My Body Has Been Possessed By Someone - Chapter 165

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

Chapter 165
* * *
Silvien Valentino had finally grasped a plausible thread.
Erdel Iris—that false identity Argon had fabricated. Tracing that name, genuine testimony pointing to Kanna Adis had surfaced.
“Yes, I saw her. The hood obscured her face, but I distinctly saw the black hair.”
In that moment, Silvien Valentino let out a soft laugh.
‘So it was you, Kanna.’
He traced each fragment of evidence she had left behind.
Restaurants, inns, the night market. She had traveled far and wide with remarkable diligence.
With each trace of Kanna he uncovered, Silvien Valentino’s joy deepened.
And only then did he understand.
Her death had grieved him far more than he had realized.
That was why each piece of evidence confirming her survival filled him with such delight.
As he pursued Kanna’s trail, Silvien Valentino indulged in pleasant imaginings. When she saw him, she would surely be astonished. And undoubtedly, she would regard him with utter disdain.
So his first priority was to reassure her—to make clear that he harbored no intention of dragging her back to House of Adis.
If he offered to aid her escape, to support her new life….
Silvien Valentino suddenly halted. He jerked the reins sharply.
‘Why?’
Why should he do any of this?
Reality crashed down upon him. What was he doing?
Why was he searching for a woman who had fled to forge a new life? She was alive—wasn’t confirming that enough?
Did he truly need to pursue her and witness that look of disgust?
Yet he did not turn the horse around. He wanted to see Kanna alive with his own eyes. And.
‘I must apologize to her.’
A conversation that had existed only in imagination.
The opportunity to speak those words had arrived like a miracle.
There was so much he needed to say.
* * *
“Erdel Iris?”
Silvien Valentino had finally found the inn where she was staying.
“Yes, she is in her room now, but who might you be?”
When Silvien Valentino produced a gold coin, the servant eagerly guided him to her room.
At last, Silvien Valentino came to a stop before the door. He sensed movement within.
He raised his hand to knock, then lowered it again. Absurdly, nervousness began to overtake him like an inexperienced youth.
Silvien Valentino straightened his disheveled clothes and swept back his tousled hair. Then he rapped gently on the door.
The next moment, the door swung open.
“Who… is…?”
And their eyes met.
A woman with dark eyes gazed up at him in a daze, her expression one of utter disbelief, as though witnessing an illusion. Her cheeks flushed crimson.
“Are you… an angel…?”
An unfamiliar voice. An unfamiliar face. A woman I had never seen before, yet one with dark eyes and raven-black hair.
Not Kanna Adis.
“…Miss Erdel Iris?”
The woman flinched, her shoulders trembling.
“H-how do you know that name?”
“Forgive my intrusion.”
Silvien Valentino grasped the woman’s shoulder and pulled her into the room, then closed the door behind them.
“You are indeed Miss Erdel Iris?”
“Y-yes, I am.”
“So you are the owner of the forged identification papers.”
At his insinuation, the woman’s face drained of all color.
“That is….”
“Do not bother denying it. I already know everything, and that is precisely why I have come.”
After Silvien Valentino made several threatening remarks, the woman confessed to everything.
She was a commoner. In the Slum District of the Imperial Capital, she sold flowers, and because of her black hair and dark eyes, she could not secure proper employment.
But not long ago, a woman appeared before her.
She claimed to be a maid serving a certain noblewoman. A noblewoman with black hair and dark eyes, sympathizing with her similar plight, had gifted her a new life.
That gift was an identification paper from the Yalden Kingdom and a sum of gold.
The Yalden Kingdom was a land free from prejudice. Even those with black hair and dark eyes could secure proper employment there, she had been told.
“…She said she understood my feelings. Because she too had black hair and dark eyes, she said she had lived a life of persecution.”
Tears glistened in the woman’s eyes.
“She told me to live happily.”
“….”
“Do you know who she was?”
I could not answer. I could not bring myself to believe this situation.
‘Why?’
Why would Kanna Adis give away the identification papers she had obtained with such difficulty to another person? Could she have fled elsewhere? Perhaps she had deliberately created a diversion to obstruct pursuit.
It was a plausible hypothesis, but an even more plausible explanation awaited.
Escaping from the House of Adis was an impossible feat.
Kanna Adis must have realized this truth and despaired.
So perhaps, seeking vicarious satisfaction, she had gifted the identification papers to a woman in similar circumstances, and then taken her own life.
In other words….
In other words, Kanna Adis was truly dead.
I leaned my back against the wall.
“A-are you alright?”
The woman reached out with a concerned hand, but I could feel nothing.
I thought we would meet again.
I thought I would have the chance to say the words I never got to say to her….
That hope had lifted me soaring into the sky, only to plunge me into the depths in an instant.
Perhaps that was why. A shock far greater than when I had seen her corpse tore through me. There was something I desperately wanted to tell Kanna Adis.
A sincere apology, and….
“I find myself curious about you.”
“Those fierce eyes of yours, that confident expression, even the barbed words you wield—I don’t dislike them.”
“In fact, they’re rather pleasant, so perhaps I’ve grown fond of them.”
“Though I confess, I’m uncertain.”
“We never had the chance to truly know one another. I destroyed that possibility myself.”
“Please, grant me the opportunity to come to know you.”
The countless words tumbling through my mind lodged in my throat like thorns.
I pressed my palms against my forehead. And faced a reality as cold and unyielding as steel—a truth so chilling it raised the hair on my skin.
It was too late.
Neither the chance to apologize nor to begin anew would ever come.
Kanna Adis no longer existed in this world.
* * *
The day after the funeral, Alexandro Adis returned.
Upon his arrival, he immediately sought out Claude.
“It is as reported in the newspapers. The young lady took her own life. Before my very eyes….”
Claude’s voice faltered, as though the pain was too great to bear.
“It is as good as if Kalen murdered her. He coveted the young lady.”
“I see.”
“Did you know of Kalen’s feelings?”
Alexandro did not answer.
Instead, for the first time in ages, he reached for a cigarette. Claude lit it with a match as he placed it between his lips.
He exhaled smoke in a long plume, muttering softly.
“I suspected as much. That’s why I stationed you there.”
At those words, Claude fell to his knees.
“Forgive me. I failed to protect the young lady.”
“The body?”
“It rests in the Chapel now.”
“I’ll see it.”
After Claude departed, Alexandro sank deep into the sofa’s embrace.
He smoked five more cigarettes in succession. Wisps of pale smoke filled his vision entirely.
Then he rose abruptly and strode forward with purpose.
“Your Grace?”
Upon entering the Chapel, the servants guarding the coffin started in surprise. Alexandro dismissed them all with a gesture.
Once they had gone, only he and Kanna Adis remained in the Chapel.
Alexandro stood before the dark coffin. He gazed down at it for a moment, then thrust the lid aside in one swift motion.
Moonlight poured down upon Kanna Adis’s pallid face.
Death.
Had any face ever suited that word so perfectly?
The alabaster complexion, the ashen lips, the hands folded so delicately across her chest—they were like the lingering afterimage of a life now departed.
I had sprinkled a powder to slow decomposition, so for now she was merely a beautiful corpse—but in a few days, she would begin to rot.
“Kanna Adis.”
He murmured.
No answer came.
Alexandro Adis reached out his hand. He caressed her still-smooth hair, then slowly traced downward, brushing across her cheek.
He ran his palm across her face as if confirming it fit entirely within his grasp, then moved lower.
Lower, lower….
And in the next moment, his hand pierced through Kanna Adis’s left chest.
A sickening crack of bone and tearing flesh assaulted his ears. Dark crimson blood surged upward, drenching his cheek.
Yet Alexandro Adis rummaged through the cavity without expression. He seized her heart and tore it free. And the instant he exerted force to crush it—
The heart began to crumble into a handful of sand.
Grains scattered downward. The blood droplets that had splattered on his hand dispersed into sand as well.
Alexandro Adis let out a quiet laugh.
Looking back into the coffin, the space where the corpse had lain moments before was now filled with sand.
Only the lace dress and blue roses remained, abandoned like shells atop the mound of sand.
“Hah.”
A smile gathered at the corners of Alexandro Adis’s mouth. Then, unable to contain the rising laughter, he burst forth.
“Hahahaha!”
Alexandro Adis laughed with trembling shoulders before pressing his hand to his forehead. As he swept back his crimson hair, his eyes gleamed with unbridled delight.
“Quite impressive, Kanna Adis.”
Alexandro Adis reached out and touched the blue roses within the coffin.
“Well done.”
And he offered his praise with genuine warmth.
“Truly magnificent.”
* * *
Moments later, as he emerged, the servants waiting outside came into view.
They were trembling with fear. It was only natural—they had heard Alexandro Adis’s laughter for the first time in their lives.
“I-Is something the matter, Your Grace?”
Yet Alexandro Adis’s face remained as expressionless as always. Not a trace of the exhilaration that had consumed him moments before remained.
“Nothing is amiss. Have the coffin buried at once.”
After issuing the command, he turned, his crimson cloak billowing behind him.
This matter would not leak. No one but himself would ever know that the corpse was nothing but sand.
And so Alexandro Adis intended to create Kanna Adis’s grave immediately.
So that she could die completely.

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