CHAPTER 5 – For the Abandoned Innocence (Part 4)

As if intentionally hiding her presence, Lillian disappeared completely from his sight.

During that time, Cedric had all sorts of thoughts.

‘Has she lost interest in me now?

Why? Was it because I rejected her proposal? Could Lillian have made the same proposal to someone else? And if so, to whom?’

She had many men by her side. Men who were more attractive and much more intimate than him.

‘Would they have taken her up on her offer?

Those damn bastards who dared to take advantage of innocent Lillian.

He realized for the first time how powerful his imagination could be.

It had been just over a month. In that short time, Cedric felt horribly tormented. Each day that passed without her seemed to dry up his blood.

When he could no longer endure and decided to visit her residence, he heard the news about Lillian.

<I hear that Priestess Lillian is attending Countess Huntington’s masquerade ball.>

The rumor spread throughout the Knights of the Silver Cross.

He heard whispers behind the armory, the sound of a gentleman who would meet Lillian by chance and spend a night with her.

Cedric shamelessly went to that lascivious banquet, holding a fox mask.

He knew he might face an awkward situation if he encountered Duke Edelgard and his brothers and comrades there, but he’d risked a lot to get there.

It was that desperate. Despite dismissing her “proposal” as nonsense, he found himself stepping into a masquerade ball for the first time in his life to respond to her suggestive invitation.

Such licentious gatherings were absolutely not to his taste.

Moreover, her ‘proposal’ was even more distasteful. The proposition to meet a few times a month to engage in intimate activities felt shameful as if she had become a prostitute herself.

Nevertheless, he ended up going to that place on his own accord.

But…….

Lillian refused to engage in any conversation with him, proudly taking Felix Perry’s hand and dancing with him.

That was the reason. The reason why they ended up engaging in such intimate activities in a public place at the masquerade ball.

Following the proper procedure of courting, proposing, marrying her, and creating a warm home that would be deemed satisfactory by the heavens… Everything else came after.

Cedric couldn’t believe what had just happened. Despite resolutely confronting Lillian and deciding to accept their relationship, he found himself unable to comprehend the turn of events.

He feared that if he didn’t give her what she wanted, she might disappear like smoke once again. She was capable of that. Overwhelmed by fear, Cedric reluctantly said yes to the relationship.

Clearly, that’s how it was at first.

<Inside, finish inside me. Hurry! Huh.>

However, when he heard those words, it felt as if all hell broke loose beneath his feet. In an instant, the flames rose to the top of his head, and Cedric moved like an animal.

Even when he heard Lillian’s agonized moans, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Even though he knew it was wrong.

After the intimate act, as Cedric checked the bloodstains on his shirt, he immediately regretted it. While the act itself was ecstatic, it was a private matter for him alone.

‘The order of events was terribly wrong.’

Yet, there was still a chance to rectify the situation. Cedric wanted to comfort her, apologize for his clumsy actions, and discuss their future together. 

However, Lillian ran away once again.

She left immediately after the intimate act.

When Cedric learned that she left him entirely by her own will right after their intimate encounter, he felt like he’d been trampled to pieces by a giant’s foot.

The timing had been terrible. His first, cherished experience had been taken from him with a cruel lie.

Whether she initially had the intention to run away after seducing him or if she found the experience less enjoyable than expected and fled, Cedric couldn’t discern the truth.

Lillian had taken his virginity and left him behind, seemingly afraid he might chase after her.

For Cedric, only that was the truth.

What he had sacrificed for her, the decisions he had made, the significance of that short time they spent together that night…

Lillian never even considered it.

Cedric submitted his resignation to the knighthood like he was throwing away a resignation letter, and he went to meet her.

However, when he investigated and inquired, Lillian was not in the palace. She hadn’t been living there for a long time, which explained why she never replied to his letters.

He belatedly found out and even went to the priest’s residence, but he was denied entry. He couldn’t give up, so he committed the crime of sneaking in at dawn.

What he found was an empty residence.

A house with no signs of life.

Lillian wasn’t there.

There was no warmth, not even a single piece of clothing left.

Standing in the empty house where only dust rolled around, Cedric was engulfed in a hallucination where time seemed to pass slowly.

She had completely vanished. As if determined to escape from his sight altogether.

Admitting this, the emptiness and loneliness he’d pushed to the back of his mind washed over him like a tidal wave that threatened to swallow him whole.

‘Why?’

Why would she disappear like smoke without a single word?

His chest ached. The void left by her absence seemed as cavernous as the space she occupied.

‘The “I love you”… it was a lie.’

The words claiming she had liked him for 17 years were nothing but a fabricated means.

Why did she run away from the man she claimed to love so much?

He’d been lied to. Fooled by an abominable lie she’d concocted just so she could enjoy the flesh she’d always coveted.

He gave up his purity for a lie that only consisted of words like “I love you” and a promise not to leave his side.

It was just a lie to indulge her desires. It sounded so sweet to his ears that he believed it was real. He gave away his innocence.

He should have resisted. Without the solemn vow of eternal love before the Lord, without the promise to stay with each other forever, they should never have lost something so precious before marriage…

Who will love him now?

Of course, as long as he didn’t go around proclaiming it, the fact that Cedric lost his purity was a secret known to no one.

‘But the Lord knows.’

The Almighty who saw all had witnessed everything that had happened that day. He must have heard every word, even the lustful moans Cedric uttered in his degradation.

If Cedric spent his first night with another woman he married, he had no choice but to admit that he had not preserved both the purity of his body and soul. There was no way he could lie about it.

Who would lie before others when the Almighty, all-knowing, and magnificent, is the witness?

‘Even idiots don’t come across this kind of idiocy….’