Chapter 80

Episode 80: Helenas’s World

It was me who had never practised dissecting fish or frogs, let alone people. I couldn’t even tell how hard I had to stab. As time went by, my stomach hurt because of the tension.

Could it be that I found the wrong room? I was thinking about whether I should get up now and go to another room.

The door opened, and Helena in a white gown entered the room and met my eyes. Without a sign of surprise, she said something to the attendant behind her door, and she took the teapot and teacup herself.

When the door closed, she asked me in a small voice.

“Do you want a cup of tea?”

When I looked at the door, Helena smiled and reassured me.

“It’s okay. No one will come for a while.”

She was so calm,  I felt uncomfortable because she was so calm. Something was out of the ordinary. Come to think of it, why wasn’t Helena surprised when she saw my reflection in the mirror?

“It’s just the two of us.”

Helena’s purple eyes…… stood out.

* * *

Helena Antebellum was a child who could not doubt anyone. Although she was slow-tempered, she always tended to ignore  her intuition, saying it was just a feeling.

Helena believed that all humans were good inside, and thought it was bad to doubt others carelessly.

One might wander around, but if she showed consistent trust and affection, they would eventually return to their good nature. So she didn’t notice that Eris Misérian had changed somehow. Growth was always like that.

So when she found out that ‘Eris’ wasn’t herself, she was quite indifferent to her.… No, she was actually very disillusioned.

Because of the call, she was on her way to the empress. She saw Eris and Alecto talking from afar. She was worried about whether they were fighting, so she walked faster. Eris grabbed Alecto’s two cheeks and brought his face close.

Helena hid herself behind the pillar without realizing it. This was because there was no way to avoid the embarrassment if they made eye contact.

But she couldn’t hear a kiss. Doubtfully, Helena slightly raised her head again. Eris quietly began to talk.

When her voice rose, she almost ran out to stop them, but somehow she had a very strong feeling that she shouldn’t be caught.

Some gravity was holding her ankle and holding her right behind the pillar.

So that she couldn’t move a single step.

So Helena had no choice but to listen.

“Hey, guess who I am.”

Helena, who hid herself behind the pillar, stopped breathing. She could have suspected it was a lie, but somehow the bell in her head rang loudly and shouted that it was true.

Her heart sank and she felt dizzy. She couldn’t believe that the one she had met so far wasn’t Eris.

Helena dared to think she knew her well. Now she realized that it was terrible arrogance.

“If you’re not Eris, where is the child?”

“She is dead. No, she’s gone forever.”

– I hate you. I wish people like you would die.

One day, the sight of her crying and staring at her penetrated Helena’s heart.

– Without you, I wouldn’t have been so hated.

Even after the woman in the form of Eris disappeared, Helena could not move her feet for a long time.

Why didn’t she notice? Where did she change from? She was going through her memory, nailed to the spot.

Helena had a lot of affection. Some even expressed that it was too much. She used to give her heart easily in such a short time, so the day would come when she would get hurt.

But contrary to what they thought, she was not hurt. Rather, it was the people around her who were hurt.

Helena was just warm-hearted, but they used to misunderstand it. To this dazzling person, they were so flattered that she was a special being and that she was different from others. Furthermore, no matter what the beginning was, in the end, everyone wanted Helena to receive as much love as they had given her.

Funny, even though she had never asked for love. It didn’t take long for the illusion to break. Because she could tell just by looking at the way others talked and looked at her.

She thought it was special.

When the full illusion was broken, people accused Helena of holding and shaking their hearts. She was ashamed. They turned their arrows to Helena because they wanted to hide their shame. It was a bad thing for her to make them misunderstand. She shouldn’t have given them a chance.

In fact, Helena was not resentful or upset even though it was an argument that was tantamount to nothing. She didn’t even regret that she cared for them.

She was just sorry that they didn’t feel the same way. Looking at Helena, those who criticised Helena used to feel ashamed. It had always been like that.

For her, Alecto and Jason were special beings as ‘friends’. At least they didn’t blame her. Helena wanted to keep this relationship as long as possible. And there was only one person who didn’t like it.

– His Highness is so kind to you. Do you think you’re a noble? Or do you dare to raise your status as the subject of a traitor’s family?

People could hate someone this much. Since Helena’s nature was far from hatred, Helena realized that hatred could make people more sick than expected only after seeing Eris. But somehow Helena didn’t hate Eris.

Rather, she thought that consistent Eris was better than people who always changed their minds. She even had a strange trust that even if everyone betrayed her, they wouldn’t do as much as Eris.

Standing in front of Eris, at least Helena didn’t have to worry about whether she had created an ‘illusion’.

She wouldn’t change as much as she did. She would always…..

She never thought Alecto liked her. First of all, they had a huge difference in status and they had been with each other since childhood.

(TL/N: she is implying that their relationship was more like ‘siblings’.)

Others thought that Alecto treated Helena in a special way, but they only thought it was special treatment as a ‘close friend’ because he had only a few people to share his heart with.

On the night Alecto confessed to her, the moon was bigger than ever, and the back garden shone as white as the day.

She remembered Alecto’s trembling voice.

The face, which was carefully and politely asking for her intention, was slightly red with tension and excitement.

Only then did Helena realize that Alecto really liked her. Because it was a familiar face. When Eris saw Alecto, she always used to look like that.

Helena liked Alecto too. However, when asked if she was confident in liking him as a lover, she could not answer.

Having been together for so long, Alecto had been a part of Helena’s life. She couldn’t imagine that they wouldn’t be able to meet even if the day came when she got married and left the palace someday.

A being who believed that they would be together until the end of their lives. Could she have had that kind of trust because she loved Alecto? Helena was…. she was confused.

Eris asked her to try liking Alecto if she had no other favourite person. While she liked Alecto more than anyone else. After having trampled on his childhood, saying they were dating, Eris calmly declared that she was tired of Alecto.

She even actively helped put her next to Alecto, perhaps it was not enough to declare it.

She held Helena’s hand, taught her, and carefully cared for her. Everyone who knew Lady Misérian would not believe it.

“You can change your mind. You have the right and power to do that.”

Helena Antebellum always lived compliant and resigned. Because she had no other way. No matter how rough things were, she laughed, did not tell anything, and pretended not to know even if she knew.

The girl who made her feel that more deeply than anyone else was now trying to show her a new path.

“If you’re sad, learn. I’ll help you gain strength by raising your status.”

As Eris said, if you learn and gain strength…… What would be different?

“Keep in mind that once you have power, you can carry out your will whether you take revenge on me or deny your situation.”

Could she finally hate or like without getting permission from someone?

Learning something was very exhausting, but it was fun. It was interesting when she  learned letters, manners and dance from Eris, but when the ‘teacher’ taught her history, society and politics, she felt like she was opening her eyes completely.

So far, Helena’s world had been all about the imperial palace. Sometimes, she would listen to the situation in the capital from Hubris, a new official she was close to, or about adventures from Jason.

However, it was just a fragmentary event, so she couldn’t understand why such an event occurred at all.

Since she was black eyed and didn’t know how to write, she couldn’t read books or newspapers even if they came into her hands for the first time in a long time. In short, there was no background knowledge.

(PR/N: ‘black eyed’ means an ignorant person who can’t read.)

She heard from Hubris that there were many orphans in the capital, but she didn’t know why there were many orphans. She heard that Jason had experience in the guild as a mercenary, but she didn’t know why the mercenary industry was particularly developed in the empire.

Due to the Magic War before she was born, the state encouraged mercenary businesses to fight off evil. This mercenary business grew rapidly based on the orphans created by the Magic War, as orphans who did not have a family business could easily do it.

However, the mercenary industry was both a light and shadow for orphans, as the survival rate of mercenaries was only 60 percent.