The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 68

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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 68

“Huh?”

As she reflexively tried to wipe her lips, Oli quickly grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

“Your mucous membrane might be injured, and you’re trying to touch it with your bare hands! Where did all of Sera’s nagging go?”

“Ah, right.”

“Let me see.”

Oli released her wrist and grabbed her face with both hands, turning it this way and that. Seeing Lillieta’s reddened cheek and the blood flowing from inside her lips, her mouth fell open in shock.

“No way… why is it like this? Did I hit you that hard?”

“No, it didn’t hurt much.”

“You used to not even get marks on your skin when I hit you. You were such a weak mage who didn’t even know how to put strength in your wrists, so no matter how much I raged, it only tickled!”

“That’s why I said it didn’t hurt.”

“You really became a completely different body… Come to think of it, the Raskail Princess was sickly from birth… This is really fucked up. Sit down here for now.”

Oli, who had spat out curses, dragged her toward the sofa.

“Potion, the potion I made, ah, I didn’t bring it. I’m going crazy. Living here for years made me a safety-insensitive idiot.”

“Wow, Oli, you can make healing potions now? Even though you’re not a healer?”

“I could always make them, I just didn’t have the ingredients. How could that place where we couldn’t even find weeds, let alone herbs, compare to here where I can grow all kinds of herbs?”

Grumbling, Olivia searched thoroughly from the pockets inside her dress to the basket she seemed to have brought from home, then let out a deep sigh and pulled out a clean handkerchief.

“Look this way.”

She pressed the handkerchief to Rita’s lips while examining her cheek, then furrowed her brow deeply.

“Damn, it’s swollen.”

“You’re the one who hit me.”

“It makes me want to hit you more, so shut up, friend.”

“You can hit me more. I’ll take it until your anger subsides.”

“Will you really be quiet? You keep talking so more blood is coming out! Why did you let a mage hit you when you have good reflexes? Huh? Doesn’t that simple, stupid head of yours have any thought of taking care of your own body? If you’ve thrown away even your survival instincts, what do you have left?”

“…”

Rita obediently closed her mouth. Oli, who had been red-faced and fuming, took deep breaths and barely calmed down.

The reception room became quiet.

Olivia kept the handkerchief pressed to Rita’s lips while rubbing her own eyes with her other hand. Each time, small curses and sniffles escaped.

Lillieta watched her silently, then searched her pocket.

Though she had rushed out without properly finishing her grooming, the thoughtful Hanna had packed a lady’s essentials in the dress pocket.

A handkerchief with lace trim. She pulled it out. Since Oli’s eyes were swollen from crying, rubbing them like that with her hands might scrape her skin.

Thinking she’d get scolded if she spoke, she suddenly pressed the handkerchief to Oli’s eyes, making Olivia let out a small bitter laugh.

They held each other’s handkerchiefs against each other, and silence flowed.

Rita recalled similar moments.

Times when they’d apply pressure to each other’s wounds while scolding to be more careful, or when they’d cover each other’s mouths and hold their breath, waiting for groups of attackers to pass by.

Olivia, who had been staring blankly at Lillieta for a while, suddenly spoke.

“There’s something good about your face changing.”

“…?”

“Honestly, I was worried that when we met again, I wouldn’t be able to look at you properly because I’d think of your shattered face every time I saw you.”

“…”

“But it’s so different that it seems okay. You even became incredibly beautiful.”

Olivia chuckled and removed the handkerchief. Confirming that the bleeding had stopped, her expression relaxed slightly.

She put away the handkerchief and reached out toward Lillieta. Hugging her tightly, she murmured in a trembling voice.

“Thank goodness, really…”

“That my face changed? Or that I became beautiful?”

Rita asked playfully while hugging her back. Olivia clicked her tongue and replied.

“That you look fine enough to make my worrying seem pointless.”

“Haha.”

Lillieta let out a small laugh.

After catching her breath like that for a moment, Olivia slowly released the embrace and pulled the basket closer with a prim attitude.

“You met with Gid properly, right?”

“Yeah, I apologized earnestly.”

“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d come out in three days. I thought you’d be confined for at least three months to a lifetime at most.”

“What? No way.”

“How did you escape?”

“I just said I wanted to go home. My second brother happened to come pick me up too.”

“So Gid let you go willingly?”

“Let me go? Why would I need his permission to go home when I want to?”

When Rita frowned and asked back, Oli, who had been rummaging through the basket, looked astounded.

“Locking you up would be a more normal reaction… Gid Pascal is truly amazing in a new way. No wait, should I say he’s completely lost it? Ah, found it.”

Before Rita could ask in detail what she meant, Olivia handed her a card decorated with lace and fresh flowers.

“Gid told you, right? It’s an invitation.”

Rita took it and checked the elegant writing in shimmering olive-colored ink.

You are invited to the Garden Salon. In a garden full of flowers, deep contemplation and bold exchange regarding history and literature based on history will take place. We hope you will attend and add your wisdom. *Date: May 1st, 1770, 8 PM *Location: Beacon Garden *Salonnière (Hostess of the salon): Olivia den Luna Blen

“A salon?”

“It’s for camouflage. If it’s a history research salon hosted by a marquis’s daughter, it wouldn’t be strange for the Crown Prince or foreigners to attend.”

Though salons were social gatherings of nobles, befitting their purpose of exchanging knowledge and culture, non-noble intellectuals and artists were often invited too. It was a good means for people of various social standings to naturally gather regularly.

“So you’re not actually holding a real salon?”

“No, we’re actually holding one. There’s just a separate inner room that only people recognized by the salonnière can enter.”

Oli shrugged and added.

“See the Tritoma mark stamped on the invitation? Show that and you can enter the inner room.”

Tritoma is a flower also called torch lily because of its unique appearance.

Small buds of burning red and orange colors cluster densely on a long flower stalk, then bloom from the bottom and turn yellow, looking like a blazing torch.

It’s a flower that suits Beacon well.

Rita glanced at the Tritoma mark stamped in the corner of the invitation and pointed to the location section.

“Is this the flower shop that Senior Is opened?”

“Right, Senior Is is practically the owner, but I invested and operate it in a format where I rent it when needed. The salonnière has to be a noble woman.”

“Beacon Garden, what a blatantly obvious name.”

“I was hoping someone would please notice.”

“…”

“Even if we missed it, if the person in question happened to hear this name, they’d be curious enough to come looking. Senior worked desperately to cultivate it and made it famous as the continent’s largest botanical garden and flower shop.”

Seeing Rita’s expression, Oli lifted her chin with a “hmph.”

“Well, even though they’re not coming because they heard the name, that certain someone will be visiting soon anyway, so the purpose is achieved.”

“…Everyone’s gathering on this day, right?”

“Except for Sera. Because of her status, if she moves carelessly, people will raise hell everywhere, so she’ll secretly participate only through communication magic.”

“Why? What’s her original status?”

At that question, Olivia smiled meaningfully and answered.

“The one and only Saint of the Shadea Order.”

“Saint…?”

“Beacon’s ‘Saint’ was actually a real saint. Amazing, right?”

Oli giggled. Rita couldn’t help but laugh along.

Who would have thought the nickname from the Ashen World wasn’t a metaphor but reality. Come to think of it, Gid, who was called Emperor, is actually the Crown Prince too.

‘Well, since that place was actually the future… and Pascal’s Children were all heroes from the past, I guess it’s a natural result?’

Then what was I in the past history that Pascal saw?

Such curiosity naturally arose.

“Oli, is the salon’s theme being history because of Beacon’s current goal?”

“Right, Gid told you, didn’t he? He sent me a letter telling me how much he explained to you.”

“Then… Beacon knows the future history, right? When and how the disaster started here, and what will happen going forward.”

“Of course we know. What we found in Pascal’s damn research facility wasn’t just the revenant experiment records.”

She opened the basket again and pulled out a book to hand to me. It wasn’t printed, but a book made by hand-copying.

“I was actually planning to lend this to you. It’s a history book that Pascal had, which I transcribed from memory. It’s the future history spanning from our era to that damned ash-covered age.”

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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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