The Eldest Daughter Walks Down The Flower Path - Chapter 158

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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The Eldest Daughter Walks the Path of Flowers Episode 158

Young Eve Russel bit her tender lips until they bled.

If she didn’t, she felt like she would lose her mind.

The child couldn’t even remember how she had crawled out of the cavern beneath the Makai Tree.

She just had to run away.

In the venomous mist, the faint shadows of the dead were searching for him.

“Sob, sob…”

Eve ran staggeringly with both hands covering her mouth.

Cold sweat continued to flow down over her frozen skin.

Between her fingers leaked crying sounds that would have been less heartbreaking if she had just wailed openly.

The child who had been running frantically like this eventually tripped over slippery roots.

“Hic, huu…”

Burying her body in the blackish moss, the child trembled.

The moss containing narcotic poison gently embraced him.

In that deadly comfort, the child curled up small and finally burst into tears.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

Heavy footsteps could be felt not far away.

It was probably a demon.

However, she didn’t even think of running away.

His world had already been shattered long ago.

The child who had nowhere to return to didn’t even have the will left to get up from this spot.

The dragging footsteps grew closer and closer.

Along with a terrible stench, horrible gurgling breathing sounds could be heard.

The child closed her eyes, praying that her end wouldn’t be too painful.

Then, something landed softly beside him.

Soon after, the demon’s scream was heard.

“…?”

Eve Russel slowly opened her closed eyes.

Someone was scattering jet-black sword light and cutting down the demons.

The two demons that had been approaching to target Eve fell with thudding sounds without being able to put up any resistance.

The one who had descended from the sky approached the child, flapping black wings.

Realizing this, Eve struggled to lift her eyes that were swollen from the moss’s poison to see the other person.

All he could see through his blurry vision was a warm smile that didn’t suit this situation.

‘An angel…?’

The angel folded her black wings and stayed by his side.

Then asked like this.

“Are you okay?”

Instead of answering those words, Eve asked while sobbing.

“Are you an angel…?”

The angel could be felt flinching.

The angel answered awkwardly.

“If, if you want to think so, then do that. No, please do that…?”

Eve asked while sniffling.

“Can I go to heaven?”

Radis looked down at young Eve with a face that said ‘what should I do about this.’

It was good that she had followed Eve’s crawling traces to get here, but Eve’s condition looked very bad.

Radis carefully lifted the child to first separate Eve from the moss that was definitely poisonous.

Eve asked again with swollen eyes.

“Am I going to heaven now?”

Radis answered with a flustered face.

“Not right now.”

At her words, little Eve began to sob sadly.

“Then, then am I going to the Underworld? Because, because I’m a bad child…”

Radis didn’t know what to do and just blinked her eyes.

She had never been this close to a young child before.

Naturally, she had never comforted a crying child either.

‘What should I say to a crying child…?’

Looking back on her own experiences was only despairing.

Until Armano became her sword instructor, there wasn’t a single person who had comforted her when young she was crying.

She only knew how to chew up and swallow her sadness.

She spoke in as calm a tone as possible.

“Eve Russel, you…”

Radis, who was about to say ‘aren’t bad,’ couldn’t even say those words.

Somehow the future Eve with her sinister smile came to mind.

She said this instead.

“…It’s not bad enough to go to the Underworld.”

At her words, Eve cried even more sadly.

Her red swollen eyes looked so painful.

Looking around, Radis took off her cloak, spread it on the ground, and sat Eve there.

Then she washed his face with water from her canteen.

Eve, who had been sitting still as if all her strength had drained away, letting her do as she pleased, slowly opened her mouth.

“Angel, you don’t need to help me.”

Radis, who had been wiping Eve’s soft cheeks with a wet cloth, looked into Eve’s face and asked.

“Why do you say such things?”

“Because I’m really a bad child.”

Eve said in a voice mixed with tears.

“I thought it would be good if everyone disappeared.”

“…”

“So they all died.”

“…”

“It’s the same as if I killed them.”

“…Eve.”

Radis realized that Eve was in a state of great emotional trauma right now.

That child must have been desperately holding onto a heart that had started cracking long ago.

Now it was crumbling down.

She looked into the golden eyes that were shaking as if they would break at any moment and said.

“Both you and I have broken places.”

She continued speaking in a small but clear voice, hoping her heart would reach the child.

“But someday light will enter those places.”

At her words, Eve asked in a very thin voice.

“Really…? Will it really be like that, angel…?”

Radis smiled and said.

“Yes. I know. You’ll become a very wonderful person. And you’ll also get the coolest girlfriend in the world.”

“Girl… friend? Can angels know such things too?”

“Of course.”

At her words, a small smile appeared on Eve’s lips for the first time.

“Then I hope it’s a girlfriend like you, angel.”

With those words as the end, Eve’s black and dense eyelashes that had been blinking heavily slowly closed.

And didn’t open again.

The child seemed to have lost consciousness.

Thanks to Gideon having set the locking mechanism on the stone gate, Radis was able to escape the forest through the secret passage.

She felt truly like she had become an angel as she gently patted young Eve’s back and sang a hymn in a small voice.

Ring the bells that can make sound.

Nothing is perfect.

Everything has broken places

And light will enter through those very places.

When they emerged from the dark, long cave, near the entrance were horses that the knights of the marquis had ridden, leisurely grazing on grass.

Radis brought one of them over.

As she was about to lift the unconscious Eve onto the horse’s back first, she heard something rustling and running away nearby.

The sound was quite loud to be a small mountain animal, so Radis looked in that direction with wary eyes and shouted.

“Who goes there!”

At her voice, the running footsteps of those fleeing quickened.

“G-Gors! Hurry!”

“Yeah!”

Radis was surprised by the name Gors and closed her mouth.

She realized that those people were the mercenaries she would meet in the distant future, Gors and Luke.

Watching the backs of the waddling mercenaries running away, Radis recalled what Gors had said when he guided her to this secret passage.

‘The people who entered the cave didn’t return. No, they did return. Only two people came back. A person in a black cloak came out with a child.’

Everything was predestined.

It was truly happening without a single deviation.

‘It really was something that had to be done.’

A faint thrill along with a dim sense of powerlessness enveloped her.

After watching their retreating figures for a moment, Radis pulled the reins and left that place.

Arriving at Lord Russel’s estate, Radis safely set down Eve, wrapped in her cloak, at the entrance.

Though she had only kept her for about half a day, her chest felt empty as if she were giving up an egg she had been holding.

Looking down at Eve’s deeply sleeping face, she stood up abruptly as if to shake off her lingering attachment and knocked loudly on the door of the marquis’s estate.

After a moment, a young man with a familiar face opened the door and came out.

“Who are you… L-Lady Eve?”

Radis watched from behind a pillar as young Allen carried little Eve into the estate.

Now Eve would be safe.

Until the day she would meet her someday.

At that fact, Radis could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

“Phew…”

Regia spoke to her in a gloomy voice.

[Older Sister, what will you do now?]

“I’m hungry. Let’s fill my stomach first.”

Radis headed to the kitchen of the marquis’s estate.

Since it was the time when workers bringing ingredients from the village shops were coming and going, the kitchen door was wide open.

Just like in the future, bread and soup were placed on the stove so that the employees starting their work early in the morning could fill their stomachs.

No one found it strange to see Radis familiarly packing bread into her bag and ladling soup into a wooden bowl.

A kitchen assistant with a rough-looking face even said this to her.

“The cheese is on the shelf.”

Radis also said naturally.

“Thank you.”

She grated cheese over the onion soup, then took it to a table in the corner and simply filled her stomach.

Then the kitchen assistant who had spoken to her earlier brought her a few apples.

“Please take these too.”

Radis, who was about to say thank you, suddenly realized that this kitchen assistant was Brendan, the future head chef.

Though he was somewhat different from the Brendan she knew.

The Brendan she knew always wore dazzlingly white chef’s clothes and a bread-like chef’s hat.

But now Brendan seemed to be going through a stormy period.

His outfit was flashy, and his mustache, which had always been neat, was now braided in a rebellious style.

Radis said, suppressing her laughter.

“Thank you, Brendan.”

Then Brendan said in a lowered voice.

“I just can’t stand it when I see someone who looks hungry.”

Looking at such Brendan with a smile, the laughter gradually disappeared from Radis’s face.

The pleasure of glimpsing familiar places and past appearances of people she knew was only momentary.

The feeling that this wasn’t where she belonged, and furthermore that it was a place she shouldn’t be, grew stronger and stronger.

Radis, whose bag had become heavy thanks to Brendan’s generosity, mounted her horse and left the marquis’s estate.

When the surroundings became quiet, Regia spoke to her again.

[Older Sister, what will you really do now…?]

“I don’t know.”

[Aren’t you worried, Older Sister?]

Radis answered while riding her horse.

“Honestly, it feels like what was bound to come has come.”

[Huh?]

“Everything has gone too well and I’ve been too happy until now.”

A faint smile appeared on her lips.

“It was happiness too excessive for me. Things can’t always go so well and be so happy.”

[What’s excessive about it? I don’t understand what you mean.]

Riding her horse as she pleased, Radis said in a relieved voice.

“This is enough. My time ended long ago. A second life was a bonus for me. It was like a gift. Thanks to it, I was able to know what true happiness is. I gained precious people, and I could see my teacher again. Eve, Lord Olivier, my teacher, Lady Elizabeth – they’ll all be able to live safely and happily.”

[What about you, Older Sister?]

Radis continued speaking.

“You don’t know how great a fortune it was for me to meet those people. It was harder for me than becoming a Mage Knight, than enduring the pain of mana poisoning, than fighting Arachne.”

Like a revolving lantern, past times came to mind.

“It used to be simple. I was too busy just surviving each day to have leisure for other thoughts. That’s why I can’t blame people who act foolishly. I did that kind of thing the most.”

When you live a life that doesn’t feel like living even while alive, you don’t even know what living is like.

When you live without knowing what living is like, you often think that living and dying aren’t very different.

Only after escaping from there do you finally realize.

That you were stuck in a quagmire, unable to move forward and gradually sinking.

“But this time I really did well.”

She said from the hill overlooking the lord’s estate.

“It was the best thing I did among all the many things I’ve done.”

She thought of the one person who made her into who she is now.

In front of Eve, she didn’t need to be the eldest daughter of the Tilrod Family, or a daughter who had to sacrifice for the family, or an older sister who had to work for her younger brother’s future.

In front of him, who looked at her and accepted her just as she was, she could finally find herself.

The old her didn’t believe that people could change because of other people.

Her belief was that people don’t change.

However, she was the one who had changed the most.

She didn’t know she could love someone this much.

So she didn’t know she could do anything for him.

Radis said.

“I’m going to go far away.”

[Far away? Where?]

“As far as possible. To a place unrelated to the marquis’s estate. I don’t want to interfere with those people’s past.”

[Older Sister, you haven’t given up, have you? There must be some way to return. Ah! Should we go find Kairos?]

“Kairos said so. That spell was created by Lord Berard and operates only with his mana. I don’t have any of Lord Berard’s mana left.”

[…Lord Ruu. How about asking Lord Ruu? There must be some way.]

“He is the Throne of Light. Even a god has no way to turn back time.”

[Still, still…]

From atop the hill, Radis took one last look at the peaceful scenery of Luare, etching it into her eyes.

She spoke.

“This is enough. This is the future I wished for.”

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