Chapter 75

Chapter 75

Chloe and Eric returned to the inn without a word.

Even though she said she would help him, Eric refused and inevitably they returned to the inn apart. Glancing around the musty room he saw as soon as he opened the old door, he sighed softly. Why was Chloe in a place like this? She shouldn’t be in a place like this.

He clenched his fists and narrowed his brows.

“Sit down on the bed for now. I’ll ask Sophia to bring a chair. The desk chair has broken legs.”

After Eric affirmed it, he sat down on the shabby bed and Chloe left immediately. It was only then did he let out a breath he had been saving and lifted his trousers.

“Ugh…

His leg was literally covered in blood. Because the prosthetic leg was dislocated and broken, it was digging into his flesh. Eric pondered for a moment whether he should remove his prosthetic leg altogether.

Still, if he did, he would show Chloe his broken leg.

In other words, he had to show the empty legs underneath.

Just thinking about it, he decided it was better not to and thought he would endure the pain and go back to the mansion. Eric threw his head back after roughly stopping the bleeding with a cloth.

He looked around.

As seen from the outside, the shabby room clearly showed Chloe’s bad life.

He thought of giving her money, but he decided she would never accept it, given her lofty pride, so he got up and went over to the desk and opened the drawer. After blowing at the dusty drawer, he pulled his wallet out of his inside pocket.

If he knew this would happen, he would have stopped by the bank to withdraw cash.

He tutted his tongue and put all the cash in his wallet into a drawer. Then, he picked up the pen on the desk and scribbled briefly on the paper before placing it on top of the money.

After finishing this and sitting on the bed again, Chloe returned. Chloe, who had come in with an innkeeper named Sophia, was hanging out near Eric. Sophia, who was holding a chair, came in front of him and said.

“Can I put it here?”

Eric couldn’t get rid of the thought that she deliberately made him talk. Even though she could just put the chair down and go without ever exchanging words, she had to talk to him.

He soon nodded his head with a stoic yet cool expression. As she observed the contempt in his eyes, Sophia blushed and left hastily.

“Is that woman the innkeeper?”

Eric asked after Sophia left. Chloe nodded and replied.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“But why…”

He got the idea that the woman, Sophia, might be a bad person, for he could not shake the feeling that she had entered the room on purpose to observe him. Even if Chloe stayed here and became acquainted with that person, it was over the limit so Eric loosened his tie, slightly upset.

“Are your legs okay?”

“It’s okay.”

It wasn’t really okay at all, but he had to say this, that way, Chloe would be less worried.

Eric was surprised that he cared for her to this extent. If it were normal, the original Eric, he wouldn’t have chosen his words considering the other person’s feelings, and he wouldn’t have done anything to anyone. He thought self-deprecatingly that he seemed to think and accept Chloe more than he thought.

“I think you need to treat it first… Shall I call the doctor?”

“This is not for the doctor to see. I just have to go back to the mansion and fix it.”

“…I see.”

Chloe didn’t know what to say here, so she put her hands together and put her head down. Seeing that, Eric gazed at her and opened his mouth.

“Are you grossed out?”

Chloe picked the words out of her mouth.

“If I say no, I don’t think you will believe me, and if I say yes, I’m fooling myself, so I don’t know what to answer.”

Eric let out a laugh.

“You seem to be feeling a bit relaxed to make jokes like this.”

She laughed similarly, but the laughter soon evaporated. She asked him with a supposedly serious face.

“Since when did you wear a prosthetic leg?”

What does that have to do with it?

Eric wanted to ask, but he kept his mouth shut, thinking that getting angry at such a question would clearly show his inferiority. For a moment, silence fell around the two of them. He took a deep breath and slowly opened his mouth.

“It was when I was young. Frostbite cut off my feet.”

Ah.

Chloe let out a sigh unknowingly but hastily covered her mouth. She didn’t want to reveal that she sympathized with him.

However, Eric, who was quick to notice this, let out a dejected laugh. Compassion was something she couldn’t hide even if she tried. He sighed briefly as he observed the pity, the sympathy, that filled her face.

“So I wanted to die… but I didn’t die. No, I’m not dead. I wanted to somehow survive and change this damned world. So, look… has everything not changed?”

He twisted his lips proudly.

“I became a noble and a promising researcher. No one can treat me carelessly… My wish has come true.”

Chloe didn’t answer. She thought that if his only grand wish was to receive a noble title and make money, then maybe Eric’s goal was distorted somewhere with the thought that he might have had a better target.

However, she soon realized that this thought itself was proof that she was looking at Eric favorably and that she was trying to teach him somehow, not understanding him as an equal.

This attitude while seeing Eric’s prosthetic leg, seeing his pain, and hearing about his past… Chloe thought about how much she had hurt him in the past, and her head hurt.

“…If that was your wish, I’m glad it came true. I’m so glad.”

So, as Chloe uttered with sincerity, Eric stared at her and opened his mouth again.

“In the process, I lost a lot.”

He let out a sigh.

“If you ask me what is the biggest loss among it all, it would be emotion. For me, emotions were luxury and unnecessary.”

Hearing his calm voice, she clasped her hand on her thigh.

“Why did you do that?”

“I had to succeed.”

Eric replied as if he had been waiting.

“To be successful, you have to let go of all emotions… joy, excitement, sadness, regret, difficulty, all of them must be thrown away. You have to be in a state where you don’t feel anything, so you can make a rational decision.”

Chloe ess now beginning to understand why Eric had become this way, why he had been cold and without feeling towards everyone in the past, like a man made of machines to the core.

He abandoned many things with one single thought of success.

Just like an eye covering was put on to make a racehorse run in a straight line, he was also wearing an eye covering… That was how he just looked ahead and ran, without even knowing what he was missing.

“That is too cruel.”

She shook her head and said.

“It is a cruel act. You are abusing yourself!”

Chloe wondered what Eric had missed, and she felt sorry for him.

“I have been living like that. There is no turning back now.”

Still, as he spoke so calmly, like it wasn’t his matter, she could feel her heart throbbing.

“You can turn around. You can change even now.”

“That’s right.”

Eric meekly agreed. He leaned his body forward before meeting Chloe’s eyes a little closer.

“After you left, I realized that the feelings I thought I had abandoned still remained in me. As you said, it has changed. I was able to go back.”

He spoke in a desperate voice, expressing his emotions as much as possible.

“…Really. I was in love with you.”

The words approached her straight ahead, and Chloe’s eyes trembled without her realizing it.

…Was he serious this time? Maybe there was a difference inside? No, no… it was really foolish to think like this! She may learn a lot about Eric today and she may have come to understand him, but she still couldn’t believe him.

To believe him? It was something she shouldn’t have done!

“No. I don’t believe you.”

So Chloe said firmly.

“How many times have I been hurt by the love you speak of? How much have I been crumbled by that false love? How can I trust you now? How can I believe in it?”

She remembered the past. That time when she couldn’t even shed tears as she held onto the love that never came back to her. She could never go back to Eric’s side.

“Go back, Eric. I have nothing more to say.”

“…Chloe.”

As she raised her body, Eric stood up as well. He reached out his hand for her, but Chloe backed away from him and she rejected his touch.

“Today’s events may have made me understand you, and you have come to understand me to some extent. It made us get to know ourselves better. But that’s it. We have already come a long way.”

She took two steps back and opened her mouth.

“No, Eric.”

Then, she spoke more firmly than ever and with more emotion than ever before.

“Go back.”

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