ERTHMB Chapter 99

The Stranger

“What’s wrong with how I look? Is your appearance fine then?”

Helena’s wavering gaze swept down over Eugene.

He looked just like during their newlywed days. Covered in honed energy as if he had just returned from the battlefield, and wounds scattered here and there.

Some of them even looked like they had been there for a while. The surfaces were rough, left untreated and neglected.

But even then, he had never worn an eyepatch.

“What happened to your eye?”

Helena asked, trying to ignore the worry that inevitably seeped in. Eugene’s movement to grab her again stopped.

“It’s nothing serious.”

“That doesn’t look like a ‘nothing serious’ reaction.”

“How would you know?”

“Isn’t it because we knew each other too well that we ended up like this now?”

“Ha.”

The conversation was cut off by Eugene’s hollow breath. As if his troubled insides had spilled out, a gust of wind suddenly blew.

Helena’s hair was swept together following the wind. On the exposed nape of her neck was a clear bite mark.

Eugene’s gaze immediately fixed on that spot. A rather cute hypothesis sprouting with reasonable grounds.

A man and woman driven to extreme circumstances, primal emotions that would have boiled more intensely than usual, bonds that would have bloomed while overcoming crises together.

The shock was so devastating that he wasn’t even angry. Eugene revealed his twisted inner thoughts without reservation.

“So you’ve been stuck with that guy all this time? I mistakenly thought you two going on vacation to a place no one could find was a shipwreck. Sorry for interfering.”

“I told you not to speak recklessly.”

“I knew enough, so now are you drawn to a man you don’t know?”

“Why wouldn’t I know?”

“You can’t remember.”

This time Helena stopped breathing.

She had always struggled to keep up even for a moment by Eugene’s side. That’s why she had never brought up stories from the past…

“How do you know that?”

“Because we knew each other too well, that’s why we ended up like this, right?”

Eugene threw back the exact words from before. In front of his sarcasm, Helena muttered quietly.

Right, you know well.

You had to know. It was you who told me to remember clearly with your whole body.

Helena changed her pale expression and counterattacked.

“Why, am I not allowed to do that? You built a villa for a woman you didn’t even know and went there every night to whisper to her. That you loved her.”

“I never did that.”

“…You’re really shameless.”

Eugene’s expression without a single waver was frustrating. Just facing him like this required great resolve on her part. Yet he looked like choosing a breakfast menu would be more troublesome.

Eugene rather pressed her as if he couldn’t understand Helena.

“How can you, Helen. How can Nata… how can that woman replace you?”

“I thought so too.”

After a brief pause, Helena immediately added.

“…At first.”

There was room for interpretation at the end of her words. Eugene narrowed the distance, grasping Helena’s neck where the bite mark remained.

“Speak so I can understand.”

Helena responded without extinguishing the fire in her eyes.

“You’re the one who should speak clearly. I don’t understand any of it. What was it if not love for Natasha?”

“…”

Eugene faced off in silence before barely moving his lips.

“…Out of pity.”

“…What?”

“I did it because I pitied that woman.”

Eugene’s grip tightened on the swollen wound. Helena frowned from the throbbing pain. Or perhaps because of his absurd answer.

“So pity is love to you.”

A sentence dropped coldly. It was a direct hit that properly pierced through Eugene.

Cracks finally appeared on Eugene’s smooth face.

“You attached the name of love to that shallow gaze that stands on superiority and looks down on others. Then keep pitying.”

Helena scratched away Eugene’s hand attached to her nape. The scratch from her nails stung terribly, but if she could just tear his warmth away from herself. She wouldn’t mind if flesh came off with it.

“Because I don’t want to be seen by you in that way anymore.”

“Hel-“

Eugene hastily opened his mouth. But his breathing was blocked and no voice came out.

It was because the words that coldly pierced his ears hit the mark.

Just as she said, love for him had started from pity.

****

It was the day approaching a week since Natasha had made the villa her nest. It was also the date originally promised for her departure after receiving treatment and recovery.

Eugene held the words to send her away in his mouth. Without spilling a single word, keeping them contained, he knocked on her door.

“Natasha.”

“…”

No answer came back, but he opened the door. An unfamiliar scent greeted him first. It wasn’t the smell of new wood and marble that should have come from a just-completed mansion. It was a warm human scent.

Natasha’s scent, a bitter amber fragrance.

Natasha was in the middle of the large bed. Like a small bird that would die immediately if sent away. Sensing Eugene’s presence, her curled-up body rustily rose.

“Your Grace…?”

Was there still fever remaining? Her voice was extremely frail and tender. Eugene suppressed his uncomfortable feelings and sat beside her.

“I came to tell you I won’t be able to come anymore. You should also leave as soon as dawn breaks. I’ll prepare enough travel expenses.”

“Yes, I’ll do that… cough, cough!”

Natasha suddenly burst into violent coughing. Her thin body swayed like a dry branch. A heavy sigh escaped through Eugene’s lips.

“…Do you have somewhere to go when you leave here?”

Natasha shook her head. Eugene eventually swallowed his words.

“Since your body seems not fully recovered yet, stay a bit longer. If you need medical examination, tell me anytime.”

“Thank you. Cough, really, thank you, Your Grace.”

Eugene laid down Natasha, who was barely controlling her cough. And as he turned to leave, Natasha caught him.

“Your Grace… couldn’t you leave one more thing behind?”

What was that weak touch pulling at his sleeve that made Eugene turn around?

“Is there something more you want?”

Using the hand that caught Eugene as support, Natasha raised her body again. She maintained eye contact the entire time she quietly rose, enough to hear the rustling sound of wrinkled blankets.

The continued gaze began to melt stickily like sticky sugar. Even their alternating breaths were mixing with sweetness.

Just as Eugene was hesitating whether he should listen to her words or not, Natasha put her hand in Eugene’s jacket pocket and pulled.

“Your Grace.”

Eugene was naturally drawn and leaned over the bed with his arm supporting his upper body. A feather-like voice tickled his nose bridge.

“I want to pick up Your Grace’s night. Just once today, just one day. Please drop it for me.”

Sweet air was suddenly blown into his head. It was heat that had begun seeping into his mind from a while ago.

It was melting his whole body moistly, gnawing at his earlobes. Desire, swallow, devour. It whispered endlessly. It was some command he couldn’t and shouldn’t disobey.

Eugene slowly lowered his head over Natasha’s face. Natasha’s arms crawled up like snakes, wrapped around his nape and pulled him down. His vision was filled entirely with pink smoke.

How long had it been since he felt such satisfaction? Eugene helplessly fell into the sweet pit.

Perhaps because he had drunk the offered alcohol without control, his consciousness gradually faded.

That was Eugene’s last memory of that night.

****

Pity. Yes, he had pitied her. Felt compassion. But.

“What does that matter?”

“…What?”

Eugene grasped her shaken-off fist. He didn’t want to hear Helena’s words anymore. Didn’t want to know.

“Whether it’s pity or love. Is that what’s important? You are Helena Evergale. The mistress of Evergale. My wife.”

The facts were already decided anyway and there just needed to be someone to accept them. That someone was Helena Evergale. What more explanation and clarification was needed?

Nothing else was within his consideration. Eugene willingly passed off his base inner thoughts.

“What do you want, Helena? What, do you want revenge? Drive Natasha to the ends of the earth, cut out the tongues of those who insulted you, have me beg for forgiveness?”

“…”

“Say anything. If you want it, I’ll even make my mother kneel before you.”

Helena’s lips wavered bitterly.

“…If I had wanted such things, I wouldn’t have left in the first place.”

“Then what exactly do you want?”

Helena looked at the man who had pitied her, the man who had once been her husband, with pitying eyes.

“Maybe my words last time weren’t clear enough.”

It was a voice that sounded affectionate at first glance. The face that held that voice was even more so. He couldn’t distinguish whether it was resolute, resigned, or joyful.

“There’s no way I could want anything from you.”

So Eugene found it hard to digest. Even her calling his name that followed.

“Eugene.”

Even the name that would have been uttered hundreds, thousands of times in her voice. It was all too difficult.

Eugene now rather wanted to run away. If Helena couldn’t stop talking, if his ears couldn’t immediately become deaf, he wanted to disappear like this.

But from Helena’s mouth.

“There’s no longer a place for you by my side. I don’t need it either.”

Farewell came out so easily once again.

She was exactly like a winter lake without a single ripple. Even facing her torn-apart self. Without a single disturbance, she was terribly calm.

“When I left you at Evergale, that time.”

“Helena. Please.”

“We were already finished then. So please go back now.”

With such an affectionate voice, with such a tender face.

“Because I’ve erased all of you.”

What should I do when you bid farewell like this?

It felt like half his face had collapsed. He couldn’t make any expression. Eugene spoke like a final struggle.

“Because I brought in Natasha, you eventually found someone to replace me too.”

Please say that’s right. Rather, say it’s something like that. That you forcibly found a man to fit in my place.

For a death struggle, it was a crude wish. Small and insignificant like a coin thrown into a wishing fountain. Helena’s lake was still calm.

But soon quiet ripples spread out. Helena, who had been crying while laughing, smiled clearly. It was a smile like a flower bud bursting.

The moment he captured that in his eyes, Eugene thought the other half of his face had also collapsed. Because it wasn’t a ripple caused by him.

“Helena!”

The guild captain of Partren strode over and embraced Helena tightly. The relief she exhaled was similar to what he had made.

But Helena didn’t push her away. She only embraced back the woman who had driven her to the brink.

“You damn calf, who told you to be rescued? Are you happy turning others’ insides into black ash? Did you forget what your motto is? Try that one more time. I’ll kick you out immediately.”

“You’re not in a position to say that, Gelda. Who do you think I learned from?”

“Anyway…”

Helena put a peaceful smile on her lips as if she had returned home.

“Are your trembling hands withdrawal symptoms right now, or from the joy of finding me?”

“Be quiet, only your mouth is alive.”

Soon a large man missing one hand and a man with blue hair tied up also approached and embraced her.

The silver-haired man was with them too. Air that felt like a completely different world circulated around them.

Eugene watched that scene standing as if nailed in place. It was truly a perfectly harmonious sight.

She had a new home. A home that wasn’t Evergale, where there was no place for him.

Eugene thought the ground he stood on was stretching, taking Helena far away from him.

The stranger was himself.