Aya Ran Away - Chapter 3

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 3
The ones that had attached recently came away easily, but the older ones took considerable time to remove.
In the most severe cases, even a few strikes from a wooden staff wouldn’t dislodge them.
Fortunately, today’s specimen came away as smoothly as its small size suggested it would.
The thing that had come rushing toward her—grotesquely malformed, with an oversized head and shriveled limbs—writhed in agony as it crawled toward Aya.
[I’ll curse you! I’ll curse you!]
It shrieked these chilling words and lunged at her.
Most of the Malevolent Spirits that Aya forcibly dislodged would fall away quickly, but occasionally one would cling to her for some time afterward.
During those stretches, Aya would sometimes serve as their unwilling host, allowing them to remain until they exhausted themselves and faded.
No matter how desperately a clinging spirit thrashed about, it never threw her off balance.
She had been born with few desires and a clear understanding of her own station.
Without such temperament, she would never have survived this long.
It was always her nature, but after beginning to see the Malevolent Spirits, she became even more cautious still.
[Die!]
The spirit that had charged at her bit her nose and pulled away.
Aya staggered backward at the impact, letting out a small whimper.
“Ungh……”
She had underestimated the small one—it had struck far harder than expected.
Whenever she was bitten by a Malevolent Spirit like this, illness would follow.
The severity varied from time to time.
As a price for her needless meddling, Aya bore chronic headaches, leg pain, chills, and fevers as constant companions.
After each bout of sickness, her hands, feet, and limbs would be covered in large and small wounds.
Because of the Malevolent Spirits, Aya’s body was rarely ever whole.
‘Next time I see that one, I’ll give it a proper beating.’
Aya ground her teeth as she thought of the small spirit slipping away into the shadows.
It was rare for a Malevolent Spirit, once manifested, to be destroyed entirely.
They simply found their next victim quickly enough.
Aya had encountered the same-looking spirits multiple times over the years.
She could peel them away, but she had no method to annihilate them completely.
All she could do was remove them each time they appeared.
“……Your Highness?”
At the sudden sound of a voice, Aya’s closed eyes opened.
The Attendant who had been walking ahead was staring at her with a bewildered expression.
He glanced back and forth between Aya’s Staff, which had narrowly missed his shoulder, and Aya herself holding it.
Aya quickly lowered her hand holding the Staff and offered an awkward smile.
‘Hahaha……’
Since the Veil obscured her lips, she crinkled the corners of her visible eyes as high as they would go.
Sadly, Aya did not realize how grotesque this made her appear.
The Attendant made no attempt to hide his alarm and fled from her.
Such incidents had accumulated until rumors spread that she had gone mad.
Watching his back recede rapidly, as if he had seen a ghost, Aya had to suppress her sense of injustice.
“Your Highness?”
Then, a voice called to her from behind.
She turned around to find Yesilli standing there.
Aya nodded in acknowledgment, and Yesilli approached with a bright smile.
Dressed in white Priestess Robes, she was a radiant beauty with flowing golden hair and blue eyes.
“Did you frighten another attendant just now?”
She wore the expression of someone indulging a mischievous child.
Yesilli’s amused laughter only made Aya’s pout deepen.
‘It’s not like I did it on purpose.’
Even Yesilli, a priestess herself, could not see the Malevolent Spirits.
Aya did not know why she alone could see them, nor when she had learned the art of dislodging them.
At first she had been afraid, but before long it became merely part of her daily life.
“Why did you come out here alone? Where is the Nurse?”
At the question about her “mother,” Aya raised her hand and pointed toward the building.
Yesilli was the Nurse’s daughter and Aya’s foster sister.
According to the Nurse, the two had been together since Aya’s earliest childhood, which she could not remember.
Perhaps because of this, no one understood Aya’s intentions as well as Yesilli did.
Even after Yesilli had become the head priestess at the Temple, she still helped Aya with her affairs three or four times a week.
“Achoo!”
When Aya sneezed, Yesilli reached over with a concerned expression and draped her outer robe across the princess’s shoulders.
“That’s why I told you not to come out before I arrived.”
Come now, let’s go inside.
Yesilli guided Aya beneath the eaves of the Corridor.
The moment they stepped into the shade, a cool current peculiar to marble settled between them.
Aya followed the gentle pull of Yesilli’s hand for a few steps, then suddenly stopped.
When Yesilli turned her head, Aya tapped her arm twice.
Yesilli fell silent for a moment, as if divining the meaning, before a small “Ah” escaped her lips.
“You mean him?”
Yesilli smiled faintly and bowed her head.
Though no one was near, she leaned close to Aya’s ear and spoke in a hushed, confidential tone.
“He came again this time.”
At the answer she’d been longing to hear, Aya’s face lit up.
When Aya tapped her arm again, Yesilli continued walking and resumed speaking.
“He didn’t seem to have any serious injuries. There were some minor cuts, but…… since he didn’t receive separate Healing Magic, it must have been nothing of real consequence.”
While Yesilli spoke, Aya held her arm with one hand and leaned on her Staff with the other.
Even in circumstances where walking properly was difficult, Aya concentrated intently on every word Yesilli said.
“Oh, but there seemed to be some trouble. He mentioned a Curse, but…… I couldn’t quite catch whether it was something his companions experienced or something that happened to him personally.”
As the explanation continued, Aya’s face darkened and brightened in turns.
“You’re truly delighted by this?”
Yesilli regarded Aya with puzzlement, studying her quietly.
Aya nodded at once.
“Because he’s my savior, isn’t he? Although you said we’ve never had a proper conversation face-to-face.”
That was true.
In a single moment her heart had been captured, yet Aya had never truly faced him.
And yet her heart overflowed.
Allowed to flow freely, it had accumulated layer upon layer until it became like the sea.
“Revar’s hero is indeed a thief of hearts—even stealing the affection of a princess deep within this palace.”
Aya rolled the name—that name she could barely speak—across her tongue, thickened as it was.
On her lips as she pronounced it, there seemed to linger something sweet.
* * *
He was the most beautiful person Aya had ever seen.
To say she’d given her heart because of his appearance would sound vulgar, but she could not deny that his beauty had played its part in drawing her into this boundless current where she now swam.
Yet this was not something Aya alone felt.
Most of the people in the Royal Palace admired him.
Though they pretended otherwise, even Yesilli and the Nurse had once marveled at his beauty.
Even those who disliked him simply for being from the Northern Region dared not diminish his appearance.
Aya still remembered vividly the day she first saw him.
Because of shame, she sometimes felt the urge to erase that memory altogether, but…….
“Why did you go out alone and catch such an illness?”
The Nurse’s voice pulled her from her reverie.
In the Nurse’s hand, entering with a reproachful tone, was a bowl of Medicine Broth.
Aya lay in bed, her brow deeply furrowed.
For Aya, who was missing roughly half her tongue, eating and swallowing had become an ordeal.
“It cannot be helped. That’s why you mustn’t go wandering about without permission.”
Reluctantly accepting the bowl, she struggled to swallow.
Each time the medicine went down, her breath caught.
Any slight miscalculation and she would choke.
As Aya wiped her lips with the cloth the Nurse offered, she glanced back at her.
Malevolent Spirits clung to the Nurse’s shoulders and legs.
No matter how many times they were torn away, they kept crawling back endlessly.
The grotesquely elongated neck of one Malevolent Spirit writhed and twisted.
Aya could see something flowing from the Nurse toward them.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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