VIP Chapter 348: “So it was me who couldn’t leave him.”
Meilin probably anticipated that certain things needed to be handled by the mother herself. She also knew that if she stayed, neither of the two “awkward” mother and daughter would be able to speak up.
That was precisely the case.
Lis crossed her arms and occasionally scratched her head, seemingly contemplating how to start.
In comparison, Liya was “calmer.” She simply looked down at the green grass swaying in the wind.
“Liya…”
“Actually… actually, Mother, you should have asked me directly.”
To Lis’s surprise, her daughter, who had become withdrawn and unwilling to talk after entering her rebellious phase, was the first to break the silence.
Liya spoke sincerely.
“I… I won’t keep anything from you. Even though it will worry you. Well… because I discovered that communicating with people, indeed… indeed, the best way is to say everything, everything, everything you want to say…”
She raised her head, gripping her staff tighter.
“You’ve really changed. It seems that letting you have some freedom for a few years wasn’t a bad thing.”
Lis spoke with relief.
Before Liya went to the human world alone to find her, she would actively “avoid” her, instinctively dodging even her mother’s care.
But now, Liya, at a time when neither of them could speak, was the one who spoke first.
“No… I could have been a lot less like this if… if I hadn’t met him.”
“So, what did you experience out there? Your student… oh wait, perhaps here it should be said your sweetheart. I remember his name was Will, he…”
“He’s dead.”
As Liya spoke, silence fell between them, and a chilly wind blew past.
Liya had rarely even said this most heartbreaking sentence to herself, she had never hurt herself with such harsh words.
But, surprisingly, when she needed to tell Lis, she blurted it out so quickly.
She… she didn’t even feel as “heartbroken” as she had imagined.
She placed a hand on her heart.
Although, there was still a little bit, just a tiny bit?
“Mm. I did notice that.”
Lis reached out and removed Liya’s large hat, finally seeing her daughter’s reddened eyes.
But she wasn’t crying, merely displaying a hint of “sadness” that didn’t seem to belong to a “child.”
“After you came back here, you’ve been distracting yourself by completing experiments, trying not to think about it, right?”
Liya could hear it. Lis’s tone, compared to the “few years” recently, which was often old-fashioned but playful, was more like it used to be…
It was like the tone she used when they used to sit by the fireplace, light a fire, and tell her stories.
How many years ago was that?
But no matter what, for witches with long lives, a mother could be a mother for a very, very long time, and a child could be a child for a very, very long time.
“But, Liya. Since you’ve learned how to express your affection directly, you should also learn to express your sorrow directly.”
She gently caressed Liya’s head.
“Mm… Mother, you’re right…”
Hearing this, Liya let out a sob.
She felt an “ice-cold” pain deep within her blood, piercing her heart, her cerebral cortex, every inch of her veins.
She had heard that sometimes, when you lose someone, you don’t feel sorrow immediately.
You numb yourself unconsciously, throwing yourself into your tasks, completing other work frantically…
Until one day, when everything is done, and you sit down quietly, you realize that the tears accumulated in your numbness will finally burst forth.
“So this is what it feels like to be sad when someone so close to you… leaves this world…”
Guided by Lis’s hand, Liya buried her head in her embrace.
“I wanted him to never leave me, wanted his magic circuits to boil for me, wanted him to only live by craving the blood of me, a witch… It was me… it was me!”
“And then, the night I returned… I felt my hands and feet turn cold, and no matter how I activated my magic circuits or used any magic, they were silent!”
Her eyes widened, and large tears streamed from her red witch’s eyes.
She looked at the box filled with Blood Mint Essential Oil that Meilin had taken out and then closed.
“Tube after tube after tube… I injected them into my body…”
“When just one tube used to be enough… to fill my brain with stimulation, excitement, and pleasure…”
“But I sat on the bed, with that scent in my nose, and felt nothing, as if completely numb.”
“When I came to my senses… I had already used half of the Blood Mint Essential Oil… Even then, nothing changed…”
“It was then I realized… I realized that I simply couldn’t leave him.”
Liya’s tone gradually calmed as she reached this point.
“Mom, perhaps you’re right… He’s what allowed me to grow, he’s the one I can’t leave.”
Lis wiped her tears with the back of her hand.
How long had it been since she had seen her daughter cry like this? It seemed to go back to when she was a child and had just learned explosion magic, blowing herself up and getting covered in dust.
“…So, will a witch’s life always be filled with such partings?”
Lis didn’t answer, merely continued to gently stroke her golden hair.
Her golden hair, which she hadn’t yet tied into twin tails – which Liya found to be the most spirited and beautiful style – slipped through Lis’s fingers.
Perhaps because her magic circuits were silent, her fingers slid to the ends of Liya’s hair, where the gold turned red. She could feel how her hair had become a bit dry and see the split ends.
“Liya, let’s go back inside the house.”
“Even though it’s no longer winter.”
“But, we can still sit by the fireplace and I can tell you stories, just like before.”
…
Liya entered Lis’s house. Lis, as always, loved her mushroom-shaped house, which looked like a fairy tale dwelling from afar.
Outside the window, the sky, whose time was controlled by the dungeon, was stuck in the most unpleasant twilight hour.
A ray of setting sun shone in through the small window of the mushroom house, but because the sun was setting, it couldn’t illuminate the entire room.
However, Lis still lit a candle and a warm hearth fire, sitting at the table.
The table was still cluttered and unsystematically arranged with a few pieces of bread, and two teacups filled with hot water, just like before.
Liya noticed how “clean” the room actually was.
She remembered that the house used to be filled with all sorts of ancient magic books, especially the table, which was always so covered by thick books that it blocked her line of sight.
Unlike Liya, who was an experimentalist, Lis’s most frequent research involved interpreting ancient texts.
But now, this room was exceptionally clean and refreshing. Those books, and the scattered notebooks and papers, were nowhere to be seen.
“So, what I’m experiencing now is called… magical circuit melancholy?”
