🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 29
Opaniel lifted his feet and looked quietly into the transparent coffin at Bellariel’s body—her true body.
The body, emptied of its soul, was being maintained by his power.
“The most perfect creation.”
When Bellariel was born, this was what Heaven had said about her.
However, she was destined to be abandoned from the moment she was born—but she possessed the intelligence and power to overcome that fate.
In the vast darkness of the universe, there must always be a brilliant light on the opposite side.
Even in the fact that she was abandoned by her parents, there was a definite advantage.
Since she had no bonds with her parents, she placed little importance on exchanges with the living.
Because she didn’t know what that meant.
When Opaniel first went to meet her, Bellariel said to him:
“Mind your own business.”
She was more independent than anyone and unaffected by relationships.
As a child, the only things she paid even the slightest attention to were exceptionally sparkling stones or flowers with beautiful shapes.
Those were the things that had stayed by her side instead of her mother.
Even that interest faded once she had tasted the thrill of victory; thereafter, she cared only about winning.
A warrior untouched by emotions.
Could there be a more ideal warrior than that?
There were no errors in the operations Bellariel undertook.
That’s why, for this operation, he thought she might not be the right candidate.
This mission—to save a world teetering on the brink of 99.9% destruction—was beyond what the Bellariel he knew could handle.
“So, Bella. I still can’t believe you’re the right one for this mission.”
Opaniel flopped down right there.
Bellariel muttered about him coming and going as he pleased, but maintaining the soulless body of Bellariel and observing a world covered in demonic energy required an absurd amount of power.
“Well, let’s see how you’ve been doing for a change.”
The last time he saw Bellariel, she had told some human children to pick four-leaf clovers.
“You have to get along with the humans. Only then can this operation succeed.”
Muttering with concern, Opaniel’s gaze began to perceive Bellariel’s surroundings.
The sun was setting.
Bellariel was in the middle of a crimson forest, holding a bouquet of flowers in her arms.
Even though she already had plenty, she bent over, picking through the wildflowers as if deciding whether more were needed.
She seemed to be selecting the ones that looked prettiest to her.
“Bella.”
Her pink eyes, gazing down at the flowers, sharpened in an instant.
[Ah, yes. It’s been a while.]
“What are you doing? What are all those flowers for?”
[They’re gifts, gifts.]
Then she bent again and pulled a single flower from the bunch.
“Gifts? For whom? Have you gotten close to Kalterion? What about the other humans?”
At that moment, a human named Kyle quietly approached.
[Madame Viscountess, please have a sip of water.]
He offered a bottle of water to Bellariel.
Apparently accustomed to this, she drank it down, and Kyle handed her a handkerchief as well.
After she wiped her mouth with it, he naturally took back the handkerchief and water, and stood a few steps away with his hands behind his back.
“…Huh? When did you get this close to him?”
Bellariel furrowed her brows at Opaniel’s chattering voice near her ear as she took a deep breath.
[And the other humans? Kalterion?]
Having returned after a long absence, Opaniel questioned her about everything that had happened in detail.
[So? Have you truly made them your side?]
“My side?”
Bellariel thought about the current situation as she left the forest with the bouquet in her arms.
“I don’t know about that, but gifts seem to be the answer.”
[Gifts?]
“Everything has changed little by little since that day.”
[That day? The day you were told to pick four-leaf clovers? Did you really give them to the Viscount?]
Opaniel questioned whether such a thing could really change humans, but indeed, after that day, everything began to shift slowly.
First, most of the humans working in the castle started greeting her when they saw her.
“Good morning, Madam.”
“Good morning, Jane Miller.”
“Hello, Madam!”
“Hi, Hawk Bell.”
Honestly, responding to each greeting was tedious.
Moreover, she noticed that the number of humans she met seemed to be gradually increasing—as if they were waiting for her to pass by.
Life after that day also changed.
“Are you awake, Madam?”
The maids who had previously spoken nothing and merely did their work now behaved differently. One day, a maid appeared.
“M-Madam Viscountess! I-I brought some too!”
She was the mother of the youngest child who wanted to play with Kero.
“Susan Brown?”
The quietly moving maid froze in surprise.
“You remember my name?”
“I’m not Ron Brown’s mother?”
With a delighted smile, she spoke in an even gentler voice:
“I brought breakfast, Madam. Come, please, have your meal.”
But the breakfast she brought was unlike usual.
A steaming basket of bread, a silver tray piled with fruits, and bottles of colorful drinks filled the table.
“What about meat?”
But for Bellariel, a meal was merely a means of consuming calories.
So she always focused on eating energy-dense meat in large quantities at once.
“Clear all this small stuff and bring me steak.”
Susan smiled and spoke around it:
“First, have a sip of water. Then try this sweet fig. It’s so soft it splits when you touch it and melts in your mouth…”
“I said bring steak.”
After rambling, Susan finally brought the steak only when Bellariel got annoyed.
But she didn’t just stop there—Susan sat beside her, meddling.
“You’re only eating meat. That’s not good for your health.”
Bellariel tried to ignore her, focusing solely on eating, but Susan persisted.
“Just one bite of this fig…”
“No.”
“Oh, look at the color of this braised pear. It’s so delicious…”
“I won’t eat it.”
Unbeknownst to Bellariel, Susan had recently been struggling with her young son’s picky eating.
Perhaps because of that, seeing Bellariel eat only meat so persistently, she acted in a way she herself couldn’t fully understand.
“Hup.”
She pushed the fig into Bellariel’s open mouth.
Her habit of feeding her picky child had come out unconsciously.
Startled, the maid met Bellariel’s large pink eyes.
Bellariel thought she would never allow a human to force food into her mouth.
But this damned body—
gulp
She swallowed the soft, sweet fruit without hesitation.
The unusual sweetness, melting without chewing, spread across her mouth.
Her entire body shivered at the strange taste on her tongue.
“D-Delicious, isn’t it?”
Susan, clearly nervous, hesitated but offered another piece of fig. Her hand trembled slightly.
“Try putting food in my mouth again, and you’ll regret it.”
Bowing to Bellariel’s firm warning, Susan quietly tended to her meals from then on.
However, Susan had clearly seen it.
Bellariel, who had stubbornly eaten only meat, quietly take a fig and eat it.
Thinking of her young son, a pleased smile formed on Susan’s lips.
And, as if she had never been intimidated, she once again offered food to Bellariel.
“Try one more fig. This one is ripened to the point of softness, much sweeter than the previous one.”
Candied chestnuts, figs on yogurt, peaches preserved in honey, freshly picked apples from yesterday—
These foods were now regularly served at Bellariel’s table.
It was then, as she reflected on the recent changes around her, that she heard:
“M-Madam Viscountess!”
