Chapter 125 – Don’t Cry…
Wow.
The sky is sparkling.
Looking at the stars embroidered in the black sky,
I can hear my brother shouting.
“Why are you so anxious that you can’t bother this kid? Why!”
“You’re harassing me. It’s just part of endless research. “Isn’t that kid proud?”
“You are crazy.”
“You are my child. “Why don’t you understand Alchemia’s long-cherished wish for eternity?”
“I said I would help you if it was your wish. Eve was told not to get involved… !”
“You can’t do it.”
My father spoke firmly.
But I know.
You’re saying this because you’re worried about us.
He seemed to be glancing at the whirlwind of water swirling in the shape of a typhoon where my brother appeared, and continued speaking.
“It’s not a matter of whether you can summon the Spirit King or not. It is important that it is the phoenix in charge of reincarnation. “You probably know.”
“…”
“More than that, I don’t know why you care so much about it. You know. “It’s just a doll that has been injected with memories.”
“… Eve is not like a doll.”
“If you think about it that way, the lovely child you remember is not there. Yes.”
I killed it.
The words that followed were eerily sharp.
“Just as you cannot revive a person who has already died, it is also unreasonable to call an artificially created body life. Even if we try to forcibly inject magic power into a body that cannot generate life force, it is only a temporary solution. Why do you insist on doing such an inefficient thing? It would be several times more efficient to make one more doll.”
“People like you don’t understand.”
“I mean. I don’t understand. However, what is surprising is that something that was at best a doll was chosen by the Spirit King. “Once again!”
Father once again,
Look at me with your dark, hard eyes.
For a moment, I was struck by the deepness in those eyes that made it difficult to tell whether it was greed or exploration.
“You won’t even be able to guess. Eve. The level of joy I felt upon learning that fact. For me, who lost my family, my phoenix, and my path to immortality due to one failure… Okay. It was salvation.”
“So, did you escape from prison so suddenly?”
“Of course. But saying suddenly is a bit wrong. I’ve almost finished all the preparations. All that’s left is finishing. Come here. Eve.”
Tick. Tick.
When the hand gestured towards me, I blankly turned to my father as if I was being pulled by a magnet.
“Everything is ready, so you won’t fail like last time, so you don’t have to be afraid.”
“Eve. No. If you believe that. You will die certainly…”
“Who cares? I already died once. If you think of her now as the Eve you remember and cherish so dearly, shouldn’t you just make her have the same memories in her new body even after she dies? “Alchemia’s great cause is accomplished and Eve continues to live, so it’s not worth it for you to use such evil measures to stop me.”
“I can’t make Eve go through something so horrible. And that… It’s not right.”
“A contradiction, a contradiction. Your attitude and thought itself is that while you equate this current thing with the previous Eve, the next one will not work. Are you saying it can be done once but not twice?”
“…”
Brother Rohan kept his mouth shut, as if he was speechless.
As I watched his gaze, I gradually got closer to my father.
It was full of stories that I couldn’t understand, but I was able to remember that.
The fire that covered the entire fiefdom of Alchemia was caused by me.
My father said that the time had come, and he brought out the descent of the pheonix that was in me, and through that, he tried to make his wish come true.
But the work turned into a failure,
I died there.
What happened that day was so terrible that I decided to forget it.
How terrible it is to remember the feeling of my flesh burning, my blood, my bones, my muscles, everything that makes me who I am, being completely consumed.
If I hadn’t been so excited right now, I wouldn’t have been able to hold it in for even a few seconds and would have vomited and cried.
But wow.
Then how am I alive here now?
The answer to that came from my father, who seemed to have read through my questions thoroughly.
“When you study immortality, the day comes when you think like that. I am entering another body. I wonder if it would be eternity if I could keep having a young body over and over again. It was a byproduct of that. They say it’s a homunculus.”
“Father, that is a taboo in alchemy…”
“Do you think the academic society would care about the rules they set among themselves? But Eve. Your case was special. At most, a few pieces of flesh and a few strands of hair and a little bit of work were enough to create a wonderful body that grew on its own. Unlike regular dolls, they grow and even age. What was the reason?”
“I don’t know…”
“You stupid thing. Isn’t it natural that it’s thanks to Pheonix? That thing, which is responsible for the concepts of life, reincarnation, repetition, rebirth, and resurrection, has even affected your small by-products.”
“…”
“I didn’t know that the soul, which was supposed to disappear after losing its body, would dwell in the doll through a path unknown to even me, and bring back memories and even the phoenix…”
“Leave it at that.”
“Actually, that doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the existence of the Phoenix. So…”
“I would have told you to leave it at that.”
My brother no longer hid his anger, as if his patience had reached its limit.
The splash that occurred has now turned the world upside down.
But that too,
The next moment, my father’s words broke me apart.
“Think about it. What is the meaning of immortality? “If you gain the omnipotence of life, wouldn’t you be able to bring back the real Eve that you cherished and loved so much?”
“… “What?”
What is that?
Brother Rohan’s face was completely shocked.
My father declares to him like a nail.
“It’s not like that fake. The real Eve.”
“What is that…”
“Don’t pretend you don’t understand. “Aren’t you also a human with Alchemia blood?”
“…”
And that was the time.
Suddenly, I thought the surroundings were getting noisy, and then I heard the sound of a horse’s hooves clicking on the ground.
Soldiers appeared from all directions and pointed their spear blades at my father, as if they were clearly chasing someone.
My father didn’t look embarrassed at all, just clicked his tongue and said, “Tsk.”
“You took too much time. Don’t leave today. Eve. And Rohan, think carefully about what I have told you. You will know which side to be on.”
“…”
And my father disappeared right away.
It’s as if I’ve never been here.
…
…
…
“Eve. Are you okay?”
“Well, I think I have a little fever. Medicine… “I got too much.”
“That damn bastard. After.”
After meeting with my father, we arrived at the capital with the help of soldiers organized to chase him.
After a few hours, it started to sparkle, no, that’s what my brother said when the effects of the medicine subsided.
“Don’t listen to that guy. Eve.”
“Are you saying I’m a doll?”
“… Yes.”
No matter how tactless I am,
There was no way I wouldn’t have figured out the situation by this point.
I was just something that had memories of a woman named Eve Christmas.
Honestly, I don’t know what it is.
Just because you become aware of it doesn’t mean anything changes,
But it was a little sad.
And Brother Rohan,
Speak as if you are repenting.
“You blame me for bringing you into the family. I shouldn’t have let him notice you. There is no way he can be forgiven for saying he didn’t know it would happen.”
“Brother…”
“Also, you can blame me for being fooled by that guy’s words, even if just for a moment.”
“That can’t be possible.”
“…”
How could that be?
If it weren’t for my brother, I would have been an orphan, kicked out of the orphanage the moment I got older, and ended up wandering around the continent.
Resentment was something you couldn’t do if you had shame.
I conveyed my meaning by quietly smiling,
Immediately after, I opened my mouth and spoke.
“You know. “Brother.”
“Okay. Eve.”
“… Please leave me alone for a little while.”
The things I heard today were nothing but shocking,
I also needed time to think.
My brother must have been worried about me, so he didn’t want to let me go, but… I couldn’t break my stubbornness.
In the end, I arrived home alone.
The house in the capital where I became a maid and lived with Ian.
Sitting alone in the living room,
I cried a little.
I don’t even know why I cried.
It just made me cry.
I might have been lying if I said I cried a little.
Once the crying started, it started pouring out without end,
I think I cried for several minutes, tens of minutes, or even hours.
But as I continued to cry with my face buried in my knees,
Someone hug me.
“Why are you crying?”
I thought it was a hallucination.
But that can’t be true.
This smell, the firmness of the body, the voice, even the kindness.
There’s no way it could feel this realistic unless it’s real.
“Don’t cry. Eve.”
But just in case, a hand gently caressed my head, which I couldn’t dare raise my head for fear of disappearing like foam,
I gain courage and barely raise my chin.
At this moment, the person I wanted to see the most was right in front of my eyes.
I’m talking about Ian.
How could someone who should be at Ernest Mansion be here?
I couldn’t believe it, so I was dumbfounded for a while,
I couldn’t bear it anymore and fell into his arms.
