The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 2

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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 2

The woman who had been distracted by her clothing and forgotten about him was startled. Once again, her gaze met his.

A face as delicate as a doll’s. Still bearing the appearance of young Lillieta.

Leonhardt instinctively knew with certainty.

That woman was Lillieta del Nisa Raskail. His one and only younger sister who had disappeared ten years ago.

He felt his mind go blank. He urgently reached out his hand toward the woman.

“Lili…!”

But before he could embrace her, the woman avoided his hand. Then she looked at him with a wary expression.

“Who are you?”

Leonhardt stared blankly down at the woman’s sharp face.

This expression was clearly different from the bright Lillieta he knew. It was cold, dry, and looked tired.

Even so, it was definitely Lillieta. It couldn’t be anyone else. That face, that voice, that clothing.

But why couldn’t she recognize her family?

This seemed stranger to him than the fact that ten years had passed and she had appeared aged but wearing the exact same outfit as when she disappeared.

He asked in a half-dazed state.

“Don’t you remember me, Lili?”

“Lili?”

The woman tilted her head and stared up at him intently. Then she sighed.

“Well, you look quite desperate, but I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

“…?”

“You’ve got the wrong person. My name isn’t Lili, it’s Rita.”

“Rita… you said?”

Leonhardt mulled over that name. It somehow felt like another nickname for Lillieta.

‘Could it be that she’s been living with lost childhood memories since going missing? Maybe her name became Rita because she only vaguely remembered it.’

He carefully called to her again. This time using her real name, not a nickname.

“Lillieta.”

“No, just call me Rita. It’s not such an old-fashioned name.”

“…Your surname?”

“Pascal.”

‘Rita Pascal’ answered as if annoyed, then grabbed her long hair and wrung the water out of it.

“This is driving me crazy, why is my hair so long… And what’s with this color?”

The woman looked at her own hair clutched in her hand with wide eyes. The wet blonde hair was shining like heated pure gold under the sunset.

The woman hurriedly looked down at the lake, and upon seeing her own face reflected in the water’s surface, her mouth fell open.

“This… isn’t me.”

She muttered in bewilderment while touching her face, then started in surprise and looked down at her hands. White, slender hands without a single scar.

“…This is impossible. Whose body is this?”

Leonhardt, who had been watching her blankly, answered that question.

“Lillieta del Nisa Raskail.”

The woman turned to look at him. He added with complicated feelings.

“My younger sister who went missing ten years ago.”

“This is your younger sister?”

The woman asked back, pointing at her own body like it was an object. Leonhardt rubbed his face and answered slowly.

“No, I mean you are my younger sister.”

“…”

She was silent for a moment, then let out a sigh that seemed to rise from deep in her belly and muttered.

“Ha, I’ve seen all kinds of situations, but this is a first.”

“Lili, it must be confusing, but please calm down first…”

“Look, I’ll say it again – I’m not your younger sister. For some reason, I’m a different person who ended up inside your sister’s body.”

“A different person?”

“That’s right. My original body didn’t look like this. Either our bodies switched… or I became a ghost and possessed your sister’s body.”

The woman continued while pressing her brow as if she had a headache.

“…Thinking back to the situation before I lost consciousness, it’s probably the latter. I must have died for sure, damn it.”

Leonhardt stared at the woman with a strange feeling.

The naturally mixed profanity, the completely unfamiliar expressions and attitude.

Why did he have the intuition that this person who firmly declared herself to be someone other than Lillieta was actually his real younger sister?

‘Because it’s Lili’s body? Or maybe…’

His contemplation was brief. Whether she was the real Lillieta or not, the conclusion that he couldn’t leave her here was the same.

“First…”

Leonhardt took off his jacket and offered it to her.

“Let’s go home, Rita.”

“Home?”

“The sun is setting and you can’t stay here dressed like that. Let’s go to our house.”

“…”

The woman hesitated, then looked up at the darkening sky and down at her own body wearing only wet pajamas, before reaching out to accept his jacket.

“I have no choice. I’ll impose on you for a while.”

As she put on the jacket, Leonhardt approached closer. To the woman who stepped back warily, he asked calmly.

“Are you planning to walk barefoot?”

“Ah.”

“Come on, get on my back.”

He turned around and offered his back. The woman hesitated, then let out a deep sigh and climbed onto his back.

“…Thank you.”

Leonhardt didn’t particularly respond and began walking toward the ducal mansion.

He recalled memories of carrying his sleeping younger sister home from the lakeside during childhood.

The weight on his back was as light as it had been then. As much as Lillieta had grown, he had grown too. As if he had returned to those days.

The woman, who had turned to look back at the now-distant lake, suddenly murmured.

“The sunset looks like a silk shawl.”

Leonhardt stopped in his tracks. The woman on his back asked in puzzlement.

“What’s wrong?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

He slowly shook his head and began walking again. With a certain conviction in his heart.

* * *

Pascal was a great mage and the finest combat instructor. He was famous for taking in orphans from somewhere and raising them into outstanding warriors.

The children Pascal raised took to the battlefield from their early to mid-teens. Then they adapted to the battlefield at an amazing speed, displaying shocking military prowess.

As Pascal’s children consistently achieved remarkable results, people would ask him how he managed to find such talented orphans every time.

Whenever this happened, Pascal would only say it was the result of special training.

At the end of that ‘special training,’ when sending the children to the battlefield, he would always share the same maxim.

“Do not fear death. Your death is, your, your death is…”

The brown-haired boy recited Pascal’s maxim in a trembling, stammering voice.

Click. Rita inserted the magazine and pulled and released the slide to load while continuing the boy’s maxim.

“Your death shall become the seed of hope.”

The boy glanced back at her. Rita smiled to reassure the child.

He swallowed dryly and asked quietly.

“Aren’t you scared, sister?”

“Of what?”

“Everything. Those damn monsters, this dog-like situation of being isolated in a place like this, and the fact that we’ll soon…”

And the reality that we’ll all die.

The boy continued in a hoarse voice. Rita reached out and roughly tousled his hair.

“Aaah, what, what is it!”

“You’re never going to die, Luca.”

“Huh?”

“With so many seniors who’ll die before you, why would the youngest die? Don’t worry about useless things.”

“That’s… Wah!”

She pressed down firmly on the boy’s head as he tried to say something and added.

“Big sis will risk her life to protect you, so don’t be scared.”

“No, protecting is my role!”

“Does the battlefield always go exactly according to roles? When push comes to shove, you do whatever works. You’re still far from ready, far from it. You little chick.”

“Ugh, don’t treat me like a kid! I’m a Pascal too!”

“Rita.”

Someone called out to her as she was teasing the boy. It was a woman with black bobbed hair wearing glasses.

“Oli?”

“Let me see your magic gun.”

“…Why all of a sudden?”

“Oh my, you do feel guilty about something? Hand it over.”

She practically snatched Rita’s magic gun away and examined the barrel from various angles, then let out a sigh as if to prove her point.

“You overdid it again, again. You’re really living like you’ve thrown your life away, Rita Pascal.”

“Ah, why! As long as it’s not broken, it’s fine!”

“Is not breaking it all that matters? How many times have I told you that forcing an overheated gun to work and absorbing the recoil with your body shortens your lifespan?”

The woman ground her teeth and quickly disassembled the magic gun, then reassembled it excluding one part.

“Here, take it.”

“What did you take out of my gun?”

“A part to prevent your recklessness.”

“What the heck is that? When did you put something like that in?”

“I put it in to make you stop overdoing it, but it seems like you were overdoing it even more because of it, so I took it out. I completely removed the limiter so you can increase the output more, so now go crazy on the gun instead of your body.”

“Wow! Really? You removed the output restriction? Now it’s completely unlimited? That’s so grea… wait, but what if this breaks?”

“If it breaks, I’ll fix it for you, so break the gun instead of your body that’s hard to repair. Got it?”

“Thanks, Oli!”

As Rita smiled brightly and hugged her tightly, the bobbed-hair woman pushed up her glasses and sighed.

“You’re probably the only idiot who’d be happy to hear that your magic gun became much harder to handle and more dangerous, Rita.”

“What, you removed Rita’s gun limiter? You did something interesting.”

A sandy brown head suddenly popped out from above the half-destroyed wall they were leaning against. It was a tall, slender man.

“You always nag at me, but honestly, you’re crazier than I am. Right?”

Rita frowned and glared at him.

“Shut up, Ethan.”

“Let me see how insane of a weapon it became.”

He tried to snatch Rita’s magic gun. At that moment, electricity sparked from Rita’s hand holding the gun with a crackling sound, repelling his hand.

“Ow, that stings!”

“How dare you touch it carelessly.”

“Oh my, a magic gunner who won’t catch the demons she’s supposed to catch but zaps people instead! Oh no!”

As the man made a fuss while clutching his hand, Rita held up her gun high and chuckled.

“You were wrong to try touching the magic gun without permission in the first place…”

Another man who had appeared behind her at some point easily snatched the gun away.

“Rita Pascal, what did you do to your gun?”

He was a well-built, handsome man with black hair.

His right eye was covered with an eyepatch, and a large scar could be seen extending from inside the eyepatch to the outside. His single pale amber eye carefully examined the stolen magic gun.

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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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