The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 140

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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 140

“If you truly have no intention of defying me.”

The man aimed an awl at Gid’s eye. The eye of an insolent brat. The eye of a fearsome monster.

“Try to endure this.”

No way.

The boy’s face turned pale as he sensed what was about to happen.

Though it was what he had intended. Though he had hoped the Squad Leader would take his anger out on him instead of touching Rita and had endured for that reason.

Still, he had calculated that if the man had any sense, he wouldn’t try to destroy him, a useful weapon. At most, he’d just beat him up a bit.

But he never expected this guy to be this far gone.

The awl the Squad Leader raised approached his right eye. The boy instinctively staggered backward.

How, what should he do, should he run away first, should he prostrate himself and beg for forgiveness, should he just give up, he wondered.

Then the Squad Leader bared his teeth and added.

“If you endure without running away to the end, I’ll give you a chance to fix that girl.”

Gid stopped dead in his tracks.

The outstretched left hand. The hand signals they exchanged. The ruins they survived together. The backs they fought side by side. The shoulders they leaned on each other. The stories they shared late into the night. The face of the girl who smiled while looking back at him.

Such things held the boy’s footsteps captive.

It wasn’t an action that came from rational judgment. It wasn’t something he thought about and decided. He simply couldn’t help it. The moment that girl was involved, he could neither run away nor resist.

The awl pierced into his eye.

In the midst of terrible pain. In the midst of reflexive regret. In that horrific moment.

A gunshot rang out like salvation.

Gid turned around while clutching his bleeding eye.

Rita Pascal, whom that trash had assessed as ‘completely broken.’

The girl who barely ate and just sat with vacant eyes, who had forgotten how to speak and hung limp like a wounded doll, who had been like extinguished ashes.

Standing somehow on trembling legs, gritting her teeth with a pale face while tears streamed down, gripping a gun in her small hands.

She had shot the Squad Leader.

The light from the lantern hanging in front of the barracks settled in the girl’s wet eyes and sparkled. Those pupils.

Were shining.

The boy momentarily forgot his pain.

The girl he had tried to save somehow had risen from the ashes on her own and come to save him.

He couldn’t help but fall for her again.

‘Though I didn’t realize it at the time.’

The first time he fell for her was when she extended her left hand… no, actually it might have been even earlier than that.

Perhaps it was the very first time when he had dutifully extended a helping hand to the failing student Rita Pascal, and she had said “You don’t really like this kind of thing” and left him alone.

‘And even after that, many times…’

When he came to his senses after writhing in the pain of his eye wound being cauterized, and saw her hands that had become covered in wounds from biting them.

When she, who had started having panic attacks and breathing difficulties even against ordinary demons she would have calmly killed before, blocked the path in front of Oli when she fell and shot the demon while offering her own arm.

When she no longer trembled before demons like that. When she stood with her back straight and aimed her gun.

When she saw him refusing to remove his bandages even after his wounds had healed because he hated the sight of his burn-scarred skin, and made a crude eyepatch from leather and string she had found somewhere.

When she unhesitatingly removed that eyepatch she had personally put on him, and covered his uneven eye area with her bare hands to soothe him to sleep.

When they were searching through ruins together and found an old wooden box, and she opened it and smiled brightly, saying “So this is a music box, the sound is really pretty.”

When she rested her head on his shoulder while looking down at the faded angel doll spinning around.

When she whispered “My ears are quiet when I’m like this with you” and closed her eyes.

And then, and then, even while repeating through the long years, so many times that he couldn’t give up. Dozens, hundreds of times, countless times.

Those countless moments bound him like an inescapable curse.

Close by, right beside him, that emotion he couldn’t properly recognize when she was always there because it was so natural had somehow grown like vines and embedded itself in every joint of his life.

It had taken root so deeply that if he tried to pull it out, he himself would collapse…

That’s why you are so beautiful to me.

Instead of voicing those surging words, Gideon gently caressed Lillieta’s cheek. He traced and confirmed. That she was here.

Lillieta, who had been quietly looking up at him, opened her mouth.

“So it was because of me after all.”

Then she murmured softly.

“Because I let everything go… trying to save someone like me, your eye…”

“You were also because of me, Rita.”

Gid lightly cut off her self-blame. He smiled and added.

“You shot that guy to save me.”

“That just happened in the heat of the moment, but you.”

“I also just ended up rebelling in the heat of the moment, so it’s the same.”

“How is that the same?”

She frowned as if asking what kind of nonsense he was spouting. The wrinkles that formed in front of her eyebrows and her scrunched nose seemed cute, so Gid unconsciously let out a laugh.

“Why are you suddenly laughing?”

“Because you’re so cute.”

“…”

Rita was so dumbfounded she was left speechless.

Being called cute for the first time in her life, no wait, she heard it constantly when she was Lillieta, so this was the first time since becoming an adult that someone other than family called her cute.

Gid, who had been grinning, narrowed his eyes upon seeing her reaction.

“Rita, why are you looking at me like that?”

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like you find me disgusting. Am I mistaken?”

“You saw correctly.”

“What did I do wrong? I just said what I saw… That’s too much. I’m hurt.”

Gid spoke in a whining tone and put on a pitiful expression.

A grown man acting like that should have looked even more disgusting, but maybe because he was handsome, it wasn’t unpleasant.

‘Or is it? Is it because it’s Gid?’

Rita momentarily pondered seriously. Whether she was looking favorably at him because it was Gid, or whether it was genuinely objectively tolerable thanks to his handsome face.

Then she let out a hollow laugh.

Just moments ago, she had definitely been worrying about nightmares that kept crawling out whether her eyes were open or closed and the bothersome loud noises.

Just before, she had been worrying about the guilt that surged anew while looking at his eye.

‘And now I’m worrying about something this ridiculous.’

It was thanks to Gid.

Because he came to her side and casually spouted nonsense. Because he didn’t say anything about last night’s events.

He must have been worried, and there must have been many things he wanted to ask. But he knew well what she needed most right now rather than such things.

‘…I needed this.’

She looked down at the angel doll that was still dancing. She felt the familiar body warmth transmitted from beside her.

Her heart was surprisingly at peace. It seemed like she could fall asleep now without having nightmares. As if sweet sleep would pour out if she just rested her head on the shoulder next to her and closed her eyes.

‘No, what I really needed wasn’t the music box…’

Lillieta slowly closed the music box lid and asked.

“Gid, is this what you were going to give me?”

“That’s part of it.”

Gideon stood up and brought out something else from beside the bench. It was a small box tied with a ribbon. He hesitated for a moment while holding it.

“This, um, I was originally going to give this to you tonight when I came to tell you the results after the Garden Salon ended…”

“Really? What is it?”

He subtly averted his gaze. His golden pupils wandered in the air. His hand holding the box tensed up.

“It’s nothing special, I don’t even know if the current you would like this… I was planning to make it leisurely in the afternoon but ended up making it suddenly at dawn, so the result is also a bit more than expected…”

Rita found him unfamiliar as he rambled incoherently.

Gid, who always prepared thoroughly and acted without hesitation, skillfully handling everything—now avoiding her eyes and hemming and hawing?

“What is it that’s making you so unsure of yourself? It’s not like you.”

“Listen, Rita. I was definitely confident while I was preparing, you know? But now that I’m actually trying to give it to you, well… you’re now a young lady from a noble family, so something like this might be…”

“It’s bewildering to hear about being a young lady from a noble family from someone who became His Imperial Highness the Crown Prince. What on earth is it?”

Rita snatched away the box he had been clutching. While she untied the ribbon, Gideon fidgeted restlessly beside her, continuing to make excuses.

“It would have been better if I had made it calmly as planned and brought it tonight, but seeing you earlier made me impatient… I originally prepared plenty of materials in case of failure. I was going to try several times and pick the best one, but, well, um, maybe it still wasn’t enough…”

She didn’t respond to his chattering and opened the box. The moment she saw what was inside, she froze.

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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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