Chapter 143. He Cried

“…Ellen.”

He hurriedly grasped both her shoulders. Ellen coughed up blood again. The skin where their bodies touched turned red, and the white sheets were stained.

He pulled her hand away from her mouth and stared blankly at her blood-stained lips, muttering.

“You… why are you like this?”

“……”

“What is this? Why are you doing this? Answer me.”

Enoch demanded in a shocked voice. Ellen lowered her gaze with a miserable feeling and sobbed. Why now of all times… She couldn’t help but resent her weak body.

“Ellen, answer me.”

“This is…”

Not knowing how to explain, Ellen’s lips moved silently. Just say she’s not feeling well? That it happens sometimes and not to worry? He wouldn’t believe such a ridiculous excuse. Then what excuse should she make? No matter how much she thought, there was no answer to this problem.

“Ellen, please tell me the truth. Why are you like this?”

His voice now sounded almost pleading and was even trembling slightly. Ellen looked at him with sad eyes, feeling herself sinking into deep despair. Uncharacteristically lost, he carefully laid her down on the bed and said.

“…I’ll call a doctor for now. Don’t move, just lie still.”

“No, there’s no need for that.”

“What are you saying? Do you want to die coughing up blood?”

“…It’s an illness that doctors can’t cure.”

Finally, a fragment of the truth slipped out. Ellen quietly gazed at Enoch, who had paused, feeling like he’s heavily sinking. Should she finally confess? You… I hoped that you, at least, wouldn’t know until the very end.

“…I need to wash up first. Let’s talk again after I clean up.”

“You just coughed up blood. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine. It happens from time to time.”

“From time to time?”

He laughed mirthlessly, clearly annoyed. He was about to snap at her again but instead let out a heavy sigh and carefully lifted her into his arms. The woman’s body that fit perfectly in his arms was so small and fragile.

“How long has this been going on?”

He asked as he carried her to the bathroom. Ellen avoided his gaze and remained silent for a moment, then answered in a weak voice.

“For a while now.”

“A while? Since when exactly?”

“…I think it’s been about a week since I started coughing up blood so suddenly like this.”

“What’s the name of the illness?”

“…That… I don’t know either.”

“Didn’t you just say it’s an illness doctors can’t cure?”

“……”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t care whether you lived or died?”

While Ellen remained silent, not knowing how to respond, they had already reached the bathroom.

Enoch filled the bathtub with warm water and carefully wiped Ellen’s face and body with a wet towel. Ellen, feeling dazed and weak, quietly accepted his care.

“I’ll call a doctor for an examination. If we hurry back to Freuden, we can find even better doctors—”

“No, please don’t do that…”

“Why not?! Why are you doing this? Do you want to see me go crazy? Do you really want to die?”

Unable to hold back any longer, he shouted. His golden eyes flashed dangerously, stained with anger and frustration. Ellen realized that no matter what excuse she made, she couldn’t logically persuade him. Given how things had turned out, she understood that telling the truth was the way not to deceive him.

With a feeling of surrendering to fate, she spoke with resignation.

“…I’ll tell you.”

“Yes, please tell me. What’s wrong with your body? Is it very serious?”

He bombarded her with questions in a tone filled with terrible anxiety as he looked up at her sitting on the edge of the bathtub. Ellen gazed down at him kneeling on the floor. With an unbearably sad feeling, she caressed his cheek.

“First, you should wash up too. And after you’ve calmed down a bit… I’ll tell you outside.”

“Do I look calm right now? You… you’ve become like this without me even knowing.”

“……”

Intense anguish spread across Enoch’s face. Ellen gently embraced him with a deeply affectionate feeling. The man in her arms flinched slightly before drawing closer, cursing under his breath.

Swallowing the tears that were about to burst forth, Ellen hugged him even tighter. She shouldn’t have let herself be caught by him. She should have died quietly somewhere unknown… Then he wouldn’t have to be sad.

Only futile regrets piled up in her heart, along with tears she couldn’t shed.

“Now tell me.”

After finishing their bath, they found that the blood-stained sheets had been neatly tidied up. Ellen felt a vague sense of unease, wondering what the maids of this mansion might have thought upon seeing those sheets. She swallowed a sigh that was about to escape and took a sip of warm tea. The tea with honey, ginger, and lemon seemed to have been brought out of concern for her health.

“…If I say I don’t want to tell you, will you get angry?”

“Yes. I’ll go berserk like a madman.”

“……”

Ellen put down her teacup on the saucer and lowered her eyes slightly. How could she explain it so that he would accept it without too much shock? She agonized with a sense of helplessness.

“…I told you before. That there’s a limit to my foresight magic…”

“Yes, I remember. Why?”

“……”

As if sensing what was coming next, an expression of disbelief appeared on his face. Unable to meet his eyes, Ellen continued speaking calmly while suppressing the rising pain.

“The price for the foresight magic was… my… lifespan.”

“…What?”

He asked blankly, as if he had heard something utterly unbelievable. Ellen closed her eyes for a moment and bit her lip hard. She finally said it. She finally revealed it. The truth she didn’t want to disclose until the very end.

Silence fell. A very heavy, cold, and distant silence.

Enoch’s voice, breaking that silence, was filled with shock and confusion.

“What… what do you mean? There was a price for the foresight magic? And that price was…”

“…My lifespan.”

Once again, she drove the point home.

The man she thought would never crumble collapsed before Ellen’s eyes. In an instant.

As if swept away by a massive natural disaster.

He grasped her hand with trembling fingers. As though begging her to say it wasn’t true, his golden eyes, full of despair, looked at her earnestly.

Ellen quietly met his gaze, feeling tears welling up. Her eyes were quite resolute as she steeled herself once more.

“I have about a month left to live now.”

“……”

“I didn’t want to tell you. I wanted to prepare for the end alone. That’s why…”

“……”

“That’s why I left secretly.”

The variable in that plan, which she thought would be fine, was his emotions. Who could have known that his feelings, which she believed would be a mere mirage, would remain even after the magic wore off? It was something even he himself didn’t know.

Such irony, such tragedy.

She really hadn’t wanted this.

The tears she had been holding back finally rolled down her cheeks. Ellen captured him in her blurry vision. She couldn’t clearly see what expression he was making. Swallowing a sob, Ellen continued with the story she had to finish.

“I’m okay.”

“……”

“The time I was able to spend with you… was truly precious… and happy… so I can leave peacefully.”

“……”

“So you too… don’t think of my existence as a burden and let it go lightly. You’re still young, and you can meet a better person. Think of me as a passing acquaintance. Your feelings too, they’re only intense now, but with time they’ll fade, so—”

“Stop talking nonsense.”

Enoch cut off Ellen’s words with a fierce growl. His hand reached out unhesitatingly and cupped her face, then carefully wiped away her tears. Only then could Ellen properly see his face. …Unbelievably, he was crying.

Those transparent streams flowing down his cheeks were… undoubtedly tears.

“I can never let you go. A better person? Do you think someone like me, who gets annoyed by others, could have such a thing? It has to be you. I can’t let you go. Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”

He finally gripped her shoulders tightly, almost clinging to her. Precariously, like someone climbing a cliff hanging onto a rope that’s about to break. Holding her firmly and refusing to let go, he poured out words along with his tears.

“You’re telling me to give up on you? Damn it, how— how can you say such a thing! Damn, why…”

Deep inside his heart, something important crumbled miserably like a sandcastle before the waves.

Enoch vividly experienced again what it felt like to truly feel he might go insane. It was a wonder he was maintaining his sanity. His mind felt like it was in complete chaos, about to spin out of control.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“……”

“That using that damn magic would eventually kill you… why…”

This was the deepest sense of frustration he had ever felt in his life.

He had lived a life with no regrets.

He had no lingering attachments to anything. Life was just a boring journey with occasional moments of pleasure, and he thought this woman’s existence was just another such amusement.

That’s why he thought he wouldn’t regret anything.

Even if you were to be broken because of me, it wouldn’t affect me at all… just like it’s always been. Just as every human I’ve met in my life has been so meaningless to me, you too would be the same.

I dared, arrogantly, to be sure of that.

Crazy bastard.

A damn son of a b*tch who deserves to be beaten to death.

He fiercely berated himself with self-deprecation. If he could, he wanted to beat his past self until he was on the brink of death. No, he wanted to kill him.

“…It’s my fault.”

Enoch babbled, not even knowing what words were coming out of his mouth. Without passing through reason, thoughts arising straight from his heart were clothed in language.

“Because I… asked you… to keep using foresight magic for me…”

As he confirmed this fact again, his breath caught in his throat.

This woman is going to die.

Because of me.

That painful truth pierced his heart more sharply than any dagger.