Chapter 33

Regina shuddered at the suggestion to go with them. Until now, she had been too overwhelmed by Sasha’s aura to even open her mouth. She barely managed to shake her head in refusal.

“N-no! I don’t want to!”

Sasha tried to soothe her as if understanding her completely.

“It seems you’re still influenced by the memories of the first human you absorbed, having been born not long ago. But it’ll be different after you molt. Your true personality will emerge. Don’t be too afraid.”

“I said no! Stop it!”

Sasha reached out to Regina again, but she screamed, shaking off their hand despite her trembling. They hesitated at her firm rejection. Normally, they would have dragged her along with their power. However, Sasha, who was in an unusually good mood, accepted her refusal without protest.

“…Very well, I can’t force you. If you need help, come find me anytime.”

A newly born Black Fairy is bound to suffer from hunger. They thought it was only a matter of time before she would seek them out when she couldn’t bear it anymore. With this in mind, Sasha took out a piece of paper from their pocket and wrote down their contact information.

“…”

But Regina turned her head away, showing no intention of accepting even that. Sasha gave a wry smile, slipped the paper into her coat pocket, and straightened up.

“Well then, have a good evening.”

Regina, still curled up and shaking, didn’t raise her head even at Sasha’s farewell. They looked at her for a moment before turning away.

They couldn’t understand why a newly born Black Fairy was with a half-breed fairy who hunted them, but it didn’t matter. The Black Fairy would soon succumb to hunger and seek them out, and they could kill the half-breed anytime.

A colder wind began to blow in the street engulfed in pitch-black darkness. The tail of Sasha’s coat fluttered slightly in the wind, then wrapped around their body in an instant, making them disappear without a trace.

* * *

“A-are they gone?”

She was genuinely terrified that they might suddenly turn violent if offended by her refusal. Regina remained frozen for a long time even after Sasha’s presence had vanished, then carefully turned to survey her surroundings. When the quiet street showed no movement in the darkness, she finally let out a sigh of relief.

“Haaaa. That was really scary…”

Her arms and legs were still trembling. She grabbed a darkened streetlamp and struggled to her feet, then cautiously approached where Noah had fallen. She was afraid he might already be dead, lying there without the slightest movement, but she had to check.

“Hey, Mr. Noah. Are you okay? You’re not really dead, are you?”

With shaky legs, she approached Noah and gently shook his arm, which was lying face down. But there was no response. Regina bit her lip hard and took another step closer to shake him more vigorously.

-Splat.

Her shoe touched a viscous liquid. And Regina immediately realized it was Noah’s blood. He had lost enough blood to form a puddle.

“…Mmph!”

She reflexively held her breath and quickly covered her mouth and nose. Only now did she become aware of this intense sweet scent, having been distracted by tension until now. The overpowering sweetness filling her nose and mouth involuntarily made her retch. It was such a strong scent that it brought tears to her eyes.

“Mr. Noah, wake up! Mr. Noah!”

Regina took out a handkerchief from her pocket, tied it to cover her nose and mouth, then shook Noah’s body again. At that moment, his limp hand twitched slightly.

“Mr. Noah! Oh my, you’re alive! J-just wait a moment. I’ll quickly call for help! No, I should stop the bleeding first.”

Seeing this, Regina hurriedly stood up. Then she sat back down and pulled out clothes from her luggage, wrapping them around Noah’s body. It was too dark to see where and how he was injured, but she thought it would be better to try to stop the bleeding like this anyway.

-Thud, roll roll…

While wrapping the clothes, she must have hit the flap of Noah’s coat pocket, causing something to fall to the ground. Regina unconsciously looked in that direction and froze. The clouds that had been hiding the moon cleared, illuminating the pocket watch that had fallen to the ground.

The silver pocket watch gleaming in the moonlight.

[‘I fed your blood to the watch. This will let me know wherever you go. Now you’ll be caught quickly even if you run away.’]

Suddenly, Noah’s voice echoed in her ears. Regina, who had been stopping Noah’s wounds, startled and pulled her hands away. What am I doing right now? Why am I desperately trying to save this person?

[‘Will you come with me? Or should I kill you right here?’]

Right, the man before her eyes was someone who wanted to kill her. Hadn’t he even fed her blood to the pocket watch so he could kill her anytime if she turned into a monster unable to resist hunger?

“…”

This might be the only chance to escape. As soon as that thought occurred to her, Regina hesitantly stood up. The pocket watch, kicked by her foot, made a clinking sound. Her eyes traced the viscous blood pooled at her feet, Noah lying face down in it, to his pale fingers.

[‘When you can’t resist hunger and eat a human and molt, that’s when I’ll hunt you down, and that’ll be the end.’]

When she recalled Noah’s voice once more, Regina found herself picking up the fallen pocket watch. The watch she had snatched up felt unusually cold. With trembling hands, she clutched it tightly and looked at Noah lying there.

She wanted to live.

An intense urge came over her. No, it was the instinct of a living being.

One step, two steps. Regina, moving away from Noah, realized she was running before she knew it. Clutching the pocket watch like a lifeline.

Hesitation held her back, but the desire to live shook it off.

The stark white moon floating in the pitch-black sky. As if that half-cut moon was the only exit, Regina ran frantically. If she just took this watch, Noah wouldn’t be able to find her. As hope of survival welled up, Regina’s steps became lighter. It felt as if someone was pushing her from behind.

Couldn’t she just leave like this and go far away? She could run to the train station and take the first train out of here. She felt an amazingly liberating sensation. Even though she hadn’t been confined until now, it felt like she was breaking out into the world for the first time, as if she could finally breathe freely.

-Thump!

It was then that the pitch-black view in front of her suddenly became bright. Regina squinted at the too-bright light, then stopped abruptly, startled by an impact on her shoulder. Stumbling back a few steps, she looked up with a bewildered expression to see a woman brushing off her clothes irritably.

“Oh my, you startled me! What are you doing, suddenly running like that!”

“…Ah.”

Before she could even say “I’m sorry,” the woman frowned, glared at Regina, and walked past. It felt like her eyes had suddenly opened wide. As soon as she left the street, she could hear people’s voices and the sound of carriages as if by magic. Looking back, Capsen Street with its broken streetlights was still shrouded in darkness.

Regina, who had stopped, moved to the side of the road to avoid the people bustling about for the year-end. Perhaps because reason had momentarily returned, she suddenly hesitated, holding back her feet that wanted to move forward.

Would Noah die if she ran away like this?

-Now that the fairy’s power has disappeared, wouldn’t someone passing by find and save him?

But what if no one passes by? What if he dies because of that?

-Honestly, it’s not my concern. He tried to kill me too.

But if I leave someone dying, wouldn’t I be contributing to his death? And when I make such a choice, will I really not regret it? No, rather than regret…

-I want to live.

After making such a choice, could I go back to who I was before? To the ‘Regina Evelyn’ I knew?

-…

The voice in her mind fell silent. Regina looked down at her feet with a confused expression. Until just now, she had seen only one path under the moonlight, but now she saw dozens of paths divided by the streetlight.

She looked back at the path she had run with the expression of a lost child.

Regina wanted to live. But not just to exist—she wanted to live as Regina Evelyn, as a person. Only then did she realize that not only her memories up to now, but also her future choices would shape who Regina Evelyn was.

* * *

-Plop, plop plop.

Is it raining?

That’s what he thought. But the droplets fell only intermittently and were lukewarm at that. As Noah painfully opened his eyes, awakened by the moisture falling on his face, he saw Regina’s tear-stained face blurrily above him.

“…?”

And he realized she was struggling to drag his body somewhere. Sobbing loudly, she stubbornly refused to let go of his heavy body, dragging it along.

Even in his pain-induced haze, Noah was puzzled. He was sure he had felt her running away, so why was she here? Even while unconscious, he had sensed her presence and noticed Regina running far away. He had heard the sound of her footsteps, running frantically, overwhelmed by the desire to live.

‘Could it be… she came back?’

Noah quietly looked at Regina’s face through his barely open eyes. Though her face was a mess from crying, she was holding onto him so tightly her fingers had turned white. In that sight, he could sense her internal struggle against the urge to run away.

As Noah watched her, his eyelids became unbearably heavy, and he closed his eyes again.

She could have just left me and gone, how foolish.

Though that thought crossed his mind, it was only for a moment before he sank into sleep as if sinking into deep water.