Chapter 314 |
Chapter 314
When Cellinne opened her eyes, everything around her was dark except for the faint moonlight.
When she barely managed to sit up, the blanket slipped down. It was a thick and soft blanket she had never seen before.
Eva and Valter were lying on beds lined up beside her,
And from the strong bitter smell, it seemed they had been slathered with ointments and medicinal herbs all over their bodies.
She was scratching off scabs falling from inside her ears when she flinched at a small sigh and looked toward the window.
Someone was sitting by the window, and their hair reflected in the colorless moonlight was shining a paler red than usual.
"Ye...sung."
A voice like scraping rough metal surfaces came out. It was because she hadn't been able to speak for several days.
"Cellinne. How are you feeling now? Are you okay?"
She began to get completely confused about whether what she had experienced was a dream or not.
Judging by how her whole body hurt, it didn't seem like a dream, but Yesung was perfectly alive.
What had happened to her during that time?
While Cellinne was bewildered, Yesung pulled a chair over and placed it beside the bed.
As he came closer, Cellinne flinched, but Yesung didn't seem to notice.
"Dardin was as confused as you are. The monsters were real, but it seems like you saw hallucinations from the middle."
"Hallucinations."
"It was an unbearable reality, so your minds temporarily escaped. Your psyches did."
Yesung spoke lightly, but she couldn't trust it at all.
All of that was what she saw in a half-mad state?
Cellinne could still vividly recall the horrifying squishy sensation.
She had seen such hallucinations because she had gone mad from an incident that humans couldn't normally accept?
Then what was the box she had been holding to the end?
Wait a moment. Come to think of it.
"E-eyes."
"Eyes?"
"Show me."
In her urgency, she suddenly lifted Yesung's bangs.
A smooth forehead, and slightly drooping eyebrows from surprise.
She couldn't be certain because of the darkness, but fortunately below them was the familiar dark brown instead of gray-white.
Ah, this was... Adonis.
Only after confirming Yesung's eyes did the strength completely leave her body.
She couldn't understand it herself, but somehow it seemed like Yesung's eyes had turned white at some point.
All the nightmares had started from there.
But the Yesung here now was exactly as she remembered him.
Yesung was right. As he said, all the incomprehensible scenes must have happened in fantasies.
Otherwise, how could the person who had exploded and melted away before her eyes be sitting here perfectly fine?
Only then did Cellinne finally relax and flop back down.
"Cellinne? ...You're really okay, right?"
"I'm not okay..."
"Judging by you saying things like that, you seem okay. Are you curious about what happened in the meantime?"
Yesung handed her a water cup that was on the bedside table.
Cellinne moistened her lips that were parched and peeling while listening to Yesung's story.
About visiting Asgard, returning after hearing urgent news. How he had barely been safe at the end but had to hide himself again.
And how he had come once more to rescue the people who had been captured and brought to the royal castle after that.
"-So when I said I was a mage, everyone believed me. I'm planning to use Dardin's wisdom to commit fraud from now on. Once this is over, you can become heroes."
Listening to this, Cellinne thought.
That Yesung was much bolder than he appeared. An ordinary person would be crushed by the burden of having an audience with royalty and wouldn't be able to think that far.
Suddenly, she examined Yesung's face.
"But why are you depressed?"
"Hm?"
"You're not like usual. Even though you're saying everything is going well."
"Did I seem like that?"
At a glance, it was a face that seemed to show no major emotional changes as always,
But Cellinne could tell that Yesung's shoulders were particularly drooped.
Had someone in the royal palace perhaps mistreated him?
Since they were people from the royal palace, perhaps he couldn't charm them with his face like he had done with her?
Yesung lowered his head for a moment and just wiggled his toes before quietly asking.
"Cellinne."
"What?"
"...I'm just hypothetically asking. If you had to do something bad against your will, what would you do?"
Cellinne looked at Yesung blankly and immediately answered.
"What do you mean what would I do? I wouldn't do it."
"If you had to do it?"
"Why would I have to do it?"
"You have something you want, but to achieve it, you absolutely have to do it."
"Isn't there any other way?"
"There might be, but I can't think of any right now."
"Can't you postpone it until you die?"
"Of course not. If you had to do it right now, as soon as possible?"
It was a very strange question.
Cellinne swallowed a sip of lukewarm water while thinking about why Yesung was asking such a question.
"But is that goal important? How important is it?"
"Important enough to be a crossroads in life. Maybe important enough to change not just you but other people too."
"Do I have to decide that alone? What are the people around me doing? It's not like I'm saving the world or anything."
"That's how most things in the world are. You can't ask for others' help in every matter."
"That's true, but."
Cellinne thought for a while and then said.
"Still, I think... I would act based on whether the people I like get hurt or not."
"The people around you?"
"Yes. Even if that thing is bad, I'm doing it for the people I like. Then whether I get cursed at by people whose names I don't even know or not, what do I care?"
"That's quite a way of thinking."
"But isn't that right? There's no absolute good and evil. If something becomes bad for someone, it could become good for someone else."
"Bad things could become good things?"
"Look here, Adonis. If I saw someone beating you up, I'd half-kill that guy instead. It would be bad for that guy, but thanks to that, you wouldn't get beaten anymore."
"That's only when the guy hitting me is a bad guy, isn't it?"
"Your question from the beginning wasn't about the absolute good and evil of actions, was it? It was about the guilt I would feel from it."
"Yes."
Yesung readily agreed.
Cellinne chose her words for a moment and then spoke carefully.
After all, wasn't Adonis not much older than her?
"Every action has a reason. If the bad thing I did was for the people around me, I'd naturally bear it. Rather, not doing it would be stupid. It's the same even if I do good things."
"Beating someone up is one thing. But if it involves human lives."
"I only kill people who deserve to be killed. Should I feel guilty?"
"...Mm-hm. I see. But if bad things happen and people unrelated to you die? Would you still do it?"
"I told you the standard is what effect it has on the people around me."
"So you're saying you would do it."
"Of course I'd feel guilt. Unless I was an unprecedented madman, it's naturally right to feel that way. It's a natural emotion for humans. But..."
Cellinne thought carefully and finally blurted out.
"There's no reason not to do it either."
Yesung seemed to be mulling over her words.
His gaze that had been resting on his knees for a while looked up.
His dark brown eyes calmly observed Eva and Valter who were breathing peacefully, and Cellinne who was wrapped in bandages all over her body, one by one.
Then Yesung suddenly opened his mouth.
"Ordinary people."
"Hm?"
"Don't enjoy needlessly killing others."
"Usually not, right?"
"Then should a person who wants to affirm that others are alive take the same attitude toward all others?"
"Hmmmm."
Cellinne rolled her eyes. Seeing how the questions were becoming increasingly profound, something must have definitely happened to Yesung while she was unconscious.
Heavy worries rare for his age had settled on his flower-like face.
The reason Yesung was asking her probing questions seemed to be to find answers to the concerns he was facing through her.
But she had never really had such concerns in her life.
If she wanted to do something, she did it; if not, she didn't.
At least for her, there was a clear line distinguishing between things she shouldn't do and things she could do.
But Yesung was young and hadn't experienced everything in the world yet, so such lines might be blurry for him.
Seeing him agonizing over such trivial concerns, a child was indeed a child.
If someone saw this, they'd think he was having concerns that the fate of the world depended on.
It seemed more urgent to calm Yesung's mind rather than provide the right solution.
She moved aside from where she was lying and beat the pillow vigorously.
"Come here."
Yesung had been looking deathly worried but soon became bewildered and asked.
"Me? You want me to lie there?"
"Why? No matter how much I've praised you for being pretty, I'm in no condition to do anything to you right now. Don't worry. Trust your noona?"
"What do you mean do anything to me! Aside from that, does it make sense to lie in bed with a man from outside the family?"
"What do you mean man from outside the family? Adonis is just a forest fairy. Come on, don't be shy."
"Aaaah!"
She half-forcibly grabbed Yesung and laid him down, covered him with a cozy blanket, and propped up a fluffy pillow for him.
He was looking at Cellinne with somehow uncomfortable and reluctant glances.
Yesung had once kept a strange distance, but perhaps because she had heard many of his human concerns today,
Cellinne half-lay down beside him, supporting her head with her arm.
"About what you asked just now. To answer more seriously."
"Yes."
"It's just my opinion, but I don't think you should have thoughts like some people can die and some people shouldn't die."
"Why?"
"People are all the same when you strip them naked. Who knows, somewhere in this world there might be a place that assigns the same value to everyone regardless of status, age, origin, appearance, talent, or gender."
"It would be like a dream."
"And everyone in this world wants respect and love from others. People who say otherwise just haven't realized that fact themselves."
Yesung hesitated for a moment.
"Then."
"Yes."
"Do you think people who can't love others are fundamentally wrong?"
"How do they know they can't love?"
"You could just come to think that way living life."
"There's no one who can't love. Everyone comes to love through some opportunity. They just don't know what love is yet. What kind of sensation it is, what actions it leads to. Or... they're already loving but don't recognize it as love."
"You think so?"
"Yes. Love is essential for humans. It's the greatest driving force that allows us to know each other beyond misunderstanding. So to love others, you have to make an effort first."
Cellinne looked at Yesung who was earnestly listening to her words and pulled up the blanket.
"Now, shall we end the sermon here? Today, as a special treat, noona Cellinne will tell you interesting stories until she gets sleepy."
"Stories all of a sudden? Out of nowhere?"
"You can't hear the Thousand and One Nights of the Rom people even if you pay money elsewhere. Try listening to it once."
"Mm-hm."
Yesung, covered up to his nose with the blanket, squirmed.
Seeing this reminded her of memories of putting her younger siblings to sleep who were no longer in this world.
And even her mother, who would gently stroke her when she whined about not being able to sleep,
And tell her stories passed down only to the storytellers of the Rom.
Ah, those dear memories.
My childhood that will never return.
The young children had grown too much, and the stories she hadn't learned had drifted to unreachable places.
Cellinne gently patted the blanket Yesung was covered with and began her story.
"Now, long, long ago, when the mist called mystery still covered this world. The story of the Rom goes back to the beginning. There, someone was walking endlessly across a red wasteland..."
Even if all things in this world troubled this person with many worries,
She hoped that for now at least, he would forget his troubles and fall into the story.