The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 15

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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 15

Hanna came before she was even called.

Rita was momentarily flustered, then quickly raised her voice.

“Yes, come in.”

Hanna entered the guest room. She was pale as a sheet and trembling violently.

‘There are no bruise marks on her neck. Fortunately, she received proper treatment.’

Rita assumed she was acting this way because she was frightened of her, who had suffered a seizure from the patchouli scent.

‘If she had memories of that night, she wouldn’t still be working at Birch Tree Castle. There’s a high probability she doesn’t remember anything. It also means our family never discovered that Hanna was involved in my disappearance.’

If she had been an ordinary child, she would have been caught without question. Apparently, whoever controlled her had covered their tracks well.

Lillieta stood at the doorway and observed Hanna, who was trembling, with renewed attention.

Reddish-brown hair, light freckles, a round and gentle impression with light brown eyes.

‘Looking closely like this, we definitely resemble each other. Though our impressions are completely different.’

Rita Pascal had reddish-brown hair, light freckles, a sharp impression, and reddish-brown eyes.

Having lived rolling around on the front lines, she rarely had occasion to examine her own face closely, so she hadn’t noticed immediately. She had simply thought, her hair color is similar to mine, but her eye color and face are different.

‘It feels like we’re distant relatives. Hard to tell at first glance, but when you consciously compare, the resemblance shows.’

As Rita stared intently at her face without saying anything, Hanna’s complexion grew increasingly pale.

“Um, Miss…”

“Ah.”

Realizing her mistake, Lillieta gestured toward the sofa and beckoned to Hanna.

“First, come sit here, Hanna. I actually have something I want to talk to you about too.”

However, instead of following her words, Hanna dropped to her knees right where she stood, buried her head on the floor, and spoke.

“Miss, please kill me!”

“What? What do you suddenly mean by…”

When she asked back in confusion, Hanna burst into tears and continued speaking.

“Sob, it was me, Miss. It was me.”

“…Don’t tell me.”

Rita felt her expression naturally hardening.

“You remembered everything? What happened that night? And you kept your mouth shut and continued working beside our family?”

When she questioned sharply, Hanna’s head shot up. With a tear-stained face, she shook her head.

“N-no, that’s not it! I’m not that shameless, I’m, I’m, I mean…”

She sobbed as she reached into her clothes. Rita reflexively prepared for an ambush, but what Hanna pulled out wasn’t a dagger or anything like that.

Pieces of cloth and leather burned so black that their original form was unrecognizable.

She placed it on the floor with trembling hands and tears dripped down steadily.

“Miss, do you know what this is?”

“…I don’t know.”

“This is, this is the slipper that young Miss was wearing that, that night.”

“…!”

Rita recalled her recovered memories.

That night, when she was caught by Hanna and struggling as her nightgown tore, the slippers she was wearing also fell off.

While she hadn’t noticed the clothing caught in the thicket, Hanna who noticed the fallen slipper, or rather probably whatever being had possessed her, had certainly taken it along.

But when Lillieta lay in the coffin, she was barefoot, and when Rita returned to her original body and emerged from the lake, she was also barefoot.

The people of Raskail House thought she had disappeared while wearing shoes, so they didn’t question the whereabouts of the slippers, but that night her slippers had definitely remained somewhere here.

It seemed Hanna had been keeping those very slippers all along.

“Last night… when there was a loud noise from the lake, I heard that Miss had re-recovered your memories. Right then, I also…”

Hanna tearfully confessed everything. Though she rambled, listening to her gave an idea of what had happened.

‘When I broke the coffin with the magic circle carved into it yesterday, it must have affected Hanna too.’

The morning after Lillieta disappeared 10 years ago, Hanna couldn’t wake up. She collapsed with a high fever.

Her whole body ached and she had vomiting, skin rashes, and even seizures, but even when Raskail House’s family doctor examined her, the cause couldn’t be determined.

In the end, they only prescribed fever reducers as symptomatic treatment, but miraculously she recovered on her own after a few days.

‘From the symptoms, it sounds like od side effects. It must have happened because the culprit used magic with Hanna’s body, which has poor od compatibility. Then it makes sense that she recovered naturally.’

Hanna, who recovered after being sick like that, had no memory of what happened that night.

The people of Raskail House, who were turned upside down by Lillieta’s disappearance, did interrogate Hanna, but no one seriously suspected a child who had just recovered after being severely ill for several days. When she said she knew nothing about that night, they just let it go.

When they searched the castle, they did thoroughly ransack Hanna’s bedroom too, but the slipper wasn’t found then.

In the garden and on the Birch Forest Path, there were no footprints or any other traces. There were no clues or witnesses that could be connected to Hanna either. Only pieces of Lillieta’s bloodstained nightgown were found in the thicket.

Hanna herself had no suspicions about herself at all. She simply grieved together over Miss’s disappearance.

She remembered something just last night.

“I suddenly remembered. Vaguely… that I, I went to the main castle, to Miss’s room… I definitely didn’t even know where Miss’s room was then, but somehow I found it exactly and asked Miss… to do something together…”

She said something had settled in her head and kept commanding her. She couldn’t resist, couldn’t even think of resisting.

She moved as if entranced, following the voice that whispered endlessly, but when she fumbled and couldn’t do it well, it seemed to click its tongue… and after that, she couldn’t remember.

Rita judged inwardly.

‘Hanna’s speech suddenly became smooth and she smiled partway through. When commanding her didn’t work well, the culprit must have taken direct control from that point.’

When she came to her senses after that, she said she was standing blankly in her room, soaking wet.

Seeing her wet clothes, Hanna thought she had wet herself in the night, and afraid of being scolded, she secretly washed her nightgown, hung it to dry, put on different clothes, and went to sleep.

After that, she became severely ill… and lost her memory. Just like Lillieta.

“But yesterday, last night, I woke up to a loud bang, and something was glowing from under my bed. I was sur-surprised and crawled down to look, and there, really unbelievable, but there was that, that thing there, a small slipper…”

It was a slipper she had never discovered once in 10 years of countless times cleaning and looking under the bed.

It was wrapped in a strange golden pattern and glowing, then spontaneously caught fire.

Even when startled Hanna pulled it out and poured water on it and made a fuss, the fire wouldn’t go out, until only unrecognizable pieces remained and the flames disappeared like magic.

“And then you recovered your memories of that night?”

“Yes… it might sound like a lie, like an excuse, but it’s true, I really didn’t know anything until yesterday. It’s not a lie, only now… only now I remember, oh my God, I, I… kidnapped Miss. I did…”

Hanna scratched at the floor while kneeling. The carpet was becoming deeply stained with the tears she shed.

“…Please kill me, Miss. I, I deserve it… how could I, when there should be limits to repaying the kindness of taking me in with enmity, h-how could I dare to Miss…”

Rita let out a long sigh.

Like that wooden coffin that had stolen and contained Lillieta’s memories, Hanna’s memories of that night seemed to have been sealed in the slipper too.

There must have been some connection, so when she broke the coffin in the lake, it broke together with it.

‘Just like how they searched the lake several times but found nothing, that slipper must have been hidden with od too. Then people of this world would never be able to find it.’

She got up from the sofa and approached Hanna. In front of her, who was burying her head on the floor and trembling, she picked up the pieces of the burned slipper.

Though hard to recognize, lines that were unmistakably part of a magic circle remained clearly. From the color and texture of the remaining parts, it was definitely the slipper worn that night.

This meant there was basis to Hanna’s story.

‘The culprit who committed all these acts is indeed…’

Archmage Pascal. There might be accomplices, but if he used that level of magic, it would most likely be him personally.

That bastard possessed Hanna’s body and kidnapped Lillieta.

‘I need to investigate these traces more. Along with the coffin fragments.’

Rita pocketed the slipper pieces, then looked down at the crying Hanna and spoke.

“Hanna.”

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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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