Chapter 28
The baron, who followed the maid and discovered his baby in the corner room, did not punish the butler for disobeying his order. Instead, he smiled brightly as he fixed his gaze on the baby’s hair. He had just noticed that the baby’s short, newly growing hair was red.
That evening, feeling as if he had discovered a treasure, the baron moved the baby to the baroness’s room.
The Black Fairy watched as the baron gleefully locked the baby in a room filled with arsenic.
‘…If I devour the baron, I’ll absorb his memories too.’
She didn’t want to do that. She didn’t want to mix that man’s filthy memories with Mila’s. In the end, what she chose was the poison the baron had collected.
Tracing Mila’s memories, she opened one of the glass bottles hidden in the study’s cabinet and poured it into her shadow. Then, as the baron was happily drinking tea while pondering how to deal with the baby, she extended her shadow from the ceiling and poured the poison into his teacup.
Watching the baron writhe in agony and crawl towards the door didn’t bring much satisfaction. Mila was already beyond the point of no return.
“Ow…”
The baby woke up to the baron’s scream. She covered the baby with her shadow to block out the sound, then gently stroked its soft cheek and smiled. The baby smiled back with utter happiness at Mila’s smile. It was a face full of love.
As she faced the baby, the baron’s hand, which had been scratching at his throat from the searing pain, lost its strength and dropped to the floor.
The devil that Mila couldn’t escape no matter how hard she struggled while alive had died so easily it was almost laughable.
So fleeting.
* * *
Tears suddenly fell, streaking across Regina’s cheeks as she stared at the now empty birdcage. Although not all the memories, the brief glimpse of Mila’s recollections was heartbreaking. Regina squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them and wiped her eyes with one hand before looking at her palm.
“…I absorbed it again. This time I could see the memories right away without dreaming.”
She could clearly feel the strength entering her body. Unlike last time when it disappeared instantly like a trickle of water on parched earth, this time it remained in her body, albeit faintly.
Moreover, Regina still recognized herself as Regina.
Mila’s memories didn’t mix in and cause confusion. They simply appeared naturally, as if she were listening to someone else’s story. Regina still didn’t feel hunger, and rather felt as if her body had become lighter.
“Why am I different from them? I’ve never felt the extreme hunger that Mila felt in her memories.”
Moreover, unlike the Black Fairy that had Mila’s appearance from the start, Regina didn’t initially have the appearance of ‘Regina Evelyn’. She only had the memories.
Regina looked at her face reflected in the mirror hanging on the reception room wall. Her eyes were still a transparent purple. As she traced her eyes in the mirror, Regina suddenly wondered. Why was she alone different? Could she be something other than a Black Fairy?
-BANG!
Regina, lost in thought while looking in the mirror, jumped in surprise at the sudden loud noise and turned around. Noah stood in front of the half-torn reception room door, holding a pistol. Regina’s gaze was involuntarily drawn to his gun by his fierce demeanor.
“…I definitely felt the presence of a Black Fairy just now, but where did it disappear to?”
“Ah, I found it. But…”
It seemed Noah had sensed the energy when the Black Fairy was absorbed into Regina. Regina’s shoulders tensed at his question, and she swallowed hard, hesitating to answer. Noah’s blue eyes narrowed with suspicion as he scanned the room once before settling on Regina.
-Thud
“Ouch…!”
Intimidated by that sharp gaze, Regina stumbled backward and hit her head on the mirror right behind her. Seeing Regina clutch the back of her head and bend over from the unexpectedly painful impact, Noah relaxed his guard and asked disdainfully:
“…What on earth are you doing?”
“Ow, that hurts. I was just a bit startled… Um, the Black Fairy that was here was absorbed by me. I thought it would be aggressive like the one we saw on the train, but it wasn’t at all.”
“What? Absorbed?”
It was an unexpected answer. But the completely vanished presence of the Black Fairy indicated that Regina’s words were true.
“Yes, and it wasn’t in the form of the baroness, but was sitting in this birdcage in the shape of a bird.”
“A bird?”
Noah looked at the empty birdcage Regina was pointing to, then approached, putting the pistol he was holding back into his breast pocket. Catching this out of the corner of her eye, Regina secretly let out a sigh of relief.
“If it had transformed into a bird, does that mean it devoured a bird after the baroness? Why? That wouldn’t have satisfied its hunger anyway.”
“It was to protect Mila’s daughter. It was afraid that if it absorbed other people, the Black Fairy’s nature would grow stronger and it wouldn’t be able to protect the baby anymore, so it endured.”
“To suppress instinct because of mere absorbed human memories, how could that be possible…?”
Noah peered into the empty birdcage with a strange expression after hearing Regina’s words. Was that the kind of hunger that could be endured just by trying? Then he paused and turned to look at Regina.
“You… Did you read its memories as soon as you absorbed the Black Fairy this time?”
Regina, who was about to explain all the details of the incident, stopped at Noah’s sharp observation and nodded.
“Yes, last time I seemed to see it through a dream, but this time as soon as it touched my hand, its form dissipated and the memories came with it. I wonder what was different this time?”
“…Who knows.”
It wasn’t that the conditions for reading memories had changed from last time, but that Regina’s power had grown. Noah immediately noticed this. It was an absurdly rapid growth rate compared to how he slowly built up power by collecting the essences of dozens of Black Fairies.
‘She absorbs the same Black Fairies and even grows from it…’
He couldn’t even begin to fathom what kind of being Regina was. He wasn’t sure if it was alright to just leave her be, but he also wasn’t particularly inclined to kill a young fairy that hadn’t even killed humans and consequently couldn’t even molt.
Maybe he should have eliminated her right from the start.
“I can’t even ask Ezra about this… Damn, what a pain.”
Noah, his head growing complicated, grumbled quietly as he left the reception room. He hadn’t noticed that until now, he had never once hesitated to eliminate a Black Fairy.
Regina followed Noah and shared what she had been thinking.
“Um, Noah! So, I was wondering, could I possibly be a hybrid fairy like you? If we assume that my ability to absorb the power and memories of Black Fairies is actually because I’m a hybrid, it would be easier to understand, don’t you think?”
If that were the case, he wouldn’t have needed to worry like this. Noah answered as he practically tore open the tilted reception room door.
“No, if you were a hybrid fairy like me, I would have noticed more easily. The power I absorb doesn’t react to humans. The same goes for hybrids. If you were a hybrid, you wouldn’t have felt any pain.”
But Regina clearly felt the pain of her heart burning that time. Recalling that memory, Regina was disappointed that her glimmer of hope had disappeared, but she tried not to show it. Still, finding it hard to accept immediately, she asked another question.
“But you haven’t met every hybrid fairy in the world, right? Couldn’t there be cases you don’t know about? You said it’s extremely difficult and almost miraculous for hybrid fairies to be born in the first place. So how can you be so certain that I’m not one?”
“You…”
Because you’re not. Noah wanted to say that, but belatedly met Regina’s eyes. Seeing the desperation in them, he found himself unintentionally equivocating.
“Well… maybe. It’s possible.”
“Right! So there’s a chance? Yes, I’ve had a vague feeling that I might be like you, Noah.”
“Ah, yes.”
You’re free to imagine. She had already decided on the answer she wanted to hear. Noah, finding it bothersome to explain further, responded halfheartedly. Leaving Regina greatly reassured by his noncommittal answer, he moved into the hallway.
“…Another futile effort, it seems.”
Noah looked out the window of the now-darkened mansion, listening to the sound of Regina’s footsteps following him. He needed to prepare to leave now. His purpose here had already vanished.
The red sunset that had been gradually setting suddenly disappeared, and a half-cut white moon filled the pitch-black window.
* * *
Early the next morning, Regina left the mansion with Noah. He immediately had a servant call for a carriage, which they boarded. They were heading to the train station to go to their next destination.
“Where are we going next?”
“Waah, waah.”
“We need to head north, but we’ll pass through the capital in the center. There’s no direct train line going north from Epola territory.”
“Waaah, waaah.”
“Pardon? What did you say? I couldn’t hear.”
“…Can’t we do something about that crying? I’m going to lose my mind at this rate.”
Noah said, pressing his fingertips to his brow in frustration at the baby’s cries interrupting their conversation.
“I-I’m sorry, sir.”
The maid holding Mila’s baby hunched her shoulders and hurriedly tried to soothe it, but the crying only grew louder. Cold sweat ran down the maid’s back as she tensed up, Noah’s expression quite sharp.
“It’s a baby, crying is normal! But look how tiny its cheeks and fingers are. See? Aren’t they chubby?”
Regina, seemingly just curious, gently pinched one of the baby’s fingers between her index finger and thumb. She called Noah to show him, and he nodded.
“Yes, chubby like a caterpillar.”
“C-cater…”
Regina looked down at the baby’s tiny finger she was holding, unable to immediately deny Noah’s words. A chubby caterpillar, it might not be wrong after all. Still, feeling that expression was too much, Regina pouted her lips and carefully touched the baby’s cheek.
“Kyaaah!”
The baby reached out to Regina, who was moved by the soft, warm sensation, and smiled broadly. Finding it strangely touching, Regina firmly grasped that tiny hand.
“So, will this baby be with us until we reach the capital?”
“Yes, from what I’ve heard, this baby’s relatives are all close to being human scum. It’s better to take the baby with us and leave it at a facility run by the monastery in the capital, rather than leaving it in that mansion where nothing good would come of it.”
The moment she heard those words, Regina felt a pang in her heart. She couldn’t discern whether it was due to sympathy or because of Mila’s memories that she had seen. She just wished for this baby to be happy without any hardships.
“Hmm… Among ‘Regina Evelyn’s’ uncles, there’s one who holds the title of count. His territory is also close to the capital. I remember meeting him a few times when I was young, and both he and his wife were very dignified and kind.”
“And?”
Noah looked perplexed as Regina, who had been deep in thought while looking at the baby’s crying face, suddenly brought up her relatives.
