TRL 14

Chapter 14

“Come in.”

The one who opened the door and entered was Leonhardt. His expression looked tense, as if he were in a hurry.

Considering that the night before she had been out of her mind, doing nothing but crying until she fainted, he must have had a lot he wanted to ask. So much so that he had come as soon as morning broke.

Lilieta held up a card with a four-leaf clover stuck to it and spoke.

“You know this, right?”

“Rita.”

“Actually… it wasn’t a test you could ‘pass,’ was it?”

Leonhardt’s eyes fixed on the tiny, old card that looked as if it might crumble to dust.

I found this! Leon, you have to pass the exam!

“At the time, you were preparing for your academy graduation exam. The graduation exam doesn’t have pass or fail—there are only rankings. I didn’t know that back then, so I thought it was like the academy entrance exam you took before, or the knight order entrance exam Rich took. I never imagined there could be a test without passing or failing.”

Leonhardt’s eyes widened little by little. Smiling, Lilieta continued.

“So I wrote ‘pass,’ and instead of correcting me, you just laughed and said you’d definitely pass, then kissed my cheek. It was only after you left that Rich teased me and told me I’d written the card wrong.”

“…!”

“It’s the first time since that day, Leon.”

Lilieta closed the matchbox and held it out to him.

“Because… before you even came back from the academy, I disappeared.”

Her voice trembled slightly as emotion surged up.

Leonhardt couldn’t continue speaking, nor could he take the matchbox. Staring wide-eyed, he drew in a rough breath and finally spoke in a voice that trembled even more than hers.

“Liri, your m-memory…”

“Yeah. I remember everything now. All of it.”

“My God.”

Leonhardt staggered as he stepped toward her. His large arms wrapped tightly around her.

“Liri, you—Liri…”

“Mm.”

Lilieta didn’t avoid him anymore. Holding the matchbox, she hugged him back.

It had been ten years.

She heard the sound of stifled sobbing close to her ear, and her shoulder slowly grew damp. Rita let out a thin, long sigh.

“You know… you were right. I really was Lilieta. I forgot everything… and couldn’t even recognize my own family.”

Clutching tightly to the eldest brother she had forgotten, she murmured softly.

“Our family never abandoned me, but I kept resenting them, thinking I’d been thrown away without knowing anything. If I’d known everyone was desperately searching for me like this… I’m sorry. I misunderstood.”

“It’s okay. That kind of thing doesn’t matter.”

Leonhardt replied in a broken voice, endlessly stroking her hair.

“You can resent us as much as you want. You’re back—like this, you’re back… what could matter more than that?”

“…Yeah.”

Leaning her head against his chest, Lilieta whispered.

“I finally came home, big brother.”

“…!”

Leonhardt could no longer speak. His large body collapsed against the embrace of his little sister, barely half his size.

Ten years since the youngest disappeared. Ten years since the happy, perfect family had fallen apart.

Between a fragile mother, a father rotting away inside, and a younger brother being destroyed by guilt, the eldest son—who alone had held on while pretending to be fine—was finally able to let it all pour out.

The longing he had endured without showing it, because he was less sorrowful than his mother, less burdened than his father, and less tormented than his younger brother.

The news he heard the moment he returned to the birch castle after finishing his academy graduation exam.

The day the doll and sweets he’d meant to give her—saying he’d done well on the exam thanks to her four-leaf clover—slipped from his limp hands and scattered across the floor.

The tears he had held back ever since that day.

Because he couldn’t fall apart in front of his mother, sobbing in despair; his father, vacant and broken; and his younger brother, pale with shock.

“Liri, Liri… I—I missed you so much too. I couldn’t believe you were gone. Thank you… thank you for coming back alive…”

Lilieta was startled to see her once-straightforward, dignified eldest brother clinging to her and breaking down in tears, but she didn’t panic. Quietly, she held him close.

She understood without words what he had endured and what he had supported himself with all this time.

With reddened eyes, Leonhardt hurried off to send a letter to the duke.

The duke—unable to bring himself to meet Lilieta because of the possibility that she might look like his daughter yet not truly be his daughter—had gone to his townhouse in the capital.

So he really was avoiding me.

He did have business to attend to in the capital, but the bigger reason was probably that he feared he wouldn’t be able to stay calm if he saw Lilieta in person.

“Father went to the Mage Tower in the capital to look into information about black magic. That was because Richart said you might have been possessed through black magic… If we send a letter, he’ll come back right away, but it’ll still take a few days.”

“Mother has taken to her bed. Entering the lake must have been very hard on her body. She’s taken her medicine and is sleeping now… but she kept asking for you, so let’s go together later.”

“Richart slipped out again. Still, he usually comes home by nightfall… Now that you’re back, he’ll probably get himself together.”

“Liri, there’s so much I want to hear from you and so much I want to ask—how you’ve been all this time, what happened that night… But I feel bad making you repeat the same story over and over, so let’s hear it together when the whole family’s here. It won’t be an easy story to tell.”

Saying he would take care of everything and that she should just rest, he left.

Though he looked stern on the outside, her eldest brother—always kind and considerate to Lilieta—was unchanged even after ten years.

I’m the one who’s changed.

The pure, innocent girl who had grown up seeing only beautiful things, loved by good people, was gone.

Lilieta, who had lived twelve years as Rita Pascal, was far more accustomed to the filth of the world and the ugliness of people.

She no longer buried herself in emotions for long, nor was she easily swayed by them. She had survived in an environment that didn’t allow such luxuries.

Why did I follow them that night?

As her memories returned, Rita recalled what happened that night. She was angry at her younger self, yet at the same time she understood.

I was just a naive child. I didn’t have a single friend, so I was even more vulnerable to kids my age. Getting angry now won’t change anything…

There was something else she needed to do now.

“I-I’m Hannah… f-from today on, I-I’ll be serving you as a maid of the ducal household…”

The auburn-haired maid spoke through tears—the one who had kidnapped her that night.

She wasn’t the real culprit. There’s no way a twelve-year-old orphan, taken in as a maid after losing her single mother, could have done this alone. And her condition that day was strange, too…

She must have been controlled by magic or something similar, which meant there was a high chance she remembered nothing. The fact that she’d continued working as a maid all this time supported that.

Still, she had to be questioned.

To find out why she had gone missing and ended up possessing the body of a girl who looked like “Hannah,” living as “Rita Pascal,” she needed to uncover the cause and reason.

For now, Hannah was the only clue.

What kind of person was Pascal, anyway? Even if he was a great mage, kidnapping souls from another world? Is that even possible? Did he have accomplices in this world?

Even if it were possible, why go to the trouble of manipulating memories and possessing an orphan’s body with a kidnapped soul?

Was it simply to create a high-performance weapon? Then wouldn’t it be far easier and faster to make machines or golems? Was there some reason he had to use such a complex, troublesome method?

And why her, of all people?

Were the other Pascals’ children cases like hers as well? Then… then maybe—

If other Pascals die… do they return to their original bodies, like I did?

Suddenly, a maxim Pascal had taught his children came to mind. As if entranced, Rita recited it aloud.

“Do not fear death. Your death shall become the seed of hope.”

Did it mean this?

That they shouldn’t be afraid because when they die, they simply return to their original world, their original bodies?

No way… really?

Were they all kidnapped from the same world as her? Or from different worlds?

If they were from the same world, if they truly returned to their original bodies after death, then might she be able to meet the Pascals again here?

Our squad members wouldn’t have died, so I won’t see them… but maybe I could meet the ones who died long ago. As long as they weren’t taken from different worlds…

They were all just hypotheses, but they were possibilities she couldn’t ignore. There were mountains of things to investigate and verify.

One step at a time. First…

Rita was about to ask the butler to bring Hannah. But before she could even call for him, someone knocked at the door.

“Miss… it’s Hannah. M-may I come in?”