My Body Has Been Possessed By Someone - Chapter 291

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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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Side Story Episode 22
* * *
Kanna.
It’s Kanna.
“Ha.”
Laughter spilled from my lips. She stood before me so vividly, so crystalline in her presence.
“I’m insane.”
Orsini chuckled darkly.
As expected, this drug he’d discovered in his father’s kitchen was a potent hallucinogen.
Father must have sampled it himself. For all his pretense of nobility, he was nothing but a drug addict like me—and that realization was almost amusing.
“They say we’re alike. How strange that we’re even alike in this.”
Orsini laughed continuously as he collapsed into a chair.
The severed finger throbbed with pain, and his heart felt heavy and tangled. Unable to endure it, he’d surrendered to the hallucinogen.
‘I truly meant to stop.’
Chasing after Kanna’s shadow. Occasionally losing myself, behaving pathetically.
I was so utterly sick of it, so disgusted with myself, that I’d resolved to end it all.
Yet here I am.
And now, a terrifying thought had begun to take root.
“This worthless stone means nothing. What good could it possibly do?”
What if Kanna wasn’t pleased?
“What’s this? A finger missing? You look like a monster. It’s repulsive.”
What if she despised my broken body?
“You burned someone else’s letter and wished for another’s love to wither. You’re garbage—without conscience, without pride. And now you don’t even have a pinky finger. I can’t stand the sight of you.”
Unable to withstand the imagined cruelty of her words, Orsini reached for the hallucinogen.
“….”
As I gazed at her in a daze, the hollow ache in my chest began to fill, piece by piece.
For some time now, there had been a gaping void. It filled completely when Kanna was near, only to tear open again the moment she left.
I knew what this was—selfish greed.
Once, wasn’t I satisfied merely by her presence? But desire devoured want voraciously, growing like a monster.
In proportion, I became more wretched, and I longed to stop.
“Kanna.”
I murmured, gazing at her phantom form.
“There’s something I want to ask you.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. I covered my face with my intact hand. Truth be told, I wanted to hide.
“Do you… feel even the slightest….”
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
My tongue felt as though it might be severed. Or perhaps I wanted it to be.
The degradation was unbearable, shameful, and yet I desperately needed to hear the answer.
Heat flooded my face. My ears burned.
“Or do you still find me abhorrent?”
“Huh.”
“….”
Huh?
Huh, what?
Orsini slowly opened his eyes. He lowered the hand that had covered his face. He turned his body toward the source of the voice.
And he saw her.
“I really hate this.”
Kanna Adis, her gaze cold and piercing.
Orsini stared at her with a vacant expression. Was this a hallucination?
“Is this a hallucinogen?”
At that moment, Kanna Adis lifted the medicine bottle from the table.
“Is this a hallucinogen?”
In an instant, his mind snapped clear. The drug’s effects dissipated entirely.
How was Kanna Adis here?
“I told you before.”
Clang! Kanna Adis hurled the medicine bottle.
“I said if you did this even one more time, I would never see your face again!”
“Wait, hold on.”
“Shut your mouth. Don’t make excuses!”
Kanna Adis was absolutely furious, like a vengeful spirit.
It was bewildering. Unbelievable.
Kanna Adis?
Kanna Adis, angry like this?
“I made it clear. If you did this even one more time, I would never see you again.”
Her voice trembled with rage.
“But now that I’ve seen you do it again, I truly have no intention of….”
In the next moment, Kanna Adis’s words cut off abruptly.
“….”
Her gaze froze on Orsini’s left hand. On the bandage stained with crimson bloodstains.
“…What is that bandage?”
Was it her imagination? Her voice seemed to tremble slightly.
“Are you really injured?”
Kanna Adis lifted his wrist sharply. And she immediately noticed.
That more than half of his pinky finger was gone.
“Why is this? What happened?”
“It’s nothing serious. More importantly, this.”
Orsini quickly rummaged through his pocket. This moment, while Kanna Adis was distracted from her anger, was his opportunity.
“Take this.”
He held out a sacred stone.
“This stone contains sacred power within it.”
“….”
“Keep it on you for emergencies. When your magical reserves run low later, wouldn’t it be nice to recover by consuming it like a restorative potion?”
Orsini focused all his attention on studying her expression.
Would she like it?
Or would she find it tedious as always?
“….”
Yet Kanna Adis said nothing. Rather, her emotions had settled in the interim, leaving her face composed and controlled.
“Orsini, don’t tell me you lost a finger trying to obtain this?”
No, it wasn’t lost—I cut it off myself….
But if I told her the truth, something truly catastrophic would happen, so Orsini played innocent.
“No. It was an accident.”
“An accident?”
“Yes. An accident.”
Kanna Adis finally exhaled a sigh.
Orsini himself seemed unaware, but he possessed no talent whatsoever for deception. Not even a shred.
‘Fool.’
Only Orsini himself could damage Orsini to such a degree.
In the past, and now as well.
As always, it must have been the same this time.
‘Idiot.’
How could he be so pathetic? So utterly, unbearably pathetic….
I wanted to embrace him.
Just once, very gently.
But Kanna Adis firmly suppressed that impulse.
“First, let’s treat that properly. The wound could become infected.”
Just as she turned to leave, she paused as if remembering something.
“Oh. And.”
Kanna Adis picked up the magical stone he had offered her.
“You said this was a magical stone?”
Orsini swallowed hard. Then he waited for what would come next.
Perhaps she would say the stone was useless. That it couldn’t provide a fundamental solution, that it wouldn’t be much help, or that she might even find it bothersome….
“I’ll use it well. It’s truly something I need. Where did you manage to find something like this?”
Kanna Adis smiled.
“Thank you, Orsini.”
“….”
Orsini gazed silently at the scene before him. At that moment when Kanna Adis smiled toward him.
And he naturally foresaw it. That he would not forget this moment for a very long time.
The reality before his eyes was far more….
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
Orsini grabbed Kanna by the shoulders and pulled her toward him.
“Just once.”
As he murmured this and lowered his lips, Kanna startled and pushed against his shoulders.
“Wait, Orsini!”
“Just once.”
“Are you insane? You’re injured right now!”
Kanna looked exasperated, but Orsini heard nothing.
“No. I’m not hurt.”
“You’re not hurt, my foot—you’re not in your right mind…!”
Yet he succeeded in pressing his lips against hers. For a moment, his mind seemed to go numb. As always, her breath was like poison.
“It’s fine. Just a little, just for a moment….”
He murmured while drawing in that intoxicating sensation repeatedly. Yet he didn’t even know what he was saying.
His head and body burned as though seared by flame, and he had to do something, anything, right now. He couldn’t endure it any longer….
* * *
“Got one!”
Claude yanked his fishing rod sharply, and a large fish dangled from the line.
“Mm-hmm, mm-hmm-hmm.”
He hummed to himself as he placed the fish in his bucket. He already had well over ten, each one plump and well-fed.
Alexandro Adis’s bucket, on the other hand….
“How is it you haven’t caught a single one, sir?”
Claude clicked his tongue in sympathy.
“Not even a nibble?”
“Be quiet. They’re all fleeing.”
Claude suppressed his laughter. Truly, the man had no talent for cooking or fishing either.
‘How did it come to this?’
Once he had slain dragons, yet now he couldn’t catch a single minnow.
Perhaps from spending so long in constant battle, Alexandro Adis had grown insensitive to the ways of the world.
Especially regarding the lives of commoners—he was nearly ignorant, so much so that village merchants had spread word of him as a naive young man easy to overcharge.
‘To anyone’s eye, he looks like an awkward country youth.’
He was so different from the Alexandro Adis Claude had known that it was sometimes astonishing.
Claude had followed at Alexandro Adis’s side since earliest childhood, watching over him. His battles, his wars, the bloody carnage he had carved through.
A man standing alone and hollow atop a mountain built of corpses….
At last his battles had ended.
‘But is this truly rest?’
Sometimes such doubts arose.
Was this genuine respite?
Or perhaps he had simply abandoned himself?
Like a discarded tool that had outlived its usefulness, sometimes Claude felt that he had disposed of himself.
‘Will he not remarry? Or perhaps he might take a lover?’
Claude ventured the question carefully.
“It seems like Yeon-seo has been coming around for some time now. She’s the daughter of the Lord of Paelon, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come now. You’re not deliberately visiting this region to see Alexandro Adis? She’s quite the beauty.”
“Claude Azel.”
Alexandro Adis replied quietly to that remark.
“Observe. You have no right to involve yourself in my decisions.”
Claude fell silent with a smile. He had been completely seen through by that subtle probe—his concerns laid bare as well.
‘He’s truly terrifying, I tell you.’
Claude changed the subject.
“By the way, do you really think Orsini will actually clean?”
“He won’t. I’d be fortunate if he doesn’t leave it in an even worse state.”
“Then why give him such a task and torment him? You’re truly mischievous.”
“Me? Mischievous?”
“Issuing pointless orders isn’t like you, Alexandro Adis. You did it deliberately to provoke him, didn’t you?”
“…Perhaps.”
“Why did you do it?”
Alexandro Adis gazed blankly out at the Sea.
“I’m not sure.”
Sunlight shattered across the water like gold dust, glittering brilliantly. That radiance was beautiful. And it resembled Orsini.
An unblemished self.
Resplendent arrogance.
The prime and pinnacle of a life that had never once been broken, never knowing true surrender….
Watching such an Orsini, I was reminded of that time.
That moment when I felt I could do anything, when I promised I would do anything.
My verdant spring, fleeting as scattered cherry blossoms, passing far too swiftly.
“…Perhaps I was envious.”
Alexandro Adis murmured.

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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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