Chapter 194 : Chapter 194
Chapter 194: The Princess Cannot Sleep (5)
Like that, we saw Lilith's past through this ‘dream’.
Perhaps because we not only heard it as a story but also saw it with our own two eyes directly.
Or, maybe because this place is fundamentally a ‘dream’, we are feeling the emotions Lilith, the owner of the dream, feels together.
Perhaps that's why the first emotion I felt after seeing Lilith's past, although difficult to express in one word of course, if I had to express it... was mixed feelings.
It couldn't be helped, one wouldn't be able to say hastily.
Because it wasn't that there were no options.
Leaving everything else aside, just as she intended to do with him, the option of becoming Lily's mother even if she turned her back on the whole world... definitely existed.
Just that Lilith chose the option she thought could protect Lily more certainly instead of protecting her by her side as a mother.
Lilith thought that was right, and it might have actually been right.
Of course, it wasn't for outsiders like us to evaluate that choice.
However, leaving aside the right or wrong of that choice, at least I could feel how Lilith felt... so I had mixed feelings.
Surely the other companions felt the same as me, so no one could open their mouths easily.
“.......”
Even we feel this way, how would Lily, the person directly involved, feel?
Anyway, unlike Lilith's feelings which we could feel by seeing and hearing directly, Lily's feelings who felt that directly... I dared not fathom.
Lily was, in short, a person with many tears.
To exaggerate a little, should I say she was on the verge of tears at almost anything?
Especially, she was more so when others felt sadness or pain rather than things about herself.
I should say it's because she has a lot of ‘understanding’.
Actually, if I were to pick the person who can empathize with others' emotions most easily among us, it would definitely be Lily.
However, such Lily was just bowing her head right now.
She did not shed tears.
Just seeing that appearance, I could tell at once that she was feeling incredibly complex emotions right now.
At first, there must have been suspicion that Lilith was showing falsehood on purpose to conciliate her.
But from some moment, from the time she intuitively sensed that everything Lilith was saying and showing was truth... she had been in that state continuously.
How much time passed in that state?
“......Still.”
Suddenly, Lily opened her mouth cautiously.
“Do you... want revenge, on humans...?”
At that question, Lilith lowered her gaze slightly.
Just as Lily did until just now.
“I... don't know either.”
Then, she returned a very honest answer.
If she tried to reassure us on purpose, if she wanted to recover the relationship with Lily more easily, she could have just answered ‘no’.
“I don't know well anymore... what I wanted, what I should do.”
But Lilith answered honestly.
“At first... I wanted to take revenge on humans who took him away from me somehow.”
Therefore, I could know immediately that this too was sincerity mixed with no falsehood.
“But watching you grow up in that village... seeing them play the role of mother that I couldn't and take care of you with love... I came to think, maybe I was blinded by momentary vengeance and tried to turn the arrow to the wrong place.”
Nevertheless, I hate humans.
Saying this alone is still the same, Lilith continued.
“Because they took him away from me. Because they are the ones who have persecuted numerous of my kin until now. Even though now I know well that not everyone is like that... that there are people like him, like the people of that village... I cannot easily shake off that feeling of ‘dislike’ deeply rooted for hundreds of years.”
It has been only about 23 years that she watched the ‘good people’ of Sista Village who took care of Lily.
The time she spent with Lily's father, the first human she connected with, was much shorter than that.
It might be a long time for someone, but for the Succubus Queen who has lived for hundreds of years... actually, they were times merely equivalent to a moment.
But.
“There are definitely... those whom I don't dislike.”
That time merely equivalent to a moment changed Lilith.
It completely overturned Lilith's worldview built up for hundreds of years.
So like her own words, she is confused.
Even, since she almost lost Lily in such a confused situation, Lilith must have doubted even more whether what she was trying to do was right.
However.
“So... first, I wanted to do what I certainly wished for.”
Then and now, what didn't change for even a single moment was── the heart wanting to protect Lily.
***
“...By any chance, could you talk with Lady Lilith separately?”
After waking up from Lilith's ‘dream’, she sent us back so that we could really sleep, in other words, rest comfortably.
The guard who was guiding us to the room like that suddenly said this.
“I beg of you.”
Towards Lily.
Bowing her waist.
This guard wasn't in the ‘dream’.
So she couldn't hear the detailed circumstances.
And until now, Lilith had never brought up the story about Lily even once, no matter how trusted a confidant she was.
But the fact that Lily is Lilith's child was a fact one could know at once even without hearing an explanation.
Eventually, since she called Lily into the castle, it became a situation where hiding Lily's existence anymore became impossible.
Therefore, Lilith left only the confidants she could really trust in this castle.
Not only when we first arrived at the castle, but also when going to the dining room where the meal was set, or when going to the room where Lilith was waiting, it was the reason why the same ‘guard’── this succubus was in charge of guiding.
Lilith believed that this person wouldn't betray her, wouldn't put Lily in danger.
And actually, her judgment was right.
This guard was a person sincerely dedicating loyalty to Lilith.
“These are not words Lady Lilith asked me to convey. ...This is, just my personal request.”
To the extent that she cautiously made this request which Lilith didn't even order.
“I... do not know the detailed circumstances of you two. So I know well that these are presumptuous words. But I know well... the expression Lady Lilith was making before you came to the castle.”
And how much she has been waiting for you to come here.
The guard said.
“So I hope you would... talk with her a little more.”
Lily, who was flustered by the appearance of the guard who eventually knelt down beyond just bowing her waist, tried to help her stand up hurriedly first, and realized while doing so.
“Yo, you are...?”
That guard had a very familiar face.
Of course, since that succubus had been serving us all along from when she came out to meet us who arrived at the castle, it might be inevitable to be familiar, but this wasn't talking about such familiarity.
It meant it was a face she had seen before.
That too, much further in the ‘past’.
To be precise, I should say she remembers the ‘face of the past’.
“Surely, that day's...”
The one seen in the ‘dream’.
That is, she realized the fact that she had the same face as that half-blood succubus escorted by Inquisitors, who was the ‘trigger’ of the day Lilith met the human she first came to love.
Of course, unlike back then, the current she didn't look particularly mixed with human blood.
Both skin color and eyes that looked as if flames were blazing were all of a ‘demon’.
“...Yes.”
Whether she intuitively sensed that Lily was flustered by that sense of disparity, the guard released the 「Disguise」 herself before long.
“...!”
Like that, she returned exactly to the appearance of the half-blood we saw in the ‘dream’.
Having an appearance that looks like a human, while having horns and a tail together which only demons possess.
Just as Lily is.
“I will not ask you to forgive Lady Lilith. However... she definitely could not convey all the words she wanted to convey to you properly. If it is the Lady Lilith I know, she is such a person.”
So please give her at least a chance to convey those words, she requested earnestly.
Then.
“......Understood.”
Lily eventually nodded after agonizing.
Then she looked back at us as if asking if it would be okay.
Naturally, there was no reason for us to refuse.
“Do as your heart goes, Lily.”
As I showed a gentle smile at that, Lily nodded once more.
Like that, Lily listened to the guard's earnest request and went to meet Lilith again, and we returned to the room as scheduled.
“That woman...”
Ibi, who took a seat in front of the table as soon as she returned, grabbed the liquor bottle placed right in front, drank heavily, and muttered.
“...Never once said anything like forgive me or whatever.”
Then as if that wasn't enough, she drank again immediately and emptied a bottle completely in no time.
“That bastard... Kain too, did say things like he did something unforgivable or whatever though.”
As if recalling a memory she didn't want to recall.
“But in the end, he asked for a chance eventually. Saying let me act as a father even now or whatever.”
It was the first time Ibi spoke about the incident of that time directly like this.
I, although I wasn't at that place of course, knew roughly what Ibi heard from him, and above all, since there was no reason to ask particularly, I just never mentioned it.
This was the same for other companions too.
Ibi returned to us, and that alone was enough.
“But that woman didn't even say such words.”
“...As she said, because she thought... she wasn't qualified to do so, probably.”
Then Toric sat next to such Ibi, picked up another liquor bottle likewise, poured, and said.
Filling two glasses like that, he slid one glass toward Ibi.
Ibi drank that glass in one gulp immediately just like before.
“...I hope Lily, that girl, sees a different ending from my time.”
Honestly revealing the sincerity she wouldn't have brought up easily if Lily were in this place.
“Handling the fact that the parents who gave birth to oneself were trash is... enough with just me, sh*t....”
I, who naturally smiled gratifiedly watching Ibi's ‘sincerity’ which couldn't be seen easily usually, likewise sat in the next seat and filled my glass.
“...What, you bastard. What.”
Of course, Ibi, who glanced at the smile I couldn't hide in time, returned to her usual self immediately and showed a thorny reaction though.
“Why are you grinning again.”
“No, just.”
I shrugged my shoulders slyly and tilted my glass.
“Thinking you really like us.”
“......Think whatever you want.”
“Yeah. I will think whatever I want.”
The fortunate thing was that it would turn out as Ibi wished.
Lily and Lilith will definitely not end up like the case with Kain.
Just that, for that to happen.
Rumble──
“──?! Wh, what!?”
We will have to first safely pass tonight... when this castle, which has been firm for hundreds of years, will disappear.