INAT - Chapter 21

"Your Highness, please be with me now."

Lari was Thierry's everything.

A little girl who gave many firsts to a child who had nothing. In a way, it was only natural that that girl became the child's whole world.

Thierry was separated from his biological mother as a newborn baby, but he clearly remembered that last moment.

Thierry's biological mother was an elf.

A lost Emperor and a curious elf met by chance, fell in love, and had a baby. However, reality was not a fairy tale.

Elves were a closed race, and to them, interbreeding with other races was a sin they could never accept. They decided to erase this tragedy by imprisoning their corrupted comrade, and to eliminate the shameful half-elf, they exerted pressure on Thierry's biological mother under the guise of persuasion.

"This necklace will become your wish. Never let it fall from you."

It was his biological mother's last request.

It was a word he could not understand, but Thierry followed his biological mother's last words. Even when some elf handed him over to the man claiming to be his father, and that father locked him up in a villa, he made sure to hide that necklace at all costs.

Since then, many people passed through Thierry, but none of them could stay at the villa for long.

As bad things continued to happen to the people work there, such as getting injured or going missing, soon no one wanted to come to the villa.

Thierry had become a dry lake and had to simply wait for the water to fill up someday. And that water, upon meeting Lari, surged endlessly, wanting to eventually fill up to the sea.

"...Was it right?"

"No! I just fell because I was in a hurry!"

With disheveled hair and flushed, swollen cheeks, Lari returned in such a pitiful state whenever she went to the main palace to get necessary supplies.

"Lie."

"It's true! I'm fine. I just got a little messy, but I'll be spotless once I wash up. But anyway, ta-da! You're right, here's what I brought today."

“It’s not okay, it hurts.”

"There really is no one... like Your Highness in this world. You are worried about me, aren't you? Then, Your Highness, if you could just blow 'ho-o' here, I don't think it would hurt at all... Would that be alright? Hehe."

Thierry's heart swelled with emotion whenever he looked at the girl's beaming smile. However, seeing her suffer because of him every time, it felt as if his balloon-like heart was about to burst upon hitting the needle of greed.

"If I hadn't been here, you would have lived well without getting hurt like this."

Lari's laughter faded at the dry and weak voice.

"...Ah. I don't mind being alone."

Thierry shook off Lari, who was holding his hand, and turned around. However, that hand immediately reached out again, making him meet those blue eyes once more.

“I can’t do it.”

That touch gradually dulled the needle. Now, no matter how much he pricked her with the completely blunt tip, it was no use.

"Did you forget? I told you that you are the only one I have now. And now, without you, I might come here every day all alone because I miss you so much."

One day, if Lari hadn't disappeared overnight, young Thierry might have smoothly become a tyrannical sea.

Thierry's world crumbled in an instant.

Where did she go? No way. Did she get tired of me and go far away?

Just as Thierry's eyes were dying, black as the darkness seeped in, a silver-haired man appeared... Then, he uttered incomprehensible words.

"I feel a twisted magical energy. What on earth are they doing? Little one, you can't do anything..."

“What are you?”

"Ugh!"

"What did you do to Lari?"

"...Wait a minute, what is this sudden power? Ah... Okay, I'll tell you. If I had done anything to the girl, would I have appeared in front of you?"

"Give it back. Give Lari back."

"Hah, you won't listen. Snap out of it. That was an elf's doing. An elf has been watching you all this time!"

It was around the time Thierry's reason was being consumed by the surging power.

"You must find your girl! Even her soul!"

"...Soul?"

"Gasp. I thought my insides were turning inside out. Cough. Look, it smells like death, but something feels off. They definitely did something to her soul."

"Shut up, Lari is alive."

"Don't pretend you don't know! You can feel it too. These deformed energies."

He lost Lari.

In the end, it was his greed that put Lari in danger. Staring blankly at Lari's empty bed, Thierry let his helpless tears fall onto the floor.

He lost consciousness and woke up to find that he had awakened the power of fire. Starting from the day Lari disappeared, all his emotions evaporated, and his dry, blood-red eyes lost their light.

All that remained was an obsession with Lari. That obsession turned into madness, and nothing would stop him from achieving his goal.

Fortunately, the silver-haired man introduced himself as a half-elf like Thierry and said that he, too, was searching for the elf's whereabouts. Stating that his goal was to find the elf and drag him into the mud, he extended his hand to Thierry.

"No one can find where the elves live. How do you expect to find it all by yourself when I haven't been able to for nearly a hundred years? This isn't something an individual can solve. That is why I need the power and authority of your bloodline."

Thierry did not refuse that offer. Even though he had awakened his power, military force was not the only answer, so he decided to take the silver-haired man as his aide and secure the top position.

Since the elves had gone into complete hiding a very long time ago, it was difficult to find out their whereabouts even after becoming Emperor. He raided every place where even the slightest trace of contact with them remained in an attempt to obtain evidence, but to no avail.

Day by day, the surroundings were filled only with ruins.

"I heard there is a wicked spell that separates the soul from the body. I suspect the energy I felt that day might be due to this."

As time went by, the doubts deepened.

Why they killed Lari, why they toyed with Lari's soul, and why it had to be Lari of all people

Whenever those he disliked mentioned Lari, Thierry never suppressed his anger. Leading the Empire with certainty to achieve his goals and leaving not a shred of room for doubt, he spent that day, as usual, scouring countries that appeared to have connections to the elves.

"That can't be true! He's a good child."

And he met that woman.

Elisha Ashtad, flashing her sparkling smile and fluttering platinum blonde hair like scattered starlight

Normally, it would have been disposed of the moment it caught sight. But that day was different. Enough to change all plans.

The only thing similar to Lari was her emerald-colored eyes that held the sea, but she kept leaving room for interpretation.

However, that choice gradually began to ensnare Thierry. Although he had merely given a fleeting opening by letting himself be carried away by a distant nostalgia, Elisha was rapidly conquering Thierry.

Suspicion piled up layer upon layer.

Doesn't she mention melanin pigment, and isn't Rood, who follows no one, the one who goes looking for Elisha first? Strangely, Elisha doesn't play with Rood in the manner of shooting a slingshot.

Furthermore, she even naturally blurted out the name of a wolf that no one knew.

It was ridiculous. To think that Lari overlapped with Elisha.

He wondered if his mind had reached its limit because of how maddeningly he missed her.

"Report anything unusual, even if it is trivial."

"It seems like they are afraid of stairs. They had to hold onto something tightly when going down."

In a way, it was a characteristic that anyone might possess, but he couldn't just let it slide.

It had already been years of searching for the elf stronghold, harboring the hope that Lari was not dead. He had assumed that if her soul had been subjected to evil, she would be held captive by them, but it felt as though someone was constantly testing Thierry.

"You mentioned that you felt a faint trace of twisted magical energy. It was vague back then because it wasn't as strong as the day I first met you, but just in case, I checked and found out that day was the day Princess Elisha opened her eyes again."

Wagen's meaningful words as well.

"Actually, it's because I can't eat food that smells like cucumbers."

It’s just a common eating habit, but it’s like attaching meaning to a trivial detail.

"Bring in the sous chef."

Everything was riddled with doubt, but he needed certainty. If, once again, she wasn't the woman he thought she was, he would collapse miserably and never be able to rise again.

However, Elisha's surprised expression as she looked at the sous chef shook the very foundation of the negativity surrounding Thierry.

Although it vanished quickly, the look that just passed by was clearly that of someone meeting a close friend.

Thierry felt an intense sense of deja vu sweeping through his entire body. As he felt the misaligned pieces gradually falling into place, greed began to well up inside him.

"The hunting festival will be held in a week. The Princess should participate, too."

It's the last time.

If he manages to bring out traces of Lari this time as well, he will never let her go.

***

"Shit!"

However, this was not what he intended, and Thierry became increasingly anxious, fearing that something might go wrong with Elisha.

He merely intended to have her enter the maze forest and watch from a distance.

If it was Lari, there was no way she would be in danger in the maze forest. Besides, he would be watching over her anyway. He believed there would absolutely be no problem.

But it wasn't.

His heart sank at the sight of her back as she desperately clung to the injured horse, and when she disappeared into the maze forest and was no longer in sight, his chest felt so heavy that he could barely breathe.

This wasn't right. It truly wasn't right. It was his own misjudgment and arrogance.

“Elisha!”

Thierry dismounted and looked around. The horse's tracks extended deep into the maze forest, but even those tracks ended in the horse's carcass.

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