Since I Don't Know Anything About It, Shall We Break Up, Your Majesty? - Chapter 53

“Miss! Miss! Are you in there? Miss, I’m sorry. It’s me, Jeffrey!”

Laurel paused for a moment.

Laurel’s face, which had only been shedding tears, contorted.

The woman in her forties cried with her entire face scrunched up like a child.

“I, I’m not really living even if I’m alive now, and I can’t be happy like before. I don’t want to do those bastards any favors and then die. But, Miss….. I’m sorry, but I do resent you a little, just a little. It’s my fault, I know, but I still feel a bit resentful towards you.”

Now it was outright sobbing.

Lumiere swallowed hard and thought about what to do.

Laurel wasn’t someone accustomed to shooting a gun anyway.

Even if she could somehow lower the hammer and pull the trigger, it wouldn’t be that fast.

‘……If she’s distracted now.’

Lumiere tensed her toes.

Laurel was by the door, and Lumiere had been sitting near the window, so there was quite a distance between them.

But if she ran, five steps would be enough.

Laurel took a long deep breath and then smiled sadly at Lumiere.

“You look comfortable even without your memories, Miss.”

Then Laurel raised the muzzle and pressed it against her own head.

Lumiere froze at Laurel’s unexpected action.

As if she had anticipated this, Laurel smiled faintly.

“……I’ll create a new memory for you. Then, you’ll suffer a little too, won’t you?”

It was then.

“Laurel! I know you’re in there! Stop, Laurel!”

Laurel’s lips trembled, startled by Jeffrey’s pleading scream.

‘……Now.’

Lumiere didn’t miss that opening and rushed towards Laurel.

The surprised Laurel squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the trigger.

Bang–!

A sharp gunshot rang out.

* * *

Blood was splattered all over Lumiere’s studio.

Red blood with low viscosity, like thin dye, was messily sprayed on the floor and walls.

Lumiere, sitting on the floor, panted as she looked at the gun that had fallen to the floor.

Her ears were ringing from the gunshot that had gone off so close, and she felt nauseous.

“Miss! Laurel!”

As soon as the gunshot rang out, Jeffrey, who had been locked out, forcibly kicked the door open and entered.

The twins, who had rushed up to the third floor at an incredible speed, also helped tend to the fallen Laurel with surprised faces.

She couldn’t remember how she explained the situation to them in that state of mind.

Cindy supported the staggering Lumiere.

“Miss, your knee is bleeding!”

Even though Cindy must have been out of her mind too, she first checked Lumiere’s bleeding knee.

“Oh, my goodness, why did you do such a thing? Why!”

Jeffrey wailed as he embraced Laurel.

The twins also moved busily to manage the situation.

They controlled the entry of servants other than those directly involved and silenced them.

They brought Nore to examine the fallen Laurel.

“Fortunately, it’s gone through the shoulder. If we control the bleeding well and watch out for infection…… it’s not a fatal injury.”

Nore¹T/N: I don’t know if it’s a typo, but the author actually wrote 노먼 (Norman) here but since that name only appeared once in the entire story, I assumed its a typo, who rushed over breathlessly, diagnosed Laurel on the spot after a thorough examination.

She didn’t die.

……Ah, thank goodness.

Only then did Lumiere finally let go of her tension.

* * *

“Really, I don’t know how to repay this kindness.”

Tamia said with an apologetic face to the blonde man wearing pure white priest’s robes.

The man smiled and shook his head.

He looked young enough to have barely passed twenty at a glance, but the man was already well over thirty.

“It’s nothing. It’s just one book.”

“I know that’s not true, Arta. This is a very precious book.”

Tamia stroked the thick book she was holding to her chest and smiled bitterly.

When Tamia was young, it wasn’t such a difficult book to obtain.

Books that anyone could borrow and read from the temple library in the territory suddenly disappeared one day and are now designated as forbidden books.

Forbidden books that one shouldn’t even dare to try to obtain.

“I’ll copy it quickly and bring it back.”

“No. It might be more dangerous to bring that book back. I’ll handle it as if the book was lost on the way, so please take it. Just be careful with its storage.”

Senior Priest Arta secretly blessed Tamia.

Tamia looked at Arta blessing her with new appreciation.

Delicate features were visible under the light silvery-blue hair, almost white.

Perhaps because he was blessed by God, his smile was gentle and mysterious.

‘……Was he always this handsome?’

Tamia looked at Arta with fresh eyes and smiled back.

Arta was a close friend of Tamia’s deceased son, Jate, and her adopted son.

When Jate brought Arta, who had been abandoned by his parents, Tamia saw a dazzling radiance behind Arta’s shoulders.

It was a moment of brilliance, but it was a light that she should never ignore.

Arta’s light enveloped both Arta and Jate.

Beyond Tamia’s consciousness, she saw the future of children who would grow to be each other’s light.

It was something to be grateful for.

Perhaps that’s why she let her guard down.

Thinking that since they had a friend and brother to protect each other, it was okay to be away from the children.

While Tamia wandered to find a cure for Jate’s illness, Arta stayed by his side.

Since the year Jate died, he had been sending New Year’s greetings to Tamia every winter.

That’s how kind-hearted and warm Arta was.

“Arta, I’m indebted to your kind heart once again.”

“You said it was for a precious person, didn’t you? For the very precious young lady who helped on the way to visit Jate.”

Arta, who had heard a rough explanation of the situation, shook his head.

“Kindness should be repaid with kindness. Thanks to her, Jate went to meet God holding his mother’s hand.”

Tamia smiled at Arta’s upright goodness.

“Your kindness will someday be returned with other kindness.”

Arta nodded, smiling as if he believed so too.

After briefly reuniting with him, Tamia checked the time and got up.

“It’s already this late. I should head back now.”

When she entered the temple, it was early morning, but now it was already past lunchtime.

‘I have an uneasy feeling. I should hurry back.’

Tamia hurriedly prepared to leave.

“This way, Mother.”

Arta led Tamia behind the closed prayer room of the temple.

While coming in wasn’t a problem, to smuggle the book out, they had to use a secret passage.

It was then.

“……There.”

A voice that sounded so old like scraping metal, echoed eerily in the dimly lit corridor where light barely reached.

“Who is it? ……Arta?”

The bodies of the two people, startled, froze like stone.

* * *

Laurel opened her eyes in terrible pain.

And as soon as she recognized the pain, she realized she had failed to end her life.

‘……How incompetent.’

She opened her sticky eyes blankly.

She was furious at her own incompetence, unable to even die properly.

The dim ceiling came into view through her hazy vision.

Although she couldn’t crawl into the peace of death, a darkness similar to death was heavily pressing down on Laurel’s surroundings.

‘……Jeffrey.’

As she tightly closed her eyes that were throbbing, a subdued voice was heard from beside her.

“What. Disappointed you couldn’t die?”

“……Miss.”

Laurel looked at Lumiere, who was sitting by the bed looking down at her, with confused eyes.

For a while, the two just looked at each other without saying anything.

Laurel, who had been looking directly into Lumiere’s ice-cold eyes, smiled with lifeless eyes as if her soul had left her body and said,

“Why don’t you just let me die.”

“……For whose sake?”

“……”

“Were you trying to traumatize me, Laurel?”

Tears welled up in Laurel’s eyes at Lumiere’s cold words.

She was right. Laurel wanted to traumatize Lumiere.

She wanted to pay for her sins with death, and at the same time, make Lumiere resent her through her death.

But everything failed.

She was just a failure, halfheartedly pushed around by everything.

“……I want to die. I just, I just wanted to die.”

“If you die just because you want to, who will pay for your sins?”

Laurel looked at Lumiere resentfully at her words, sharp as ice.

“Did you stop me from dying so that I could pay for my sins?”

Lumiere hesitated for a moment, but soon smiled weakly and said,

“Well. I guess so?”

That single phrase was filled with many emotions.

Laurel couldn’t guess what the lady in front of her was thinking.

Does she resent me?

Did she push away my hand holding the gun and save me because she wanted to give me a punishment worse than death?

Does the lady despise my stupidity too?

……Is it really the lady’s hand that’s holding mine now?

The warmth enveloping her palm felt as sharp as a blade.

Her chest ached more from something invisible and constricting than from the shoulder where the bullet had passed through.

It felt as if someone was choking her.

“……I don’t understand what you want to say, Miss.”

“I……”

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  T/N: I don’t know if it’s a typo, but the author actually wrote 노먼 (Norman) here but since that name only appeared once in the entire story, I assumed its a typo