ERTHMB Chapter 109

The Promised Atonement

Helena resumed her steps that had momentarily stopped.

While she had been briefly lost in thought, he was still trying to indirectly silence Odyssey. Odyssey was very diligently going against his intentions.

“Anyway, no matter what the Master says, I don’t think I can be friendly with the lady anymore. Hmph.”

Ian pressing his forehead and Helena stepping in happened almost simultaneously.

“Can we talk for a moment?”

“The Master is busy talking with me… Aaaaah!”

Odyssey, who had answered absentmindedly while turning around, suddenly screamed. Jumping back, he hurriedly bowed his head and tried to escape.

“P-please speak comfortably! Then I’ll be going…!”

“No. I want to talk with you.”

Odyssey’s plan to slip away like an eel fell through. Odyssey looked back at Ian with a bewildered face. Ian simply patted Odyssey’s shoulder and left.

With just one person gone, an achingly awkward atmosphere flowed through the space. Odyssey kicked a pebble at his feet for no reason.

Clack, roll roll… Helena, who had been watching it, took something out from her chest. It was crumpled paper. Not creases from folding multiple times, but a tattered picture from piecing together torn fragments.

Helena held out the picture to Odyssey.

“…?”

Odyssey looked puzzled but carefully took the picture. It was a picture of red-haired siblings smiling like him. The woman must be Lady Helena, and this boy…

“My younger brother. Isn’t he pretty?”

Helena smiled softly. Odyssey answered reluctantly that he was and returned the picture. Helena tucked the picture back into her chest and asked.

“If it’s not rude, could you tell me how old you are?”

“Eighteen.”

“…Eighteen. If Basil were alive, he would be exactly your age.”

This time Odyssey didn’t know what answer to give. The social skills he had clumsily developed couldn’t help him learn how to handle such situations.

To him, who couldn’t hide his discomfort, Helena spoke with difficulty.

“…I’m sorry.”

“Pardon?”

“I overlapped you with Basil. It was truly rude behavior, and I’m reflecting on it.”

Helena held out the box she had brought.

“This is my gesture of apology. It’s nothing special… I knitted a scarf.”

Odyssey’s gaze moved back and forth between the box being held out and Helena. Then he soon shook his head.

“…I cannot accept it.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“It’s fine. So you don’t need to apologize.”

“But it’s my fault.”

At Odyssey’s unusually stubborn attitude, Helena pushed forward the hand holding the box as if urging. However, Odyssey hardened his voice even more sharply.

“It’s not a fault.”

His red eyes took on a depth unbefitting his age. The young knight who had resembled Basil and shown difficulty just moments ago was gone. Helena finally saw Basil’s lingering shadow completely fade from his face.

“…It’s not a fault?”

“Yes. It’s not.”

Helena clearly felt anew that Odyssey was Ian’s knight. Odyssey really said exactly the same things as him.

“Even all the guilt that the lady put into every single stitch while knitting this scarf. None of it is a fault.”

Words that casually touched a corner of her heart. Words that managed to touch her tear ducts despite such a topic.

Emphasizing repeatedly that Basil’s death was not her fault, Odyssey lowered his gaze to the box.

“So please make this not an apology but just a gift you’re giving me. Then I’ll accept it.”

Odyssey’s voice no longer sounded like Basil either. Helena slowly opened the box. And she took out the scarf and wrapped it around Odyssey’s neck.

“…I don’t know where you came from, but the northern winter is very cold. I noticed last time that you seem to get cold easily.”

Odyssey stiffened at first but soon accepted Helena’s touch. He touched the scarf wrapped neatly around him and smiled broadly.

“Does it suit me well?”

“Yes, tremendously. It seems like it was yours from the beginning.”

“Then I’ll gratefully accept it, my lady.”

Odyssey, who had buried his chin deep into the scarf, bowed and stepped back. Helena watched the bouncing young knight’s retreating figure before returning to her room.

That night Helena lay down in bed early. After tossing and turning a bit in a strange mood, she fell asleep and had a dream. It was a dream with Basil in it.

Helena ran toward him with pure joy but suddenly stopped. The back view standing still was familiar.

Maybe Basil didn’t want this and she had been selfishly holding onto him and turning him around all this time. Maybe it was selfish longing. Maybe she would only hear resentment as always.

Still, Helena took the remaining step. As if it were the last time, she reached out and placed her hand on Basil’s shoulder.

Though she didn’t pull, Basil slowly turned around. When had she been putting on airs? Helena unconsciously closed her eyes.

Sister.

Basil called her as if urging. It was a strangely tender voice. A voice with only longing left, without selfish desire. Helena slowly opened her closed eyes.

For the first time, there was Basil in perfect condition.

There were no eyes like black holes, no mouth crawling with insects. It was the most brilliant moment she had seen him alive.

His pale cheeks were tinged with red as if brushed with plum juice, and eyes like summer seas, clear and blue like her own, looked at her and shone.

In such a form, Basil smiled purely and said.

“I am happy, sister. So sister must be happy too.”

Helena pulled Basil into her arms and cried and cried and ended up laughing a little.

****

The sharp sound of hard shoe heels echoed fiercely through the wide Spencer Hotel corridor. As soon as Eugene entered his room, he threw down what he was holding.

A red ball of yarn bounced out of the crumpled paper box and rolled across the floor.

The scene he had witnessed at the guild today had made him explode with anger. It kept replaying over and over, devouring everything about him.

‘Damn bastard.’

And Helena sitting intimately beside him, eating cake. Helena accepting his touch all too naturally. That bastard touching Helena as if it were natural. The kiss that followed without warning and deepened.

As soon as that bastard recognized his presence, he pulled Helena closer as if to show off. The gaze shot over her shoulder was threatening, as if looking at a beast, not a person.

He was saying with his eyes alone. There’s no place for you here, so back off.

But Eugene knew even without that sharpened gaze. From the beginning, there had been no room for him to squeeze between the two. It was a world shared only by them.

What caught Eugene’s ankle as he instinctively tried to run toward them was Helena’s laughter. She had been frozen like ice floes on a winter lake in front of him. Yet she laughed so well in front of him. So warmly.

As if the barely begun winter had been hastily advanced and thrown into spring sunlight in an instant, Helena laughed. Eugene realized that he alone had stepped into winter.

Eugene Evergale no longer existed in her world. Helena Evergale, who had been in Eugene Evergale’s world, had run away. That was the scene, that was the space.

So Eugene had unconsciously run away. Even if it meant fleeing to the opposite end of the continent, he couldn’t face the truth from Helena’s mouth.

‘…Tired.’

Eugene threw his coat onto the bed and tugged at his tie. The ball of yarn that had been rolling around got stepped on by his staggering steps. Instead of pushing it away, Eugene stopped and trampled it more, crushing it.

He wished the red ball of yarn were his heart. He wished his heart would be crushed like this too, so he wouldn’t feel the pain of blood growing cold.

Eugene collapsed onto the bed as if fleeing. He closed his heavy eyes and sought the sleep that hadn’t come for nearly three days. But the day did not leave Eugene in peace today either.

A black nightmare wrapped around Eugene’s nape like a large python. It was pain that had often visited since he began searching for Helena. The dream always began with her hoarse voice.

“You are the worst.”

Helena in the dream was a mess. She was so miserable that the word “mess” couldn’t contain it all. Gaping eyes, a neck torn open and bleeding, an eerily scratched voice.

Eugene was aware that he was the one who had made her that way.

Inside, he raged to stop, to cut off those damn hands and strike his head, but Eugene Evergale in the dream ultimately cast her out.

He inevitably pushed that frail and pitiful neck under the guillotine.

Thus Helena Evergale died at Eugene Evergale’s hands.

The body moving against Eugene’s will only watched that scene indifferently. Then the head that had fallen and rolled to his feet said.

“If you were going to abandon me like this, you shouldn’t have approached me in the first place.”

Then Helena finally closed her eyes. The warm body turned blue like stone. It was from this moment that Eugene could move as he wished. After all the tragedy he had created with his own hands was over.

“No, Helena. Please, no. This can’t happen.”

Eugene held the cold head and sobbed. He pressed his lips to the dried bloody tears on her cheek and whispered endlessly. He begged and begged the woman who would no longer open her eyes.

Get up. Get up, please. You promised.

If you came to me as my perfect salvation, you should take responsibility to the end. You should stay by my side to the end.

You should remain by my side and take revenge. If you were in such pain, you should make me hurt the same way. You should curse and blame everything that drove you to death.

How can you cut everything off and leave like this? How can you embrace everything alone and disappear?

What if you don’t even give me a chance to regret? If you leave like this, I, I…

“-Helena!”

Eugene sat up abruptly like someone pulled from water and breathed heavily. Walter’s shouts, knocking on the firmly closed door, immediately pierced his ears.

“Your Grace! Your Grace! Are you alright? Please open the door!”

Walter’s voice was quite desperate. As if there were someone about to die in the room, as if this room that was chillingly alone was filled with water.

He must have let out another unsightly scream. Eugene was relieved that he had locked the door beforehand. He wiped his sweat-soaked face and called toward the door.

“…Don’t make unnecessary noise and withdraw.”

Only he should see himself in such a state. He couldn’t show anyone his miserable appearance like a drowned rat.

Walter persistently asked several more times despite Eugene’s command, but Eugene maintained silence. Eventually Walter had no choice but to give up to his master’s stubbornness, and dawn broke that way.

Eugene waited for the sun to rise completely before leaving his room. As soon as he opened the door, Walter Agyle was the first thing he saw. The old knight was asleep crouched against the wall.

Eugene took off his jacket and covered him with it, then resumed his staggering steps.

As he stepped onto the street, the cold wind struck his cheeks. The northern winter was among the empire’s harshest climates. But it was nothing compared to the chill he had felt alone all night.

Eugene simply had to go to Partren. He had to go and confirm that she was safe. Whether she was crying, whether she was looking for someone to pour out her resentment to.

He had to go, stand before her, wipe her tears if she cried, and kneel to receive her resentment if she resented him.