The World Mistakes Me for Terminally Ill - Chapter 86

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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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The World Thinks I’m Terminally Ill Episode 086

15. I Got a Deceased Lover I Don’t Even Know About

To explain the process of how Shubel came to attend the masquerade ball by rewinding time a little—

“Wh-who are you!”

“To think Naintail had such a colleague…? Cough.”

First, he fell for Erban’s scheme.

As soon as Erban disappeared, Shubel immediately headed to the location written on the forged invitation he had given him.

It was a small village in the southern part of the Empire, and as soon as he entered, assassins poured out.

In fact, that place was the headquarters of a dark guild hostile to Erban, and Erban had lured Shubel there because it was difficult for him to handle alone.

After taking care of them all, a hidden card fell from the sky.

[Oops, my mistake! You can go this way!]

Shubel, who had been running around the entire Empire, thought:

‘Should I kill him.’

Erban was quite something to draw killing intent from Shubel, who was so uninterested in others that even when Erban lingered around Elisia, his attitude was ‘if my lady permits it, it doesn’t matter.’

In the end, Shubel unintentionally devastated the Empire’s underworld, contributing to the peaceful lives of the Empire’s citizens, and a reputation he didn’t even know about began to form behind him… But let’s skip that for now.

After finally destroying the last dark guild, Shubel succeeded in tracking Elisia’s footsteps and arriving in the East.

And there he heard the name of ‘the Black Widow, Ophelia.’

“She was a very sad-looking woman. Perhaps to mourn someone she lost, she bought armfuls of funeral flower bouquets.”

“Those are actually condolence flowers, but they’re so expensive that we rarely sell more than one or two stems. I can’t even imagine how deep their relationship must have been.”

“Oh right! There was a child. About this tall? How could that family’s husband close his eyes leaving behind such a wife and precious child like that. Tsk tsk.”

Shubel had already heard news of Elisia from Erban earlier. Things like ‘she ended up acting as a widow with a child’ and ‘she went to pick up a child.’

Hearing the story about the black widow, he realized that person was Elisia.

Thanks to that, he encountered a line of people praying for his soul’s peace in front of someone who was perfectly alive, but he didn’t care.

Whether he drowned in the sea, was eaten by monsters, or froze to death in a snowstorm in the passersby’s stories didn’t matter to him.

He died in quite diverse ways, but as long as the ‘husband’ in those stories was himself, that’s all that mattered.

However—

“Actually, I heard they weren’t formally married?”

The problem was that while he was purifying the Empire’s underworld, the story gradually became embellished with imagination and inflated in directions no one expected.

Though the East had countless travelers passing through, they too had eyes and curiosity.

The ‘Black Widow’ who traveled on pilgrimage with her child, longing for her dead husband, was just the right material for people to gossip about.

“I heard her family opposed it. You know, like that butterfly thing that’s popular these days? It appears in plays too. An elopement for love! That’s what they did.”

“In the end, it was the woman who suggested they break up. For each other’s future.”

“But you see, just when time had passed and the woman was about to forget, news of the man’s death came. When she rushed there in shock, only a young child resembling the man was standing guard in front of the coffin.”

“I heard the woman, regretting it too late, decided to hold her own funeral. She began a pilgrimage with the child to various places in the Empire where she had eloped with the man—”

“Wait, hold on. So while one side had a child that big, the woman’s side never even got engaged? How could she think to take someone else’s child?”

“Obviously she felt sorry since she was the one who suggested breaking up first. Don’t you get it?”

“Right, that’s what pure and noble devotion is like.”

“That’s probably why she can’t reveal her identity. Since they were never formally engaged.”

…It was like this.

Shubel stood dumbfounded in front of people who were taking someone else’s story and arguing ‘I’m right,’ ‘you’re right,’ practically writing a novel, and thought:

‘A child.’

Elisia quite likes children. Though she doesn’t seem to know it herself, she couldn’t take her eyes off young children whenever she saw them.

As if there was a child who weighed on her mind.

‘She said she was going to meet someone.’

Moreover, she has someone she misses.

Someone so dear and precious that she, who rarely shows her inner feelings, would unconsciously express emotion.

‘…She had a deceased lover?’

Finally, Shubel concluded that the man in the story was not himself.

He doesn’t think all the rumors are true either.

My lady has never said she would bring back her lover’s child, and she has devoted all her strength to reviving Lunein despite her ailing body.

However, he began to think about why Elisia ended up taking on the role of a ‘mourner.’

…Not knowing it was because of some crazy pervert and his troublemaker subordinate.

“But is all this really true? I heard this story at the tavern over there.”

“I heard it at the market too.”

People enjoyed the dopamine-triggering gossip today as well, adding to the story as they pleased, then briefly felt pangs of conscience.

But they soon brushed it off casually.

“Well, would smoke come from a chimney that hasn’t been lit?”

“Right. There must be at least 1% of some hint for rumors to spread.”

Of course, that wasn’t true. In this world, smoke often comes from chimneys that haven’t been lit at all.

Like now.

Those who actually fanned the flames erased their hesitation and thought:

“Come on, surely this isn’t all made up. It sounds too real.”

That’s because they had arbitrarily filled the gaps deliberately left by the one who first provided the material with their own imagination, but they had come too far to realize this.

The human brain naturally prefers stimulating imagination over harsh reality.

‘My lady.’

Shubel discovered the forged invitation Erban had hidden and immediately headed to Beatrice in the West.

His face, which had been as calm as a snowy mountain ridge, sank deeper than usual.

‘That child she personally went to bring…’

The man’s eyes darkened.

‘Who is it?’

It was the moment Elisia got a deceased lover she didn’t even know about.

And so, back to the present.

A secretive ballroom where everyone hides their thoughts and emotions behind masks.

‘Why is Shubel here?’

I wondered if I was mistaken, but I wasn’t. His features were too distinctive for that.

Dense black hair that seemed like not a single ray of light could penetrate it, sharp jawline revealed below the half-mask, tall height and build that looked good in any outfit but shone even more in formal wear.

And… his voice.

There was no way I couldn’t recognize this voice.

After all, it was a voice I had heard constantly from the seat next to me for the past five months.

“Are you alright?”

The man, whose handsomeness wasn’t hidden despite wearing a fancy mask, asked again.

At his usual address of ‘my lady,’ I wondered if he had recognized me and casually threw out some bait.

“…I’m fine. I showed an unseemly display to someone I’m meeting for the first time. Thank you for your help.”

“I merely did my duty as a gentleman. Please don’t mind it.”

However, even with the bait of ‘first time,’ the polite response that came back led me to conclude otherwise.

The ‘my lady’ he said was an address for an unfamiliar noblewoman.

‘I’m disguised and even modulated my voice, so how could he recognize me right away?’

Objectively speaking, it doesn’t make sense.

Unless he has some special means to recognize only me among countless masked people.

“Well then.”

I stepped back, pondering how this person even got here while trying to naturally distance myself.

The lounge was right in front of us. I couldn’t reveal my identity in a place where people could come and go at any time.

I thought I should naturally return to the Grand Duke’s Castle first and then have a conversation—

But he caught my fingertips as they slipped away.

“You must have been quite startled. Allow me to escort you.”

What is this bastard doing?

“No, I’m fine going alone. I was planning to go to the central stage where there are many people anyway.”

“Then would you dance one song with me?”

Shubel smiled deeply.

“Beautiful lady.”

It was a heart-fluttering smile that would make anyone who saw it up close feel their heart race.

‘He’s even trying to flirt?’

And with a married woman who’s clearly a widow, no less?!

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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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