Chapter 27

I suspect that after my mother died, I might have just stayed at the house, indebted to Ugurtz. Since he was someone who had looked out for us even after my mother died, I didn’t think he would have just abandoned me in an instant. Then, by the time I was old enough to be self-sufficient, I probably would have ended up working at one of his businesses.

That would have been better, honestly. Whenever I trace back where everything went wrong, I always end up circling back to the self-loathing realization that it was my own doing. That cursed chair.

Regardless, my ordinary life, carried out with a certain resolve, was a precious and desperate daily routine to me, both then and now. And because I hold onto what is desperate so tightly, checking on it frequently, I feel an immediate sense of crisis whenever even the smallest crack appears.

Felix, who returned after a few days away, came out to the yard in comfortable clothes.

“You must be tired, why don’t you rest?”

“I’m not tired.”

I thought the skin around his eyes looked quite haggard, but since he said he was fine, I left it at that for the moment. I just kept a mental note to make him some nourishing food soon. He followed behind me toward the shed and asked, “What are you doing?”

“I’m going to get some fertilizer.”

I told him it was for the flower bed in the yard and opened the shed door. Before my hands could even touch the sack, he stopped me.

“I’ll move it.”

“I told you, just rest.”

“It’s fine, really. How many do you need?”

“Just one.”

My gaze naturally drifted to Felix’s arm as he rolled up his sleeves. A strange pattern I hadn’t seen the day before stood out.

It was a binding circle, circular in shape. At its center was a temple symbol—specifically, the mark of the Main God. Given the complexity of the auxiliary circle, the connection seemed a bit distant, but I could tell at a glance what kind of existence lay at its root.

“What is that?”

I felt my insides turning pitch-black in an instant, but fortunately, my voice came out steady.

“Hm? Oh, this? I got this thing called a blessing prayer, and it just appeared.”

“Why would you get something like that…?”

“Well—it didn’t cost any money? It was a service for an acquaintance. I heard it’s pretty expensive if you get it officially. They said it was a bit weak, but either way, since they say it’s divine protection, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have it, right?”

He answered nonchalantly, picked up the sack of fertilizer, and walked out of the shed. I stood rooted to the spot for a moment before finally leaving the shed and closing the door. Because my thoughts had suddenly become so crowded, my hands moved sluggishly as I locked the door.

When I returned to the yard, he was standing there with the sack upright, and he asked, “You’re going to use it right now, right? Should I open the seal?”

“Oh, yeah.”

I was able to pretend nothing was wrong right then. But as time passed, and as I chewed over my thoughts, it became harder to hide my growing inner turmoil.

My self, which acted almost on instinct, told me that this situation was suspicious, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. At the same time, a joy that clashed with that feeling was also making a lot of noise. These were the emotions of a fragment. They were usually well-suppressed, but sometimes they would suddenly pop out to bother me. Ever since they merged with me, this was the dual identity I had to carry for the rest of my life.

The accelerating inner distress eventually seemed to give Felix an unsettling feeling before the day was even over.

Felix bit my shoulder from behind and asked, “You really can’t focus. Do you not want to do it tonight?”

“Mhm, yeah. I’m just not really in the mood today.”

When I patted his hand to suggest we do it next time, he looked disappointed but let me go without a fuss. I climbed into the bed first. He soon lay down beside me and asked, “Do you have something on your mind?”

“Hm? No, nothing like that.”

I didn’t want to show the unpleasantness I couldn’t even clearly define to the person who had returned after several days. I always wanted to fill him only with good things. I had absolutely no intention of treating him like an emotional trash can.

He must have been tired enough from his work outside. Even so, I thought I shouldn’t act grumpy due to my fickle emotions toward someone who rarely showed signs of struggle and tried to prioritize me.

In the end, I just made an excuse that it was a condition issue and kissed him.

“I’m sorry. I wanted to make you happy today.”

Felix slowly licked the lips that had lightly brushed against his and looked suspicious. But in the end, he didn’t dig any deeper and let it pass.

“Don’t worry about it. There are days like this.”

He wrapped one hand around the back of my head and pulled me into his embrace. It was his familiar and comfortable embrace as always, but my feelings were frozen solid and simply wouldn’t thaw. Even when I closed my eyes, sleep wouldn’t come, and I felt as if something unbearable would burst out from deep inside my throat in a beast-like sound.

I kept thinking it would subside eventually and tried to endure, but even the next day, my mood wouldn’t recover; it only sank deeper like a swamp. By the time I felt nauseated just by inhaling the air, leading to a surge of irritation, I judged that it would be better to keep some distance for a while, fearing I might end up taking my absurd anger out on Felix.

“To your parents’ home?”

“Yes. There’s something I need to look up in the family archives. I’m planning to stay at the Melas estate for a while.”

“If that’s what you want, then I can’t stop you. When are you leaving?”

“Today.”

“Today?! …That’s pretty sudden.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I completely forgot, too.”

“Is it that urgent?”

Disappointment clouded Felix’s face as he mentioned he had wanted to go on a date for a change.

“Sorry, let’s do it next time.”

“I have to go out again around the day after tomorrow; can’t you be back by then?”

“Well… I don’t know. If I find what I need quickly?”

If my mood improves by then.

“Don’t expect too much.”

Felix slumped his shoulders, saying that was too much. I hugged him and patted his back. I prayed he wouldn’t sense any strange dissonance from me. I didn’t want to be split into Meriel and Iel for him again.

F.

“I’ve been having such bad luck lately.”

My colleagues stared at me with puzzled expressions. I irritably ran my fingers through my hair while watching the Saint and her temple acolyte, who were blinking their eyes among my colleagues.

“It’s not like I’ve ever had much luck to begin with, but lately, I can even feel malice behind it.”

Whenever I walked between slightly tall buildings, flowerpots would fall on my head; when I rode in a carriage, the wheels would come off. Buttons that had been perfectly fine started popping off regularly.

Beggar-types and con artists who would usually back off with a glare now clung to me more persistently. Even when I moved with my colleagues, I was the only one singled out for random inspections by the local guards.

As soon as I took a step, something would break, or I’d be tied up in useless delays, or annoying situations would arise. No matter how I looked at it, this was unnatural.

On top of that, Iel was avoiding and pushing me away for reasons I couldn’t understand. Recalling how she’d refused physical intimacy and then avoided my eyes, saying she’d be at her parents’ house for a while, my insides twisted with agony as if they’d been liquefied. The situation was quite serious.

It was clear that some unknown entity was interfering with the flow of things around me. And recently, there was only one thing that could have introduced such mystical energy into my life.

“It feels like it’s been especially bad ever since I received that blessing prayer or whatever it was.”

“Huh?”

I ignored the temple acolyte, who was making a bewildered sound while knitting their brows, and fixed my gaze on the Saint.

“Saint. Don’t you have anything to say to me?”

It was a perfectly reasonable suspicion—that they might have cast a curse disguised as a blessing, knowing I didn’t know much about mystical energy.

“What kind of nonsense are you spouting!”

The temple acolyte, thinking I had accused the Saint of being a witch, shouted with a reddened face. Even though I was the one who was suffering from all this forced misfortune and was the aggrieved party, the acolyte acted as if they were the one who had been more insulted.

Fatigue washed over me. I had just asked to confirm, hadn’t I? If I was wrong, they could just say I was wrong—why were they getting so worked up? I had only suspected it because it was suspicious. Yet why should I be stifled and frustrated even when asking a perfectly natural question? This was why I hated dealing with fanatics. Money is the root of all evil, seriously. A sigh escaped me on its own.

The temple acolyte acted as if they were about to draw their sword. Just because they were wearing shiny white armor, they seemed to think they were untouchable. I was already annoyed; should I just kill them? They were just a low-level guy sent as the Saint’s shield anyway, so what would it matter if I killed them and buried them? My colleagues would cover for me.

I didn’t know how the Saint would react, but I wasn’t too worried. If the acolyte drew their sword first, I had the excuse of self-defense. Go ahead, draw it. I’d slice those two arms off right away.