Chapter 27

Thunk, thunk, thunk…

“Let go of my hand! I said let go! Let go!”

Someone once said,

Life is a comedy from afar, a tragedy up close.

If anyone had been watching Lucy’s desperate, pain-filled flailing, they would have called it a perfect slapstick show on the water. Lucy’s movements, swinging a 60cm hot pink rubber d*ldo this way and that, resembled a chef possessed by a culinary genius rat.

“Ugh…!”

At last, Aicel released Lucy’s hand. A fleeting look of regret crossed Lucy’s determined face.

Aicel couldn’t make it to the nearby boat. Having let go of his lifeline, he sank beneath the surface as if he had no reason left to live.

“……”

The lake’s surface was unusually dark. Bubbles rose where Aicel had disappeared.

“Aicel? Get back to the boat! I said get back!”

No matter how many times she shouted, there was no answer. Lucy belatedly realized the seriousness of the situation. A chill ran down her back as anxiety washed over her. She had a bad feeling.

“Young Master? Aicel? Aicel…!?”

Chewing on her frustration, she hurriedly called his name. Of course, there was no answer. It seemed he would pop up and tease her, ‘Were you scared? What a silly face,’ but there was only silence.

Then, Ulysses’s words flashed through her mind.

‘Young Master can’t swim.’

“Ahh!”

Lucy felt as if all the blood had drained from her body. She covered her face in panic. No way. Had she forgotten that? With her last hope, she screamed until her throat hurt.

“Aicel! Aicel?”

But the bubbling water soon stilled. As if struck by lightning in broad daylight, her whole body froze in fear, and her heart felt like it had turned to stone.

She couldn’t leave him like this. Her wavering heart suddenly found its path.

Because she still loved Aicel.

Lucy quickly stood and jumped into the water. But only after plunging her whole body into the cold lake did she realize—

‘I can’t swim either…!’

A choice that left only regret.

She had mocked the Young Master’s intelligence, but she was no better herself.

“Mm, mmph!”

She thrashed, but could barely breathe.

She’d thought of dying on the same day as her beloved, but if it was now, wasn’t it too soon? She frantically wondered.

At that moment, her fingers touched something. It was Aicel, her companion on the journey to the afterlife. Lucy grabbed his hand. 

‘What a foolish man.’

She couldn’t help but keep looking at this blockhead.

She must never lose her way again. But it was a realization that came far too late.

Then—

Splash. With a loud motor sound, someone jumped into the water. A voice called out from above the surface.

Lucy, her eyelids heavy from trying to float, strained to see. She saw a familiar silhouette swimming toward her and Aicel.

But before the owner of that silhouette could reach out a saving hand, her blurred vision narrowed, and then everything went dark.

Her consciousness ended there.

***

Lucy looked down at her hands. Was she eight or nine years old? They were unmistakably a child’s hands. But because she hadn’t eaten or slept well, they lacked the chubbiness of youth. Red, heated lines were etched across her palms, as if she’d been harshly struck with a rod.

“Lucy.”

At the sound of a young boy’s voice, Lucy looked up.

A boy her age with black hair stood hesitantly. Wearing clean wool clothes and a silk tunic, he looked like the son of a wealthy merchant or a minor noble. Well… maybe even the secret son of a great noble and a mistress.

Young Lucy looked at the boy indifferently. He fidgeted with his hands, eyes downcast, radiating a timid aura so she couldn’t see his expression.

“Lucy, I’m sorry. You got hurt again today…”

No wonder her palms hurt.

Lucy was the child who took beatings whenever the Young Master’s lessons went poorly. She was the first child to last this long because she could withstand it.

Asric, with its clear waters and gentle seasons, was said to have a spiritual energy that helped weak and precious children grow up healthy.

“It’s fine.”

Lucy replied, bluffing to hide the pain and keep her pride.

The Young Master timidly lifted his head. His gentle amber eyes came into view. Seeing Lucy act unfazed, he gave a relieved smile. Lucy stared at his plump cheeks.

The Young Master, eight this year, was just learning grammar, and had gotten two out of two hundred wrong. So Lucy had been beaten twenty times.

In the small, toy-like mansion, there was the frail, beautiful Young Master, an old nurse who never talked, a taciturn knight, and a maid. Lucy didn’t know exactly which family the Young Master belonged to. Well, precious children sent to Asric for convalescence rarely disclosed their identities. Her parents said that in noble society, a child with a medical history would ruin the family’s reputation.

Lucy commuted from her house in the lower village to the toy mansion. Every time she went to work, she wore the cleanest gray wool dress she owned, but the Young Master’s nurse always frowned silently. What flickered in her eyes was thinly veiled pity.

Pity wasn’t always a bad thing. Her parents still lived on the pity of distant noble relatives, receiving living expenses from them.

“Here, eat this.”

The Young Master offered a sticky, melted candy. Lucy didn’t refuse. Not because her parents had told her to accept everything she could from others.

“Did your parents give you this candy?”

Rolling the candy in her mouth, Lucy pretended to be innocent as she deliberately touched the Young Master’s sore spot.

“N-no… Maid Dora bought it at the market.”

The wounded look in the Young Master’s eyes pricked like a thorn. Lucy regretted her words, but her pride won again.

It seemed the Young Master had rarely seen his parents. He barely remembered them, couldn’t even name them properly, so Lucy thought he might be lying.

One thing was certain: the Young Master had grown up neglected by his real parents.

Among the insults village children used when fighting was the word ‘b*stard’—meaning a child whose parents were unknown, a child born without a blessing.

Perhaps Lucy suspected that the wealthy Young Master might be a child born out of wedlock.

Watching the Young Master, whom his parents never came for, Lucy felt a twisted sense of superiority. At least her own parents would sometimes pat her on the head.

Thinking that way, even the picturesque toy mansion straight out of a fairy tale didn’t make her jealous. She only wondered, ‘Maybe I could have lived in a house like this, too.’

“Let me see your hand again.”

The Young Master came closer. The wealthy Young Master, whose hands had grown callused from picking mushrooms and berries in the Asric forest, touched Lucy’s hand without hesitation.

“Ow.”

She let out a sound, unable to help herself from the lingering pain. The Young Master stared at Lucy with wide eyes.

“But you said… it didn’t hurt?”

Before Lucy could reply, tears welled up in those amber eyes. The silent, falling tears made the moment even more sorrowful.

The pretty, gentle Young Master cried without making a sound.

Lucy slowly hugged him. It wasn’t because she had no choice. The Young Master was sometimes irritating and a little annoying, but at the same time, he was just too pitiful.

She knew that, as a poor, fallen noble, she wasn’t someone who could afford to feel pity for others.

But then… who would comfort this gentle Young Master?

Perhaps it was just that sense of superiority. Nothing more…

“Lucy, I have no one but you.”

Hearing his trembling voice, guilt pricked at her heart.

“You too, right?”

Maybe the line she’d drawn between herself and him showed in her attitude. Today, the Young Master whined and pressed her for an answer.

Lucy thought of the Noctus family, soon to be erased from the noble register. And of her parents, still thinking themselves nobles, who did no work and left all the labor to Lucy and her brother.

“Lucy…?”

Those amber eyes trembled with anxiety. Lucy felt a ticklish affection and trust for the Young Master—feelings she’d never known with her parents. It was strange.

But at least for now, she knew it was right to speak honestly.

“…I think so.”

Only then did the Young Master relax and act as childish as he pleased.

After comforting him for a while, Lucy looked down at the four small, dark stains left on the chest of her freshly laundered gray dress with blurred eyes.

People have two eyes, so why were there four marks?

She glanced aside; the Young Master’s face was flushed as he sniffled hard.

“I’m going home.”

“Let me come. At least to the edge of the village.”

“It’s fine.”

“I’m fine, too.”

The Young Master, his face red, was stubborn.