kscans

Chapter 107 - The Final Love, Spelled Out in a Diary

Darius stared blankly at Ariel’s diary and the contents of the memory box.

In the beginning, it was just filled with nostalgic memories.

She would often write about the day’s events and show it to me, asking, "Is this okay?"

She had thought so hard about raising Mireille, about how to deal with the members of the Tree Sea Defense Force. She must have been slowly coming to understand that while she herself could work without sleep, she could not demand the same of others.

She was a woman with a strong sense of responsibility, no duplicity, like a child who had grown into an adult.

And yet, why had I never said,

"It’s okay for you to be pampered, it’s okay for you to rest."

I should have understood that the path Ariel had walked was different from that of others.

I had taught her that she must not force that upon others. But I

had failed to even simply tell her, "It’s okay for you to be like everyone else."

Her diary was always filled with the anxiety of "Is this okay?"

Towards the end, she had stopped showing me her diary at all. In fact, there were days when nothing was written. Then, there were days when what was being done to her by the King and the mage Rainer was written out over countless lines.

At the very, very end, it was no longer in the diary.

There was a mountain of scribbled notes, written on whatever she could find, whatever seemed to catch her eye.

Words were crammed onto the front and back of the pages, the handwriting that of someone struggling to maintain their sanity. She must have been unable to remain rational any longer.

At first glance, the content seemed the same as what I had heard. Her feeling of disgust towards Rainer was also the same.

But in reality, it was worse than I had imagined. The frequency, the maliciousness, it was all horrifically severe. The poison was not just a one-time thing.

"This time, I’ll make a much stronger antidote."

Could she incorporate an effect that didn’t look so painful? An antidote that didn’t make her vomit blood. A memo that at first glance looked like a normal antidote recipe. But on the back was a confession, hidden, that she had been forced to drink so much that she vomited blood even after taking the antidote, and that someone had seen her suffering.

Furthermore, for the sake of Darius’s happiness, she had to leave him. She was robbing Darius of his happiness. She had been jealous without understanding love. She had gotten in the way of him being united with a noblewoman.

Incoherent words, words I had no memory of, were also scrawled across the pages, ignoring their order.

"I love you... I love you..." It was a scream. Though the words "I love you" were never written, the text could only be read as such. With each character I read, my chest tightened, and I felt I would go mad with rage and regret.

Why didn’t you say anything? Why did you think it was okay? Why didn’t you run away?

I thought these things... yet every reason written there was for my sake.

Because she thought she shouldn’t be by my side. Because she was trying to make me think she was "okay."

Her pleading for us to break up, her trying to get Mireille another family, all of it was an attempt to protect us.

And the reason she didn’t run away. Wasn’t it because she was made to believe that if she resisted, harm would come to me and Mireille?

In fact, I had pursued her and become a fugitive. Mireille, too, had been subjected to an interrogation that was close to unnecessary torture. She must have wanted to avoid such an ending.

Just a little longer. I can save her in just a little longer.

But now, having learned how much I am loved, what I must tell her is... farewell? And what’s more, just like in those scribbled notes, "I’m breaking up with you because I’m to be wed to a noblewoman."

Darius found his past judgments to be pathetic, and he could do nothing about it.