Episode 32

Before turning the doorknob, the house was unusually noisy.
The sound of hurried footsteps, the piercing high-pitched voices of children.
One might think they were playing some fun game, but it wasn’t that kind of sound.

Screams, high-pitched noises, the sound of something falling. Anxiety came first.

I urgently opened the door and entered the house.

The first thing I saw upon opening the door was Elia collapsed on the floor, attended by three children.
She was on the floor, her limbs trembling slightly, and drool was flowing from her mouth. She seemed to be in a troubling state, and my mind went blank as soon as I saw her.
The emotions I had gained from talking to Fay vanished like waves.

I didn’t even think to take off my shoes and ran straight to the fallen Elia.
I cradled the collapsed child in my arms and checked her condition.

“Elia!?”

There was no response.
Thankfully, she hadn’t stopped breathing, as I could hear groans filled with pain.

Holding Elia in my arms, I raised my voice to Stella, who was unsure of what to do beside me.

“Stella, what on earth happened here?!”

In that brief moment, I couldn’t even guess a reason for Elia to be in such a state.
Stella, who was whimpering beside me, was not maintaining her usual composure.
Rather, when I raised my voice, she seemed terrified and avoided my gaze.

Calm down.

The children were just as startled as me, and at times like this, I needed to show a calm demeanor…

I gently stroked Stella’s shoulder with one hand and asked again in a calmer voice than before.

“Stella, could you tell me what happened?”

Only then did Stella, who had finally calmed down, begin recounting the events that occurred right after I left for the elder’s house.

No matter how much Ain loved the children, he was still clumsy at parenting.

Saying that he was busy, that he didn’t want to hurt her, and that he needed to gather proper information before having a conversation, Ain quickly excused himself from Elia, who had approached him, and hurried outside.
In his mind, it might have seemed like a considerate action meant to be thoughtful toward the child. However, how it was received was entirely up to Elia. Her already fragile heart had begun to crumble from that moment on.
From her perspective, Ain appeared to be a man leaving her because he disliked, was disgusted by, or hated her.

“Ah, ah…”

The pain of being hated by someone she loved quickly turned Elia into something like a broken doll.
A constant groan, as if she couldn’t comprehend, escaped her lips, and her arms flailed in the empty air.

Elia knelt and collapsed at the front door Ain had left through, scratching it with her nails, mumbling like someone out of their mind.

“Dad? Dad? It’s not true, right? You’re not abandoning Elia, right? Huh? Dad wouldn’t abandon us… Dad shouldn’t…”

Eventually, Elia began banging her head against the door, and only then did the other children notice her odd behavior.
Stella widened her eyes and rushed to Elia in an instant.

“Elia?!”

Though Stella quickly pulled her away from the door, Elia’s bizarre actions didn’t stop there.
Her mind was filled with worries about Ain harboring negative feelings toward her.

I shouldn’t behave this way. I have to hold it together when Dad comes home. I know this is wrong. I don’t want Dad to find out…!

Breaking away from Stella’s embrace, Elia curled up on the ground, pressing her forehead to the floor. In the empty space, she clasped her hands together desperately, sobbing.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I promise this won’t happen again, please come back…! Don’t abandon us, don’t abandon Elia…!”

Looking utterly broken, not just Stella, but the other two children were also taken aback by the sight of Elia they’d never seen before, and gathered around her.
Olivia shook Elia’s shoulders roughly, raising her voice.

“Elia, calm down a little!”

Even the precious voices of her sisters couldn’t reach Elia at this moment.

“I’ll listen better from now on, I’ll be a better daughter, I’ll do anything Dad says… Please…”

Elia’s voice, which seemed like it would tear apart, gradually lost strength and began to fade towards the end.

Already, the boundary between reality and delusion had collapsed for her, and the delusion, filled with anxiety that Ain had abandoned her, became a cruel reality, causing Elia’s magic, devoid of life’s meaning, to spiral out of control.

Unrefined magic began to flow through her shattered heart, and the overwhelming surge of magic wreaked havoc inside Elia, leading to the current situation.

Hearing Stella’s words, I felt an indescribable sense of guilt.
Right, I wasn’t the one who was truly shaken. Leaving the children, who were even more shocked than I was, unattended had led to the worst possible outcome.

Due to my rash decision, Elia…

Stella spoke while tightly holding onto Elia’s limp hand.

“She’s calmed down a bit, but she still hasn’t opened her eyes… What should we do? Elia, you’re not going to stay like this, right…?”

Stella buried her face in Elia’s chest, her shoulders shaking as tears fell.
I mustered strength in my voice to comfort Stella.

“It’s okay! You know Elia isn’t that weak, right, Stella?”

At that moment, Elia coughed a few times and slowly opened her eyes to look at me.

“Ugh… Dad…?”

I gently touched Elia’s forehead, which was burning like a fever, and urgently spoke to Noah, who was beside me.

“Noah, could you get some water?”

In the blink of an eye, Noah handed me a glass filled with water, and I gently parted Elia’s small lips to let the water flow in.
Elia, who struggled to drink the water, seemed to regain some consciousness, but her strength had not returned.
Seeing her looking as though her life could slip away at any moment, I couldn’t help but cry and hugged her small body.

I felt a faint tremor through our touching skin.
I barely held back my tears and asked Elia in the calmest voice possible.
If I cried messily while Elia was struggling, she wouldn’t be able to relax and rest assured.

“Elia, are you feeling a bit better?”

Elia, not fully conscious yet, looked at me and murmured in disbelief.

“Dad…? Is this a dream…? Didn’t you… abandon me…?”

With a trembling hand, Elia gently touched my face.
In her slender fingers, only a cold touch was felt. I tightened my grip on Elia as I embraced her.

“Ah, really, Dad… Is this not a dream?”

“No, it’s not a dream. Dad is here.”

Holding her close, I whispered gentle words to reassure her, patting her small back.
With her face buried in my chest, she said nothing, and began to sob, her shoulders shaking.

Elia tightly grasped the hem of my clothes and, just as Stella had earlier, begged me for forgiveness.

“Dad, I’m sorry. I won’t do such strange things again, so please don’t hate me…”

There was no way I could hate the children I raised with my own hands. Elia’s worries were something that would never happen in reality, something not even worth considering.

Moreover, the fault was entirely mine. Ignoring Elia when she tried to talk to me and going outside was my mistake.
There was no need for Elia to apologize to me for the trouble I brought upon myself by my choice.

To assure her, I patted her back and spoke with a vow-like conviction.

“It’s okay. There’s no way I would hate Elia for something like that, right?”

“Really? Is that true?”

Elia’s grip on my clothes tightened.
Her eyes, like lakes, were filled with light as she looked straight at me, now fully open.

When I entered the house and saw her collapsed, I thought something might have happened, but seeing her back to normal was a relief.
I gently separated her from my embrace and spoke in a somewhat changed tone.

“Elia, listen carefully.”

Sensing the change in atmosphere, she gulped and remained silent.

I wanted to comfort her, but just comforting her with sweet words was not proper discipline in my view.

I held Elia’s shoulders and slowly opened my mouth.
I intended to speak sternly, but I ended up bursting into tears that I had been holding back out of relief.
With a voice half-mixed with tears, I raised my voice to the point where veins were visible on my neck.

“Elia, no matter what happens, even if the sky falls and the whole world turns against me, I will never abandon you, so don’t ever think such useless thoughts again!”

At my outburst, she flinched and looked like she was about to burst into tears at any moment.

“I’m sorry…! I won’t think such strange thoughts again.”

With those words, she leaned into my arms and began to cry.

I spent time patting her back and the back of her head until Elia, who had started crying like a child, calmed down.

After about ten minutes, once Elia finally calmed down, she pulled away from my embrace and wiped her tears with her fingers.

I held out my pinky and spoke briefly to her.

“Elia, promise Dad. If something like this happens again, don’t worry alone, but always talk to your sisters or Dad first. Got it?”

Elia nodded and hooked her finger around mine, smiling shyly.
From that tiny, slender finger, I felt an unbreakable strength.