The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 141

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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 141

Fluffy cream puffs. With cream slightly leaking out and shapes a bit squashed.

Memories naturally surfaced.

“Look at this, Rita. It’s an old-era cookbook. Mostly desserts.”

“What’s the point of looking at that? It’ll just make us hungrier.”

“If we do well, we might be able to recreate some of these. Which one looks most delicious to you?”

“…This one? I’m curious what it would taste like.”

“Cream puffs?”

“It looks like a biscuit but it says it’s soft and sweet. Biscuits feel like they’d break your teeth.”

“That’s true.”

“Why are you tearing out that page?”

“I’ll try making it someday when I get the ingredients.”

As she remained frozen and silent, Gid rubbed his face wearily beside her.

“Rita, even if it’s ridiculous, don’t be too disappointed. Won’t you appreciate the effort?”

“Don’t tell me you made this yourself?”

He squeezed his eyes shut and answered.

“Yeah.”

“Suddenly at this dawn?”

“I had the ingredients and recipe prepared already. I remembered while packing the music box. Your face when you chose that back then, so, um… But that didn’t mean you liked it. I forgot that, damn it.”

“Is pastry making your hobby by any chance?”

“No, not really. I’m not particularly interested.”

“…You weren’t interested? Then why did you make this yourself?”

“Exactly, I’m regretting it. Now that I think about it, I should have just asked the chef to do it.”

Saying that, Gid reached for the cream puff box. As if to take it back.

Rita reflexively clutched the box and dodged his hand while retorting.

“No, don’t regret it.”

“What?”

“I really like it, so don’t regret it.”

Gid’s expression became strange. He was silent for a moment before asking.

“Do you like cream puffs?”

“I don’t know.”

Rita answered and added.

“But I think I’ll come to like them now.”

Gid stared at her blankly.

She met his gaze then suddenly lowered her eyes.

Her earlobes felt slightly hot. Was it because the morning sunlight that had risen was hitting her ears? Or perhaps…

Something that had always been a seed finally sprouted.

* * *

June 1st, afternoon.

While Lillieta was looking at the still unconscious Leonhardt with Richard and having various discussions, Olivia visited Creme Dome.

“I’m going to properly set up the boundary magic around your house before going to the salon. You said last night was just a temporary measure, right?”

She brought magic circle tools that looked similar to a sculptor’s or craftsman’s tool set and carved a long magic circle along the walls of Creme Dome.

Even with magical assistance, it was heavy labor for a frail mage’s stamina, so Olivia was completely exhausted after finishing the work.

“Let me rest here for a bit before I go…”

Lillieta served her cool tea in the reception room.

“You worked hard, Oli. But didn’t you need to rush like this? You could have done it slowly, bit by bit…”

“What? Pascal pulled that shit on you last night and you want to take it slow? That crazy archmage bastard tried to openly kill you and you want to do it bit by bit? Rita, your head is really―”

“Sorry, I was being complacent.”

Rita quickly apologized before her friend exploded. Oli gulped down her tea as if her insides were bursting, then slammed the teacup down with a clang and grumbled.

“Rita, you said you were already in a returned state when you woke up, right? That’s why it doesn’t really feel real that you died once… Damn it, we stayed next to your corpse until we succeeded in returning, fully experiencing your death.”

“…That’s the first time I’m hearing about that.”

“Ah.”

Olivia hesitated. An expression that seemed like she’d made a mistake briefly appeared then quickly faded. Rita didn’t miss it.

“Oli.”

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been curious for a while, how exactly did Beacon succeed in returning?”

“…”

“I don’t know anything. I just opened my eyes and I was here. But you guys are different. You returned through an inevitable method.”

“…”

“I know you’ve been subtly avoiding answering this question. Don’t avoid it anymore, Olivia.”

“…”

“Tell me. How exactly did you guys return?”

Olivia bit her lips firmly then pressed her eyes. A weak voice flowed from her mouth.

“I wasn’t trying to keep avoiding it…”

“Then?”

“How should I put it… it’s a bit difficult to explain.”

“Oli Pascal finds it difficult to explain?”

“There are parts I’m still not certain about, and much of it is just speculation, and there are ambiguous points…”

“That doesn’t matter, Oli. It doesn’t have to be clear, just tell me the facts as they are.”

“Damn it.”

Olivia, who had been groaning while massaging near her temples, let out a deep sigh, then buried herself in the chair back and closed her eyes.

Rita waited quietly. She had somewhat expected this from the time they wouldn’t easily tell her. That it would be a heavy story. That there was probably something in Beacon’s return process that she hadn’t anticipated.

Since their reunion, demons kept appearing and there were many urgent matters, so there hadn’t been time to press for answers, so she had postponed it.

‘But now I need to hear it.’

She recalled Gid in the greenhouse, coughing up blood and looking strangely pained. She recalled him at dawn today, clutching the cream puff box, rambling and being embarrassed.

She reflected on what he had said about Beacon’s return right after their reunion.

“Of course, we all returned. But that’s not Pascal’s achievement. We did it. Coincidentally, miraculously, and inevitably.”

“…We found out after you died. Your death was… different.”

“You were erased from the world.”

“If you ceased to exist in the future, maybe you returned to the past. Coincidentally, miraculously. We clung to that hope and worked hard. So our return was inevitable.”

“That’s how we took over Pascal’s failed experiment and succeeded. A true ‘return’.”

“Ask Oli for the details later.”

“I don’t have confidence in explaining it properly.”

Clear spring sunlight poured in through the window. It was such a bright afternoon that worrying or being concerned about anything seemed ridiculous.

Perfect weather for a picnic.

In contrast, the interior filled with heavy silence was as cool as if winter was approaching.

Finally, Olivia opened her mouth. Still with her eyes closed.

“After gathering the pieces of your corpse.”

Words flowed out faintly like breath.

“We… first retrieved the star. Then we went back down to Pascal’s research facility. We were going to do maintenance there… and think about how to return to the Last Line of Defense. But.”

Olivia pressed the back of her hand over her closed eyes.

“But then, Gid suddenly became strange.”

Silence circled again. Rita, who had been listening quietly, asked back.

“Get strange? How?”

“…I’m telling you, just moments before, he was out of his mind just like us. His eyes were blood red with all the vessels in the whites burst, clutching pieces of your corpse while completely losing it. Is, who was the most composed among us, was taking care of us who had lost our minds.”

“….”

“But you know what? I blinked once, and when I opened my eyes, Gid had changed. He suddenly started tenderly caressing your eyeball he was holding, like he was… treating a living person, then carefully tucked it into his chest and stood up, looking at us with a completely indifferent face.”

Oli shuddered slightly, as if recalling the eeriness of that moment.

“Then he gave us instructions on what each of us should do from then on. Without a moment’s hesitation, with clear and sharp eyes… Honestly, it seemed a bit insane. When we were confused and didn’t follow those instructions, panicking instead, Gid asked as if he had expected this.”

“….”

“Whether we were going to give up on Rita Pascal like this. Whether we would just sit still even when there was a way to get you back.”

Olivia gritted her teeth and continued.

“Damn it, how could I give up on you. Especially when there’s supposedly a method.”

“…Oli.”

“So when I asked what the hell this method was, Gid went to the desk in the Research Facility as if he’d been waiting for that question and smashed the bottom of the drawer. There was a secret space there, and Gid… seemed to already know about it.”

Olivia opened her closed eyes and looked at her.

“Inside was Pascal’s research journal. It recorded in detail the process of that bastard’s madness in creating the resurrected, creating us… Rita, do you know? No matter how much we’re blood relatives, the reason why descendants from 200 years in the future resemble us too closely.”

She had thought it was a bit strange.

The fact that the descendants’ bodies that her Ashes Era Comrades had possessed, though their hair color and eye color were different and there were other subtle differences, still resembled their original bodies too much.

“Pascal didn’t pick up orphans. He found the descendants of past heroes and made them into orphans.”

“Kidnapping children, erasing their memories, implanting false memories, sometimes killing perfectly alive parents to make them orphans…”

“So the most stable combination he found was a child’s body with the childhood hero.”

She recalled what Gid had said about Pascal’s Children right after their reunion. That he didn’t pick up orphans but ‘made’ them into orphans. Rita asked with growing dread.

“Don’t tell me, those descendants… did Pascal do something to those kids’ bodies too?”

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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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