The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 110

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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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Chapter 110

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Throughout watching the hunting competition from the watchtower, Gideon’s mood remained uncomfortable.

He had intentionally cut off his interest after seeing Lillieta sitting side by side with Joseph in the aerial combat tournament viewing stands. He was afraid of what he might do if he kept watching.

‘It’s all just strategy. Rita has no feelings for that bastard.’

But what if even a little fondness developed during her intentional approach?

“Rita, you don’t dislike that bastard?”

“My feelings aren’t great, but compared to the demons from the old command center or those trash high-ranking city officials, shh.”

The brief conversation they’d had in Beacon Garden kept circling in his mind. Along with the fact that she had ignored all his suggestions and given the duke’s son the perfectly decent codename ‘Actor.’

‘She’s surprisingly soft-hearted. If she gets close to him and learns some pitiful story or analyzes that his feelings are sincere, she’ll definitely feel sorry and guilty about deceiving him.’

And then if she develops affection for that idiot.

Gideon suddenly found himself missing the ash-covered era. Especially the atmosphere where one or two people could disappear without a sound and no one would find it strange.

‘I could eliminate him here too if I wanted.’

He thought of dozens of ways to remove Joseph from Lillieta’s vicinity, then swallowed them down.

‘…But Rita’s judgment is correct.’

Eliminating Joseph would be the worst possible strategy.

Having such a stupid and careless key figure in the enemy camp was a huge advantage, so there was no reason to remove him and face a direct confrontation with the far more dangerous Duke Adickl.

The reason he had deliberately left Joseph behind when he exposed Duke Adickl’s scandal and had him expelled from the capital right after his return was the same logic.

The more foolish the duke’s son appeared while alone in the capital, the better it was for his reputation. In fact, even Duke Duilebog was leaning toward the Crown Prince’s faction because of Joseph’s patheticness.

So Rita’s strategy of trying to find an opportunity to enter Adickl Duchy through Joseph was definitely the best approach.

Thanks to Raskail’s unique position as a prestigious family that had been in seclusion for a long time and the circumstances of Lillieta receiving a public marriage proposal, there was almost no risk.

‘Pascal might try to check Rita from the Adickl side, but then we can use that interference as an opportunity to find the hidden Pascal.’

In a situation where they shared the goal of rewriting Pascal’s history and preventing the disaster, there was absolutely no justification to object or stop it.

That was the problem.

He wanted to stop it despite having no justification or reason to do so.

‘I’ve become too greedy.’

He had clearly resolved that if she would just stay alive, if he could just meet Rita Pascal alive again, he could do anything, endure any hardship.

But when she actually returned alive and they miraculously reunited, all sorts of greed bloomed.

He wanted to turn her face away from looking at others and make her look at him. He wanted to monopolize her smiles. He didn’t want to give anything she had touched to anyone else.

He wanted to hold her in his arms. He wanted to bury his nose in her hair. He wanted to hear her heartbeat. He wanted to thoroughly lick her left hand from fingertips to the inside of her wrist, biting each joint.

The image of her sitting on his bed, tying her hair with his cravat came to mind.

He wanted to kiss her nape. He wanted to take her earlobe in his mouth. He wanted to leave marks on her white skin. He wanted to melt and devour her from head to toe.

He wanted to become close enough that mingled breath would be natural. He wanted to become the most special person to her. He didn’t want to be apart from her for even a moment.

Even these desires were only a tiny fraction of what bloomed from his twisted inner feelings.

‘…I mustn’t reveal it. Rita has no personal interest in me.’

He had to cross the line of being comrades and fellow soldiers first.

His current goal was to gradually cross that line by disguising his feelings as light, ordinary affection – lightly and gently so she wouldn’t feel repulsed, as if it weren’t such heavy or burdensome emotion.

He had even established a sequential approach plan. Using an extremely cautious method since he absolutely could not fail.

Honestly, that plan occupied his mind more than the Frontier Festival proceedings or Beast preparations, which he could handle with his eyes closed.

‘During this Frontier Festival, I’ll lightly, very lightly hint while getting my cravat back. I’ll reveal just a little of my feelings about going crazy because of the duke’s son, just enough to not be burdensome, so Rita naturally recognizes that I care about it…’

His thoughts stopped abruptly. Because the hand mirror Olivia had given him flashed.

6km northeast of Central Camp, Named ‘Crawler’ appeared, Tritoma Team 3 engagement started, ‘Beast’, ‘Witch’ participating.

He turned his head from the western hunting competition to look northeast.

A massive form loomed faintly above the dense forest trees. When he drew up his Aura, the Crawler’s appearance became clearly visible.

Gid quickly assessed the situation. If the opponent was a Crawler, Luca and Oli alone could only hold out. Either he or Rita needed to be there to defeat it.

‘Rita is…’

Looking down toward the aerial combat tournament grounds, he frowned. Only the duke’s son was at the competition venue where combat events were taking place, and Lillieta was nowhere to be seen.

‘Did she rush out as soon as she received the signal?’

Even as he made that assumption, instinctive anxiety and fear began creeping up. Just the fact that he didn’t know where Lillieta was right now made his hands start trembling.

Gideon put his hand in his pocket and took a deep breath.

The hunting competition would start tallying when the sun began to set, so there was still time. He had already prepared to leave his post in case monsters appeared.

“Conrad.”

The Crown Prince’s aide, who had been waiting on one side of the watchtower, quietly approached. Gid whispered to him in a low voice.

“I’ll be leaving my post, so take my place.”

“Yes, my lord.”

The aide immediately put on a necklace he pulled from his pocket. Illusion magic activated, overlaying the Crown Prince’s appearance over the brown-haired aide.

It was crude enough to be noticed up close, but would be hard to detect when looking up from below the watchtower.

Gideon left his impersonation to the aide and secretly descended from the watchtower. Then he headed toward the northeastern forest, avoiding people’s eyes.

After entering the forest, he was about to send a signal to Rita when he paused at an approaching presence and hid the hand mirror.

Soon Hanna burst out of the forest, breathing heavily. Lillieta’s personal maid, and a person of interest suspected of blood relation to Pascal due to her resemblance to Rita Pascal.

“You are…”

It was suspicious that she had suddenly appeared from the direction where the Named monster had emerged. Just as he was about to interrogate her about what she had been doing here, Hanna suddenly screamed.

“Please help, Your Highness! Lady Lillieta is badly injured!”

At that moment, Gideon saw the blood splattered all over Hanna’s clothes. He recalled Lillieta disappearing from the aerial combat tournament grounds.

He urgently approached Hanna and questioned her.

“Injured? Where? What’s the location?”

“Her leg, sob, her leg is injured, and there’s so much blood… hic, the location, the location is, uh, if you follow the path I came from…”

More important than Hanna’s answer was testing the blood on her clothes with his fingertips while she sobbed, unaware.

He confirmed the owner of the blood on his hand while listening to Hanna’s mumbling. This too was a skill gained through the process of countless failures while doing all sorts of things.

‘…It’s definitely Rita’s blood.’

With that certainty, his vision became dizzy. His breathing naturally became disturbed.

Fragmented corpses flickered in his mind. That nightmare that had always been ‘Rita Pascal’ had somehow changed to appear as ‘Lillieta del Nisa Raskail.’

He turned his head in the direction Hanna pointed. Recognizing traces he could track, his body moved before his judgment.

He ran like mad. He couldn’t even remember what he thought about while running.

He stopped when he smelled thick blood.

A small clearing with traces of countless monsters passing through. Under a large tree. Blood had pooled there.

But Lillieta was nowhere to be seen.

Rita wasn’t there.

Gid breathed roughly while examining the bloodstains and looking around. He couldn’t sense Lillieta’s presence. Only her blood was pooled there. Her blood was…

“…!”

He saw hallucinations of scattered blonde hair and a fragmented face over the blood. He almost lost his mind completely.

He covered his mouth with trembling hands, swallowed his dry heaving, then barely grasped his reason while thoroughly examining the blood drops and remaining traces.

His desperately working mind deduced what had happened here. His gaze following the tree upward discovered blood-stained branches and marks where a harpoon had been embedded.

He leaped up into the tree. While examining the faint remaining scent of healing potion that resembled medicinal herbs and the bloodstains on the branches.

A red light caught the edge of his vision.

Looking up, he saw twilight blooming on a cliff not far away. It was a unique technique he knew well.

“Ha…”

Only then could he breathe. He belatedly realized he had barely been breathing at all. Relief came with dizziness.

‘Sniping? Is she sniping? After bleeding this much, she’s now sniping the Crawler with Moment of Twilight?’

As always, Rita had a talent for driving people crazy.

What made it worse was that he could instantly understand why she was doing that there, and it made perfect logical sense.

‘I can’t even get angry and call it foolish.’

She always made cool judgments and took appropriate actions.

The fact that the pain and injuries she would suffer in the process were merely subjects of calculation and analysis was truly maddening from others’ perspectives.

Gid waited for a moment with his teeth clenched tight. He wanted to immediately leap up the cliff, grab Rita, and check her condition, but he gathered every ounce of patience he had and endured.

Because he couldn’t interfere with her while she was concentrating on her unique skill. Because her damn judgment was right.

He waited through what felt like a hundred years in an instant while inputting a signal to Olivia on his hand mirror. And as soon as Twilight was fired, he rushed up the cliff in one breath.

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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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