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nChapter 91

nAria stared out of the window for a moment in an empty room.

nThere was no one in the room that the employee who was managing this mansion showed her, and it was unnecessarily spacious.

n‘It feels empty.’

nMarronnier, who was always chasing after Aria like a squirrel and chattering.

nCloud, who kept silent at the back and sometimes(?) said stupid things.

nVincent, who was in pain at Cloud’s stupid words.

nSabina, who takes the time every day to teach her swordsmanship.

nTristan, who was always troubled by work and becomes a happy unemployed person and plays and eats every day.

nGabriel, who loses his reason for being involved with the saint, but when they pray together, it somehow feels at ease.

n‘And…….’

nHer husband, Lloyd.

n‘This is a family.’

nFamily.

nA family tied to a 10-year contract.

nA temporary family who she has to break the Valentine’s curse for and then leave behind.

n‘Now I have to leave in 6 years…….’

nIt was when,

n“Huh……”

nAria, who couldn’t sleep because her thoughts kept getting deeper and deeper, heard someone groaning later. It was a small sound that had to be heard very carefully.

n“…Ugh!”

nLloyd?

n‘Was it an attack?’

nAria instantly forgot that Lloyd, who slaughtered people with a single knife, could be attacked.

n“Emperor bastard!”

nShe even spit out swear words.

nWithout hesitation, she stormed into Lloyd’s room. Almost at the same time as the door slammed open, Lloyd raised his body.

nHe took a breath. Perhaps he just had a nightmare.

nAria was going to run to him right away and ask what was going on, what nightmare he had.

nBut,

nShe paused for a moment as she saw the tears running down the corners of his eyes.

n‘He was….’

nHe was crying. Aria was very flustered. Lloyd who never shed a tear. Even when faced with unfair and terrible pain that ordinary people cannot endure. He simply faces all the misfortunes and accepts them.

nThat Lloyd was crying.

nIt looked even more pitiful and painful to see the tears dripping without expression.

n‘How should I console you.’

nAria was stunned for a moment, frozen, and only after Lloyd reached out his hand did she come to her senses belatedly.

nHis fingertips were trembling.

n‘Because Lloyd shows his fingertips, not his expression, when he’s insecure…….’

nShe quickly grabbed them all and held them firmly.

n“Actually, my hearing is also like a rabbit.”

n“……”

n“It seems Lloyd is having a nightmare, so I came in at will. I’m sorry.”

nShe rambled on and made excuses.

nAria then recalled how he would always comfort her with plausible words when she seems to be hurt. But seeing Lloyd’s actual expression of pain, for a moment, her head went white and she didn’t know what to do.

n‘Is Lloyd this way every time I cry?’

nShe would rather just be sick for him instead…….

n“Don’t cry.”

nShe wiped away the tears. Just like Lloyd did. Then, he said,

n“I want to live. With you.”

nIt was something she hadn’t thought of.

nBut the moment she heard those words, she could realize the true nature of the emptiness, which Aria felt when she was alone in the room.

nOh I see. Although she always thought of death and was prepared to leave them naturally 10 years later. Actually, she …….

n“I also want to live…”

nBefore her thoughts, her mouth answered first.

nI want to live.

nI didn’t want to die like this.

nEven after breaking the curse, she wanted to die of old age with Lloyd and Valentine.She didn’t want to be the night, she wanted to be with him and she wanted to be the moon and the stars that light up the night.

nShe didn’t want to be separated from him.

n‘Is there any way I won’t die after I become an adult?’

nFor the first time, she had that thought.

n“So what did you dream about?”

nLloyd looked away from her and said nothing. He wanted to dig out the memories like this.

nAria’s memories and his memories.

nHe wept ferociously in front of her, revealing what he had hidden inside him. The self-destructing, festering, rotten innermost thought that he had dreamed of since childhood.

n“…don’t say anything.”

n“Why are you crying? People can cry.”

n“The crying… erase it from your memory.”

n“No.”

nAria stubbornly answered.

n“There’s nothing to be ashamed of between us. We all know each other.”

n“There must be more things that you don’t know…”

nLloyd mumbled so, and then he let out a very deep sigh.

nAnd he talked about the ‘self-sacrifice’, which he had been thinking about since he was very young.

n“I found a book by chance when I was little. I remember it being here in the mansion’s library…”

nThis was the moment when Lloyd decided to self-sacrifice.

n‘I didn’t mean to say it at all.’

nBecause of Aria looking up at him with her big, open eyes as if she would listen to anything. Eyes that shine brighter than the stars even in the dark.

nWhen he came to his senses, Lloyd had revealed all of his secrets.

n“In the dream, when the time came and I uttered that spell, the power in my body suddenly went wild. All living things in Valentine’s Castle evaporated.”

nWithout a trace.

n“And you too…”

n“……Me?”

n“You don’t evaporate, you die bleeding.”

nLloyd, after a long absence, had a red face up to his ears, turned his head away, and mumbled. He never imagined that the day would come when he , like a child, would confide in his nightmares.

nBut when Aria heard about it, instead of laughing at him, she made a very serious expression on her face.

n“Then what was the reason for the outburst?”

nIt wasn’t serious, yet she listened to it as if it had actually happened.

nLloyd replied with a frown.

n“Well. It’s just a guess, but since I was trying to harm the body that contains the devil’s malice, it didn’t want the malice to go away, so I think it went crazy.”

n“There is a possibility. I hadn’t thought of that.”

nBut why was she taking this seriously?

n‘It’s just a dream anyway.’

nLloyd was puzzled, but as Aria raised her head and stared at him, he avoided her gaze again.

n“Are you going to die?”

n“My childhood plans…”

n“I don’t think so.”

n“… now I have no intention of doing that anymore.”

nI said I wanted to live. Lloyd added a little.

nAria was heartbroken again that Lloyd had been living with those thoughts since he was a child.

nBut she was determined not to let him fall. In fact, the reason why Aria herself was so resolute about her death was because she was no different from him.

n‘It’s very shocking that Lloyd was thinking of self-destruction.’

nOnce she put that shock aside.

n‘It…… Isn’t it Valentine’s incident?’

nAria was almost convinced. Lloyd’s dream was telling him how the Valentine’s Incident happened.

n‘Because Lloyd has inherited most of the devil’s malice now.’

nPerhaps the time to inherit all the malice coincides with winter, the time when Valentine’s Incident takes place.

nIt was shocking.

n‘Until now, I thought that the incident was caused by manipulation from the outside.’

nBut it wasn’t. It happened because of the spell that Lloyd had chanted to sacrifice himself, the devil’s malice ran rampant.

nThen.

nHow did Lloyd survive the last life alone?

n‘He tried to save everyone by sacrificing himself, but his power ran rampant and he killed all of his people with his own hands.’

nIt wasn’t his fault.

nOf course, it cannot be said that it was not entirely not Lloyd’s fault, but his purpose was to self-sacrifice with the malice.

nBut that was the result.

n‘Then the fact that the future Lloyd attended a depraved meeting that he had no interest in, and suddenly came to listen to the Siren’s songs and started working on drugs…….’

nShe thought he was trying to kill himself.

n‘He had killed everyone he’d been with his whole life, so he was weighed down with guilt.’

nBut he couldn’t try to die any longer. He couldn’t die, so he had no choice but to live. If he tries to die, another outburst will occur, or the malice in his body will come out and destroy the world.

n‘So, Lloyd would rather go crazy at the crossroads of that choice.’

nThat’s the story of Valentine’s Incident.

nAria bit her lip to hold back the tears, until she finally let the tears fall.

n“No, you’re not going to die…”

nWhen Aria suddenly started crying, he panicked, this time it was Lloyd who was flustered.

n“Don’t cry. Stop.”

n“I’m crying Lloyd’s tears.”

n“Yes, I was wrong.”

nHe thought that Aria was crying because he was about to die. So he reassured her that he would never do that again in the future. But even though he said that, Aria did not stop her tears.

nHe then wiped away all the tears that ran down her cheeks with his hands.

n“Rather than self-sacrifice, let’s just destroy the world. Let’s live together in a destroyed world.”

nAnd he started to say everything to stop the tears.

nHow can this be comforting? Aria couldn’t cry, so she let out a small laugh.

n“I will live to be a hundred years old.”

n“It’s not Lloyd’s fault.”

n“Huh?”

n“Never.”

nThese were the words she wanted to tell Llord not only for today, but also for Lloyd in the future. A future that has not happened yet, and will never happen in the future.

nSaying so, Aria opened her arms wide and hugged her husband tightly.

n‘Heartbeat…… It’s loud.’

nPerhaps Lloyd was scared too.

nAria thought as she buried her face in the arms of the young man who had stiffened.

n‘But why was I dead?’

nIf his previous life had appeared in a dream, there wouldn’t be Aria there. Then it will be a prophetic dream that will happen in the future. Or a silly dream.

n‘All living things evaporated and disappeared, but why is it that only I am left with a corpse?’

nAs expected, was it a silly dream?

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