The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 14

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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 14

“Come in.”

The one who opened the door and entered was Leonhardt. His expression looked somewhat anxious.

Since she had cried in an unstable state last night and then fainted, he must have many questions. Enough to come looking for her as soon as morning arrived.

Lillieta showed him the card with the four-leaf clover attached and opened her mouth.

“About this.”

“Rita.”

“Actually, it wasn’t an exam where you could pass or fail, was it?”

Leonhardt’s eyes fixed on that small, worn card that looked ready to crumble.

I found it! Leon oppa, make sure you pass the exam!

“Back then, Leon oppa was preparing for the Academy graduation exam. Graduation exams don’t have pass or fail, only rankings. I didn’t know that, so I thought it was similar to the Academy entrance exam oppa took before or the Order of the Holy Knights admission test that Rihi oppa took. I had no idea there were exams without passing grades.”

Leonhardt’s eyes grew wider and wider. Lillieta smiled and continued speaking.

“So I wrote ‘pass the exam,’ but oppa didn’t even correct me. He just laughed and gave me a kiss on the cheek, saying he would definitely pass and come back. Only after oppa left did Rihi oppa tease me and tell me. That I had written the card wrong.”

“…!”

“This is the first time since that day, Leon oppa.”

Lillieta closed the matchbox and held it out.

“Because before oppa could return from the Academy back then… I disappeared.”

Her voice trembled slightly with surging emotions.

Leonhardt couldn’t continue speaking and couldn’t even take the matchbox. He stared wide-eyed, breathing roughly, then opened his mouth in a voice much more trembling than hers.

“Lily, do you re-remember…?”

“Yes, I remember everything now. Everything.”

“Dear God.”

Leonhardt staggered toward her. His large embrace wrapped around her tightly.

“Lily, you’re, Lily…”

“Yes.”

Lillieta no longer avoided him. She hugged him back with the hand holding the matchbox.

It had been 10 years.

She could hear the sound of suppressed crying in her ear as her shoulder gradually became wet. Rita let out a thin, long sigh.

“You know, oppa was right. I really was Lillieta. Because I forgot everything… I couldn’t even recognize my family.”

She murmured quietly while tightly embracing her eldest brother whom she had forgotten.

“Our family never abandoned me, but I kept resenting them, thinking I was abandoned without knowing anything. If I had known everyone was searching for me so desperately… I’m sorry for misunderstanding.”

“It’s okay, that kind of thing.”

Leonhardt answered in a broken voice while constantly stroking her head.

“You can resent us as much as you want. You’ve come back, you’re here like this… what does that matter?”

“…Yes.”

Lillieta whispered while resting her head in his embrace.

“I’ve finally come home, oppa.”

“…!”

Leonhardt could no longer continue speaking. His large body collapsed in the embrace of his younger sister who was half his size.

10 years since the youngest disappeared. 10 years since their happy, perfect family collapsed.

The eldest son, who had endured alone pretending to be fine between his precarious mother, festering father, and younger brother being destroyed by guilt, could finally pour it all out.

The longing he had endured without showing, thinking he was less sad than mother, less struggling than father, less tormented than his younger brother.

The news he heard as soon as he returned to Birch Tree Castle after taking his Academy graduation exam.

The day when the doll and sweets he was going to give as gifts, saying he did well on the exam thanks to the four-leaf clover she gave him, fell from his weakened hands.

These were the tears he had held back since that day.

Because he couldn’t collapse too, in front of his wailing mother, his soul-lost father, and his pale younger brother.

“Lily, Lily… I, I really missed you too. I couldn’t believe you weren’t there, so I… thank you for coming back alive, thank you…”

Lillieta was surprised to see her eldest brother, who had only been upright and mature in her memories, clinging to her and bursting into tears, but she didn’t panic and quietly embraced him.

Because she understood without words what he had endured and what he had supported while living all this time.

* * *

Leonhardt hurriedly went to send a letter to the Duke with reddened eyes.

The Duke, who couldn’t bring himself to meet Lillieta after hearing she might not be his daughter despite having his daughter’s appearance, had left for the Town House in the Capital.

‘So he really was avoiding me.’

While he did have business in the Capital, the main reason was that he felt he wouldn’t be able to maintain his composure if he saw Lillieta directly.

“Father went to the Magic Tower in the Capital to find information about black magic. Because that Richard fellow said you might have been possessed through black magic… He’ll return immediately when he gets the letter, but it will still take a few days.”

“Mother is bedridden. Going into the lake seems to have been very bad for her health. She’s sleeping after taking medicine now… She kept looking for you, so let’s go together later.”

“Richard snuck out again. But he usually comes home at night… Now that you’ve returned, that fellow will come to his senses too.”

“Lily, I have so many stories I want to hear from you and so many things I want to ask. How you’ve been living, what happened that night… But I don’t want to make you tell the same story multiple times, so I’ll listen together when all the family is gathered. It probably won’t be an easy story to tell.”

He left saying he would handle everything, so she should just rest.

Her eldest brother, who always appeared stern on the outside but was always kind and considerate to Lillieta, remained the same even after 10 years had passed.

‘I’m the one who changed.’

The pure and innocent girl Lillieta, who grew up seeing only beautiful things while being loved among good people, no longer existed.

Lillieta, who had lived 12 years as Rita Pascal, was more familiar with the dirty side of the world and human ugliness.

She didn’t stay buried in emotions for long or get swept away by them. She had to survive in an environment where there was no luxury for such things.

‘Why on earth did I follow that?’

The events of that night that came back when she regained her memories. Rita was angry at her childhood self but also understood on one hand.

‘I was a naive little kid, so it couldn’t be helped. I had no friends, so I was more vulnerable to peers. Getting angry about it now won’t change anything…’

There was something else to do now.

“I, I’m a maid of the Raskail House, and from today I’ll be serving the young lady, my name is H-H-Hanna…”

The reddish-brown haired maid who spoke while sobbing. The person who kidnapped her that night.

‘That girl isn’t the real culprit. A 12-year-old orphan who lost her single mother and was taken in as a maid couldn’t have done such a thing alone. Her condition that day was strange too…’

She must have been controlled by magic or something, and if so, there was a high probability she wouldn’t remember anything. The fact that she was still working as a maid proved that.

Still, she had to interrogate her.

She had to find out the cause and reason why she had gone missing and had to live as ‘Rita Pascal’ after possessing the body of a girl who resembled ‘Hanna.’

Currently, Hanna was the only clue.

‘Pascal… what kind of person was he really? Even if he’s a great mage, kidnapping souls from another world? Is this possible? Does he have accomplices in this world?’

Even if it were possible, why would he go through the trouble of possessing a kidnapped soul into an orphan’s body, even manipulating memories?

‘Simply to create a high-performance weapon? Then wouldn’t it be much easier and faster to make machines or golems? Was there a reason he had to use such a complex and difficult method?’

And why her specifically?

Were the other Pascal’s Children cases like hers too? Then, then perhaps…

‘Do the other Pascals… return to their original bodies like me when they die?’

Suddenly, the precept Pascal taught his children came to mind. Rita recited that phrase as if entranced.

“Do not fear death. Your death shall become the seed of hope.”

Could those words have meant this?

Don’t be afraid because when you die, you’ll just return to your original world, your original body?

‘Could it be… really?’

Were they all kidnapped from the same world as her? Or from different worlds each?

If they were kidnapped from the same world, if they really returned to their original bodies after death, could she meet the Pascals again here?

‘Our squad members wouldn’t have died, so I couldn’t meet them… but I might be able to meet the ones who died before. As long as they weren’t kidnapped from different worlds…’

It was all just hypothesis, but it was a possibility that couldn’t be ignored. Things to investigate and verify piled up like mountains.

‘Let’s take it step by step. First…’

Rita was about to ask the butler to bring Hanna to her. However, before she could call for the butler, someone knocked on the door.

“Miss… it’s Hanna. M-may I come in?”

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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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