Chapter 16: Your Wish, I Have Indeed Heard It
He wasn’t spouting lies to comfort me.
But… he actually jumped?
Thinking about it now, I was ridiculously overthinking things before.
With that thought, Sylvia gritted her silver teeth.
Then, she closed her eyes and leaped into the sea.
Although she encountered a very strange person, she was here to jump into the sea today anyway.
Even with a slight accident, she had still accomplished her goal.
And, just as that person had said.
If she had a companion on the way to the underworld, it seemed she wouldn’t be so lonely.
A sense of weightlessness, accompanied by the whistling wind, rushed towards her.
Immediately after, the icy cold touch of the seawater swiftly engulfed her.
The Grant Sea’s currents were exceptionally swift.
Not to mention receiving private tutoring from the Grand Duke Brunstadt family, Sylvia had never learned to swim since birth.
Even fishermen who grew up by the sea and were excellent swimmers would not dare to enter the water in such stormy weather.
Soon, the icy seawater poured into her mouth. The salty taste, mixed with the suffocating sensation of oxygen deprivation, caused Sylvia immense pain.
She felt her body continuously sinking, as if falling into an abyss.
In her vision, the light gradually dimmed.
The shimmering sea surface was no longer visible. Only a faint glimmer pierced the pitch-black seawater, illuminating this silent world.
The Grant Sea in winter was bone-chillingly cold.
Hearing, sight, smell…
All of Sylvia’s senses were rapidly fading, then returning to nothingness.
Am I…
Going to die?
In this boundless darkness, free from the usual noise and pressure, Sylvia felt her thoughts become exceptionally clear.
Countless forgotten memories surfaced like a kaleidoscope.
Although the impressions were few, her childhood was still relatively happy under her parents’ protection.
The first time she lost control, not only did she kill several servants in the mansion, but she also severely injured her mother who was worried about her, and truly exposed her secret to the world.
A former close friend, whom she met unintentionally, but who looked at her with eyes filled with fear and hatred after learning her true identity…
The woman lying on her sickbed, knowing her life was ending, but still forcing a smile to comfort her crying daughter…
Her father, who had been guarding the border for years but occasionally returned to the Royal Capital to comfort her with clumsy words and used his authority as Grand Duke to shield her from the family’s criticisms…
And that small tree, planted in the courtyard with her parents when she was four, which had now grown lush and bloomed white flowers.
…
Memories surged like a tide.
Sylvia’s heart was suddenly filled with inexplicable dread.
Perhaps there were indeed many people in the entire duchy who wanted her dead…
But there were also those who truly wanted her to live.
Sylvia suddenly didn’t want to die anymore.
In the icy seawater, she finally understood the true meaning of the word “butcher” in the young man’s words from earlier.
From beginning to end, she had carried the weight of more than just one life.
Yet, at this very moment, she was so pathetically, self-destructively giving up her life.
Her originally empty body was re-infused with strength.
Sylvia desperately flailed her limbs, which had already gone numb and lost sensation, struggling against the ocean currents, striving to swim towards the surface.
However, her efforts were not rewarded.
The furious waves of the Grant Sea made even skilled fishermen fearful; how could a delicate maiden who had never learned to swim stand a chance?
In the instant before the deep-sea currents completely exhausted her remaining strength.
Filled with regret and self-reproach, Sylvia heard a familiar voice.
“Drowning in the sea like this, dying silently, without a ripple.”
“After you die, your loved ones will shed tears for you.”
“And those countless people who once hated you and ostracized you will applaud and rejoice.”
“They will say, good riddance to you, you jinx—”
“And then, just like during the ‘Witch Hunts’ of the past, they will indiscriminately throw their own sins and mistakes onto you, absolving themselves. After all, dead men cannot defend themselves.”
“Because by doing so, they can completely wash away their own guilt and continue their lives with a clear conscience.”
“Do you accept this outcome?”
The youth’s voice cut through the seawater, clear and unmistakable, echoing in Sylvia’s ears.
“No…”
The moment Sylvia opened her mouth, icy seawater rushed in, swallowing her oral cavity.
Even though her consciousness had become hazy and blurred due to prolonged oxygen deprivation.
Sylvia still struggled to open her mouth in the water, as if roaring out her true feelings.
“I don’t accept it!”
“Of course, I don’t accept it!”
But.
Her voice probably couldn’t reach out in the deep sea.
As soon as this thought arose, Sylvia heard a pleasant, low chuckle.
“Since that is the case.”
“Your wish, I have indeed heard it.”
Immediately after.
Sylvia felt a hand, not particularly strong but with distinct knuckles, grasp her arm and pull her into an embrace.
After an unknown amount of time.
She once again heard the roaring sound of the Grant Sea’s surging waves and the dim sky.
The solid touch of the ground beneath her feet once again filled Sylvia with immense relief.
Her taut nerves, after narrowly escaping death, finally relaxed completely at this moment.
However, it was precisely at this moment.
With Sylvia’s brief moment of relaxation.
Deep within her heart, the Bronze Cross that bound the gloomy shadow suddenly let out a roar.
In an instant, myriad low, indescribable murmurs echoed once more.
Trouble!
I actually forgot to suppress that thing…
Without giving Sylvia any time for regret or reaction.
The gloomy shadow flowed rapidly down the Bronze Cross, and in a flash, it violently shook her already weak self-will.
“Don’t come near me…”
“Quick…”
“Run…”
With only her last vestiges of rationality to leave these words, Sylvia’s consciousness gradually became hazy and blurred.
Slowly, but unyieldingly, she fell into the abyss.
Just before losing consciousness completely.
Sylvia heard that familiar, comforting voice once more.
“Since I have received your wish—”
“Then, leave the rest to me.”
Sylvia felt a furry tail probe forward, gently brushing against her cheek.
The next moment, her consciousness completely sank into nothingness, her destination unknown.
