Volume 1 - CH 4

P. 126

****

(Hey, did you see that? That was a fairy doctor.)

(Yes, it's been a hundred years since I've seen one in this town.)

(I heard her say that she was going to Mannon Island.)

(If she's going, then maybe that means we can go home too?)

P. 138

(If the merrows are released, then we can go home.)

Hearing the whispers from the crowd of brownies, Nico stopped in his tracks as he was walking on his hind legs through the garden of the house.

"Hey, shorties. What do you mean going home?"

(Wah, oh, it's just a cat.)

"I'm not a cat. I'm the fairy doctor's partner."

(Whatever. If you're the partner of the fairy doctor, then could you tell her to help the merrows.)

"What's happened with the merrows?"

(They have been in grief for so long. Because the master of the island hasn't returned.)

(When the merrows grieve, it disrupts the sea. We used to live on Mannor Island and had been going back and forth between the mainland and the island, but because of the merrows, we've haven't been able to cross the sea. We haven't seen our family for three hundred years now.)

P. 140

(The thing they're protecting? What's that?)

"They should have been handed something from their master who left."

(Hmm, I think I've heard something like that. But we've been away from the island all this time. We don't know what's going on over there.)

Hmm, thought Nico, combing through his whiskers.

"You said you had family over there. Then I'd like to ask them some questions. I'll let you get on our boat, so why don't you come to the island with us?"

(On a human boat? Is it alright for us to get on?)

The fairies were thrilled and overjoyed. Even if the traditional charms to ward off evil have been nearly forgotten in this era, a boat was needed to go out onto the terrifying and untamable waters of the sea. There was protection in those waters to ward off fairies and evil spirits unseen to the human eye, and so they couldn't cross the water by using a human boat.

"I'll tell the fairy doctor about your request. In exchange, introduce me to your family."

The deal was sealed.

All that was left was to find out how many of the small fairies on the Mannor Island knew about the precious information about the merrows.

"Geez, Lydia really is blind to danger," mumbled Nico to himself.

She has never seen a merrow before, yet she is calmly resolute in facing them.

P. 141

It wouldn't be a problem if she was accompanied by Blue Knight Earl, the real master of the merrows, but being a thief along, he couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"She really is a handful, geez."

Nico had been watching over Lydia ever since she was a newborn. He didn't plan on spending his days peacefully on the sidelines. He was going to support her from the shadows, or he planned to.

"It would be great if the merrows would just take the thieves to the bottom of the sea,"he said, slipping into the house from the crack of an open window. 

In a room with only the light from the hearth, Edgar was sitting on the sofa, alone, not moving at all.

He wasn't the same nonchalant man who was always teasing Lydia, he had a serious face, the kind he wouldn't show her, thinking about what was ahead.

"Lord Edgar, it would be best to get some rest," said Ermin, entering the room.

"Why don't you have a seat. Would you join me for a drink?・

P. 142

However, Ermine remained standing and worryingly said to him "Uh, there's something I would like to ask you."

He guessed what the questions she wanted to ask from how she asked so orderly.

"Ahh, is it about Lydia? Do you want to know how I was able to bring her along after we got separated?"

She knit her brows with a sad face.

"Don't make such a face. You know I'm a man who can do anything ruthless."

"You pretend to be indifferent. But you're always suffering from the decisions you make."

Edgar breathed out a small sigh.

"Don't worry, Ermine. I haven't done anything to Lydia."

"Is that true?"

"I couldn't. For some strange reason," he admitted, almost embarrassingly. And Ermine, still having a sad face, relaxed as if relieved.

"Then, Ms Carlton knows that we have been deceiving her, yet she's still helping us?"

"She doesn't have any intention to take part in a burglary. She wants to prove that it't impossible to get the sword unless it was the real Blue Knight Earl, and make us come to our knees in shame by showing us that reality."

P. 143

Edgar rested his head on his palm, and smiled like he was mocking himself.

"Lydia is an interesting girl. She would appear like she was under my control and yet she's not. Then she shows me how soft-hearted she can be and how she doesn't have any other intentions then what she shows, and only says what she means. On top of that, it seems she can't abandon a criminal like me if I hang onto her and beg on my knees."

Not able to imagine such a scene, Ermine tilted her head.

"I confessed to her a little about my past. It was strange. Like I wanted to see what kind of reaction she would take."

"How did she respond?"

"She must have thought I lost my mind after getting my brain removed."

As he remembered, he chuckled to himself.

"But, she believed me, she believed in something more unbelievable than the existence of fairies. She said she hates liars. She must look past other people's flattery and lies with those mystical eyes of hers. But I'm made up with falsehood. A false name, a false life, everything is false. All there is to me is an earnest lie and a lie that's not. Probably those earnest lies are my truth, and she must have understood that."

To claim as the Blue Knight Earl was his last resort of an earnest lie. Saying that was the only hope left for Edgar and to say that he would die than give it up, was also an earnest lie.

P. 144

"Then, you're planning to reveal everything to Ms Carlton?"

"No, I can't do that."

That was what he was mulling over just now. But however much he thought it over, he couldn't change his mind.

Lydia wasn't on Edgar's side. Even if she didn't go along with Edgar's plan and was staying with them at her own wish, that wasn't because she understood his objective.

It was the unchangeable fact that to Lydia, Edgar was still just a despicable criminal. In order for an imposter to get his hands on the sword, he had to rely on despicable options.

"I'm going to have Lydia solve that fairy riddle. Beyond that, whether merrows do exist or not, we'll go along with our original plan."

"Why? Lord Edgar."

"Why? Because. I'm not the descendant of the Blue Knight Earl. I'm just a thief. We need Lydia's help in order to find out the location of the sword, but her purpose ends there. We must get that sword at all costs."

He stood up and walked over to Ermine.

"Ermine, are you that worried about Lydia?"

"She's an innocent girl. So honest, and suited to walk on the peaceful side of society. I don't want to hurt someone so privileged."

P. 145

"I know. Even for me, it's not like I enjoy dirtying my hands like this."

"But, even Lord Edgar has become attached to Ms. Carlton, haven't you?...That's why, even though she found out that you were an imposter, you revealed everything and spoke out to her sympathy then trying to use violence, didn't you?"

He curved up the side of his lips and narrowed his ash mauve eyes which were mixed with a sad blue and heartless red.

"You give me too much credit."

Just then, Edgar spotted a movement behind the curtain and turned his head to it. He saw a furry gray tail peeking through the shadows of the curtain by the window.

It was Lydia's cat.

P. 150

He wondered if it was that difficult to grant her her wish.

He pressed his lips against her white neck. Her arms softly wrapped around Edgar.

But just as he was about to touch her, he could feel the chain deep inside himself as well. Just as Ermine still felt chained to Prince, Edgar may be chained as well.

Edgar was Prince's possession, but his position was completely different than the other slaves. Because he was groomed to be the next replacement for Prince, the leader of that twisted, immoral organization.

He was pounded up with information of that man's thought process, how he made his decisions, his gestures and demeanor, every single one of traits. He was forced to learn everything that that man had learned. By covering that wide range of academics, he came to know that Prince was no ordinary man, but he wasn't given the chance to think who that man really was.

That unfair reality. Being cornered mentally and physically, being robbed of your own free will, and the feeling of slowly being molded into a different person. The fear of gradually forgetting who you were and what you were like.

Ermine too, was brought before Edgar in order to learn how to become Prince. It was disgusting how they tried to teach him even those preferences.

But from that, Edgar realized the stupidity of the situation he was in.

What the men around him were trying to do was like an absurd magical occult ritual.

P. 151

From there he convinced Ermine, who had given up on everything at that point, and attempted to rebel against the ones with power in that organization.

His first rebellion was going against their orders. That was why he never laid a finger on her. Ermine also didn't leak Edgar's insubordination to her superiors. Since then, he felt a strong trust bond between them and thought of her as a fellow ally.

Just because she had been Prince's woman, he never viewed her as beneath him. But he was certain he didn't want to take control of her like that man and so, even if they were a free man and woman now, if he took her to bed now, he felt like that would continue Prince's domination, and that frightened him.

"I'm sorry, Ermine."

In the end, Edgar could only push Ermine away.

*****

Lydia swiftly backed away from the door.

She dashed quietly down the dark hallway. She wondered why she had to be the one to running away, but after witnessing Edgar and Ermine together like that, she could only say that it made it awkward for her.

She couldn't hear what they were saying, but they were definitely embracing each other.

Are the two of them lovers?

P. 152

If he did have a lover and he was still flirting with others, then he definitely was a rake.

"But it has nothing to do with me,"said Lydia to herself, trying to brush away the disappointment that was in her for some reason, and was about to dash down a flight of stairs. But at the landing a dark figure stepped out.

"Ahhhh!!" she screamed, falling back down on her bottom.