by hallucinations. While the other, was exuding an odd and ominous aura as they watched the scene unfold.
It was a dreadful conclusion, but I couldn’t deny its accuracy. Clenching my teeth, I pulled my hood down further and thought to myself.
Dark spirit summoners.
On this ship, of all places, with me aboard—if there were to be a reason for them boarding en masse… there could be only one plausible explanation.
They must be pursuers sent by the Kingdom of Nisha, chasing after the fugitive Lady Rose Hacardella!
Ah, it was my foolishness not to have acted sooner despite sensing their obvious strangeness because they didn’t wear Nisha’s distinctive attire.
If I had realized this earlier, I would’ve disembarked immediately…!
“W-Who are you people?! Why are you standing there, just watching us?!”
Due to those writhing in hallucination-induced fits, I, along with several others, was forced to retreat to the rear of the cabin, now facing off against the spirit summoners sent by Nisha.
…What were they planning to do?
Was there any escape route?
No, drawing attention with rash actions would only provide them a pretext to identify me.
“…We mean you no harm.”
At that moment, one of them spoke softly, breaking the silence.
“The one we seek is here—I offer my apologies in advance for the suffering you must inevitably endure.”
“What…!”
The ominous words struck fear deep into my heart and the expressions of those around me turned pale with terror as well.
As I inhaled sharply and turned back toward them..
‘…Edith.’
With a vision of pitch-black darkness swallowing everything, a chilling voice called out my name.
Standing before me was someone who made my skin crawl.
I stared up at him in stunned silence.
‘Why have you been hiding all this time?’
I had reverted to a younger version of myself. No, even younger than I remembered.
I was back to the very beginning when I was seven years old, sitting in a cramped wooden chest.
And before me loomed a giant man, casting a shadow as he leaned down.
‘My dear daughter, your father has come for you.’
It was Roberick.
His face held a nauseatingly bright smile, his delicate features twisting grotesquely.
In his hand, blood dripped ominously from the blade he wielded.
‘Come, step out of that narrow and wretched place.’
He extended a hand splattered with blood, whispering tenderly.
In that instant, I had completely forgotten that this was an illusion conjured by the power of the dark spirits. Instead, I was thrown back into the mind of my younger self, overwhelmed by terror and a horrible sense of disgust.
‘G-Grandfather…’
Desperately, I searched around me for the one person I trusted.
‘Where are you?’
But my grandfather was nowhere to be seen in the suffocating darkness. Only Roberick and I existed in that desolate void.
‘…Are you still looking for that man?’
The refined voice, brimming with joy moments ago, twisted with venomous rage, dripping with malice.
‘Look at me! I am your father!’
Roberick grabbed both of my arms roughly, hoisting me into the air as he roared.
“Ugh…”
‘Do you think an old, feeble man can protect you?! You are my daughter, the only child to carry my blood!’
He shook me violently, his disfigured face spewing decades of jealousy and hatred.
I was utterly terrified at that moment.
‘Everything of Siorn Arkaites Bastevan’s is mine. If I have you, that man will have nothing left!’
The petty inferiority, the way he viewed me as an object of his obsession rather than a person.
‘Grandfather, Grandfather! Where are you? Please help me, please…!’
‘Silence! You foolish child, forsaking your father, who cherishes you, to seek that old man?!’
“Aaah!”
I screamed, struggling desperately to escape his grasp and crying out for my grandfather.
Enraged beyond measure, Roberick bellowed furiously and threw me to the ground.
The pain was unbearable, as though my bones had shattered.
“Hic, waaaaah… Grandfather! Grandfatherrr!”
Tears streamed uncontrollably down my face as I crawled through the oppressive darkness, clawing at the void in a frantic search for my grandfather.
It was terrifying. The man before me was so horrifying and repulsive that I never wanted to lay eyes on him again.
‘Stop this, Edith. Do you think such petty defiance will allow you to escape me?’
‘No, no…’
As I cried so hard my vision blurred, Roberick’s voice echoed in my ears, sticky and suffocating.
‘Even if you take my title, the entire world will still see you as my daughter. History will record your name as such. The only daughter of Roberick Arne Hailien! But, despite the love her father bore for her, she betrayed him, turning her back on his will and committing the unfilial act of rejecting him—all to restore her disgraced maternal family, which had fallen from grace!’
‘No! Grandfather didn’t do anything wrong, and neither did Mother…!’
‘Deny it all you want, as if doing so will change reality!’
This grotesque and terrifying illusion was paradoxically exposing and mocking the fears I had buried deep within me.
The arbiter of neutrality, who loved Arkane, maintaining balance with absolute authority while restraining all the spirit kings.
Because he hadn’t sided with the Spirit King of Wisdom, Mariette had met such a tragic end.
What miracle could I possibly achieve, when even the great Spirit Kings, who could foresee the future, failed to inflict meaningful harm upon Arkane…?
“Hic… Waaah!”
In the end, I broke down, sobbing helplessly like a powerless child. Everything was unbearably dreadful.
A living hell, tightly enclosing me on all sides, whispering that it would never let me go, was mocking me all the while.
“No, please, stop…”
“…You’re safe now. Pull yourself together.”
For the first time, a voice that wasn’t Roberick’s quietly reached out to me.
“…!”
I opened my eyes and realized I was no longer surrounded by a suffocating darkness.
“Ah… Aaaah!”
But as soon as I saw the figure of a man, close enough for his form to be visible through my tear-blurred vision, I screamed and flailed as if possessed.
“Let me go! I said, let me go!”
The grip on my arms didn’t loosen. It felt as if Roberick still held me, refusing to let go.
Trapped between illusion and reality, unable to fully awaken, I cried and struggled like a terrified child, desperately trying to break free from his grasp.
Drip, drip…
“…!”
But then, a sound, an unfamiliar noise intruded upon the cacophony of my screams and sobs.
For reasons I couldn’t understand, my mind momentarily cleared. And through my tear-streaked eyes, now clearer, I looked ahead.
Finally, I saw him. The man kneeling before me, looking down at me.
“Are you feeling calmer now?”
Our gazes met—his white-gray eyes, tinged with an inescapable void, pierced into mine.
If the night were to manifest in human form, surely it would look like this.
The man, with his black hair resembling the night sky and pale skin, possessed a striking, almost otherworldly appearance that instinctively reminded me of someone.
Yet unlike him—who was undoubtedly mesmerizing but exuded a chilling aura of death—this man…
“Princess.”
His voice was gentle, carrying a faint trace of sorrow, as though he bore a deep and hidden grief.
“You are…”
The man, gazing down at me with eyes the color of ashes from something long burnt away, was not Roberick.
All that had terrified me moments before had been nothing more than an illusion.
